Chronicle 2018

By Julia Stanley Weaver 1978

W hen Frances Tregunno Sobrian and her husband Jules built their house in Omemee, near Peterborough, Ontario, in 1966, they added an unusual custom feature: a pistol range. Fran had always been an avid tennis player, but when Jules encouraged her to join him in the sport of shooting – something which they could do together, year-round and for their entire lives, he argued – she was surprised to discover how much pleasure it gave her. She also proved to be very good at it. Like tennis, shooting involves physical skill and hand-eye co- ordination. But Fran also enjoyed the mental challenge of knowing what to look at, how to hold the gun and when to squeeze the trigger. While raising a daughter, Fran joined Canada’s national pistol team. Six months after giving birth to her son in 1970, she competed in the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Shooting Championship in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1973, she competed in the Championship of the Americas in Mexico City, where she placed second in both lady’s air pistol and center fire competitions. There are many disciplines within the sport of shooting. Lady’s pistol is a 25-metre event that involves shooting 30 shots in five-shot strings at a bull’s-eye target. Fran’s favourite discipline is trap shooting: aiming a 12-gauge shotgun at clay pigeons being shot upwards at random angles from a spring- loaded device in a trap house 16 yards ahead. For 14 years, Fran served as president of the Peterborough Skeet and Trap Club and she and Jules are still active members of the Peterborough Fish and Game Association shooting club. They’ve also

been political activists. Vehemently opposed to Bill C-68 – introduced by the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien in 1993 – Fran and her husband arranged rallies and took busloads of shooters to rallies in Ottawa to protest the bill. They sold bumper stickers that said, “Register My Firearms, No Way.” The strictest gun-control legislation in Canada’s history required all gun-owners to be licensed and registered. In Fran’s view, the bill “punished sport shooters for the actions of criminals with guns.” She points out that handguns were already subject to registration, and that extending the requirement to long guns (rifles and shotguns) did little other than antagonize hunters and sport shooters. (The long gun registry has since been abolished). While no longer involved in advocacy, Fran and her husband maintain an interest in gun control. Now 80, Fran has retired from shooting. Music has served as something of a replacement. Having played electric bass for 40 years, she accompanies Jules on the guitar. They jam together in their living room, and occasionally in town as well – which, as she points out, was home to both Lady Eaton and Neil Young. And Fran says that, if spring should ever come, she might pick up her trap gun – proving that shooting is indeed a lifetime sport.

23

PHOTOS COURTESY OF FRANCES TREGUNNO SOBRIAN