During the mid-1900s, the Shooting Club may have had to compete with other clubs for members. Harvard then had clubs such as the Pistol Club and the Rifle and Pistol Club.

For a good time, records show the Shooting Club threw elaborate banquets. A menu from a banquet given for members of the club in 1887 showed that the expert shooters dined on patties of lobster, gloucester, croquettes of chicken auxpetits pois, spaghetti parmesan au gratin and banana fritters glace benedictine.

Safety First

But today, the focus of the club is not on promoting a sport reserved for the elite but instead on teaching people how to enjoy the sport of shooting safely.

Owning and using a gun in the state of Massachusetts at an institution like Harvard isn't easy, and members of the club encounter heavy regulations from both the state and the school.

For example, members of the shooting club are not allowed to keep guns in their rooms so they must store their shot-guns at the Harvard University Police Department.

State laws also require guns to have a trigger lack, and when traveling, the gun must be kept in a case.

Members say they have no qualms about following these rules and have written safety into their constitution.

All members must have a hunter's safety certificate or proof of having taken a safety course before firing any weapon, according to the club's constitution. And all members must exhibit a working knowledge of the firearm they are using and of firearm safety in general before they do any live firing.

Jobin says that if a member has a slight safety violation, "we have the right to terminate someone's membership."

"People generally expect us to be violent, backwards and abrasive," Burwell says, explaining that is not the case.

Educating the Masses

Burwell and Jobin hope to also use the club to promote a better understanding of the sport of shooting and the terminology behind it.

The co-presidents often have had to start from the basics when explaining what they do.

Despite the common perception, the Shooting Club uses shotguns, not rifles. A rifle's ammunition can travel up to three miles in distance, while the bead-size pellets of shotguns travel no more than 40 or 50 yards, according to Jobin.