44 replies to this topic

[underwaterimage]

Interesting one this, i am a target shooter of 32 years of age and have been shooting since i was 14. I am in no way going to try to convince someone to try to become pro target shooting. Its nearly always a waste of time. My wife strongly dislikes my having rifles and a black powder pistol. I also fully understand a persons need for security. In this case and quite rightly, the safety of our most precious things. The children.

The handgun ban was illegally enforced as a knee jerk reaction to appese the public after a frenzied press done a fantastic job of whipping up a percieved public anti shooting opinion.

Yes the maniac was a member of a gun club and those club members had informed the authorities of Thomas Hamilton's (the killers) dubious behaviour and deemed him an undesirable. His dodgy interest in scouting and access to children was also noted. Sadly the police themselves did not act upon any of the warnings and the horific outcome was the consequence.
The fact the multiple warnings were ignored by the authorities have become the focus of accusations of pedo links between hamilton and senior police officers. So the general rumour is that hamilton had a hold over senior officers with a pedo interest and kept his licence that way. Either way horific and shocking. So the safeguards would have to be interior police checks on the officers in charge of licensing for starters. And perhaps annual pschyological checks on men and women with firearms certificates. This is on top of the existing stringent checks made on us.

In the defense of target shooters. When the illegal ban was introduced, despite knowing it was illegal the owners of pistols, handed over their guns and ammunition. Losing their much loved sport seemingly forever and also hundreds of pounds of financial value. Compensation was paid for material value of firearms handed in but this was slow and in some cases vastly under the true value of the pistol.

As a firearms holder i see it as my duty to try and educate people in safe, appropriate application of firearm use and since gaining my license have been much more aware of the law and its upkeep. Im sure most FAC holders are the same. I do not however try to bully non shooters into being pro shooters.

Since the ban of handguns, logic would say that handgun crime would have ceased to exist. Rather unsurprisingly handgun crime has risen dramatically. So surely this would indicate that the ban simply removed legally and responsibly held firearms from sporting shooters. It should also be noted that FAC holders legally still have in their possesion rifles from .22 semi automatic and bolt action up to military calibre rifles. I cant remember when/if these were reported in the news as being involved in crime. Probably because they are held by the same responsible shooters who lost their handguns to the ban.

Something many of the public do not realise is that we can still own and shoot black powder revolvers (think cowboy films) and long barrel revolvers such as a 357 magnum but with a piece of coathanger in the handle to make it the required length by law. Again i do not believe any of these types of handgun have ever been associated with crime since the ban.

Im not trying to convince non shooters to vote for the pistol ban to be lifted but do hope to show that we actually want things to be made as safe as possible for everybody and would welcome handgun target shooting return along with any stringent safeguards imposed. We have nothing to hide.

[peterpikefisher]

if you would care to look into the background reports about the dunblane massacre
then you may see that the murderer Hamilton was reported more than once about his ability to hold a gun licence , however it was mentioned that his alleged masonic affiliations along with the chief constable of that area ,are supposedly the reason why he kept hold of his licence , according to local sources 1 news paper said .

i am a gun enthusiast my self , however i would not like to see the return of hand guns such as semi autos
i would say that a revolver may be OK if the person under went training similar to what happens in Germany,

any how this should not stop our people from training in the UK under special conditions set by the proper authorities

i also signed the petition
so basically sing if you feel that you want , don't sign if you feel that you have objections to singing..

[merlino bill]

OI OI,
well i belive you have to have your weapon & ammo locked in two seperate places ie; metal case bolted to the wall or floor before the police will give you a firearm licence,
but how do you enforce it i know two seperate farmers who after being burgled had three shotgun's & cartridges stolen between them, how did they get them if they were secure because they both said they were by the back door & one addmited his had been there for ages & never really thought about it till it was stolen,the other was pi$$ed because the 4/10 belonged to his 13yr old son, how many more farmers of anyone for that matter leave them liying around.

[Lid]

Just one point, if there are no safe guards, that anyone can come up with, which up to now no one has,

Then should we really put guns in the hands of people we don't really know, but can shoot well, they can aim straight and hit there target, what ever target that may be, and when they are done, they turn that target to themselves

and leave the us behind to pick up the pieces.

Im sorry guys that i dont agree.

Butr the welfare of my children come first, and when they are at school, i want to know that they will be at home that evening, safe and well, and i can tuck them into bed at night.

sean

What's your position on shotguns and rifles then? These aren't banned. Would you want to see them banned by the same argument.

[RobStubbs]

This proposal is purely to allow pistol shooters the opportunity to get on a more level playing field with other nations in the run up to the olympics. At the moment the gun in my avatar is legal in the UK as are air pistols. The other classes of pistols shot in the olympics are banned.

I don't know the statistics but these are all .22 pistols. Personally I'd be happy if shooters were allowed free access to such pistols (obviously under the FAC scheme). These guns are not the sort of gun nor calibre that are used in crimes and to the best of my knowledge have never been used in the mass crimes some people are so concerned with.

I still however love the argument that some gun crime is OK - a bummer for those caught up in the cross fire, including the police

From the arguments above it sounds like those legally held shotguns are more potentially dangerous than pistols. Which is probably true. I'd pretty much guarantee that more legal shotguns have been stolen and/or used in crime than legal pistols.

Anyway sign the petition if you agree with proposals, if you don't then don't sign it.

Rob.

Edited by RobStubbs, 21 November 2006 - 08:22 AM.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

I signed the petition on the basis that:

a] Guns in the hands of responsible people do not pose a threat.

b] Banning of hand guns has not reduced gun crime.

c] A shotgun in the hands of a wrong person can and does cause as
much damage if not more than a hand gun and yet they are easy to
obtain.

[Jim Roper]

Nearly 1600 already!

[*Ant*]

Ban all pistol shooting!

Pistols have rights to!