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[Christel]

Blu, excellent reply clapclap

Shooters/gun owners have to stand united, embrace all disciplines. It really is that simple, isn't it.

Read this forum's header, it is partly there because the FB admin team strongly supports this, it is also partly there because some people have made it clear in their posts on this forum that they only stand united with the people within their chosen discipline and that people who do not shoot competitions should not be allowed to own a firearm. The UK shooting scene is incredible fragmented, the fact that the UK shooters do not have an organisation that supports and stands up for all is very clear.

[Blu]

Cogent and intelligent rebuttal there Blu.

However comparing UK organisations to US ones is like comparing apples and oranges and this is because of cultural, constitutional and legal differences 'tween the two countries.

The US NRA is fundamentally there to protect the right of citizens to keep and bear arms, it is a gun ownership organisation regardless of shooting interest.

In the UK we have a plethora of "national" bodies whose purpose is to promote differing types of shooting as their core purpose. Not only is this approach divisive and factional it misses the key issue that threatens shooting in the UK, gun ownership (within the laws of the UK).

Gun ownership is the thing that is common to all shooters because without that there will be no shooting however that key issue seems to be the "elephant in the room" for our national bodies, to be fair to some I suspect that has in some cases to do with how and for what purpose the organisations were originally formed and is historical however they seem to show no inclination in developing their purpose to meet the challenges of the 21st century rather than the 19th century.

However unless some organisation grips the gun ownership issue, champions, advocates and works for it with the full support both in time and money of all shooters then the days of legal shooting and gun ownership in the UK are limited.

The US NRA is fundamentally there to protect the right of citizens to keep and bear arms, it is a gun ownership organisation regardless of shooting interest.

That is on the money, the right keep and bear arms is the law and shall not be infringed but it's not the only thing it's about. It promotes and supports conservation, it promotes young people coming into the sport through hunter safety classes. It promotes and supports self defence classes for women, hell it even runs courses for the training of law enforcement agencies and those are just a few of the things it does.

The thing is though Adam protecting the right of citizens to keep and bear arms wasn't it's original core value, that unfortunately was something that has had to happen because of the the politicians and the anti gun crowd. Even though that is now the case the NRA and it's membership have not and will not forget what it's really all about, that being to promote marksmanship and safe shooting regardless of the discipline or type of firearms used.

I agree when you say "However unless some organisation grips the gun ownership issue, champions, advocates and works for it with the full support both in time and money of all shooters then the days of legal shooting and gun ownership in the UK are limited."

When I read statements such as some of the ones Phil there wrote I can't help but shake my head in dismay.

Blu

[zanes]

The UK shooting scene is incredible fragmented, the fact that the UK shooters do not have an organisation that supports and stands up for all is very clear.

Good point- BASC would be about the closest I guess?

[Chapuis]

NRA GB have done a lot for our legislation changes

Absolutely right- a "dignified silence" worked perfectly in 1997, and "we can't see why any civilian would need that sort of weapon" worked a treat in the 1980's, didn't it?

In fact, can you name one concession/improvement the NRA have won? Not the sort of "well, we could have lost everything, but we didn't" rhetoric?

In some ways, I can't wait until the NRA have pushed everything else under the wheels and antis come after their single shot target rifles in .308. But I won't be laughing when that happens.

At least they'll still have their caravans then.

The worst thing that I ever did was to follow the NRA's advise and to not individually respond to the request for interested parties to reply to the Cullen enquiry. On top of that I also passed on that message to my fellow club members who also did not reply. The NRA at that time effectively said "don't reply leave it to us", so we didn't and you all know how that ended up.

[Tufty]

SHOCK HORROR!

09:56GMT/28Jul2014

The BBC are broadcasting shooting from Barry Buddon - 50m pistol!!!

Have they mentioned that's the only place on the UK mainland where such a civilian event can currently happen?


Thought not.

Not true,50m free pistol can be shot on any range in the UK cleared for it,provided you use a UK spec pistol which has the balancing rods protruding from the back of the grip,though all those foreign athletes whose countries have more sensible gun laws would be hauled off to jail for section 5 firearms offences !!