Winter 2002 - National Rifle Association

to allow the sport to continue in safe surroundings atspecialist centres like Bisley.As a London MP, I know that in some areas it is easierto buy an illegal gun than it is to find a taxi in the rain,which made the sight of competitors’ pistols beingescorted from Heathrow to Bisley in armoured carsfarcical. If only the same effort went into tacklingarmed drug dealers.Ironically, by allowing target pistol shooting to takeplace the Home Office have demonstrated that theytoo recognise that the sport can be pursued safely.That is why, now that the Games are over, the HomeOffice must review the ban and allow competitiveshooting to begin again.This is what the peaceful demonstrators who kept avigil at the entrance to Bisley throughout the Gameswere calling for. Surely any reasonable person cansee that target pistols can be stored safely in the secureareas at Bisley under the scrutiny of the SurreyConstabulary to allow training to take place.The general secretary of the International ShootingSport Federation, Horst Schreiber, who watched Gaultbeing presented with his medal by Prince Edward,praised the unique facilities at Bisley and said helooked forward to the World Championships beingheld there in the future.The successful organisation at Bisley gives theGovernment an opportunity to admit that they got itwrong - the ban on handguns was put through on atide of ‘emotional correctness’ and should beamended. It saddens me that all over the worlddemocratic governments have more trust in theircitizens to participate in one of the oldest Olympicsports than we do. Since the ban, gun crime hasincreased. Only the law-abiding citizen has suffered,while those who want illegal guns can easily obtainthem.Gault and the other target pistol shooters have shownremarkable discipline and dignity despite the biasshown against them. The country should be proud ofthem and their achievements, and so should the BBC.Reproduced from the Daily Telegraph of 12 August2002 with the kind permission of Kate Hoey and theDaily Telegraph.GUNLAW OFF-TARGETby The Daily Telegraph, Tuesday 13 August 2002On the streets of Britain’s biggest cities, an illegalhandgun can be bought for as little as £50.The black-market supply of these weapons hasincreased enormously since the break-up of the SovietUnion, and changes in European frontier regulationshave made it much easier to smuggle them into thecountry. As Kate Hoey, the Labour MP for Vauxhall,wrote in our Sport section yesterday, there are someinner-city areas in which it is now easier to buy anillegal gun than to find a taxi in the rain.What a farce it was, therefore, that guns belonging tocompetitors in the shooting events at theCommonwealth Games were transported fromHeathrow Airport to the National Shooting Centre atBisley, Surrey, in armoured cars. Did anybodyseriously believe that criminals would risk ambushingthe competitors for their guns, while there werealready more than enough illegal weapons in thecountry to keep the underworld armed to the teethfor at least the next 10 years?The truth is that the Firearms Act, 1997, whichoutlawed the ownership of most handguns in Britain,did nothing to discourage their illegal use. Indeed,the number of crimes in which handguns were carriedincreased by no less than 40 per cent in the two yearsafter the Act became law.The only people who suffered from the ban,introduced by the Major government in an attempt tobe seen to be doing something after the Dunblanemassacre, were those who owned and used their gunslawfully.Among the hardest hit were Britain’s competitiveshooters, who proved again at the CommonwealthGames that they are the equals of any in the world.England alone won 18 medals, five of them gold, whileNorthern Ireland won two golds, and Scotland andWales five medals between them.The effect of the Act on these competitors has been toforce them abroad to train. This has not only beenhugely expensive and inconvenient for most of them,putting them at a great competitive disadvantage. Ithas also been a national humiliation.Bisley has been the home of shooting since 1890.Newly modernised, after the investment of some £6million of lottery money, it has some of the finest pistolranges in the world. Yet Britain has been exposed bythe Act as one of the very few countries in the worldthat does not trust its law-abiding citizens to ownhandguns.As Miss Hoey argued so powerfully yesterday, therenovation of Bisley and Britain’s successes at theGames should give the Government its cue to amenda hastily introduced, ill thought-out and unjust law.Daily Telegraph Editorial of 13 August 2002: with thekind permission of the Daily Telegraph66