Please sign this petition to right a wrong and get .22 pistols reinstated

[Caprelous 217]

http://epetitions.di...k/petitions/360

 

I think its been posted before but the more the shooting fraternity act and are aware of and acting nothing lost

[markha 99]

Done, thanks for posting this

[air gun ant 1,666]

Done ;-)

[Greek Phil 5]

Utter waste of time. The last 5 petitions asking for pistol reinstatement achieve naff all. This will be no different. Hardly a major political issue now is it?

[Caprelous 217]

With that attitude Harry nothing will get achieved ,your opinion on the matter may very well turn out to be correct in its entirity.

 

But we have a democratic process in this country and a means in the legislation to call for changes to be made in a proper manner. the system we have in place allows us to excercise that right. I for one intend to use that right because i feel an injustice was made and i will do my utmost in overturning the matter just because its my right to do so like it is yours not to.

[Greek Phil 5]

Stu

 

What attitude. Recognising and accepting the futility of some pointless exercising of our right to complain has nothing to do with attitude. It have everything to do with being a realist.

 

Exercising your right in such matters is like exercising your right hand on those cold lonely winter nights when your away doe culling. It might give you a warm contented feeling after you've done it but in the end nowt productive comes from all the exercise.

 

The world is full of injustices. I would much rather see governmental time spent on ensuring school children were given health, nutritious, affordable school meals. Than trying to get a few hundred ex.22 target pistol shooters their pistols back.

[JonathanL 4]

Petitions are pointless. Politicians only listen to one thing - votes. If they think something is election losing or winning then they'll do it or not do it accordingly.

 

The best way to get pistol shooting back, or to secure the future of what we have left, is to attract more new shooters. Simple as that. If banning pistols in 1997 was likely to have cost a government an election it wouldn't have happend. Last year we saw a nutter go on the rampage in Cumbria with a shotgun yet no party has called for them to be banned. The difference is, of course, that there are 500,000 SGC holders as against only 57,000 pistol shooters. If there were only 57,000 shotgunners they would have been banned in a month.

 

J.

[Greek Phil 5]

Petitions are pointless. Politicians only listen to one thing - votes. If they think something is election losing or winning then they'll do it or not do it accordingly.

 

Well said Jonno

[Guest joball]

All guns should be banned...

[Alycidon 2]

I agree with Harry, no chance at all, well not in the current climate anyway. 57,000 pistol licence holders, say you had another 500,000 people like us who would support having the ban lifted if there was a free vote. These would be current FAC holders in the main, We have a population of nearly 60 million it only wants 1% of the public to vote against it and thats a majority no vote.

 

A

[Caprelous 217]

If you dont try Geoff you dont get as stated before you might be 100% correct but the world loves a tryer I know its been said before your a really trying b*****d Stu

[Alycidon 2]

Just went to sign it, it expired on 8th Aug,. Tried to sign it anyway, Looks like i have already signed it elsewhere as my e mail address was advised as already having signed it, getting old and forgetful.

 

A

[JonathanL 4]

I agree with Harry, no chance at all, well not in the current climate anyway. 57,000 pistol licence holders, say you had another 500,000 people like us who would support having the ban lifted if there was a free vote. These would be current FAC holders in the main, We have a population of nearly 60 million it only wants 1% of the public to vote against it and thats a majority no vote.

 

A

 

I don't think it's quite that simple. The absolute numbers of people in the country who may or may not want something is largely irrelevant as they aren't the ones doing the banning, Parliament is. What matters - and the only thing which really matters - is how many politicians may or may not lose their seats over something. There are marginal constituencies here and there where some MP's have a very small majority so the picture is far more complicated.

 

There are around 500,000 SGC's on issue which represents a very small minority out of our 60m population yet no one has seriously called for shotguns to be banned after Cumbria. I'm quite convinced that if there were only 60K shotgunners out there then they would banned over night. Any MP representing a rural area would lose his job if he voted for something like that.

 

The other thing is the cost of the ban. Compensation would have to be paid and it would run into many. many billions of pounds alone. The damage to the economy from closing down an entire industry supplying shotgunners would make the compensation bill pale into insignificance. Lots of people may be quite happy to see shotguns banned but they won't want to foot the bill.

 

The orignal bill given for the pistol ban was £25m - the Home Sec said it in the commons which I remember because even my quick fag packet maths showed that to be an absolute joke. The actual bill was over £100m and I'm not even sure the real figure was ever published.

 

Pistols were able to be banned for various reasons. Low numbers of people owning them and the fact that there was an election in the offing were two of them. Labour was always going to win that election so they made a lot of capital out of banning all pistols, rather than leaving .22's as the original Act did. In short, it was never going to cost them any votes so they went ahead and did it.

 

Look at hunting with dogs. There were probably half a million people against the ban (actually, I think one of the marches might have got 700K people) but it still got banned. The reason was that the Labour party had nothing to lose. The vast majority of fox hunters were in Conservative consitituencies who were never going to vote for a ban. Most of the bannit brigade were in Labour constituencies. If fox hunters were distributed evenly over the country then it probhably would never have been banned at all.

 

Like I say, the way to get pistol shooting reinstated (if it ever happens) is to attract far more shooters. MP's will think very long and hard about pissing people off it is likely to cost them their very cushy jobs sponging off thr tax payer.

 

The problem is that shooters are very good at doing them selves no favours - especially target shooting clubs. Very, very few do anything t attract new members and lots of them are quite up their own backsides about the issue. The 'don't rock the boat lads' mentality which has been prevelant, and still is, is utterly shameful, in my opinion.

 

It should be every SGC or FAC holders personal goal to recruit one aditional shoter each year. Parliament is to frightened to **** with 500,000 SGC holders, there is no way they will **** with a million.

Edited August 21, 2011 by JonathanL

[JonathanL 4]

The link below is to a story from Australia. Shooters there have actually got off their backsides and done something about gettng what they want and have managed to get seats in government.

 

The story shows quite nicely that you do not have to have massive public support to get something done. They only have a few seats but seem to be doing quite nicely at screwing up the governments plans by simply not supporting the government unless they get something out of it. Good on them!

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-26/shooters-fired-up-against-nsw-government/2856606/?site=sydney

 

J.

[Alycidon 2]

We need a STRONG combined shooting/fishing/hunting organisation. It needs to be big to be able to support the worthy long term goals such as those you suggest. Getting elected to Parliament as an independent is pretty rare these days, last one I can remember was the TV journalist news reporter that wore white suits (Martin Lewis ??). And you almost never get re elected, so there has to be a way out financially for the prospective member 5 years or less after election.

 

We tend to admire the US NRA but there are major issues there so I understand but I cannot see how our multiple shooting sports groups could financially support such an idea as they now stand.

 

Most shotgun cert holders tend to be farmers etc, they do what is in their own best interests by and large and nothing else. Most do not belong to any shooting organisation except possibly the CLA or GC, as such most of them shoot uninsured which is always a worry when a guest on predominately a farmers shoot somewhere. Change their attitudes somehow and you might be getting somewhere.

 

A