Can't catch criminals? Hey, just pick on someone else instead.

It looks like the Express newspaper is at it again. This time, instead of columnist Carol Sarler describing all shooting sportsmen and women as perverted we have the editor of the Sunday Express, Martin Townsend, calling for the outlawing of the sport of shooting completely. Why? Well let’s hear it from the man himself:

My problem is that, outside of the military and the farming community, I don't understand why anyone really needs to own a gun. Can anyone explain it to me?

Sure. People need to own guns to, among other reasons, go clay pigeon shooting, hunt game and vermin, compete in shooting competitions and the like. Of course, Mr. Townsend, being poorly informed probably thinks that only farmers hunt vermin on their farms (like they haven’t got anything else to do), thinks that clay pigeon shooting is for crazy people and that owning guns for any kind of competitive shooting throws doubt on your suitability to, well, own guns. Think I’m exaggerating?

And whose are the "right hands" to be holding a gun? The sportsman with his ear protectors who lines up targets in a gallery and practises, practises, practises? What's he practising for? When more and more of his shots go clean through the centre of the target, what's going through his mind? That he can win every competition? I would love to believe that every amateur marksman has the same innocent thought.

There you are.

Townsend is exhibiting the same kind of dangerous thinking that, contrary to his intention, actually ends up increasing gun crime. He wants the government to spend a fortune (and it will cost a fortune) to ban a sport and legitimate pass time when that money and time would be better spent catching criminals and ending the smuggling of guns into the UK.

It’s about time that people like him took on the responsibility of the kind of country they have created. A country where resources are misdirected away from where they are truly needed because of ill thought out personal crusades. A country where freedom is ok as long as it’s the same freedom that media managers subscribe to. A country where, unscathed, you can get away with hate speech against a sporting community but not against a terrorist.

(PS. I cannot find an online resource for this article so see below to read it in its entirety, including an email address for the author of the article. He is clearly looking for responses.)

Sunday Express 18th Jan 2004

A word from the Editor

MARTIN TOWNSEND

'We are all going to have to stop tinkering with
firearms laws and outlaw guns completely'

IN RECENT weeks, a policeman has been shot dead in
Leeds; a retired colonel, living in a tiny village,
blasted to death on his doorstep and a couple murdered
by gunman or men at their Cornish petrol station. Just
a few months ago a jeweller was shot dead at her
family-owned shop in Nottingham and a former bodyguard
cut down by bullets as he left his gym.

Guns, it seems, are everywhere. A friend of mine, who
owns a shop in west London - a family man with three
children under 10 - stepped out to buy a sandwich one
afternoon last summer and found himself at the centre
of a gunfight. It's something you only read about in
books, he told me afterwards, but he felt a bullet
whistle past his ear. Over Christmas a child in our
area was partially paralysed when he shot himself,
accidentally, with an air pistol.

In my street, just a few weeks ago, an elderly man
awoke to find someone had blasted an airgun pellet
through his porch window. The police said such
incidents were all too common in the area but there
was little they could do. These guns are increasingly
getting into the hands of 11 and 12-year-olds, they
explained, and the rules need tightening up. The usual
targets are birds, cats and dogs.

My problem is that, outside of the military and the
farming community, I don't understand why anyone
really needs to own a gun. Can anyone explain it to
me? The "huntin', shootin' and fishin"' lobby would
argue their corner, of course, but it worries me that
the word "shooting" has insinuated itself so
comfortably into that phrase. Book-ended by two
pursuits over which far too much Parliamentary time
has already been wasted, shooting seems to have
escaped similar attention except in the knee-jerk
aftermath of the Dunblane tragedy. But the popularity
of shooting and the resulting widespread ownership of
"sporting guns" gives shooting a legitimacy - and an
armoury. It means that there are a lot of guns around
that have to be accounted for, stored and moved around
in order to be maintained. I am sure that the vast
majority of those charged with such duties exercise
them with due care and responsibility. But not all.
Guns will go missing. They will be stolen. They'll end
up in the "wrong hands".

And whose are the "right hands" to be holding a gun?
The sportsman with his ear protectors who lines up
targets in a gallery and practises, practises,
practises? What's he practising for? When more and
more of his shots go clean through the centre of the
target, what's going through his mind? That he can win
every competition? I would love to believe that every
amateur marksman has the same innocent thought.

Of course the majority of guns in criminal hands come
from the black market: sold out of the boots of cars
at the back of pubs and on motorway hard-shoulders.
Society is awash with such weapons and the armed
burglar is not exceptional any more. It's perfectly
understandable, therefore, that listeners to Radio 4
have called for a "Martin's Law"-named after burgled
farmer Tony Martin, left - to give them the right to
defend themselves and their property by whatever means
are necessary.

But we all know that such sentiments, together with
the constant calls for the police to be armed, mean
that we are beginning to teeter down a very slippery
slope.

At some point, very soon, we are all going to have to
make a very 21st century decision -and that is to stop
tinkering with firearms laws and outlaw guns
completely.

To prohibit the manufacture, import, ownership and use
of firearms for all but the most essential
non-military purposes. The numbers of guns in use,
even in these areas - farming, say, or pest control -
should be strictly controlled and the ammunition
clearly marked for use only with that weapon. It will
be an unpopular, expensive and difficult undertaking,
but it's one that we must consider unless we want to
descend further into the American nightmare of a
society ruled by the gun, and "policed" by a pro-gun
lobby.

The Editor, Sunday Express, 245 Blackfriars Road,
London SE1 9UX.
Fax. 020 7922 7055/7794:
e-mail Sunday.exletters@express.co.uk

Posted by JohnJo at January 20, 2004 08:16 AM | TrackBack