Will they finally grow a pair?

Via the Englishman we hear that Otis Ferry, the young man who invaded the floor of the House of Commons, has had his legally held rifle and shotgun removed from his home by the authorities. This is to be expected and I am confident that similar removal of private property will be visited upon any gun owning huntsman or woman who, in the mind of the authorities, protests too strongly or continues to hunt with hounds illegally.

This is my prediction (not a difficult one to make) and (except in exceptional circumstances) I disagree with such a course of action.

Breaking the law does not make one a threat to public safety. If it did we would see far more criminals locked up for far longer, rather than out on our streets painting fences, wearing tags and what not. This does not change if you are the owner of legally held guns although I suspect that the government would have us believe it were so.

I am not sure what the situation is with getting, for instance, a shotgun certificate if one has a criminal record because I have none so have not paid much attention to it but I am guessing that it is suitably draconian.

Of course the reason why the government will likely remove guns from protesting and active country folk is not necessarily because they believe they are a danger to public safety but, instead, to send them a clear message. Break this law and you will loose the gun owner privilege that we have temporarily granted you.

These are the times when we find out a little bit more about how well represented us gun owners are by the organisations that take our subscriptions. I’m not talking about demographically represented but, instead, fundamentally represented. How strongly will they come out in protection of our liberties and privileges?

Many hunters are members of the British Association for Shooting & Conservation and some of those will break the law in coming months and, probably, years likely loosing their licenses and certificates. What will the BASC do about it? Will they hide behind the criminal act, even though they are strongly against the ban on hunting or will they support their members with everything that they have got?

Many shooters and ex-shooters already feel that the various shooting organisations in this country are all to quick to remove the line in the sand only to re-draw it a few feet further back every time the shooting minority come under pressure.

Frankly, I think it’s about time this changed.