Please keep signing and sharing our petitions.

It’s been an exciting 6 months. When I first started the airgun petition I never imagined it becoming as popular as it did, this is down to a lot of hard work and support from many shooting organisations,magazines and the shooters that do bother to take action.

The shooting community has always been it’s own worst enemy when it comes to taking action to defend itself. Whilst 14,000 is a great number to achieve it is a miniscule amount of what it should be when one looks at the millions(yes millions) of people in the UK with an interest in firearms. Division is rife and many people do not bother if it does not affect their own particular section of the sport and in some cases even if it does! This apathy will destroy our rights.

The Scottish petition has been sent in with 14,193 petitions however when I attend the meeting with the Public Petitions Committee it would put us in an excellent position if the number of signatures has grown even more since then. If nothing else it will send a strong message to the Scottish Government and perhaps even the UK Government that shooters are not going to take it any more and we will fight back.

Having been featured in a recent article in the Sunday Express and with an upcoming feature in the Shooting Times our petition may get a second wind and achieve the even greater numbers we sorely need.  With such publicity and popularity it puts us in a very good position to continue educating the public on the positives of gun ownership and shooting sports.

If we want to move on to greater things and win our rights back we must continue to support each other and keep up good communications. We must end the divide between us all. The anti gunners do not care what your reasons for owning a firearm are, they do not care about facts or logic they want rid of  them all and we are helping them by failing to unite or remaining in a state of listlessness.

As we continue to move forward and the Firearms UK following grows we will need everyone to stand with us and let their voices be heard. We need everyone to do their bit in helping our campaigns. Please continue to share our petitions and pages with family and friends. I realise that I may be preaching to the converted when people are reading this but we must continue to gather our friends on board and get those people on the fence or sitting with their heads down standing tall and on our side.

We are law abiding citizens and it is time to say we will not accept punishment or criminalization for the minority of people who do abuse airguns and firearms.

Sometimes you’ve got to fight for your rights.

Petition Moves Forward

The petition against the licencing of low powered airguns and other proposals by the Scottish government, with over 13k signatures at the time of submissions has now been formally lodged with the Scottish Parliament and will be considered by the Public Petitions Committee (PPC), the creator of the petition and the campaign against the proposals (also a co-founder of Firearms UK) has been invited to attend a recorded meeting in September to give an opening statement on the petition and to answer questions. Firearms UK encourages everyone to ‘Like’ the campaign Facebook page to keep up to date with this campaign and to show your support.

The slippery slope to totalitarianism

I just noticed one of the comments on the petition page and it caught my interest.

“the government are pricing me out of the only sport i enjoy . try making people apply for a football supporters licence, more people are killed and injured in football violence than with an air gun”

Now again I don’t believe in any infringement of peoples civil liberties or increasing red tape that affects law abiding majorities more than irresponsible minorities but it’s an interesting thought isn’t it.

Imagine asking all the anti gun people out they who are football fans(I know a few) if they would support paying for a licence and having to provide good reason to watch a football game and that you could only do it in proper supporters clubs. They would hit the roof and go on about how ridiculous that sounds yet they support the same intrusive measures against another group of people who want to enjoy their sports and hobbies.

Perhaps then they will see the light and it might penetrate their brains as to the total sham this is.

100 years ago if they talked about licencing shotguns it would have been thrown out as ridiculous, 50 years ago talk of licencing airguns would have been laughed at.

Maybe 50 years in the future you will have to have a licence for your football games and every other aspect of your life will be controlled. Perhaps once the media and Government have whipped up a big enough frenzy it will become law. “Because something has to be done”

People had best be careful what they wish for because if you start to let Governments regulate every single thing just for the sake of it then we are on the slippery slope to totalitarianism.

I believe it has already started and if all the gun owners do not take a stand on this who knows where it will end. You can try and keep your head down and say nothing and hope they will leave you alone but guess what? If you do nothing and the law changes you won’t have your guns or your sports anyway. The only way is to stand up and be counted. Fight for it or lose it.

I’ll close with my own opinion on how to combat violence and crime in our society. Identify root causes of crime and try to eliminate them and punish those that ACTUALLY break laws and cause harm or lose to others. How many laws do we have now that create offences from nothing?

It is time to reclaim our liberties.

I apologise for the rather long rant and I’m sure some will perhaps disagree but please discuss it and leave any comments you have.