From: "SA Mail", [EMAIL PROTECTED] MASSIVE PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION IN LONDON 18th MARCH 2001 It is now time to send a powerful message to the British Government to express our severe discontent at the way in which shooting people have been treated on firearms matters. It is time to tell them, in no uncertain terms, that we have had enough of their nonsense and will tolerate it no longer. We also require the recent outrageous Firearms (Amendment) Acts 1997 to be repealed in their entirety. We want our pistols back! The Sportsman's Association is working in conjunction with the Countryside Alliance to organise a massive public demonstration (The March!) to take place in London on Sunday 18th March 2001. We want you to be aware of this intention as soon as possible so that you can make the necessary preparations to join us there on the day. Details may change nearer the time and in response to any Government action and we will keep you informed as matters progress. We call on all sports shooters, whatever their own shooting discipline may be, to support this demonstration and to bring along as many of their friends and families as they can. If this demonstration is to have proper impact on Government, it must be massive. Please do your best to help us to achieve this goal. Reasons For Holding A Demonstration 1. We have been the innocent victims of what amounts to persecution from Government, the Home Office, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the police themselves for far too long. We have been made the scapegoats for police incompetence (or even worse) following the Hungerford and Dunblane murders. In the latter case this is not mere speculation. We know that the police failed to carry out their duties properly in the case of Thomas Hamilton because this fact emerged from the Public Inquiry and was amply reinforced by our own investigations. We are certain that the same applied in the case of Michael Ryan at Hungerford but, for some reason best known to themselves, the Government of the day - the Tories - denied us the opportunity of a Public Inquiry at the time. It is time for those in "authority" in this country to admit that they made the wrong decision in effectively banning the sport of target shooting with pistols and in imposing yet more restrictions on the law-abiding while ignoring the real problem of criminal use of firearms. The latter is actually on the increase and we see that criminals are untroubled by firearms laws. The Government knows that this is true but seems to have its own agenda on private possession of firearms - the more the Government deny that agenda, the more we believe that it exists. We only have to look at Government actions to know that this is so. 2. Compare and contrast the way in which we have been treated with the treatment accorded to terrorist organisations, other minority organisations such as the Gay Rights movement, and the haste with which the Government moved to reduce the age of consent for homosexual activity etc. 3. During the Home Affairs Select Committee's investigation into Controls Over firearms we noted with anger the avid attention paid to the views submitted by that bigoted minority group of no more than 6 people, the Gun Control Network and contrasted that with the fact that the Committee largely ignored the carefully researched and professionally presented submissions and verbal evidence of the shooting organisations and other scholarly submissions and evidence made by individuals. The eventual recommendations of the HASC were a disgrace. They flew in the face of the considered input from those who know something about the subject and instead the shamefully biased input from the aforementioned GCN (who, it was noted, would not publically state the source of their funding and must, therefore, be an extremely suspect group). We seriously question whether the persons who were part of the Committee are actually fit to be Members of Parliament as they showed, by their Reccomendations, that they had no ability to weigh evidence correctly. They showed no indication that they recognised their duty to protect the legitimate interests of minorities in this so-called democratic society. 4. The Home Office, ACPO and the police themselves continue to devise additional ways in which further restrictions may be imposed on legitimate shooters. This is being done,for example, under the guise of revising the definitions of "good reason" to possess Section 1 Firearms (shortly to include shotguns too if the latest ideas come to fruition) or "fitness to possess firearms", security requirements etc. It is Chief Officers of Police, "guided" by "advice" from ACPO who impose these ideas on us and we know the results as the impositions take effect on us. Police are now trying to reduce ammunition holdings in various parts of the country - all in the name of that elusive god, Public Safety. 5. They know, as we do, that this is not being done to improve public safety - which is not threatened by us in any event - but solely to reduce the number of firearms in private hands. Oh, yes, we can take them to Court on these matters but who among us can actually afford to do so? 6. A Government that does not trust its citizens (subjects, in our case) does not deserve the trust of those citizens and does not deserve to continue in office. 7. We are constantly being told that we are governed democratically. We must show the present Government what the people actually want and what we expect from them. They are supposed to be our servants, not our masters! Shooting, in all its forms, is an integral part of the country way of life. Any assault on one section of the sport is an assault upon that way of life. We must all act in defence of each other if we are to avoid being "picked off" section by section. If fox hunting is banned, the raising of pheasants for shooting may then follow with an inevitaly devastating impact on the countryside economy. Supporting the Countryside Alliance in this demonstration is actually supporting our own sector of the sport too. We must stick together for mutual defence. Their victory is our victory. Our victory is theirs. We are campaigning for Freedom of Choice, not just for shooting, hunting, or any specific aspect of our lives. We must not surrender any faction just to "buy" peace because we will never defeat our opponents that way. No "peace" bought in such a manner could ever be a just or lasting one. We are right - "they" are wrong. We will never give up on this until we have secured the situation for the future. The March is one of the steps on the road to that future! Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
