From: N J Francis, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Simply because people _want_ something banned is never a particularly
> good reason to ban something. There must be a _reason_ to ban it.
>
> As the handgun ban amptly demonstrated. There was no sensible reason
> to ban them so not surprisingly it didn't work.
Up to now its worked. There have been no more massacres with legal
pistols. Pistols weren't banned to reduce gun crime. They were banned
because for the second time in 10 years somebody took a legally held gun
and killed a load of people with it.
It was political appeasment, a gesture, a safeguard to make sure it would
not happen again. After Dunblane the public's perception of shooters was
rock bottom - it could not have got any worse. People were not bothered
about the guns the criminals had - they were not the ones killing 16 kids
in a school. As weak as the BSSC are as a shooting body they did have a
point about keeping a respectful silence. The last thing a greiving public
want is a bunch of gun nuts prattling an about the right to shoot their
'toys' after 16 kids went to school and got massacred by a gun nut.
Whether it is liked or not PR is very important. Unfortunately from recent
posts it seems that lessons have still not been learned here.
---
Neil Francis
Trowbridge, UK
--
I've got to say I think you're totally wrong on the last point, silent
for a couple of weeks afterward, okay, but eight months? Don't
write to the Inquiry? It was totally stupid. Banning handguns
was a political decision, not Cullen's decision, we needed to
make a noise then, and if it ever happens again we need to make
a noise _immediately_.
Maybe people would get upset - who cares? People get upset about
lots of things, should we sit back and let them come to an
emotionally based kneejerk decision without a comment? Do
you think you can change the minds of the public without treading
on a lot of toes? And what precisely had we got to lose, exactly?
Our credibility? We were being compared to a mass murderer! Our
sport? If we lost the argument, the outcome would have been a ban
regardless!
I can think of 57,000 people who were a hell of a lot more upset
than your average member of the public!
And while it may be plausible to argue that the tories intended
the handgun ban to be about stopping offences with legal guns,
certainly that is not the case with Labour, read Hansard if you
don't believe me. Read that press release from 27/2/98 about taking
handguns "off the streets".
Labour made the point repeatedly that a ban on handguns would reduce
the number of guns criminals could steal and use in crime.
And the only effect appears to have been to strengthen the channels
of the black market, thereby making handguns more available to
criminals, not less.
I used to work in PR and I know a balls up when I see one, BSSC
made one. Certainly some members of shooting organisations I spoke
to were of the opinion that handguns would be banned anyway, so
it made more sense to stay quiet and simply argue the technicalities
of any ban so it only affected target shooters. If you look at BSSC's
position from that standpoint, it starts to make a lot more sense.
I have to say I have much greater faith in the Campaign for Shooting,
because they have advertised in all the gun magazines, including
Target Sports, and I get the impression they know that selling out
one segment of the sport hurts all the others.
Steve.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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