From: "Derek Bernard", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> .... and there are those amongst the police who seek
> to take on the responsibility for range safety certificates. This job
> would then fall to the same people who administer shotgun and firearms
> certificates.
> Perhaps range safety certification, if necessary, should be the
> responsibility of the Health & Safety Executive?
>
> --Jonathan Spencer, firearms examiner
>
> That's my thinking too, our local HSE guy seems okay by comparison
> to our licensing dept.
>
> Steve.
Forgive me for repeating myself, but the job should NOT be carried out by
ANY Government agency. I would confidently expect both the Police and H &
SE to rapidly become even more out of touch with reality than the Army and
even more subject to political fashion dictates.
The inherent safety levels are so high and/or the risk levels so low (ie.
several thousand times lower than, say, cricket or rugby), that it doesn't
NEED any compulsory approval process at all. Any Government agency will
inevitably go into a "makework" mode of behaviour, which creates the
impression (to those not familiar with the subject, like politicians and the
media) that they are carrying out complex and important, indeed critical,
work.
Sadly, since the age of reason has long gone and we probably have no choice
but to live in Alice-in-Blairland, it is vital that the health of the body
charged with range approval is linked to the health of the target shooting
sports. A joint body of BASC, NRA, NSRA, UKPSA, MLAGB etc which based its
analysis on the data and design parameters of most experienced country in
the world, ie. Switzerland (which has more ranges than the rest of Europe
put together), would be my recommendation.
Derek Bernard
--
But the Swiss range standards are set by the VBS, somewhere buried on
their website I found something about it, a video I think about how to
build a safe range. The Swiss regulations on ranges are really tight,
they have all sorts of stuff now about noise abatement and preventing
damage to the environment and so on. I don't think that is a good
example of laissez faire.
Yes, it would be wonderful if we could get the bureaucrats out of it,
in the short term though having the HSE do it would be a major advantage
because the HSE would follow some sort of objective standard (I hope)
rather than saying "this is what NATO told us to do" like the MoD
does.
Steve.
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