From: "Richard Loweth", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The very same...so does one vote for this man and then, at the "next"
Dunblane have the press on the backs of BASC because "one of its Council
Members has convictions for firearms offences"?
Whatever one thinks of Sir Malcolm, sadly, I wonder if the risk of this
blowing back in the faces of BASC is too great?
--
I think there are very few people who are any good at advocating on
the gun issue who haven't at least been arrested a few times. I mean,
look at what happened to Guy Savage and Richard Law, and Jan Stevenson
for that matter. I mean, you can't find people with much better
characters than for example, Jim McAllister, and even he's been dragged
through the courts.
Guy and Richard were both convicted on the most technical of technical
offences, and in both cases it looks as though the FSS either tampered
with or gave erroneous evidence. As I recall in Guy's case, they took
an AR-15 pistol, fitted it with a buttstock and prosecuted him for
selling SLRs, and in Richard's case he was selling pistols, which, if
you held down the disconnector, could fire full-auto. So what? What
is illegal about that? A Ruger 10/22 will fire full-auto if you do
that to it!
I can't recall all of the details of Sir Malcolm's case, I seem to
recall it centred around sloppy record keeping.
Virtually all of the people involved in this issue who have been
convicted have been convicted of absolute offences, not offences
with criminal intent, and given that I would be wary about saying
toss them all out of shooting associations.
Of course the press will make a dogs dinner of it, just like they
have with this video showing people feeding foxes, but this is a
public relations war. The papers have castigated Guy Savage for
example, but they fail to mention the Appeals Court ruling which
stated the police appeared to have a vendetta against him. It is
effectively getting across the truth of the matter that counts.
If Jim went to Parliament for example, and testified on behalf of
shooters, you can bet your bottom dollar the GCN would tell the
committee about his court case, but the reality is that his court
case just showed how bloody minded and foolish the police are -
we have to be skillful enough to get that point across.
I would like to know what Sir Malcolm's take on what happened to him
is before castigating him. My view is that the only people the press
like to bash more than shooters is the police.
Steve.
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