In March, 1996 Thomas Hamilton walked into a classroom at Dunblane School, Scotland, UK and shot dead 16 children and their teacher and then shot himself. In the public inquiry that followed it was established that Hamilton was a mentally deranged person, not fit to own firearms, who had given the police false information on his application for renewal of Firearms Certificate and that a police officer, in fact, recommended that Hamilton's Firearms Certificate not be renewed.
At the time of Dunblane tragedy Conservative government had an overall majority of only one and as the Scottish Secretary threatened to resign if nothing was done, rumour has it that the then prime minister, John Major, permitted himself and his entire cabinet a totally knee-jerk reaction, which lead to the ban of the private ownership of pistols above 22 rimfire in England, Scotland and Wales in 1997. The Labour government that followed Conservatives in 1997 extended the ban to include rimfire pistols and with that idiotic action the long established and internationally respected Olympic sport of pistol shooting came to an end in Great Britain.
The ban of private ownership of pistols was hailed as a measure in the interest of public safety at the time. "We are getting the guns off the streets!", claimed the politicians, whilst the media assisted by publishing articles about the awesome power of the military automatics with huge magazines. The "horror" was further propagated with articles about school shootings in USA. No one was prepared to even consider that this knee-jerk piece of legislation would not improve public safety one iota for a very simple reason and that was that the guns removed from private ownership were never on the streets, but in the hands of the law abiding people that used them for target shooting - the sport in which Great Britain excelled.
In the years after the handgun ban the crime rate involving the use of handguns and guns generally increased fourfold, but no one has yet admitted that the handgun ban was not only totally ineffective as a measure to improve public safety, but that it had no connection whatsoever with public safety. The attack on The Trade Centre in New York n 11th September, 2001 is a tragic proof that the international terrorists, criminals and the criminally insane cannot be stopped by legislation!
The only sure way to prevent another tragedy involving aircraft is to ban aircraft world-wide and the quality of thought and decision making ability displayed by our government means that we are now living in fear that they might do just that!
But the most sinister erosion of civil liberties that the British government introduced with the handgun ban was the principle of collective guilt! My pistols were confiscated and I lost my sport because someone, several hundred miles away, who had similar interests, committed a crime. I was not guilty of anything, but the government was not required to prove my guilt, nor was I allowed to defend myself in any court of law!
We lost our sport because the Anti-Gun Lobby used the Dublane Massacre to launch a well organised anti-gun campaign to which we, the shooters, on the advice and direction of our national shooting bodies presented no response whatsoever! And the government of the day, as all governments do, assumed that no objection to the proposed pistol ban meant that everyone was in favour!
Where were National Rifle Association (UK), National Smallbore Rifle Association and National Pistol Association whilst the Bill to ban private ownership of pistols was passing through parliament? They were keeping a low profile - doing nothing!
And when the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, announced his government's (Conservative) intention to ban private ownership of pistols, the UK pistol shooters held an emergency meeting at Bisley and formed Sportsman's Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - SAGBNI - for the sole purpose of organising mass protests. Within a week of its formation the membership of SAGBNI reached 40,000 - approximately 10 times that of the membership of NRA. SAGBNI was formed because our national shooting bodies totally abandoned us and stuck to their time honoured tradition of taking the option to do nothing!
Sportsman's Association did an excellent job in organizing protest marches in London. The last of these drew 20,000 protesters, but without any visible presence of our national shooting bodies. Where was the ISSF with its logo of intertwined Olympic rings? These marches should have been headed by the members of Great Britain pistol team and the banners of NRA, NSRA, NPA and ISSF! Instead, we marched under the banner of the Sportsmans' Association, which was formed only a few weeks previously, so it lacked public recognition. As could have been predicted, the protest marches failed to achieve any public support. On the contrary, it is rather probable that the people of London mistook us for the fox hunters, with whom they had little sympathy!
And what happened to our national shooting bodies after the pistol ban?
National Pistol Association literaly curled up and died. At its last AGM, 6 months before the ban became effective, all its officers resigned and, despite the requests from members that the pistol competitions be continued to the last day, NPA ceased to exist!
National Smallbore Rifle Association took advatage of the Government grant to build new headquarters at Bisley, complete with a substantial 50 metre range. It decided to change its main focus to ISSF style shooting, which was unpopular even when we had pistols. It has not had a good year since and is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
At the same time, NRA (UK) also received government grant to upgrade Bisley ranges in preparation for the Commonwealth Games. This was handled with such ineptitude that the NRA landed itself with £2million debt ($3.2million), resulting in a cripling increase in range fees in order that this bebt be repaid. To the Ministry of Defense this was a signal to increase its own charges for civillian use of military ranges up and down the country in line with those charged by the NRA. It could be argued, therefore, that the NRA is responsible for forcing more fullbore target shooters out of the sport with high prices than any governmnent action in the previous two Centuries! And as a final act of bad judgement the NRA aligned itself with the newly formed organisation, Countryside Alliance, formed specifically to resist the ban on fox hunting, a sport that has been banned subsequently and which the majority of the urban dwellers wanted outlawed even then!
And these same national shooting bodies now expect us to join and support them to avail ourselves of their negotiating power! What negotiating power? In every instance when their active involvemnet was desperately needed, they chose to do nothing!