Gun Control Network
The Gun Control Network campaigns for registration of airguns (among other things). We are very concerned about some work being undertaken in schools by an airgun training and education organisation. We believe this work is likely to encourage the acquisition and use of airguns by young people. Given that half of all gun crime is committed with an airgun this is a problem.
The Gun Control Network was established to campaign for tighter controls on guns of all kinds in Britain and a greater awareness of the dangers associated with gun ownership and use
POSTED BY
Name : Gill Marshall-Andrews
Website : http://www.gun-control-network.org
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of Gill Marshall-Andrews and are not necessarily those of parentsoutloud.com
(6 votes, average: 1.67 out of 5)
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What are the risks of owning a gun Gill? Spell it out for me and lets run a comparison against other potentially lethal objects. Lets really see if your right to whip up this hysteria. Handling a gun irresponsibly can be a problem but any objective person would have to concede that the benefits likely outweigh the risks. After all, shooting has a far better safety record than say, cricket or rugby.
Furthermore, why is learning how to operate a gun of any kind a problem? Is learning how to use knives in cookery class something to be frowned upon as well? Of course not. It is about time that organisations like yours actually started providing some factual basis for your campaigns. For example: Do gun bans save more lives than they cost? Feel free to post the data on here – I would love to see it. I know you wont. You wont even enter into dialogue with me.
The compensation payed to handgun owners after your vindictive campaign was in the region of £100m. Gun crime and violent crime is higher today than before the ban. If this were any other subject you would be held to the sword and asked why exactly did we spend £100m on this? Personally, I would of rather seen that money spent on schools, nurses and Dr’s….. It must be great being unaccountable.
A substantial proportion of airgun “incidents” are accidents stemming from ignorance whilst children are “playing” with airguns. Given that, the teaching of basic firearm safety/usage and respect for firearms can only be a good thing as it teaches children how to use airguns responsibly if they’re going to use them at all.
Given the increasing number of illegally imported firearms appearing on the black market and the increasing risk that children will come into contact with firearms outside a structured club or legitimate shooting environment (particularly in some inner city areas where gun crime is highest), it is essential to teach children respect for firearms, and the basic practices of firearm safety in a safe environment so they do not injure themselves or their friends if they do come into contact with firearms without appropriate supervision.
Let no one be fooled by the Gun Contol Network. Their office is a faceless PO Box in London somewhere and none of the statements on their site are accounted for by any name. In short, they are cowards who sit behind the anonimity of a desk, spouting untruths.
There is nothing wrong with teaching anyone how to use a gun. The GCN problem is if people are trained to use guns maybe they might like it and one day own a legal firearm.
Gary
I have just read the drivel from Mrs Marshal Andrews of the Gun Control Network on your web site.. The sport of target shooting in all its forms is a wholesome, controlled, safety conscious sport teaching self discipline, self control, competitiveness and inter action with others.
Yes of course there have been times when deranged individuals have used firearms and shotguns to kill in moments of mental disturbance or breakdown. Does that mean that cars which kill thousands should also be banned?
Mrs Andrews also does not differentiate between firearms and shotguns that have been obtained illegally. Can she not give figures of the amount of previously legally owned guns that have been used for illegal purposes? Of course she will not as the figure is so small and she probably does not know it..
She may imply all guns are made to kill. No they are not. Rifles, shotguns and even the majority of handguns were made for the sport of target shooting. She may then suggest,’ but they can be’. The reply to that would return the car point, Obviously not built to kill but can and does kill thousands
Apply logic. That is all.
What I find so shocking is the amount of influence the GCN have (or indeed have been given) in forcing legislation through when they are in reality little more than a left wing subordinate quango style organisation sponsored by the previous government in order back up Labour’s anti target and shooting sports ideals.
It’s this sort of total drivel which is often spouted by this faceless organisation that has been responsible for the last thirteen years of negative media hysteria regarding target shooting and shooting in general. It is most interesting how the GCN are full of anti shooting sport rhetoric yet never have the facts or indeed the knowledge to back up their argument. Who is this tiny organisation and who do they claim to speak for, not me for one?
The GCN are little more than another of the Ban it! Ban it! Ban it! brigade, the typical ‘I don’t like it and don’t partake in it so I have nothing to lose’ mentality so everyone else has to do as they dictate.
I’m happy to take on the GCN in open debate any time they wish and have challenged them to do so on several occasions but sure as night follows day you never get a response. I’m starting to wonder if these people even exist and the whole organisation is little more than phantom created by the Labour Party spin machine to force legislation anti shooting through.
With a bit of luck now that the socialist police state that was New Labour has finally come to an end you might start to see the decline in these utterly bias left wing Labour whipping boy style organisations that claim to speak for the many when in fact they speak for the few.
The Gun Control Network is an extremist organisation, that makes inflammatory statements and never, ever backs them up with any evidence. Case in point. Marshall-Andrews says that “We believe this work is likely to encourage the acquisition and use of airguns by young people. Given that half of all gun crime is committed with an airgun this is a problem”. However, the point that she leaves out is that it is not those youngsters who have been properly trained in safe airgun shooting that are the ones using airguns illegally. She dishonestly implies that giving children instruction in safe gun handling will turn them into criminals. Marshall-Andrews can give no evidencefor this disgraceful allegation for none exists, for it is a deliberate lie.
I have no problem with proportionate gun control any more than I have an objection to sensible car control. I do have a problem with hate-filled extremists like Marshall-Andrews lying through her teeth, and I have even more problem with the UK government listening to these people. However Labour has form for giving houseroom to fanatics, and has entertained a number of anti-democratic Islamicist organisations. The ‘Gun Control Network’ falls into the same category of hardline extremist organisations that have few supporters and even fewer scruples.
To all those previous callers I can add another: twice I have tried to email them courtesy of the contact address they give.Result? It’s twice bounced back with the message ‘unknown user’. My interest in the subject actually goes back to the late 1950s. In those days you were paid in cash(the law required it), and week after week there were reports of payroll robberies by thugs prepared to use violence. In the wake if this several security firms sprabg up – and some used armed guards! In 1961 one such van was attacked and one of the guards fired at the attackets, hitting one of them. The gang fled, leaving a fearsome array of weapons. The police response was to call for the disarming of all bank guards! Less than 2 years afterwards, not far from where I’m writing this, a train was stopped by a gang and £2.6 million was stolen. Now we hear akk about Dunblane, but who’s ever heard of the St James Church massacre in 1963? Well, it would have been a slaughter if one of the congregation didn’t have with him a .38 revolver. Charl Van Wyk fired back at the attackers(who were using grenades and autonatic rifles), wounding one of them. At that the fled. Maybe a read of his book “Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self-Defence” might explode some myths about hub control. As for Dunblane, two facts are undeniable. One is that if a superior police ifficer had listened to the concerns of his juniiors, Thomas Hamilton would have been disarmed. The other is that if all he had access to were single-shot pistols the casualties would have been far lessm and he might have been disarmed and arrested. Lastly, in Novemver 2000 I spent a fortnight in Texas -and felt safer in downtown San Antonio than I would in many British cities! Not bad for where they have an average of five or six guns per household, where you can(after training)carry a concealed handgun! But there they still have the death penalty for murder(and they use it!); the moral absolutes of the Christian faith are still believed and taught not just in church but at many a school and over the airwaves! By contrast, Britain has been progressively de-Christianised and de-moralised. As Peter Hitchens put it so aptly back in 1996: “It’s perverted minds, not guns, that kill”.
Further to my last one, look at guncontrolnetwork.blogspot.com and see how she resorts to deliberate misrepresentaion and even downtigh abuse. She rants on about children licensed to carry guns in our streets. I wonder where she got that “fact” from, because if I understand the relevant laws correctly the license requires them to be under supervision. As for the two kids shown in her blast against children being licensed to have guns, the two guns shown are plainly military grade weapons – ane at least is an AK47 – and the scenes are definitely NOT here in Britain. But what follows is worse. She demands that every child(unde-21 in her book) with a gun license should be immediately jailed for 10 years, presumably regardless of whether or not they have been involved in any criminal act with the weapon they are licensed to have. Worst of all, it introduces a dangerous and tyrannical element against which our forbears fought long and hard. What THEY demanded – and got – was the principle of NON-RECOGNITION OF RETROSPECTIVE LAW. Oh, and one other thing: she doesn’t leave much space for immediate criticism of her ideas.
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