CONSPIRACY AGAINST SHOOTING

Michael Yardley on

the BBC's lamentable coverage of a persecuted sport

THOSE who shoot for sport — several million nationwide — are a significant, but increasingly persecuted, minority in Britain. We fall victim to ludicrous laws. Pigeon shooters have been assaulted by airborne police squads. Children are arrested for playing with toy guns in public. Eco-fascists would rob us of the lead shot in our guns as well as our quarry.

Now the BBC, mirroring the prejudices of the bossy PC government it helped to create, refuses to give due coverage to the extraordinary successes of English shooting athletes. Did you know we won 18 medals in the recent Commonwealth Games? Of course you didn't at least if you followed the games on BBC. Blind bowls was given more coverage than shooting by our national broadcaster.

You can watch firearms being misused in soap operas and on television news, but you will rarely see an image of a happy, healthy sportsman bagging a pheasant, powdering a clay or punching a hole in a paper target.

Shooting men and women, denied any positive role, have long since been telemorphed into 'gun owners': beer-bellied pews in camouflage or heartless toffs blasting fluffy bunnies and Bambi's mum. The public never hear of shooting's contribution to the environment, the role it plays in protecting many endangered species, or how many normal people from all sorts of backgrounds get a great deal of pleasure from the sport. The fact that the right to keep and bear arms is part of our Bill of Rights (1688 and all that) would, no doubt. amaze all those who thought it was a nasty American idea.

The lowest of low ebbs came after Dunblane. Pilloried in the press and on television, shooters had no proper chance to explain why they were guiltless. Acting as a spokesman for the sport, I can remember being given a 16-second prerecorded slot on the Nine O'Clock News to 'balance' more than two minutes' live hysteria from the opposition. In an interview with Sue MacGregor at about the same time, I was hardly allowed to speak at all. My role in that broadcast and dozens of others was clearly to play Aunt Sally. (I got the fairest hearings from Jeremy Paxman and Anthea Turner.) Reason was suspended as a media-savvy, anti-gun lobby with secret funding and a tiny controlling clique whipped up a mob to bray for a ban on sporting handguns. No matter that it was based on misinformation, targeted the innocent and would not have the slightest effect on armed crime.

Public and political attention was, meanwhile, distracted from the real problem of drugs and illegal firearms in our inner cities (a problem which has since become more visible). The heat was also taken off Central Scotland police. To this day, that force has failed to explain why Thomas Hamilton's firearms certificate was renewed when he had owned an unlicensed handgun in the past, and the officer processing his licence application, Sergeant Hughes, had advised that Hamilton was an unsuitable person to hold a certificate.

The proposal for a ban on handguns became a wheel on the Blair election bandwagon. Tearful, trust-me Tony even invited an anti-gun campaigner to beat her shamanic drum at the pre-election party conference. It was all in accord with New Labour's bogus blueprint for a risk-free society. The handgun ban became law and hundreds of millions of pounds were wasted on funding it.

The ban continues to have absurd consequences. English and Welsh competitors at the Commonwealth Games were forced to train in Switzerland and imported their guns under special licence to their own nation for the duration of the Games. In spite of this nonsense, England still won 18 shooting medals (more than 10 per cent of the total). Mick Gault managed no fewer than three golds to add to the five he had won earlier.

The BBC policy was to barely mention the sport (the third biggest at the Games) in their national coverage. They have tried to excuse this appalling record by saying that Bisley was on 'the periphery' of the Games and that there were 'logistical problems'. Such tosh bears no scrutiny. There were 70 BBC accredited people at Bisley. Some of them were so frustrated that their material was not being used that they openly criticised the policy-makers in Manchester. Logistics had nothing to do with it, of course: viewers in Australia and India managed to see their shooting athletes winning gold. We did not, because some priest of political correctness had decided it was bad for us.

A significant number of shooting people phoned, wrote or emailed the BBC to complain. I took up the cudgels once again, and made broadcasts on Radio Four and Five (but the BBC refused to put up a spokesman). The BBC press office later came out with some flannel about 'minority sports' and the extraordinary and potentially disingenuous statement: 'We have not received any complaints from any of the shooting competitors or viewers.' They had the sheer gall to put this out after they had both broadcast complaints and sent out letters and emails acknowledging them.

For example, Mr J. Booker complained on 2 August, receiving a written reply (BBC ref. 6912984) three days later. Shazia Ali-McCarthy, on behalf of the BBC information department, noted, 'Please be assured that your comments have been registered and have been added to a daily log that is circulated to senior editorial staff, the board of management and the board of governors.' Tony De Launay, shooting correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, phoned in his comments on 31 July and was told that others had complained the same day and the day before. Henry Graham sent emails complaining about lack of coverage on every day of the shooting events. There were many others.

Key questions remain unanswered. Why was there so little coverage? Was any political influence brought to bear on editors? Why was a false statement issued concerning complaints?

Shooting by law-abiding individuals remains an icon of liberty and thus a target for destruction by the apparatchiks of the nanny state. Shooters understand what political correctness is about: the empowerment of the central state by means of the disempowerment of the individual. Accept the idea that the individual is not to be trusted, that there is a need for wardens of thought in a world without sharp edges or real risk, and the battle for freedom is lost. You might, meanwhile, like to take up shooting just because it is fun.

Michael Yardley is a competitive shot and a sporting journalist.