Hansards: 2012 Olympics

[richard]

Well spotted Smokeless Coal, here's the article in question before it gets archived...

Shooting: Young guns take aim at the Government

New generation of world-level competitors fear Home Office are spiking their Olympic dreams

By Alan Hubbard
Published: 13 August 2006

Shooters have always been there to be shot at. Not just by an overreacting Government whose gun laws have made them pariahs with pistols, but also by those who deem the sport politically incorrect and its practitioners the most trigger-happy band of outlaws since Jesse James and Billy the Kid were on the rampage.

The 1996 massacre at Dunblane, when 16 children and a teacher were shot dead by a deranged gun collector, led to a ban on handguns which has left Britain struggling to stay on target with the rest of the world. There is now a groundswell of support, both in the sport and Parliament, which indicates it may be time this was lifted.

Measured in international medals, shooting has been one of the most successful British sports. Whether it will remain so remains in the balance, which is why the British Olympic Association, seriously concerned with the impact this may have on the London Games of 2012, have taken up the issue with the Government. Their chief executive, Simon Clegg, has written to the new Home Secretary, John Reid, presenting a logical argument for the 10-year-old ban to be rescinded. But a reply from civil servants firmly indicates there is no imminent prospect of allowing British shooters to practise in this country with their own .22 calibre handguns. So, pistols at dawn?

The crackling sound of gunfire as you arrive at the National Shooting Centre in Bisley, Surrey, suggests you might be in a war zone. Quite so. The battle is between the shooters and Whitehall. The other thing which strikes you is the large number of young guns, particularly young women.

One of them is Julia Lydall, 20, winner of a junior international competition there last week. But she can only use an air pistol, not the competition handgun with which she reached the last Commonwealth Games. She has never been allowed to use it in this country. Yet this is no Calamity Jane, but a level-headed University student from Nutley, Sussex, who is both photogenic and proficient enough to be a role model in any sport. A former modern pentathlete, she explains: "This ban affects me hugely because I am forbidden to train here with a competition gun. I have a small five-shot air pistol, but it is nothing like shooting with the real thing. There is no recoil and the trigger pressure is different. Everyone I shoot against trains every day. I can only do so for three days a month if I'm lucky, and I have to go to Switzerland to do it."

When the ban came in with the 1997 Firearms Amendment Act many competitors simply gave up, but according to John Leighton-Dyson, the performance director for the British Target Shooting Federation, the numbers are now increasing again, particularly among girls.

But he says: "The fact is this ban completely compromises our Olympic preparations. Able young shooters like Julia are being blocked from showing the rest of the world how good they are. The ban was a knee-jerk reaction and is illogical, because there is not a scrap of evidence that the sort of .22 calibre sports pistols used in target shooting have ever been used in any criminal activity."

Meanwhile, other branches of shooting continue to find the target. Among the clutch of 2012 prospects at Bisley last week were Exeter student Richard Phillips, 19, and 17-year-old Croydon schoolboy Ken Parr, son of a former top British shooter. They, with another youngster, Matthew Thompson, were members of the gold medal-winning team in the junior section of this month's World Rifle Shooting Championships in Zagreb.

There was also a 13-year-old, Kristian Callaghan, and Matthew Hoff, who began shooting with the Scouts, where there is now a proficiency badge for marksmanship. Bit of a change from when we were dibbing and dobbing for our woodcraft badge.

It is for the sake of young shooters that there is now renewed pressure from the federation, the BOA and a growing number of MPs - 117 from all parties supported the former sports minister Kate Hoey's motion to rescind the pistol ban. The current sports minister, Richard Caborn, has also indicated he is supportive, and is himself awaiting a response from Reid. Says Leighton-Dyson: "We were making good progress until the changes at the Home Office. Now the fact that the new minister himself says the department is in crisis suggests this is not going to be a priority."

But Hoey is hopeful. "I am sure that John Reid has other things on his mind, but when he has time to look at this he will surely appreciate that this is an anomaly and see the common sense in the proposals. The ban on lawful pistol shooting is damaging the chances for British medals."

Time, it seems, for the Government to stop shooting themselves, and a massive if misunderstood sport, in the foot.


Source
By Alan Hubbard
sport.independent.co.uk

[Smokeless Coal]

Lord Davies of Oldham (Deputy Chief Whip (House of Lords), HM Household) Hansard source

The Home Office does not propose to repeal the ban on the private possession of handguns. Special arrangements will be put in place to allow pistol shooting events at the 2012 Olympics as happened at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. These arrangements will include a warm up event if this is deemed necessary

In other words no practice, no qualifying rounds, sportsmen from the host country are in effect banned. Hardly in the spirit of the Olympics is it.

[Smokeless Coal]

The BBC recently allowed viewers the chance to pose questions to our Olympic organisers. One question was asked of Seb Coe regarding pistol shooting in th UK

As a former president of the National Pistol Association, Seb Coe was well aware before the 2012 bid that Britain was in breach of the Olympic Charter because members of our Olympic Target shooting team are prohibited from owning or training with target pistols in this country. What steps is he taking to reverse the ban and encourage target pistol shooting in clubs across the UK?Neil MacPherson, UK
Seb Coe: Special arrangements and conditions will be put in place for these disciplines. They would be issued with the authority of the Secretary of State to possess prohibited weapons for the duration of the Games.

The pistols will enter the country through a named port (probably Heathrow) and held there in secure storage. They would then be taken by section 5 authorised carrier to the venue and placed in a secure armoury.

They would be allowed out of the armoury for the necessary practice and for the competition itself. After the Games, they would leave the country in the same way they entered it.

Of the three shooting disciplines in the Olympic Games Programme, (Rifle, Pistol, Shotgun) there are five pistol events, of which three are affected by the 1997 legislation:
- 25m pistol (30+30 shots) women
- 25m rapid fire pistol (60 shots) men
- 50m pistol (60 shots) men

Nothing about UK citzens being prevented from practicing this sport in the spirit of the Olympic games. Or how new blood is to enter the sport. Mr Coe has quoted the sports minister virtualy parrot fashion showing he is just a puppet of government without a feeling for the sportsmen themselves.

[richard]

Originally Posted by Smokeless Coal

Mr Coe has quoted the sports minister virtualy parrot fashion showing he is just a puppet of government without a feeling for the sportsmen themselves.

I think you're being rather harsh over your comments made about Sebastian Coe being a puppet of the government, I can't think of anyone else that I would rather have running the 2012 London Olympics show.

Seb is passionate over sport, and is a very successful sportsman in his own right. You can see this drive in him - wherever he goes he is plugging the 2012 Olympics, and you don't see many other people doing that at this moment in time!

Ultimately, it is the powers to be in government that dictate the rules of the game, and he has to play by these rules.

I think there is a great deal of work going on in the background to resolve the current rules but whilst security is at such a high level in the UK and around the world I would think that the Olympic hands will be tied for the time being.

You can just image what the newspapers would make of it if the firearms rules were relaxed at this moment in time.

[Smokeless Coal]

Most recent proposal is a part time permit.

http://www.shootingtimes.co.uk/news/... e_95208.html

Very discriminatory and not in the Olympic spirit. The only ones to be allowed to practice are the few chosen by the Home Secretary (it's he who will issue these part time permits).

And after the Olympics the concession is ended, there will be no legacy for the sport. The planned facility is to be bulldozed.

[richard]

Here's the article in question before it becomes archived

Part-time pistol permits

The Home Office is considering relaxing the laws governing pistol shooting in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics. At present, due to laws governing pistols passed following the Dunblane tragedy in 1997, the Great Britain squad of pistol shooters is obliged to train in Zurich, Switzerland, where its guns are kept in an armoury.

Now, however, the Home Office is considering issuing 50 of the squad's elite with Section Five permits, allowing them to store their guns and train at UK ranges from 2010 until the end of the Games. A Home Office spokeswoman told ST: “We are currently in discussion with colleagues in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport about arrangements to allow competitive pistol shooting squads to practise in the UK. Pistol shooting events in the 2012 London Olympics would be able to go ahead without changing legislation. We would be able use the Home Secretary's powers under Section Five of the 1968 Firearms Act to authorise competitors to possess competition pistols for the duration of the Games and warm-up events.”

Ian Ballard is obliged to journey abroad to shoot pistols he has in storage. He operates the website www.resurrectthesport.net which is campaigning for a relaxation in the law to allow registered firearms licence holders to shoot in the UK. Speaking to ST, he said: “I have my pistols in Belgium and the US, and I try to travel to Belgium every 12 weeks to shoot. I am nowhere near good enough to be in contention for the Great Britain squad, but I really enjoy shooting, we ask that shooters be put through the same procedures for the grant of a .22 or .32 licence as they would for any other firearm. We ask that everyone be treated fairly.”

For more information on pistol shooting, visit www.sportsmansassociation.org. uk


Source
shootingtimes.co.uk

[Smokeless Coal]

The annoying thing is those 50 permits will be issued by the Home Secretary. So our Olympic pistol team will be picked by a government official.

The IOC remain silent, Seb Coe who is supposed to be working to make this a good Olympics sits by and lets this atrocity happen. It is not in the Olympic spirt.

UK.gov are not only trying to destroy our sport but pi$$ing on the Olympic fire.

For sportsmen the world over to stand silent and let this happen shows they have no regard for the Olympic oath.

[richard]

From what I have been reading in the newspapers the Labour party have been injecting far more cash into sport facilities than the previous government, so I hardly think they are ignoring the 2012 Olympic event.

And I very much doubt that Seb Coe is sitting back quietly over all of this, but you must remember that he is answerable to his political masters. I'm sure he and the rest of his team will be working on a solution.

I'm not particularly keen for our Olympic pistol team to be selected by a politician rather than a professional trainer who will have a better idea as to who the better UK competitors are.

Unfortunately, with the current worries over UK security and terrorism scares, I cannot see how any political party would have the nerve to relax the rules over this pistol when the majority of the UK population are totally unaware of what a small risk it is to national security.

Smokeless Coal, you have the ability, via this forum to educate us all, and the politicans, over any potential risks of this pistol and the relaxing of the current gun laws - Realise that in order to make the changes necessary, we all need to know what the risks are before the changes can be approved...

[Smokeless Coal]

Thats simple, there are no risks, there never was a risk from the pistols legaly held. The ban was brought in after the actions of one raving lunatic, one person, how can it be just to ban the sport of thousands based on the actions of one person. Sport shooting is one of the safest sports going, evident in the low cost of insurance to individuals and clubs.
The controls and restrictions were tight before the ban. They are tighter now, the self policing in clubs has become very strict, we dont want to be in that finger pointing situation ever again. Any suspicion of bad practice results in members getting kicked out and their actions reported to the firearms officer. Firearms officers have a more responsible attitude, they liase closely with the clubs and know all the certificate holders on their patch often on first name terms. It's their ar$es on the line if they make an error of judgement.
The security requirements for certificate holders demands that certain parts are removed and stored seperately so in the extremely rare event of theft the thief only gets a useless part of a firearm.
The pistols we need removed from the ban in order to practice the Olympic disciplines are single shot .22 caliber with a minimum length of 11.5". The EU has a clasification D for this type of pistol. I cannot say these pistols are not dangerous, all firearms are. These are very expensive target pistols, a precision piece of sporting equipment. The sights are specialized for hitting a stationary target and pretty useless at anything moving. They are obviously different from anything one associates with criminal use of pistols, and the slow reloading makes them paticularly unattractive for such use.

[m.hoff]

hello im matthew hoff as mentioned above like loads of posts ago. i am glad you guys see in the same light as us shooters. however when smokeless coal said 'The pistols we need removed from the ban in order to practice the Olympic disciplines are single shot .22 caliber with a minimum length of 11.5". ' im afraid you are wrong as we mainly need the rap[id fir .32 calibre and .22 as the nsra longarms that are availible to people in this country are legal in the issf rules. officially these guns are classed as rifles because of the sheer size of them and its a disadvantage to us having to use these because of the weight of these compared to free pistols. but the main thing that needs unbanning as you rightly suggested is the .22 pistols because as you said the great britain teams fly out to switzerland to shoot.
The government were doing something about this but at present they are just completely ignorant to it because it isnt important and as said in an earlier post shooting is a politically incorrect sport.
We just have to hope that someone in the government looks past the nature of guns and focuses on the actual sport and gives all olympic hopefuls a fair chance.

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