Mikaveli wrote:
... wasn't it the NRA that put the nail in the coffin with regards to semi-auto rifles - something along the lines of seeing "no reason why a civilian would need to own one"?
...
Wouldn't it be better for all of us if all organisations (and the wider shooting community) would help promote the safe and responsible use of firearms, whatever discipline or niche?
NRA Handbook para 46: The NRA recognises and welcomes non-competitive shooting such as introductory opportunities for non-shooters, individual training, target practice by game shooters, firearm testing, ammunition development and equipment development.
NRA Strategy, from its website: Our Aims
To promote the sport of target shooting across the UK
In all of its forms
In a way that emphasises safety and proper governance
The NRA supports shooting in all its legal forms. However, its speciality is target shooting with all types of centrefire rifles. It actively promotes some other forms of target shooting. It generally leaves the promotion of other shooting activities to the relevant Association.
The NRA has to be very careful about political campaigning - there are laws against charities doing so, and while it may be the case that some large national charities get away with a great deal in that respect, we don't have much in the way of a fluffy bunny factor to give us instant appeal to the unthinking. It is also the case that political campaigning is expensive, and frequently we are a bit short of cash. Of course, if 50% (say) of the rifle owners in the UK were members, instead of about 5%, that problem would be solved more or less overnight. It would give the membership staff a major headache, but that's a problem that we would love to have to solve.
While it may be that the NRA said what you quote, that was 24 years ago. There is now literally nobody on either the trustee body or the professional staff who were involved in any actions that may have happened at that time. I have no knowledge of how the NRA dealt with the post-Hungerford issues. I know that post-Dunblane, we could not do anything - none of the newspapers or broadcasters would give us the time of day, and we could not even buy advertising space in the media. Except for the Daily Telegraph, where if I remember correctly BSSC spent most of their cash on one full-page advert, nobody would sell any shooting organisation space at any price.
The NRA does promote the safe and responsible use of firearms. That is a very big part of my job. We negotiate access to ranges, we provide ranges, we make grants to clubs to build ranges, we offer range safety advice at a fraction of its commercial value, we write and publish rules that can be used, should you choose so, to provide a framework for safe use of ranges. We don't do stuff about safe and responsible use of firearms for quarry shooting - we leave that to BASC, who do it very well. We don't get involved in clay shooting, except that we built an international standard clay layout as a necessary part of staging the Manchester Commonwealth Games. We don't get involved in smallbore target rifle shooting, except firstly in that it is a useful introductory tool fo other forms of target rifle shooting, and secondly in that we are happy to have the NSRA (and the CPSA) joining us at Bisley, making it the administrative heart of target shooting in the UK.
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