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Operation Solitaire - terrorism in rifle clubs?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 11:41 am
by Gaz
While having a flick through the ACPO firearms licensing group's minutes (the version edited for publication, not the full minutes), I found a strange little thing buried in a meeting from last year. I can't remember if I've posted about this before.

http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/cri ... G-Mins.pdf

Bottom of page 5/top of 6:
7.
ACPO TAM AND MEMBERSHIP CHECKS


7.1 Jim Jones said the Practitioners have requested that any input particularly around Op Solitaire, is given by the CTU as opposed to Firearm Enquiry Officers (FEOs). FEOs don’t give the input credibility.

7.2 Pete Boakes referred to Op Solitaire which is being commissioned by the Home Office to target radicalised behaviour via shooting clubs and to identify best practice. ACPO TAM are looking for endorsement, this has been achieved. CTSOs should deliver the programme. FEOs should accompany the CTSO officer to deliver the programme at the shooting clubs. It is down to each force to decide but this group’s expressed view is it should be a mixture of both.

7.3 BASC do not agree and want to see the input done by CTU officers.

7.4 CC Marsh said both should present.

7.5 All agreed CTSAs to present, accompanied by a Firearms Licensing member
CTU is, I believe, "Counter Terrorism Unit". I dont know what ACPO TAM is, beyond the obvious ACPO part.

The only Google reference I can find is to a thread on ARRSE: http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/thread ... re.208109/

The thread author says "this is the crappiest attempt by the plod at getting us to grass each other up as lone wolf killers.
I wasted an entire evening listening to ********* from plod and the security services try and lecture us on how important our input was in defeating terrorism and then had the nerve to use Hungerford and Dunblane as examples of what we the shooting community failed to do."

Has anyone else experienced the police rocking up at clubs to tell us we're all terrorists unless proven otherwise?

Re: Operation Solitaire - terrorism in rifle clubs?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 12:14 pm
by the running man
If anyone was deemed as dodgy as hell by the membership of any shooting club I'm sure they would deal with it anyhow.....

as a side note it is a little weird that most shooters are white folk, no ethnic miminorities that i have ever encounterd i am sure there are non whites who shoot but i dont know any at all ,we have a lovely greek guy in our club hes lost his accent hes been here most his life, but thats it....do the police think guys in shemags are lining up to join us? Cas they would look out of place a bit Iif they did.....

i took along an Asian freind of mine once to a guest day, he told me after he loved it but wouldent want to join being the only non white there, a comment i found quite sad as he had natural aptitude for shooting.....

Re: Operation Solitaire - terrorism in rifle clubs?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 12:19 pm
by kennyc
the running man wrote:If anyone was deemed as dodgy as hell by the membership of any shooting club I'm sure they would deal with it anyhow.....

as a side note it is a little weird that most shooters are white folk, no ethnic miminorities that i have ever encounterd i am sure there are non whites who shoot but i dont know any at all ,we have a lovely greek guy in our club hes lost his accent hes been here most his life, but thats it....do the police think guys in shemags are lining up to join us? Cas they would look out of place a bit Iif they did.....

i took along an Asian freind of mine once to a guest day, he told me after he loved it but wouldent want to join being the only non white there, a comment i found quite sad as he had natural aptitude for shooting.....
you really need to meet Gaz tongueout

Re: Operation Solitaire - terrorism in rifle clubs?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 12:21 pm
by kennyc
Gaz wrote:While having a flick through the ACPO firearms licensing group's minutes (the version edited for publication, not the full minutes), I found a strange little thing buried in a meeting from last year. I can't remember if I've posted about this before.

http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/cri ... G-Mins.pdf

Bottom of page 5/top of 6:
7.
ACPO TAM AND MEMBERSHIP CHECKS


7.1 Jim Jones said the Practitioners have requested that any input particularly around Op Solitaire, is given by the CTU as opposed to Firearm Enquiry Officers (FEOs). FEOs don’t give the input credibility.

7.2 Pete Boakes referred to Op Solitaire which is being commissioned by the Home Office to target radicalised behaviour via shooting clubs and to identify best practice. ACPO TAM are looking for endorsement, this has been achieved. CTSOs should deliver the programme. FEOs should accompany the CTSO officer to deliver the programme at the shooting clubs. It is down to each force to decide but this group’s expressed view is it should be a mixture of both.

7.3 BASC do not agree and want to see the input done by CTU officers.

7.4 CC Marsh said both should present.

7.5 All agreed CTSAs to present, accompanied by a Firearms Licensing member
CTU is, I believe, "Counter Terrorism Unit". I dont know what ACPO TAM is, beyond the obvious ACPO part.

The only Google reference I can find is to a thread on ARRSE: http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/thread ... re.208109/

The thread author says "this is the crappiest attempt by the plod at getting us to grass each other up as lone wolf killers.
I wasted an entire evening listening to ********* from plod and the security services try and lecture us on how important our input was in defeating terrorism and then had the nerve to use Hungerford and Dunblane as examples of what we the shooting community failed to do."

Has anyone else experienced the police rocking up at clubs to tell us we're all terrorists unless proven otherwise?
I trust they were put right about the failures around those two incidents, IIRC it was the shooters who raised concerns in both cases ?

Re: Operation Solitaire - terrorism in rifle clubs?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 12:39 pm
by Fedaykin
+1 on that! I hope you corrected them in respect of Dunblane and Hugerford! If club members had been listened to (and some serving police officers) both cases were entirely avoidable!

On a side note there are a couple of Asian guys in our club, it is an area that I think the sport needs to improve on as it is a bit of a "White Sausage-fest" at the moment.

Re: Operation Solitaire - terrorism in rifle clubs?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 1:21 pm
by froggy
Asian freind of mine ... told me after he loved it but wouldent want to join being the only non white there,

I am confident that attitude could be perceived as a tad of a "racist" ?
Shouldn't the newcomer be the one to make the effort to intagrate ?
BTW I am the only Frog in my club among a fair bit of Poles...

area that I think the sport needs to improve on
True and you could even add "middle aged +" ....
The more the merrier but there are already so many areas the sport needs to focus & improve on. Fundamently I agree with you. A nice gay afro-caribean-ex gang member olympic gold metalist would go a long way to make our sport a darling with the Lib-Con-Lab clique and steel ring fence us ... From the numbers of shooters from ethnic extraction where I live, South-East London, I would even say they are "naturals" but then again I dont think they are club members & I am not too sure about their FAC status O:-)

Re: Operation Solitaire - terrorism in rifle clubs?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 1:25 pm
by dave_303
I know for a fact that on certain cases Special Branch have been called in to deal with 'suspect members of the shooting community'

Re: Operation Solitaire - terrorism in rifle clubs?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 1:35 pm
by froggy
I know for a fact ...Special Branch have been called in to deal with 'suspect members of the shooting community'

I told you that "Pirates of the Caribean look" of yours was well dodgy ...
;)

Re: Operation Solitaire - terrorism in rifle clubs?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 1:35 pm
by Demonic69
dave_303 wrote:I know for a fact that on certain cases Special Branch have been called in to deal with 'suspect members of the shooting community'
Is that when you grassed them up you Shlaaaag? ;) :run:

Re: Operation Solitaire - terrorism in rifle clubs?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 2:35 pm
by dave_303
Froggy and Demonic signfunnypost


I wont go into detail on a public forum, but a shooter I know got caught bending/breaking the rules to quite an extent (depending on who you speak to)

Suffice to say things were escalated WAY beyond what was needed by the other parties involved as they wanted the attention it gave them. As a result I was called up by the ordinary firearms team and asked to comment, I told the truth of what I knew, no more, no less, it certainly wasn't damning or negative on the individual involved, apart from this discrepancy he was a good guy and a safe shooter. However, one of our lecturer's was dragged into this and was called by Special Branch who wanted details of the said individual and anyone else who was of worry, specifically shooters. Lecturer responded by stating he taught military history, where many of the students obsess over military tech, should he be worries by all 90 of us?