From: "SA Mail", [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Sportsman's Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 57, Garstang Road, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 1LB Tel: 01772 200801 Fax: 01772 200802 Information Hotline: 0891 141689 Website: www.sportsmans-association.org e:mail address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------- NEWS RELEASE SPORTSMAN'S ASSOCIATION MAKES SCATHING ATTACK ON GOVERNMENT DURING BBC RADIO BROADCAST The Chairman of the Sportsman's Association, Joe Kelly, made a scathing attack on successive British Governments and also on the police for their actions in the aftermath of the Dunblane tragedy. Speaking on BBC Piccadilly Talk Radio, Manchester, on Monday evening, 4th. September, Joe Kelly stated that successive Governments, and other bodies, were guilty of deliberately conning the public by claiming that the decision to ban the sport of target pistol shooting would make Britain safer. The widely broadcast comment by Alun Michael MP, Home Office Minister at the time, was that the Acts had 'Taken the guns off the streets of Britain'. Current events show that, in fact, illegal use of guns is now more prevalent than before. Joe Kelly went on to point out that some MP's were now admitting that their support for the legislative proposals that culminated in the two Firearms (Amendment) Acts, 1997 had been wrong and that the actions of the then Conservative Government (compounded by the successor Labour Government) had been simply a 'knee-jerk' reaction to the massacre. Joe also commented on the incredibly abysmal performance of the Central Scotland Police with regard to the application of the then existing firearms laws in the case of Thomas Hamilton. This failure on the part of the police had persisted over a twenty year period prior to the murders at Dunblane Primary School in March, 1996. People in the Dunblane area must have known that Hamilton was an unfit person to be entrusted with firearms. The Public Inquiry conducted by Lord Cullen provided ample evidence of that. Joe asked why no police personnel had been prosecuted for their long-term failure to carry out their duties properly, particularly the former Deputy Chief Constable, Douglas McMurdo. It will be remembered that Mr.McMurdo had resigned his position following the Public Inquiry into the massacre. Joe then went on to point out that, far from making Britain a safer place in which to live, the actions of the successive Governments in implementing their firearms legislation had actually had the opposite effect. Apart from any consideration of the increase in the illegal use of guns making our lives more dangerous, let us consider other ways in which the Government could have acted if its intention had been to make this country safer for people to live in. The Government has admitted to having spent some L98.4 million of our money in costs associated with the compensation payments to those who had been deprived of their property, their sport and, in many cases, their livelihoods - (The Government's original estimate of the compensation, published in 'Hansard', was about L24 million, which shows how badly they had underestimated the size of the sport that they were happy to destroy.) The shooting organisations believe that the actual overall cost to the Government - which means to us, the people of this country - of the confiscation of previously legally owned sporting firearms will be up to five times greater than the above figure. If similar amounts of money had been spent on projects that would have genuinely benefited our society, lives could actually have been saved - by spending the money on improvements to our hospitals, for example. Joe quoted the figure of 5,000 hospital patients who die each year as a result of infections picked up whilst they undergoing hospital treatment and also a similar number who were 'lying around in corridors' awaiting the availability of hospital beds etc. Many of these lives could, perhaps, have been saved if better facilities had been available. The Government chose to spend our money on a punitive expedition against innocent, legitimate, target pistol shooters instead of upon genuinely beneficial projects. The public should ask the question 'Why?' Richard Ormrod Membership Secretary The Sportsman's Association http://www.sportsmans-association.org Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
