It’s been an exciting 6 months. When I first started the airgun petition I never imagined it becoming as popular as it did, this is down to a lot of hard work and support from many shooting organisations,magazines and the shooters that do bother to take action.
The shooting community has always been it’s own worst enemy when it comes to taking action to defend itself. Whilst 14,000 is a great number to achieve it is a miniscule amount of what it should be when one looks at the millions(yes millions) of people in the UK with an interest in firearms. Division is rife and many people do not bother if it does not affect their own particular section of the sport and in some cases even if it does! This apathy will destroy our rights.
The Scottish petition has been sent in with 14,193 petitions however when I attend the meeting with the Public Petitions Committee it would put us in an excellent position if the number of signatures has grown even more since then. If nothing else it will send a strong message to the Scottish Government and perhaps even the UK Government that shooters are not going to take it any more and we will fight back.
Having been featured in a recent article in the Sunday Express and with an upcoming feature in the Shooting Times our petition may get a second wind and achieve the even greater numbers we sorely need. With such publicity and popularity it puts us in a very good position to continue educating the public on the positives of gun ownership and shooting sports.
If we want to move on to greater things and win our rights back we must continue to support each other and keep up good communications. We must end the divide between us all. The anti gunners do not care what your reasons for owning a firearm are, they do not care about facts or logic they want rid of them all and we are helping them by failing to unite or remaining in a state of listlessness.
As we continue to move forward and the Firearms UK following grows we will need everyone to stand with us and let their voices be heard. We need everyone to do their bit in helping our campaigns. Please continue to share our petitions and pages with family and friends. I realise that I may be preaching to the converted when people are reading this but we must continue to gather our friends on board and get those people on the fence or sitting with their heads down standing tall and on our side.
We are law abiding citizens and it is time to say we will not accept punishment or criminalization for the minority of people who do abuse airguns and firearms.
