From the December, 2012 issue of American Hunter:
“Animal Aid, Great Britain’s largest animal rights extremist group, is demanding that hunting magazines be removed from their typical spots on store shelves-within the hobby and interest sections-and be repositioned to the top shelf, away from the prying eyes of children next to other “dirty” magazines. Claiming that images depicting hunters and-gasp!- children standing proudly over legally bagged game amounts to “shooting porn”, these extremists adamantly believe that “children who kill animals for sport in urban areas are considered dysfunctional and a social menace”. As the continuing trend in Great Britain is one of decline in hunter numbers and public support, it seems only a matter of time until these magazines, and the hunting lifestyle in its entirety, may find their way to the endangered species list in the United Kingdom.”
“Animal rights activists convinced a British newsagent to stop selling shooting and hunting magazines to minors under 14-years-old. WH Smith will continue to sell car magazines to minors who cannot drive, but will no longer sell gun magazines to kids who can shoot and hunt with parental supervision.THISISCORNWALL.CO.UK reports:”Country sports enthusiasts are furious at a decision by Britain’s biggest newsagent to ban children from buying shooting magazines after a campaign by animal rights activists.WH Smith says youngsters…”
Then there’s this article which puts the age higher, but I suspect that is an error:
Over in the United Kingdom, a major magazine vendor, buckling to bullying from fur huggers is now refusing to sell hunting and firearms-related publications to anyone under 18 years of age, is demanding identification from adults who buy them and is stacking such magazines with the pornography publications. More about that in a moment…..
Meanwhile, across the pond, the WH Smith company is taking heavy criticism from British hunting and sporting groups for adopting its policy on gun and hunting-related magazines because the nation’s largest anti-hunting group, Animal Aid, successfully demonized youth hunting. According to This is Cornwall, Animal Aid published a report titled Gunning For Children: How the gun lobby recruits young blood. That report insisted the gun and hunting magazines should be “put on the top shelf alongside pornography, and banned for sale to under-18s,” the news organ said.
A spokesman for WH Smith claimed there was no intent to act as a censor, but said the firm “seeks to do its best to satisfy all of its customers who often have strongly opposing views. We aim to display all of our magazines in locations where they are accessible to those who want to buy them, but do not offend those who do not.”
Whatever the excuse, it is irrational and silly.
and here:
However under the current law, there is no minimum age for applying for a shotgun certificate in the UK, although children under 18 are banned from owning or buying their own gun and under-14s must be supervised when using one.
The decision to grant a licence rests with a senior police officer.
Shooting enthusiasts have questioned why the high street chain does not restrict the sale of motoring magazines such as Top Gear to those old enough to drive, the Sunday Telegraph has reported.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217612/WH-Smith-bans-14s-buying-shooting-magazines-despite-age-restrictions-owning-guns.html#ixzz2LIEH3zL3
Over here, we have Biden telling us that all we need is a double barreled shotgun, that firing warning shots with that will scare any intruders away and keep us safe enough. I’m not sure warning shots are legal, and I am reasonably sure my girls would have trouble with the recoil.
More importantly, we don’t have to justify gun ownership based on need. We have the 2nd amendment. And, as is all too common, Biden doesn’t know what he’s talking about:
Some of the theoretical advantages of the double barrels vanish in the hunting field, as least as far as I’m concerned. Citoris and 686′s both have recoil actuated single triggers, so the ability to fire past a bad cartridge is gone, as are most defective cartridges. The theoretical “two choke advantage” is also muted because the firing order is usually pre-set and flushing birds don’t always flush the same way, and passing shots have infinite variables as well. Guns with double triggers, of course, sidestep both of these issues.
Additionally, we have a barrel regulation issue. Barrels in a double gun are set to converge their patterns at the same point of impact at a fixed yardage, at least they are supposed to. Proper regulation is a painstaking process, done by hand and tested by firing in a quality double. Unfortunately, it varies more then we would like to think in cheap doubles.
The single and double triggers in double guns allow faster follow up shots than any repeater with target and light field loads. However, the longer time it takes to acquire the second target due to the greater recoil makes a double gun with heavy loads slower for the second bird, for me, compared to a gas-powered semi-auto.
Many field double guns have three inch chambers in 12 and 20 gauge, some have 3-1/2 inch in 12 gauge, but you probably won’t enjoy using them any more than you would with a pump gun. If you insist on shooting heavy and magnum loads, a gas-operated autoloader is probably the way to go.
Our middle girls have astounding accuracy with a .22, but they would much rather shoot with handguns, and their accuracy levels are more than adequate there as well, and they don’t want to shoot a double barreled gun at all. Why should they? (Our son likes shooting just about any weapon, and the rest of us can’t handle the pull on his bow, which is also sized to fit his 6 foot wide wing span).
When we lived in the little house we had to have it roofed. My husband didn’t like the looks of the team of the roofers who came out- not just their looks, but also their conversation. He was in a wrist to should arm cast at the time, and hobbling from a skin graft to his leg as well, and our house is several miles from town. So he took the girls outside for some target shooting while the roofing team was within earshot. He wanted them to see- and hear- that the girls (Pip and Jenny were then about 14 and 15, and only 5’2″ and 5’3″) were comfortable and proficient with guns, so he might have been a wee bit louder than usual in his shouts of encouragement and amazement at their accuracy (WOW!! That’s ANOTHER bullseye!!! Oooh, Dead Center AGAIN!!!). A double barrel shotgun wouldn’t have been nearly as effective, nor could the youngest two have even held it, let alone aimed it, and he had them join in as well.
Our guns have been used to kill a wild dog that was attacking our chickens and snarling at our children, to kill a rooster that regularly raked its claws down my toddler’s back (gun control advocates usually laugh at this, but roosters have been known to blind a child), to put food on our table and others, to build confidence and deter potential home invaders, for target practice, but the bottom line is, we don’t have to justify legal gun ownership on the basis of Biden’s approved ‘need.’
No, we don’t have any automatic weapons, but we do have friends who do, and we have gone over there for some target shooting fun. I stay in the house, but I do watch the videos, and I get why this is fun for them.
Incidentally, the fastest growing demographic among gun owners here in America is women. There is a really good reason for that.
How well has gun control worked in Chicago? Basically, not at all.
Would proposed new gun controls have done a thing to keep guns out of the hands of recent shooters? No.
The people we never hear from in any of Obama’s missives speeches are the 15-year-old Houston boy who used an AR-15 to defend himself and his sister from home invaders. And the mom who used a pistol to defend herself and her children from home invaders. Or the 87-year-old who fought off criminals with his pistol. Or the young man who stopped a mall shooting in Oregon with his pistol, just by pulling it out and pointing it at the shooter.
7 Comments
In most states, warning sh0ts would constitute assault with a deadly weapon. In several states, they would also take self-defense off the table, since you have non-lethal options available if you have time to shoot. In some jurisdictions, they might even give the criminal a self-defense option against you, since you escalated and shot at him first.
The only warning action I’ve ever heard of working was to eject a single round from a pump-action round, to show that the gun was loaded, and that is dangerous. While you’re working the action, the perp could close and grab the shotgun. (Especially if you’re like me, and are rough on your shotgun skills.)
IMHO, the only warning any intruder should get is the verbal warning “Stop or I will shoot you”, and then the shot you put into his buddy. If you aren’t prepared to shoot an intruder, you should have the gun locked away securely.
So Biden gave really bad advice, advice to act illegally, in fact. And this is somebody who thinks he’s qualified to tell the rest of us what to do?
I wonder if they realize that all this gun control discussion has convinced me that I should get a handgun when I get my own apartment, whereas previously I was on the fence about it. (Of course, I’ll get training in how to use it and I’ll practice regularly. I don’t want a gun I don’t know how to use.) If I’m going to defend myself in a small apartment, a shotgun really isn’t practical.
I’d like to take up archery and broadsword as well, but more because I think it would be fun than because I think I could defend my self with a bow or a sword. Besides, if a would-be assailant has a gun, what good is my bow/sword/kitchen knife/fists anyway? Does no one watch Indiana Jones anymore?
I have come to understand through having this discussion with both you and some of my other friends in the US that this is a cultural issue. In the UK we see guns, by and large, as a tool for doing certain jobs and sometimes a necessary evil. We, mostly, want to cut down the use of guns wherever we can. For example, although we do have armed police response units, our policemen on the street are unarmed. Again, this is cultural. We have a police service which operates by consent (and covers the whole of the UK), whereas in the US you are policed by force, and there appear to be areas outside of police remit. In the UK we are VERY resistant to having our police armed. Again, we would rather poison or gas our pests than have them shot. I don’t think most Brits would be particularly bothered if hunting with guns did die out. On the whole, there was more upset about the Hunting with Hounds ban, and that went through anyway.
I think it’s not too big a stretch to say that we do view magazines on guns and magazines on porn in a similar context; but then we’re Europeans, so maybe porn isn’t as negative to us as it is to people in the US?
I’m sure that you don’t see the sense in the decision, but it is only one chain of newsagents, and there are plenty of equally stupid laws in the States, such as the banning of various French cheeses!
Again, it helps to understand how comparatively rare guns are in the UK. Even those used by criminals tend to be passed around. It’s rare that a criminal who uses a handgun actually owns that gun him/herself. It’s been at least seven years since I last saw a gun in the flesh (and that was in a different country), and many of my friends have never seen a real live gun that wasn’t under glass in a museum. By and large, we prefer to live without the threat of violence, and if we don’t feel safe we are more likely to lobby our local police force and politicians, than to think about arming ourselves. Like I say, it’s a different mindset.
I don’t think your girls would have any trouble with a shotgun. I shot a little 20 bore shotgun from the time I was about 9 (? I think) to the time I was 12, and I’m only 5’2” now! On the other hand, I find being around guns an enormous responsibility and quite stressful. And my experiences of the responsibilities of taking another animal’s life has led me to being a vegetarian. So, maybe you don’t want your girls repeating my experiences! ☺
The girls have used a shotgun. We own one or two of them, actually. A double barrel is a little different, and it isn’t remotely useful for our purposes. Biden’s advice was both foolish and illegal.
Handguns are also more effective for killing the livestock that we raise and eat, and are often used in the southwest for killing rattlesnakes. Our kids have eaten our home grown chickens, goats, pigs, and cows over the last 20 years or so, as well as the deer our son has brought home. No sign of vegetarianism.
I do understand there are cultural differences. that’s kind of what I’ve been trying to highlight. We have a second amendment and you don’t. It’s in the Bill of Rights, which is at least as significant to us as the Magna Charta is to you, if not more so. It cannot just be overturned by executive orders and inch at a time ‘gun control’ laws. It has to actually be amended through a very specific process, which the gun control lobby would prefer to ignore. If one amendment in the Bill of Rights can be so lightly breached, then there is no reason to suppose the other freedoms enumerated therein are any safer.
There are also logistical differences between England and the U.S.. There are differences between being a tiny island and a large continent with multiple points of entry.We have far more wilderness areas, and more wild animals, and more places where those areas are right next to family homes and farms. Gassing or poisoning a wild animal that is attacking my livestock and threatening my children is rather ineffective if I am interested in stopping an attack, and I suspect we have more wild animals to deal with than you do. Gassing and poisoning are also far more indiscriminate and inhumane as either causes much worse suffering than a quick bullet to the head. If I didn’t know how truly cruel poisoning is, the idea that we could actually use it to handle the wild dog problem in our area would kind of make me giggle, it’s so unrealistic and impractical- not to mention the endangered or protected species around here and all the harmless animals and pets such methods would harm.
Of course, being around guns is a huge responsibility. So is driving a car. So is being around fire. So is having pills and children in the house, or household cleaners and children in the house. I am not very fond of guns myself. I won’t shoot ours, and I won’t stay in the room while they are being cleaned. I get feeling nervewracked around them. but it’s an emotional and irrational response, and not a sound basis for banning them, especially in this country.
Correction: We own 3 shotguns. The HM and Boy use them for hunting and target shooting.
Funny thing about hunting magazines in the UK… I’ve lived in England for 3 years, and went into many book stores, gas stations, etc, and never saw porn tucked away out of sight. It’s right out front in the open!
Anyway…