We made it clear many months ago that the legal advice was that a JD was not going to success or make any difference, regarding 10 year certificates, this is clearly referred to in the letter I posted above.
Now please all, remember that when those who oppose shooting make up 'facts' to support their weak argument , you rightly condemn them...but then some of you choose to do exactly the same things to target the very organisation that's working to try and help you, and indeed, many who do this are not members!
It would have been great me meet and greet some of you at the Game Fair so you could have had a chat with our CEO, or Exec Director of Comms who looks after our political programme, some of our political officers, or head of media to discuss this or other issues and express your concerns, which we could have answered...
I went into the BASC tent on Friday at the Game Fair and asked to speak with a Political Officer. There was one there apparently but he was busy. I accidently met the SE Region Representative and put some questions to the lady. I put the following to her and other BASC bods who gathered round:
1/ So much for POs - how are we going to measure whether they have done a good job. i.e. has the softly softly approach and being at the top table actually improved the lot for shooters? What politician is going to do anything for shooters when there are no votes in it. Even BoJo was lukewarm on the matter. They appeared wedded to the concept that the politicians need to be educated with the benefits of shooting to the countryside. I tended to disagree, so please explain how do we measure whether the PO have been worth our investment. What win can they point to so show that working with parliamentarians actually improves the lot of shooters?
2/ I stated that the only way to be taken seriously is to go to law and drag a chief constable into court to explain why he is making up his own firearms regulations such as no medical report no licence. i.e. do as the NGO did and win a judicial review. I said Andy Marsh had duped them for ACPO with e-commerce promises in return for licence fee increases. Promises of 10 year licences with continuous monitoring. What did we get, increased fees and paying twice us much because we have to pay medical fees or no ticket. They said that it was a big win that one police area was postponing no medical no licence introduction until after the consultation. I disagreed that getting one force to do nothing was an actual win. WJ had paid £36K to just start a JR and NE had capitulated and so would have to pay their costs, and they now have the £36K to spend on another JR over release of gamebirds into the wild. I said BASC credibility is rock bottom and will remain so until they spend some of their £8m reserves going to law.
3/ They argued that a the FOI survey was a big success as it showed that some forces were failing with delays. I disagreed that there was any benefit whatsoever as all that was achieved was to institutionalise an 8 week grace period whereby your licence could be expired by 8 weeks and you would not have to surrender your firearms. They thought that this was a big win. I disagreed as all it meant was that they did not have to issue S7 notices and they could be just as lazy and inefficient as ever. And by the way, there will always by 15 out of 43 poorest performers in any table of performance. There will be no improvement until they are all renewing before deadline day. I said I had improved on their stats to show how many forces would fail even to meet the 8 week grace period.
4/ I then took them to task for bottling it over Packham at the Game Fair. How can they complain that ITV banned them from confronting Packham on Breakfast TV after he has secured and exclusive interview, and how they were up in arms at the banning of Safari Hunters from the British Shooting Show, when they have bottled it and banned Packham from the GF. You can never win an argument by no platforming the opposition and not arguing your case and defeating theirs. The SE rep understood that the issue was that CP was bringing his own camera team and they would be in control of the edit which would never be fair. So I said Fieldsports Britain would have their own cameras and could be relied upon as journalists to be even handed as their recent interviews with Avery and other Antis had been. I said there were many like me on the forums expressing our anger at the ineptitude of BASC in giving him a propaganda win. BASC reps seemed more put out that Jacoby had gone out and done his own thing getting this debate off the ground. To stick one to Jacoby seemed to be a big win to them. They were dismissive of forums generally.
5/ With respect to the "Statutory Guidance" I asked them to explain if it was legally binding or guidance. It cannot be both. I mentioned that the amendment to the Firearms Act 1968 requiring Chiefs of Police to have due regard to HOG, was toothless as they are flouting HOG anyway. They imagined that the new "Statutory Guidance" was going to be the answer, and I reminded them that BASC and other shooters organisations had failed to get them written in as needing to be consulted by law when guidance was to be changed. Unlike the NPCC and the Scottish Police Service who are specifically mentioned as having to be consulted. If you recall that this BIG FAT FAIL was dismissed by David BASC as it did not matter anyway ways as BASC are at the top table. This was the occasion David then went walkabout having spat the dummy when we laughed at him. Meanwhile the Chiefs of Police have run rings around BASC since.
6/ I told them that the CP ban was the last straw for many and that Conor was asked to resign for the serial ineptitude of BASC. With no wins to speak of in years.
When I showed them my BASC membership card they said, "We presume you got in for free. Is that not a big win for you?". They gave me a BASC umbrella as it was raining heavily and said they would get the SE rep to meet with me with the SE Political Officer.
Some MP then showed up to make a speech and that brought an agreed end to discussions.
The SE Rep took my details and promised that I could meet up with her and a PO after the GF. Still awaiting details of that David BASC.
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