BBC News story on Bisley Week

Sparks

From the BBC Website:

Britain's holiday camp with guns
By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine



Shooting has long had a difficult image in Britain. But that doesn't deter the hundreds of men, women and children who, every year, plan to spend their summer holidays on a huge rifle range, complete with chalets and caravans.

To set foot in Bisley, home to the National Shooting Centre, is to travel back in time. It resembles a holiday camp, with myriad caravans and tents, children playing, adults sitting in circles on canvas chairs. It could almost be Butlins, but for the constant crackle of gunfire in the background.

The nearby Surrey towns are sleepy commuterville. But here, between the neat brick gateposts, there is an altogether different world, where dead-eyed marksmen do battle. July marks a red-letter event in British rifle target shooting - the Queen's Medal - which draws 1,300 competitors from across the Commonwealth, who get to try their hand across a selection of rifle ranges.

Forget quaffing alcopops in Faliraki or braving the traffic to go to the West Country, there are hundreds of shooting enthusiasts who would rather spend a week's holiday doing what they love, and bring their families along with them.

Children's picnics

Bisley's managing director Jeremy Staples says children are happy to spend their time gambolling in the sunshine at the site, seemingly unperturbed by the nearby sound of gunfire.

"Children can't shoot, but they wander round, they ride bikes. Every Thursday, there is a group of about 50 people from grandchildren to old people who have a massive picnic."



The chalets and lodges dotted around the place have a look of the Empire. They resemble the kind of buildings where you might imagine splendid chaps gathering on the verandah for a sundowner in the beating heat of Rhodesia, rather than in the dappled sunshine of the home counties.

There are old red telephone boxes and old-fashioned gun shops preserved as if in aspic. Shooting has been going on here since the 19th Century, and many of the buildings were moved from the last Mecca of British shooting, at Wimbledon Common, in the 1890s. Everything harks back to a different era.

Peter Noss is typical of the "holidaymakers" at Bisley. He has travelled from Cologne to indulge his passion. Nicholas Batai, a member of the Kenyan Navy, has come further: from his home in the Rift Valley, for the fourth year, to enjoy the "atmosphere of friendship".

Furrowed brows

One thing that has not been frozen in time is the rifles themselves. They relate to an ordinary rifle in the same way a competition bow would to one of Robin Hood's armoury. They are strange looking contraptions of metal, wood and synthetic materials.

The mind boggles at the thought of hitting a bullseye on a target that is 900 yards, more than half a mile, away. But there's no room for doubt in the minds of competitors, who even seem immune to the heatwave, wearing tight-fitting shooting jackets, resembling the top half of motorcycle leathers. The jackets help hold them steady and allow them to distribute their weight properly. They lie prone, brows furrowed with concentration. A slight changeable breeze can be their undoing.



Colin Cheshire is a former captain of the Great Britain shooting team, and a secretary of the NRA. He has been coming to Bisley for 49 years, continuing even since his retirement and relocation to Cyprus.

Private schools have a big input into shooting, but Mr Cheshire emphasises the classlessness of Bisley. "You can have everyone from a peer of the realm to a local butcher," he says.

Shooters are also desperate to dispel the idea this is an inherently male pursuit, and there are plenty of female competitors walking around the site, although anyone passing the stall advertising "Big Boys Toys" might think otherwise.

Compared with other sports, shooting has a complex image, seen through strange prisms. The tightening of gun control laws after the Dunblane massacre carried out by Thomas Hamilton, a gun club member, has affected perception of the sport. And the British perception of America's gun culture also inevitably bleeds over.

But Mr Cheshire insists the image of shooting "is generally [dictated] by what the media chooses to perceive. If only the media were prepared to come here more often. You don't have accidents, you don't kill people, you shoot at targets."



Yet this is a sport that involves real guns and real ammunition. The 7.62mm rounds used in competition look similar to the untrained eye to those used in combat rifles like the AK-47. For those people who do not care to find out more about the sport, the shooting aficionados on their unusual holiday in Surrey could be dismissed as "gun nuts". And Bisley is after all the base of the National Rifle Association. Its US counterpart conjures up images of Charlton Heston inviting the authorities to take his rifle out of his cold, dead hand.

Bisley's faithful seem a lot less ardent. Remove the futuristic rifles and the participants appear utterly ordinary. These shooters could be viewed as part of a Great British tradition: that of the enthusiast. Whether it is collecting Elvis memorabilia, deep sea angling, trainspotting, or going to VW Beetle rallies, Britain is a nation that wears its hobbies on its sleeves.

Most of the shooters claim not be affected by what any outsider thinks of them, but there is an underlying resentment that they might be regarded differently to other sports. One shooter notes: "You wouldn't persecute darts players."



For all the noise, this is a sport about stillness, and concentration, and discipline, and not getting demoralised when bullets whizz into the giant sand bank behind the targets. The officials stress safety is paramount. Bullets are handed out by a soldier. One shop advertises the faintly worrying promise of "free eye tests". Ear protection is mandatory.

But it was not always like this. Long-term shooters deafened by gunfire used to be a common sight. Phil Rowell has come from Powys for the week and at 83, is believed to be the oldest person taking part. His hearing is fine, but he remembers that decades ago "only cissies wore ear protectors".

And in a fortnight's time, Bisley will be deafened by the roar of a different kind as 2,000 Harley Davidson owners arrive for a festival. Kindred spirits to the shooters, another group of enthusiasts, enjoying an unusual sort of holiday.

Lots of comments posted on that page so far, most lamenting the rather negative tone in the article.

civdef

Funnily enough, I wouldn't consider it too negative at all. By the standards of run of the mill British press comment on firearms issues, it's positively glowing, and you can't expect the writers to gloss over any potential negative public perception. (A lot of us don't realise just how lucky we are here with our public perception compared to Britain).

cushtac

From the BBC News site:

Shooting down stereotypes

Last week the Magazine published an article on people who holiday at Bisley, home to the National Shooting Centre. It prompted a flood of responses on how the media represents shooters. It is often sensationalist, says Ronald J Scaglione, in our Readers' Column.

I am a Scottish shooter and was in my fourth year of High School when the Dunblane massacre took place. I joined my school's own shooting team earlier that year and have been shooting ever since.

I can remember the day clearly when we heard of the awful, sickening news. I was in my Standard Grade Art class when the school caretaker walked in to inform our art teacher. The mood of the class was decidedly different that day.

Despite the news I don't think I ever considered giving up shooting. My decision to continue wasn't based on politics, bloody mindedness or as a gesture against public feelings, but based on standing up for myself.

I was never an automatic choice for a more aerobically-challenging sport at school but I found I could shoot and with practice; could shoot well. Shooting offered me a chance to be good at a sport for once. I first shot for Scotland, albeit at a junior level, later that year.

To this day I continue to shoot and have had the honour of representing Scotland at a senior level. I enjoy the accuracy, the challenge, the people I meet and the places I go.

Target rifle shooters have been relatively unaffected by the pistol ban but there is still a strong public sentiment which is against private ownership of guns (of any kind) and treats shooters as people you should be suspicious of. Undoubtedly, a lot of this stems from media sensationalism.

The media - particularly the tabloid press - are not very good at treating all walks of life fairly. Celebrities, politicians, the Royal Family, religious faiths, the police and shooters (to name a few) have all received bad press. Too many people adopt opinions from words written by an individual who may have a less than impartial stance.

And yet, people from all over the world enjoy shooting different disciplines. Some use handguns, some use shotguns and others use rifles. The vast majority of these guns can kill, and were designed to do so. There is no escaping it. But we are not using these guns to hone "killing" skills, we are using them for a different purpose altogether. We use them as a recreational device and most of us use them safely.

The human beings behind Dunblane and Hungerford, and the many other shootings, have all possessed firearms legally and illegally but they have also possessed a will, a desire and a conviction to kill.

Banning firearms will not stop people from killing others because the people who commit such atrocities posses one of the strongest convictions a human being can have. You can't take the tools away from a killer and expect to live happily ever after. Therefore, I honestly believe these people would simply find another method to inflict harm or death.

To ensure privately-owned firearms are used properly and stored securely the police are in charge of issuing licences to individuals. These individuals must first satisfy the local police they are competent and safe members of the community to hold a firearm. The police will then check your security arrangements before issuing an authority (licence) to acquire a firearm.
During the course of the licences' validity you can expect a visit from your local firearms liaison officer to check you are continuing to store you firearms securely and that you don't have anything you shouldn't have.

It goes without saying, you must have a reason to own a gun and those with a criminal record need not apply. You simply can't get a licence because you want to own a gun. Individuals must attend club meetings prior to firing a gun or applying for a licence. Clubs secretaries must also report inactive members to their local police authority.

Firearms remain perfectly inert and non-dangerous objects until a human picks one up. The knife was originally designed to kill and yet millions of normal people can use one everyday without incident. But of course thousands of people are murdered every year by someone with a knife.

The bow and arrow is in many ways similar to the knife and yet we do not propose to ban their use. If we are all true to ourselves, we should be able to recognise a pattern here. The objects are not the problem - it's the people who kill. Banning weapons won't make a blind bit of difference while we have unstable individuals in our community. And frankly, I don't think that will ever change.

There are a multitude of arguments people offer against the private ownership of firearms and a multitude of arguments which the pro-shooting lobby will use in their defence. I wish only to propose this - we have to be able to trust one another to do the right thing in life, not remove all the variables so no one has any other choice, other than to do the right thing.

Our society is loosing valuable qualities in today's political mindset. We need to be open minded and adapt and consequently I urge all of you, who have convictions against my sport to meet shooters and perhaps even participate in the sport. To form an opinion on a matter which will affect the lives of law-abiding people you should experience first hand what it is you are forming an opinion about.




Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/5231062.stm

Published: 2006/07/31 12:07:04 GMT

© BBC MMVI

demonloop

A well thought-out, well written response.

Well done whoever that man was.

Kryten

I feel he has really hit the nail on the head. I would like to think the powers that be, who I am sure also monitor this board, take note.