Do we not have legal recourse?

dos29

With all the absolute fantasy figures that are being thrown around by politicians and media recently, about handguns in particular, but firearms in general also, do we not have some sort of way to try to publicly announce that what is being said is drivel?
Granted, we can shout our heads off at the media that what they are saying is wrong, and what the politicians are saying is wrong, and write as many e-mails as we can to the relevant people,
BUT..............
Would it not be a good idea to play these wasters at they're own game?
If we had the least bit of a legal leg to stand on, would it not be worthwhile bringing a case in front of a minister, or media group, for some form of defamation or slander, from the rubbish that they're spouting in public?
Even if it lost, it would send out a meassage if it was "picked up" as a story in the media that people disagree with whats being pretty much spread as Gospel!
I know that if this was put in effect, I would pay considerably towards the legal fee's.
Would I be alone?

IRLConor

This has been brought up before and from what I remember the main problem is that proving a libel/slander against a group is nigh on impossible.

As I understand it, our choices are either to try and correct the sources of misinformation where we can or to grin and bear it. Neither sounds like much fun.

rrpc

Unfortunately it also seems that all the mistakes have been made in the media (no surprise there really) caused by change in emphasis or the juxtaposition of figures that they don't really understand.

Paul Reynolds using the word legally instead of illegally is a case in point.

And as Conor said, you can't sue for libel on behalf of a group, because there's no identification involved.

Sparks

There are, however, recourses to take against the media, though how successful you'd be is a question. There's the office of the press ombudsman, there's the broadcasting complaints commission, there are advertising complaints bodies and there's Complaints Ireland.

The thing to remember with all these groups is that they're not shooters, they don't viscerally 'get' the outrage we feel, and emotional arguments do not hold much water with them. They have defined codes of conduct for the press or broadcast media, and unless those codes are broken, they regard a lot as "fair game" (and for good reason - restricting the press, even with good intent, is a spectacularly bad idea...).

We tried the BCC before but our complaint wasn't upheld; though frankly, we got more from trying than most think (as in, a full-page positive feature article in the Times at a time where circulation of the paper was at a peak for the year). This happened as a side effect, but it still happened.

Frankly, I think we should be complaining more, even when the case isn't as strong (in the eyes of the complaints board) as we'd like - silence tends to be taken as assent/agreement in this country.
Also, there's a three month limit on complaints in most cases, so now would be the time to take the incorrect articles in the press clippings thread and start writing

dos29

So the law's not on our side, and complaints dept's and ombudsmen dont think its serious enough.
So whats the most public thing that can be done?
In the end, the real priority has to be to informing the general public that the so called facts and figures politicians and media are stating, are fabricated. Surely once people realise that these are lie's which are being told, they'll have less faith in the rest of whats being said?

Sparks

I don't think it's as straightforward as "what side the law is on" dos, it's just that it's not set up to defend the good name of a group (an individual, yes, but not a group); and the Minister and friends are always careful to have something or someone to point to to say that that is where their opinions are coming from.

As to informing the public, yes, yes, and yes again. But it's not just informing them that we're being misrepresented by the politicians involved, it's informing them of who we are and what we do and why we're pround of our sports and what we achieve and why they'd like to try them. And we can't just do it now, for this one crisis, we have to be doing it continously. It's taken a decade of hard work to push up the public image of olympic shooting to the point where we're looked at with a degree of familiarity by non-shooters; it's going to take that much effort to push other disciplines that far as well (happily, some have already started).