Steven Mace
02-27-2002, 07:45 AM
Disrupt shooting at the Commonwealth Games?
By Charlie Jacoby
27/02/2002
There are increasing calls for a pro-shooting demonstration during this year’s Commonwealth Games. The Sportsman’s Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (SAGBNI) is under pressure from its former handgun-owner members and others to use the Games as a platform to voice their concerns over the 1996 and 1997 handgun bans.
The 17th Commonwealth Games will be held in Manchester from 25 July to 4 August, although all the shooting events will be taking place at the National Shooting Centre in Bisley, Surrey, as Manchester 2002 has commissioned the venue to provide the complete facilities. With the aid of a Sport England grant, Bisley will offer new shooting ranges and a new smallbore rifle and air rifle and air pistol complex. There have been suggestions that a protest should take the form of a march, a picket or a tour of Games venues with speaker cars and volunteers handing out leaflets – and there have also been calls for more radical measures, including disruption of the Games.
“We will be welcoming the competitors at Bisley and also plan to stage a peaceful positive demonstration of solidarity with the competitors – in Manchester and at Bisley,” said SAGBNI Director Richard Malbon. “We will be taking the opportunity to remind the British Government and British people of the injustice that was metered out to target pistol shooters following Dunblane.”
“We have seen the impact of our own large marches in London and we have seen the low impact of the Countryside Alliance marches which have had no apparent effect on Government policy. There is no point in alienating the general public because we feel that this will not further our cause.”
http://www.leadshot.com/story.asp?id=464
Steve Mace
By Charlie Jacoby
27/02/2002
There are increasing calls for a pro-shooting demonstration during this year’s Commonwealth Games. The Sportsman’s Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (SAGBNI) is under pressure from its former handgun-owner members and others to use the Games as a platform to voice their concerns over the 1996 and 1997 handgun bans.
The 17th Commonwealth Games will be held in Manchester from 25 July to 4 August, although all the shooting events will be taking place at the National Shooting Centre in Bisley, Surrey, as Manchester 2002 has commissioned the venue to provide the complete facilities. With the aid of a Sport England grant, Bisley will offer new shooting ranges and a new smallbore rifle and air rifle and air pistol complex. There have been suggestions that a protest should take the form of a march, a picket or a tour of Games venues with speaker cars and volunteers handing out leaflets – and there have also been calls for more radical measures, including disruption of the Games.
“We will be welcoming the competitors at Bisley and also plan to stage a peaceful positive demonstration of solidarity with the competitors – in Manchester and at Bisley,” said SAGBNI Director Richard Malbon. “We will be taking the opportunity to remind the British Government and British people of the injustice that was metered out to target pistol shooters following Dunblane.”
“We have seen the impact of our own large marches in London and we have seen the low impact of the Countryside Alliance marches which have had no apparent effect on Government policy. There is no point in alienating the general public because we feel that this will not further our cause.”
http://www.leadshot.com/story.asp?id=464
Steve Mace