The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I've largely ignored the political spats and only shoot PSG a few times a year. Thus far the only time I'd seen the supposed odd behaviour of the UKPSA leadership was those rather odd and unpleasant letters as a result of George Grannycome's unfavourable review of the international PSG shoot last year.

I see they've now suspended James Harris's (the NRA Target Shotgun rep.) membership of the UKPSA. I don't see them coming out of this in a positive light.

Blackstuff wrote:While the shooting lobbys response to the Cumbrian shootings was a joint affair behind closed doors, it was BASC sticking its neck out on tv/radio etc defending ALL of us.

We've been through this at least twice before - the NRA knew about the Cumbrian shooting first, informed the other bodies and they all decided to speak with one voice. That voice was decided by all the organisations to be BASC. They did not "stick their neck out" - they were acting WITH all the other shooting bodies so that ONE voice spoke for all.

I know as I was in the NRA offices and Iain was on duty in Cumbria (so that should be easy to work out how the NRA got to know first!)

karen wrote:

Blackstuff wrote:While the shooting lobbys response to the Cumbrian shootings was a joint affair behind closed doors, it was BASC sticking its neck out on tv/radio etc defending ALL of us.

We've been through this at least twice before - the NRA knew about the Cumbrian shooting first, informed the other bodies and they all decided to speak with one voice. That voice was decided by all the organisations to be BASC. They did not "stick their neck out" - they were acting WITH all the other shooting bodies so that ONE voice spoke for all.

I know as I was in the NRA offices and Iain was on duty in Cumbria (so that should be easy to work out how the NRA got to know first!)

I'm not disagreeing with you but that's not how it looked or was portrayed.

As a BASC member I certainly don't recall any reference being made to BASC speaking for all shooting organisations - in fact I remember thinking I'm glad I'm a member of BASC because nobody else is saying a word...

It may have been seen as the right thing to do but it didn't do the NRA any favours. I remember full well that BASC was making sure their members knew they were doing the talking on Cumbria.

No one was point scoring over this one - why should the NRA benefit over something so dreadful by shouting about it?

What I said is what happened - I was there and involved in the initial discussions about what should be done.

FredB wrote:Me too, Hauptmann. I love Bisley, even though it has looked sad and neglected in recent years. I live 150 miles away and I only get down to major meetings three times a year. I am not aware that the BASC crew have ever done anything for target shooters. The NRA has always avoided confrontation over legislative issues, seeing public arguement with the government as a recipe for loosing: I am aware that a lot went on behind the visible frontage.
Fred

Fred

Thank you for possibly the most accurate post on the NRA strategic position that I have seen in years.

As the person at the NRA who now does much of the nuts and bolts of this kind of stuff (if the Association is going to make an official statement it obviously comes with either the Chairman's or the Chief Executive's signature), I would confirm the accuracy of K's post above, both as regards Cumbria and in the wider sense. I was aware of the Cumbria incident through operational sources, and I took the small risk of betraying confidences to alert the NRA at the earliest opportunity. K confirmed from news sources and the NRA told the others. As is usually the case, everybody agreed that BASC would provide the unified voice -they have about 15 times as many members as the NRA, and have resources to match. The department that does this kind of stuff for them has four staff (I think). At the time this happened, the NRA had nobody on the permanent staff whose specific job this stuff was. It fell to the Sec Gen to use his considerable political skills to work our participation. These days, the NRA has me, and I have at least five job titles - I cannot devote all, or even most, of my time to the legal / political public issues.

If the membership want more of this, they are free to tell their representatives so, who will tell the Trustees that that's what's wanted, and some poor sap will have to work out how much a bigger legal / media dept will cost and where we find the money to pay for it (every member of staff costs each member about £5 on their subs).

Iain
Giving my best to justify my salary

£5 a year seems a fair premium as far as insurance policies go...

karen wrote:No one was point scoring over this one - why should the NRA benefit over something so dreadful by shouting about it?

What I said is what happened - I was there and involved in the initial discussions about what should be done.

I wasn't suggesting that any organisation was trying to score points, but I do remember the comments about the perceived lack of action by the NRA being made by shooters I know at the time.

The fact that it has come up again and you are having to defend the NRA means that Cumbria has turned into another stick for (some) people to beat the NRA with.

It seems that you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Karen, although you say no one was point scoring I get the impression that is exactly what BASC are doing on occasion and I think it would do the NRA no harm to get their name in print when necessary.

ovenpaa wrote:Karen, although you say no one was point scoring I get the impression that is exactly what BASC are doing on occasion and I think it would do the NRA no harm to get their name in print when necessary.

Even as a BASC member I don't disagree with Ovenpaa's assessment.

All I will say is that I have a superb working relationship with both Alan Booth and Mike Eveleigh at BASC, and I am grateful to them and their staff for taking forward several issues that would have soaked up many days of my time if I had to do it myself. The latest of these is the various police forces that are playing around with the new Firearms Forms. BASC are leading on hammering this problem into ACPO and the Home Office with support from all the other NGBs. I am grateful that all I have to do is document the examples and forward for them to be added to the argument.

Iain