Reply #196: Nice idea

[Prophet 451]

Here (England), we already have something similar: You must be a member of a shooting club for at least six months before you can be licensed to own firearms. Since the range officer (the very experianced, well-trained guy who enforces safety requirements on teh range) is obliged to comment on your application, it usually (not always but usually) serves to week out the whack-jobs.

Look, my position is this: I'm a sport-shooter. I took up shooting because I wanted to win medals (I'm not that good sadly) and discovered a life-long (although expensive) hobby. I'm also a history buff and, were my finances more secure, would probably collect antique weapons. Sport-shooters tend not to be overly bothered about how powerful a weapon is. As long as it's powerful enough to accuratly punch a target at X yards, that's enough for us. We're not much bothered about fire rate either because if you rush your shot, you'll probably miss. We're more interested in things like point spread (getting your shots as close together as possible), accuracy and reliability. I've also been known to go hunting on occasion (carrying a rifle and ammo around miles of Scottish moorland, there's some excercise). I won't take a shot unless I can be sure of getting a one-shot kill, I either eat the meat or pass it to someone who will eat it (and a pair of antlers to my father which he uses as a hatrack).

If you can work out a system that'll let me keep target shooting, I'll support that system. I can't see a need for a hunter to own an automatic weapon as it removes the element of skill (a weapon firing 300 rounds a minute doesn't give the elk many options, plus all you're left with after that is hamburger). A target shooter uses semi-auto pistols simply because the gun industry has poured all their research into them for years so they tend to be the most accurate. If you want to run a criminal check, fine. Want me to get some of my buddies or my range officer to vouch for me, no problem. I'll resist if you want a psych evaluation because I hate therapy but that's just me. I don't even mind having to keep my weapon at the club (and have you seen gun club lockers? You'd need a rocket strike to get into them). So long as some kind of permit system could be worked out for me to attend Bisley each year, that's fine.