Airgun Insider: When sometimes less is more…

Do we really need more legislation, or does it just interfere with our lives?

Talking to a farmer recently, he lamented the disappearance of ground-nesting birds since his youth. He put this down to badgers – what he refers to as ‘black and white hoovers’ that wander around the farm eating anything and everything.

Since the 1992 legislation he is not only powerless to control them, but unable to redress the balance.

Farming has been taking place on this island for something like 7,000 years and I’ve never met a farmer who didn’t regard themselves as a custodian of the land, caring for it and their animals, to the best of their ability, making ready to hand it over to the next generation.

But instead of letting the experts get on with it, we hamstring them with more paperwork and more legislation that doesn’t really add any value, and instead the amount of red tape and paperwork just makes it more difficult for them to do their job.

The latest debacle with the General Licences is just one of many areas where our Government and its agencies think they know best, without giving any regard to those who choose to get their hands dirty.

And in the shooting world we have now lost the ability to own and shoot what are known as lever release, or MARS, rifles. I doubt a single crime will have been stopped, but I guess it does allow our MPs to pat themselves on the back and tell themselves that they’ve done a good job.

And now they are starting to look at how they might change airgun laws…

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