Shooting struggles to survive in sporting no man's land

THIS week, for the first time since a rail accident took my lower right arm five years ago, I fired a shotgun. Before anyone grimaces at the thought, I must stress that this did not involve popping off at wildlife.

Arranged by Tom Wingham, a taxi driver from Kent who is currently the Greater London skeet shooting champion, it brought me into contact with folk who resent bitterly the notion that their well-ordered sport has no place in a civilised society.

Nobody was entitled to dismiss the total ban on handguns that resulted from the horror of Dunblane as a knee-jerk reaction which intrudes upon civil liberty. The chilling death of those children and others recently in the United States make a powerful case against the possession of firearms.

There is no point in the argument that British shooters have distinguished themselves in Olympic competition (Malcolm Cooper's gold medal at the Seoul Games of 1988 received a great deal of attention in newspapers and across the airwaves). But calls for further controls are in ignorance of definition.

Johnny Johnson is a past president of the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association and helps advise shooting's Parliamentary lobby. "We are talking about a sport that appeals to people from all walks of life," he said, after observing my efforts at the West Kent Shooting School where Michael Lynch is a most patient instructor.

The son of a Durham collier, and retired from the Metropolitan Police with the rank of detective sergeant, Johnson has heard nothing to suggest that the Home Office plans other restrictions, but points out that it does not take an Act of Parliament to bring about conditional changes. "Dunblane was so dreadful that to play it down would be utterly irresponsible," Johnson added. "There was a lot of understandable emotion involved, but why should I have to suffer David Mellor's statement that anyone who shoots is a pervert?"

I'm telling you all this with the blank air of a reporter, intending no insult to people who would think it a measure of Government competence if permission to shoot was struck from the statute book.

Nevertheless, I find it difficult to accept that a sport conducted under strict supervision and with an admirable code of conduct should be at risk from manipulated public perception. "We're not ruffians," Johnson added.

But neither is the CPSA unaware that shooting may convey a "Rambo" image. A new code of dress introduced last January forbids the wearing of military fatigues and camouflage wear and "kill" no longer figures in the sport's vocabulary.

Mark Vessey, a BT telephone engineer from Kent who is taking part this week in the British Open championship at Blandford, wonders where the opposition to shooting will stop. Now 31, he began competing as a 16-year- old. "There are no safer shooters than clay shooters," he said.

Two months ago, Vessey joined in the vast Countryside March, staged as a protest against the inroads being made into rural life. "I have put a lot into shooting. Competition and practice take up a lot of my time and there isn't a great deal of sponsorship," he added. "Apart from golf, I have no interest in other sports, and can't be bothered to watch football, so I was disappointed when shooting came under threat. Of course, you can't minimise what happened at Dunblane and earlier at Hungerford, but the people who did those terrible things were certifiable."

Mixing with shooters at Paddock Wood last week, I was again aware of their comradeship. Johnson said: "You help each other - a bit of advice here, a bit there. And, of course, safety is paramount."

Johnson gets the impression - "from small signs" - that some MPs who voted for last year's Firearms Bill are beginning to have second thoughts. "But it's done now and we've got to get on with the job of securing the sport's future," he said. "Shooting well at your own level brings a sense of accomplishment. You shoot, have a cup of tea, perhaps a pint on the way home, and lock your gun away until the next time."

A dangerous obsession? Hardly. As Johnson says, he would sooner sleep with a woman than a firearm.