Agenda driven laws.

Now here's one for you, stay with me on this; it may not appear from the start connected but really it is. FOX HUNTING! Here the hunting of any animal with more than two hounds, rabbits and rats excluded, was banned in 2005. The government of the day spent hundreds of hours, at tax payer's expense, debating the issue, and when they had secured an unassailable majority passed legislation detailing what could and could not be done when hunting with hounds. The animal rights groups and anti-hunting groups claimed victory, it had taken over 80 years to get this legislation on the statute books, but finally they had succeeded.

Now considering that the anti's had over 80 years to prepare this piece of legislation, you would think that they would be happy with the result. Not a bit of it, ten years down the line and they are now complaining that the use of drag hunts and trail hunts extoll and encourage illegal hunting, especially of foxes, and these, and other hunting techniques should now also be banned.

So what's that got to do with shooting? The answer is methodology, the methodology above was used by the anti-gun groups in the US back in 1994 with the Clinton administration's "Assault weapons ban", they hadn't had the 80 years that the anti-hunting groups had, but the end result was the same. The law was passed making a number of aesthetic items, previously legal on a rifle, illegal overnight. For example, you could no longer have a bayonet lug on your rifle, an adjustable stock, forward hand grip etc. all cosmetic features, which made no difference to the effectiveness of the rifle concerned. Again the anti's congratulated themselves in obtaining a victory.

In both of the above instances the victories were short lived; in the UK hunts, previously worried about any legislation, looked at the law and decided that, within the confines of the law, they could keep all their hounds and still hunt. The new form of hunting was to be either a drag hunt or trail hunt, they would still be able to follow the hounds on horseback, keep all the centuries' old traditions alive, and meet up with their old friends to enjoy their customs and traditional way of life, but at the end of the day no fox.

In the US, gun owners, being law abiding too, also complied with the new laws, as did the manufacturers. They continued to make and sell exactly the same rifles and shotguns as before, but without the cosmetic features outlawed. The law that was supposed to reduce crime and make everyone safer, had no definable effect on public safety. Once the anti's came to realise that their law had no effect, their call was to try to get more items added to the list, along with calibres and magazine capacities.

In both cases, the laws passed were poorly thought out, and badly executed in their implementation. They also highlight the fact that the anti's, of whatever group or association, goal is the complete removal of any and all activities that they disapprove of, and by what-ever means. In the case of the 1994 ban, the law was allowed to "sunset" after a new administration refused to sign the bill into law permanently. Here in the UK, the hunting law is equally un-workable, but to date there is not a political party brave enough to face up to the intimidation of the animal rights organisations, and repeal the law.