Alphecca: London Olympic Shooting Events

July 08, 2005

London Olympic Shooting Events

My friend Victor at Publius emailed me an interesting question from a friend of his:

"So, now we've won the Olympics, I wonder what we're going to do about the
Olympic Pistol Shooting events, seeing as handguns (even for sports purposes)
are outlawed in the UK - currently I believe our UK team has to travel to
other countries, such as France, to practice..."

She raises an interesting point, and one I thought you might like to comment
on. It seems Britain didn't think some things through somewhere along the
way...

That IS a good question. I'm sure there must be some sort of temporary permit system in place along with 5000 pages of transport and storage regulations to allow for non-resident target shooters (or Olympic shooters) to bring their guns into the UK for events such as this.

Australia's ban was already in effect although they do allow sporting pistols to be kept locked-up at a gun club or range. Does England have a similar rule?

Perhaps, given the events of yesterday, they'll allow target shooting as long as there's a turbin on the target...

Anyway, I throw the question out to you folks if you have some knowledge about this.

Posted by Jeff Soyer at July 8, 2005 04:55 AM

Comments

The events will likely be held at the Bisley Range S.W. of London (where they held the shooting in 1948) and an exemption will probably be devised for the storing of "sporting" pistols on premises.

As a shotgunner, getting a sporting gun into the UK is not particularly difficult. A rifle more so and handguns are, of course, an impossibility.

Posted by: Voolfie at July 8, 2005 12:13 PM

I wonder if the Olympic committee thought this England thing through.....

Not that New York City would have been a much better choice; though I guess they could have held the pistol matches in NJ, like most other "NYC" sporting events.

Posted by: Chris at July 8, 2005 09:01 PM

Unlikely NYC could have held the shooting events here in NJ. The range facilities within 30 minutes, or even an hours drive of NYC, are not quite up to Olympic standard, to say the least.

Unless there are gummit ranges that could be opened for the purpose, normally banned to the serfs here.

They would probably need to be built, and politics being almost as fascist here as in NYC, I doubt it would happen. More likely they would go east to CT, or build temporary ones in NYC, perhaps at the police academy where they could be guarded against trespass by the commoners.

Posted by: tomWright at July 9, 2005 12:54 PM

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July 08, 2005

London Olympic Shooting Events

By Golly, you're reading an archived post. Click Here to head to the main page and read current stuff...

Check it out:

My group sci-fi blog novel:

Colony: Alchibah