Absurdity of pistol shooting in a 'gunless' country

In July Mick Gault will be defending his four Commonwealth titles. But with one hand tied behind his back. He hasn't been able to practise with the key tool of his sport since August. Gault is a pistol shooter, and hand guns are banned in mainland Britain. Chris Nawrat reports

A WEEK before the Commonwealth Games start, an official from the National Small-bore Rifle Association will fly to Zurich and collect a 10cm pistol barrel from a bank vault and return to Heathrow. From there the barrel will be taken by armed guard to the National Shooting Centre at Bisley, Surrey, and Gault will be able to fire it again before, at the end of the Games, it has to make its lonely journey back to Switzerland.

While Gault is trying to recapture the four gold medals he won at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, the pistol-shooting range is legally required to be surrounded by temporary fencing in case he, or the other competitors, attempt to throw the guns to somebody who can rush off with them with a fast getaway car.

It could be worse. One MP in the House of Commons asked the Home Secretary if there would be armed guards posted at each corner of the firing range to prevent such a thing happening. As Jenny Page of the NSRA put it: "We did not know whether to laugh or cry. They're not living on the same planet as us."

The fact that pistol shooting is taking place in mainland Britain - if only for seven days - is a minor miracle. When Manchester bid for the Commonwealth Games, it was pointed out to the government that shooting sports were a core part of the Games. No shooting and the Games will go to New Zealand. Thus the government allowed a brief exemption.

But still Gault won't have had the practise time he needs to maintain his position as a world-class athlete. That would necessitate going to Switzerland every week, which is neither practicable nor affordable. His rivals will be practising five or six times a week. All he'll manage before July is two long weekends in Switzerland in April. He likens it to a golfer being denied the right to practice their swing or a snooker player being denied access to the green baize except at the world championships.

Or a footballer training without a ball. But if Mick Gault got caught training in England he would, as he says, "be banged up for 10 years."

The ban on hand guns came in 1997 in the wake of the crazed shootings at Hungerford and Dunblane but, despite an amendment being tabled, no exemption was made for sports shooters. Ironically, gun crime has almost doubled since the 1996 Dunblane massacre, from 2,636 cases to 4,019. Only this week a member of the garage band So Solid Crew pleaded guilty to having a loaded pistol in his car.

"It's not as if the streets are going to be made more safe because we don't allow pistol shooters to train on a shooting range," said Kate Hoey, a Labour MP and a former Minister for Sport. "It's absurd and hard on our competitive shooters. This gun law hasn't taken guns out of use. There are more guns in my constituency than ever before. It was outrageous that we were punishing legitimate shooters who are incredibly disciplined and we are treating them in the same way as we would treat some kind of murderer.