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Children & Guns

Kate Hoey explains why giving kids free tickets to Olympic shooting events is a good idea.

By Kate Hoey

28 Aug 2011, 21:04

When the British team returned from the 2000 Sydney Olympics a reception was held to mark their successes. As Sports Minister at the time my job was to make sure the 'dignitaries' met as many as possible of the athletes who  were arranged in groups around the room. One of those being taken around was Cherie Blair - who tirelessly met and greeted as many athletes as she could.  She approached one group and said what sport are you ? 'Shooting' they responded. The PM's wife stepped back in alarm,whether mock or not and said "Oh my goodness -shooting"? Her tone of voice, one member of the team said,was as if she had been asked to meet a mass murderer!

I was reminded of this earlier in the week when the Evening Standard ran a story which claimed London2012 organisers LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic games) had removed shooting events from the free giveaway to London school children for 'fear of a backlash from the anti-gun lobby'. The reporter Matthew Beard had two quotes -one from Danny Bryan.of Communities Against Gun and Knife Crime saying "it is good kids should enjoy the Games but there's no way we should glorify guns" and one from the League Against Cruel Sports declaring "it's a shame that shooting features in the Olympics at all".

The article also insinuated that Boris Johnson had supported the decision because of the recent riot. Now I am a great supporter of shooting sports. It is one of our most successful Olympic and Paralympic sports. I campaigned to have the Government allow our pistol shooters access training  here in the UK rather than travel to Switzerland which they were forced to do after Pistol clubs were banned.I had the great satisfaction of sitting beside the Australian Sports Minister and watching Richard Faulds beat the Australian world champion shooter to win gold in Sydney. I have been  honorary President of the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association.

So  I was absolutely livid when I read this story. Fortunately it was, as I suspected, completely wrong. Not only did Boris know nothing about it, neither did Seb Coe the LOCOG chair nor Colin Moynihan of the  BOA, nor the Shooting Governing Bodies or even the Head of  LOCOG press office. Within a short while a statement was put out which said that schools will be allocated tickets for shooting events in exactly the same way as other sports.

I hope lots of schools will take up  the offer. There is no other sport which is quite so disciplined as shooting. Unfortunately there is an attitude which says watching shooting sends out the wrong message to youngsters. I totally disagree.  Letting youngsters see how guns can be used responsibly would be a bonus. It would show them that they have a positive use rather than something which is used for street crime or as a threat. Legitimate shooting has no connection with gun crime just as Formula One racing cars do not encourage fast drunken driving.

One of the reasons the Olympic shooting events are being held at Woolwich instead of Bisley was, according to Seb Coe, to give more people the opportunity to see the sport and to use it as an opportunity to inspire more youngsters to take it up.

Although the story in the ES was wrong and the outcome satisfactory it is worrying that it appeared in the first place. I wouldn't be surprised if somewere behind the scenes there are those who are 'prejudiced against shooting' at LOCOG ticket distribution,or someone who thought that this edict might be the political correct thing to do. The worrying thing is that such a bigoted and silly ban is entirely possible these days, which is why  initially so many people believed that the story could be true.

One legacy from the London Olympics and Paralympics would be if shooting was more easily accessible to young people. I will never forget taking a group of  inner city youngsters down to Hampshire for a day's clay shooting. After their extensive safety demonstration of how to handle firearms safely they thoroughly enjoyed the sport. Their whole attitude to discipline changed and by the end of the day they were correcting each other's mistakes on safety.

There is no  way Governments will ever ban all  guns and so it is important that young people have impressed upon them the need to handle firearms safely and responsibly. Even better, some of them might realise that with skill,training and effort they could even win Gold at a future Olympics or Paralympics.