| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
5.15 pm
Without the amendment, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Britain to host paralympic championships in future. The host nation must be capable of staging all the events that make up the Olympic, games. The paralympics are parallel Olympics, and all the events must be capable of being staged. If pistol-shooting disciplines are excluded, how can Britain convince other countries of its ability to meet the staging requirement, and therefore host the games?
Pistol shooting is a popular sport for the disabled because it is practical and allows a disabled person to compete on more or less equal terms with the able-bodied in a way that is clearly impossible in most sports, which demand physical fitness. Pistol shooting can also have a considerable therapeutic effect--enabling, for example, someone rebuilding his life after a serious accident to improve his balance and co-ordination of hands, eye and bodily movements. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) made precisely that point.
Speaking in another place when introducing the amendment that is before us, Lord Howell--a much respected former Minister with responsibilities for sport--suggested that about 100 clubs belonging to the British Sports Association for the Disabled provide shooting facilities for people suffering from a wide range of disabilities, and not only those confined to wheelchairs. Also included are people who are deaf, or even blind, or those who have had limbs amputated or have restricted movement, for example. Some are disabled as a result of injuries sustained in serious accidents, and others have been disabled since birth.
Aided by the development of modern technology, shooting for the blind is a relatively recent phenomenon. I was surprised to hear that it was possible, but what a miraculous thing that it is. Only last year a blind team from Britain won a gold medal in the Dutch open disabled championships. Surely the House should endeavour to safeguard the pleasure and opportunity that pistol shooting brings to those less fortunate than us. That is the point that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) made in an intervention.
Some disabled shooters are able to take part in rifle and shotgun shooting for sport, but they are the exceptions. The House will appreciate that the recoil from a shotgun would make its use impossible for most disabled sportsmen. It is surprising, to say the least, that, when opposing the amendment on behalf of the Government in the other place, Lord Williams of Mostyn actively suggested that shotguns would be an appropriate alternative. It is such patronising ignorance of the practicalities involved that has offended many disabled people who shoot for sport.
In reality, for the vast majority, the problems of balance and physical strength and being confined to a wheelchair or having only one arm--the hon. Member for Stockton, North reminded us of Bob Everitt, the Welsh pistol champion--pistol shooting is eminently sensible, suitable and appropriate.
Ministers have argued that disabled shooters could find an alternative in air pistol shooting. That argument was made by Lord Williams of Mostyn in the other place. But where would they do this?
In practice, the Bill will close all pistol clubs in this country. Even clubs that provide rifle shooting are unlikely to survive, as the majority of members shoot pistols. The only solution is to provide, through the amendment, special arrangements to allow disabled pistol shooters to continue their sport, but subject only to the most stringent conditions.
Those who would qualify for exemption from the general ban on all handguns are closely defined in the amendment as those who do not just have a physical disability but are "registered disabled persons" under the criteria set out in the National Assistance Act 1948 and the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Scotland) Act 1972--not much room for doubt whom we are talking about.
More important, the exemption also provides strict measures of control. Shooters will have to be approved by the Secretary of State. What greater safeguard could there be than that? They will be able to shoot and use .22 calibre Olympic pistols only in designated premises, and possession of the weapons outside such premises would be permitted only under the strictest conditions, which the Secretary of State himself would specify.
Where is the risk of theft? As my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield said, it is more imagined than real. It suits the Government's arguments, but has no basis. Even under existing arrangements, there is not a shred of evidence that disabled shooters pose the slightest threat to the community. The rigid and exacting framework of controls contained in the amendment surely should remove any possible doubt that granting this exemption would compromise public safety.
Despite such overwhelming arguments, it seems from what we have heard today that the Government remain implacably opposed to granting any exemption to their preferred blanket ban on all handguns on--wait for it--a point of principle. Let us examine that argument a little more closely. Surely "principle" demands that Government be required to protect the interests of minority groups, let alone a group so vulnerable and deserving of our special dispensation as those with disabilities. By rejecting the amendment, the interests of one deserving minority are being set aside and crushed in pursuit of the interests of another.
Mrs. Anne McGuire (Stirling):
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, after Hungerford, an opportunity was not taken, in the interests of safeguarding minority rights, and because of that we had Dunblane?
Mr. Greenway:
If there are any lessons to be learned about the legislative changes that took place after Hungerford--in many respects they go to the heart of what we are considering today--it is that we concentrated far too much on deciding that certain weapons posed a greater danger than others and not enough on ensuring that the people who by their own actions, by their own behaviour, posed a threat. It is not the gun that kills--it is the person who pulls the trigger. The House has lost sight of that fact in many of our recent debates on these matters.
As I was saying, by rejecting the amendment, the interests of one deserving minority will be set aside and crushed in pursuit of the interests of another. There is always a danger that, in seeking to respond positively to inevitable public demands for legislative action following such awful events as those at Dunblane, government will overstep the mark and go beyond what is necessary or justified. Just count how many amending Bills we have had in the 10 years that I have been here in which we have tried to put right mistakes made by knee-jerk reaction legislation.
For the community in Dunblane and the many thousands--a million was mentioned earlier; I do not know the exact figure, but I concede that it was a lot--who supported the Snowdrop campaign, which prompted the present Government to accept demands for a total ban on all handguns, such is their understandable sense of revulsion and concern that only a total ban will suffice. However, the backing of the wider public, mobilised by media comment, for the banning of all handguns was undeniably based on rather less conviction.
The most telling point today was made by the hon. Member for Stockton North, who said that a recent public opinion survey showed that 56 per cent. of people believe that it would be wrong for the ban to apply to disabled groups. I do not believe that public opinion would have been quite so apparently in favour of a complete ban if they had realised, for example, that people in wheelchairs, or blind sportsmen, would be denied their pleasure and sport. The House must seriously consider that matter when deciding how to treat the amendment.
Mr. Greenway:
I give way to the hon. Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews).
Mr. Marshall-Andrews:
The hon. Gentleman asserts that the interests of one deserving minority are being crushed for the benefit of another. Will he define the other deserving minority whose benefits are being safeguarded?
Mr. Greenway:
Yes--I have already made that clear. The point that I am making is that that is what the people who signed the Snowdrop campaign and those who called for a complete ban--to which the Government responded when in opposition--feel. From the many letters that I have received, and from much of the media comment that my Conservative colleagues and I on the Home Affairs Committee received as a result of our report last year, one would think that somehow we were evil because we stood in the way, as far as they were concerned, of a total ban. They concluded that, for them, only a total ban will do. My point is simply that if one accepts that, one equally accepts that the interests of another deserving minority--the disabled, people in wheelchairs, the blind, who shoot for sport, in all innocence--will be set at naught.
Mr. Frank Cook:
The hon. Gentleman expressed interest in the 56 per cent. of the generous random sample who were supportive of the disabled still being able to
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |