Written evidence submitted by Dr Ron C
1. My personal experience of the shooting sports
began at age 12 shooting vermin with my birthday present, a .410
shotgun, and progressed to a combination of rough and game shooting
over farm land until age 40. Through the Scouts Association, I
was introduced to the disciplines of small-bore target rifle shooting
from age 15, and became a Rifle Club official by age 17, representing
my County by age 19. I held a shotgun Certificate from 1968 until
the mid 1990's, and continue to hold a Firearm Certificate for
three Target rifles with which I compete regularly at Club, County,
National and International level shooting on approved ranges including
Bisley at up to 300 metres. I have now been an active shooter
for over 45 years.
2. My shooting experiences from an early age
have benefited me enormously by the character-forming nature of
the sport in establishing self-control, precision, safe and disciplined
behaviour particularly in association with a wide range of people
from many cultures and backgrounds. The notion of service to others
and successful team-working grew from some of my shooting experiences,
and has been valuable in my professional career as a General Medical
Practitioner. I have always found shooting (even badly!) extremely
valuable as a way of managing the considerable stresses of a busy
medical career, and I'm undoubtedly a better Doctor for being
an active shooter. I would comment that Doctors generally are
MUCH more dangerous to the public than ANY form of shooter despite
the principle that the doctor must first do no harm.
3. Evidence-based legislation on the TRUE dangers
to the public from legally held fire-arms should be your aspiration,
given the understandably emotive but wholly unfair knee-jerk populist
political responses to past shooting tragedies demonising the
"man-killing guns" rather than the murderous and deranged
intent of the perpetrators. Many shooters would agree that licensing
the person, not the hardware, makes perfect sense, given that
safety and competence in handling and using firearms is best judged
within the shooting organisations that have very well established
training and coaching standards perfectly capable of appraising
individual's attitudes and approach to shooting within the controlled
environments of approved ranges. This entirely allows for the
graduated accumulation of gun-handling skills and competencies
in an analogous way to drivers or pilots being licensed for increasingly
heavy responsibilities in controlling safely larger or faster
vehicles. This need NOT exclude game shooters, given that the
landowner granting permission to shoot over his land MUST also
be responsible for ensuring that "safe shooters" only
are given that right. Time-limiting licensing dependent on regular
reviews would mean no more than a golfer maintaining his handicap
certificate by submitting "medal" scores.
4. Gun safety and mental illness: The concept
of screening for mental health problems as part of the application
or renewal of a firearm/shotgun certificate is nonsensical on
several grounds.
1. There is no form of screening test capable
of detecting future murderous intent or behaviour. GPs deal with
98% of ALL mental illness presenting for advice and treatment
without specialist involvement, and I estimate 30-40% of ALL adult
personal medical records will have reference to some degree of
mental/psychological illness and symptoms. GPs as generalists
are certainly NOT qualified simply by their personal knowledge
of the individual to make such a judgement, as graphically demonstrated
by the case of Dr. Shipman, who had no difficulty in demonstrating
what a competent and caring Doctor he was to his colleagues on
many years. In practical terms, the 2004 GP contract has removed
the registration of patients from the individual GP to the GP
practice, and has now extended access to GPs through Darzi-style
practices and Walk-in centres. In other words, a psychotic shooter
would have little difficulty by changing practices to find a GP
to confirm no history of mental instability. This is analogous
to Thomas Hamilton in Dunblane having a local magistrate/person
of good standing in all good faith counter-signing his FAC renewal.
2. The majority of GPs reflect the views of the
public in being "gun averse", judging that the participant
in shooting sports is inherently dangerous in some way, particularly
those shooting live game/vermin. My colleagues would largely refuse
to accept responsibility to "allow" private gun ownership.
3. Recording FAC/Shotgun Certificate Holders:
The proposed NHS It system to allow access to medical records
to "authorised" users across the NHS means that the
personal control of confidential medical data held is potentially
opened up to one million NHS employees, and despite the assurances
given by many "experts" on IT and encryption remains
inherently unsafe simply because patient consent to release information
to third parties is assumed, and NOT required on a case by case
basis; nor is it conditional consent. Both the state and any criminal
hacker could search records for a particularly coding, and for
example generate a list of FAC certificate holders + addresses
with predictable implications.
4. Probationary membership of shooting organisations
and regular re-appraisal of all shooters safety awareness and
social attitudes to their shooting are far more sensitive indicators
of POTENTIAL dangers to the public at large. Both Thomas Hamilton
and Michael Ryan were picked up by shooting club officials are
raising cause for concern well before their criminal behaviour.
In my 40+ yrs. of shooting, I have twice only had to advise fellow
shooters that they were no longer safe to shoot, in both cases
because of advancing dementia over the age of 70. I have personal
knowledge of only 1 case of a shooter behaving in a persistently
dangerous manner towards other people whilst engaged in shooting
sports activities: fellow shooters reported this behaviour to
police, but had to undertake a successful private prosecution
for assault before the individual's fire-arms were impounded.
He also had demonstrated a pattern of worsening behaviour picked
up and reported by his club for some-time before the proven assault.
The key message is that those who know you well are best able
to anticipate behavioural crisis.
My apologies for the length and detail of this submission,
but as a fairly unique shooting GP, with long experience as both
a shooting official and medical adviser to the NSRA, I hope my
contribution may be of value in shaping sensible and evidence-based
legislation on private firearm usage and ownership.
28 September 2010
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