The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

TattooedGun wrote:It's still down to public perception, as much as people wish to belittle the idea that we shouldn't be posting videos such as mag dumps.

Is it legal, absolutely.
Is it something that can be used to sway public perception over what "needs" to be legislated against? In my mind, most definitely.

As logical, upstanding members of society, shooters know this is legal, and in the majority of cases perfectly safe to dump a mag into a solid backstop under the supervision of an RO. But average person on the street is not going to have the full picture. With potential headlines as "Hundred+ rounds per minute fire-rate", "Rapid Fire Death Machines Legal!" etc etc... whatever you want to do, and by posting these videos, it gives them the editorial to go along with it. They can cut/edit the videos to show what they want.

No publically available videos, no editorial, no story, it continues to be legal.

Some people need to pull their heads out of the sand and look at the big picture. We are fighting a losing battle, we need to make sure we're not giving the people who wish to continually neuter our sport ammunition against us.

Is it legal? Yes.
Is it in our best interests to show it? No.
Can we draw many numbers of shooters to the sport without them? Absolutely, my club is at capacity with many people on the waiting list without this type of video promotion, and myself am on waiting lists for other clubs at capacity who do not post these videos. It's simply not necessary to the survival of the sport as many people seem to proclaim, infact quite the opposite if you look at the big picture.

Well said!

Well said TG.

Well said that man

Is it still OK to post videos of people doing the Mad Minute with bolt action Lee Enfields? I've seen loads from Bisley on YouTube. Perhaps someone should have a quiet word with them. After all, it looks like they're virtually machine guns in skilled hands. Also it looks like a lot of fun. Fun with guns is, of course, a sign of being a sociopath.

Dark Skies wrote:Is it still OK to post videos of people doing the Mad Minute with bolt action Lee Enfields? I've seen loads from Bisley on YouTube. Perhaps someone should have a quiet word with them. After all, it looks like they're virtually machine guns in skilled hands. Also it looks like a lot of fun. Fun with guns is, of course, a sign of being a sociopath.

I would say the difference here is in your own wording;

You can't take Joe Public off the street, into a range and have them do a mad minute with a bolt action rifle, being quick and accurate with a bolt action rifle takes practice.

Whereas you could take Joe Public off the street, put them on a range with a semi-automatic and have them blatt rounds as quick as they can pull the trigger.

If you think back to the recent bans on the mars/lever release. What do you think gave the public/antis/police the most reason for concern. The idea that you could have a self extracting rifle which needed additional input from the user to chamber another round, or the videos that came about on social media showing just how fast someone could shoot them on a range...?

At what point do you think someone saw that we had something like that, which was perfectly legal, and decided that it's something that goes against the spirit of the legislation put in place and the law needed to be tightened to catch these types of firearm?

The lever release, although it had some stigma in the beginning because it was quite easy to get around the mechanism that held it open, was modified to make the system more robust, was cleared by the home office and then ran for quite a few years without any mention of banning it. Then the Mars came out very much more in the age of social media and people posted videos "showing off" how fast they can be shot, it wasn't long in the scheme of political movements before down came the ban-hammer.

It's not rocket science.

Generally, not directed as the quoted member:

I often find the people who moan the most about shooters being wary about doing things to publicise aspects of the sport are those that have the most to lose, those who have been in the sport for a long enough period to see the consequences of being gung-ho with certain aspects to the public. Whereas those who wish to show off the "cool" and "edgy" aspects of the sport tend to be those with less to lose and haven't seen the consequences of these types of actions as they often have just got into the sport.

Enthusiasm is great, but if you've got a bunch of seasoned shooters giving you advice to not do something, there's probably good reason why, and a good reason to take note of the wisdom being offered.

TattooedGun wrote:

Dark Skies wrote:Is it still OK to post videos of people doing the Mad Minute with bolt action Lee Enfields? I've seen loads from Bisley on YouTube. Perhaps someone should have a quiet word with them. After all, it looks like they're virtually machine guns in skilled hands. Also it looks like a lot of fun. Fun with guns is, of course, a sign of being a sociopath.

I would say the difference here is in your own wording;

You can't take Joe Public off the street, into a range and have them do a mad minute with a bolt action rifle, being quick and accurate with a bolt action rifle takes practice.

Whereas you could take Joe Public off the street, put them on a range with a semi-automatic and have them blatt rounds as quick as they can pull the trigger.

Yes, I'm quoting myself...

With that said, I could just be looking at it from my own perspective and with all of the information - if we take the same point I raised about the public perception, it very well may be that we do need to put every video that is promoted from within the sport through a "worst case image" filter in our heads before posting and see what impact it could have on our sport.

I know at a practical comp this weekend we were asked not to post any videos of the stages online for this very reason, it's not that the clubs or the associations wish to hide it from the public, they just realise how volatile the situation is for shooters, and posting video of people shooting fast and moving can be used against us by those who wish to see the sport eradicated altogether.

The Mars/lr ban was a push back at us because we pushed back at them.

$.02

Is the range being discussed in the original post a commercial enterprise somewhere in the North, by any chance?

RDC wrote:Is the range being discussed in the original post a commercial enterprise somewhere in the North, by any chance?

Probably.

There is a range around the london area , that when you look at their facbook pics, will scare the socks of you .

But then I was told they are no more .