Makes you wonder who's backing LACS don't it?

The Times January 23, 2006

Anti-hunt group survives postal attack
By Helen Nugent


THE Royal Mail has saved an animal rights group from bankruptcy after hunt supporters cost it £500,000 by bombarding its Freepost address with junk mail and heavy parcels.

The League Against Cruel Sports has agreed a rescue package with Royal Mail after a fund-raising drive was hijacked by hunters and left the association with a crippling bill.

What started as a plea to its supporters for donations to a free-billing address ended up involving the bomb squad, police and Royal Mail fraud investigators. Problems began when hunt enthusiasts heard about the drive to raise money for the league’s hunt monitors and decided to sabotage it.

A round-robin e-mail was sent to hunters urging them to abuse the system by sending Christmas cards, empty envelopes and bulky packages.

Within a fortnight, van loads of bricks, telephone directories, heavy books, abusive letters and animal excrement were sent to the league’s offices in South London. One hunter posted a dead squirrel.

The joke soon turned sour when the Royal Mail depot in Poole, Dorset, called in the bomb squad after workers discovered a couple of suspect packages addressed to the league. They proved to be house bricks.

The scam intensified when Jeremy Clarkson used a newspaper column to urge hunt supporters to take part, saying that it would leave the league less to spend on surveillance equipment. The presenter of Top Gear said that he was going to send a “paving stone or a horse”.

As the league struggled to cope with the growing volume of mail, all of which Britain’s biggest anti-hunt group had to pay for, it decided to call in Royal Mail investigators and detectives.

Officials tapped into the network of e-mails among hunters. It is alleged that one was sent on by the wife of an employee at Buckingham Palace, while another is believed to have been sent from the e-mail address of the Master of Foxhounds Association, hunting’s governing body.

Alastair Jackson, the chairman of the association, said that he was not aware of any e-mails passed through his office, but he added that “everyone applauded the idea at the time”. The original e-mail being forwarded stated that the Countryside Alliance backed the idea, but this was refuted by the alliance.

Now the Royal Mail has agreed that the league should pay only for those items of mail sent before it alerted the postal service to the problem and cancelled the Freepost address.

This means that the league’s bill will be about £2,000, not the estimated £500,000, which would have almost certainly bankrupted the group.

Wanda Wyporska, spokeswoman for the league, which was set up in 1924 to stop violence against animals, said that half the sacks of mail were from the West Country. Some senders, she said, had used company franking machines.

“We are delighted to say that the hunters’ attempt to bankrupt the league has failed spectacularly. They have wasted the time and resources of the police and the Royal Mail through their petty and spiteful campaign. Next time the price of a letter goes up, you have the hunters to thank.”

Police said that they were investigating whether the culprits could be charged with theft, fraud or sending malicious post. Just forwarding the e-mail could lead to criminal proceedings. A spokesman for Royal Mail added: “There is no point sending any more mail, it will be returned or destroyed.”



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005747,00.html

Quoted: Quoted: if you guys can ban together to fight for hunting rights, why can't you ban together to protect your gun rights?

Most of people with guns are hunters and 'sporting shooters'.... they have hung us out to dry everytime...

It's called 'feeding the crocodiles hoping you will be eaten last'....

Many of the people who do target shooting were happy to see pistol shooting banned and would be happy to see 'Black Rifles' , lever action carbines and semi auto .22's go too....

ANdy

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted:

Gets worse...

Government asked for responses to the Home Office Firearms Consultation Document last year....

154,000 rifle licences holders, 600,000 shotgun licence holders...

Only 2,200 replies from shootes aout of a total of 4,400ish replies...


Edited or clarity!

Quoted: But you have to remember many many of those replies are from Clubs, who wrote in representing the entire club membership...still, looks like most shooters are not interested in fighting for their rights here in the UK.

As far as the HO is concerned, one letter is one reply... they did not take the letter from the NRA and multiply it by the number of  members, the shooters were told this by their organisations and did not listen.

Just before the deadine for replies I printed out a standard letter and a copy of the Consultation document and took them to my club, enough for each member, all 184 of them. All it took was a signature and a 2nd class stamp, only two people bothered to send off a letter.

Example of the apathy and willingness to throw each other to the wolves.... the Snowdrop Appeal. It got one million signatures calling for a ban on handguns, a million votes gets you a lot of political clout. However, at the time it was estimated 1.6 miliion people either shot or were connected to shooting sports by trade. Want to take a guess at how many stood up and supported the pistol shooters?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Andy, I can't believe shooters can be apathetic about their sport, could it be fear that keeps them silent? Fear of bad press? Maybe what they need is better leadeship. Do you think the image of the US NRA and US gunowners has hurt you guys over there?(I'm proud to be a member but I realize they do get alot of bad press too)

Most shooters don't like shooting. If you have a permit for target shooting, you have to shoot your rifle a minimum of 3 imes a year. You would be surprised how many people only own one .22 rifle and only turn up once in a blue moon and shoot off only 10 rounds.

Before they banned handguns there were @ 400 members at my local club, about 300 had handguns.  Now we have 183 members, but only 4 of us still shoot Practical Pistol competitions using air pistols.

ANdy

Quoted: Quoted: But you have to remember many many of those replies are from Clubs, who wrote in representing the entire club membership...still, looks like most shooters are not interested in fighting for their rights here in the UK. Only the person/organisation at the top of the list will get a reply and the letter will count as only one response. It's the same with petitions, a million signature petition will require only one reply from ministers (or whoever it is sent to) but two personal letters will warrent two responses, already you've doubled the workload and made twice the point to the recipient. What Vito didn't mention before was that of all the responses to the Home Office Firearms Consultation Document about half came from anti-shooting people. It is a sad fact. Be honest, how many of you on this board actually replied individually?

I should have bee more specific, I was only flagging up the replies from shooters.

A total of approximately 4,400 replies when I asked, about a 50/50 split.

It was not quite the overwhelming endorsement for change the HO was looking for, hence I supect the stoney silence after nearly a year.

ANdy

Quoted: 2000 odd  replies from 'our' side is pathetic.....

Couldn't agree more...

And when they find they are only allowed single shot bolt action .22 rifles and .177 air rifles for target shooting they will have no one to blame but themselves....

I can see it now...

"The government has banned my SMLE! outrageous!'...

... 'But you said you saw no problem with them banning 'combat' style shooting'

'Yes, but I was talking about those 'cowboys' who use assault rifles and pump action shotguns! not people shooting historical arms like the SMLE!'

...'As far as the Government is concerned an SMLE is a military 'Battle Rifle' - sucks don't it'?

Quoted: How many people(shooters) lobbied government in Ireland to get the 32 year ban overtuned there?

The question should not be, "How did the shooters in the Republic get their guns back?".

The more important question that should be asked is, "How did the shooters in Northern Ireland keep theirs?".

The answer? Self defence, that's the reason, simple as that.

In Northern Ireland you can still bear arms for 'Self Defence'. When you apply for a firearms permit you can list that as 'Good Reason'.  It never was removed as 'Good Reason' here on the mainland, but in 1950, the then Home Secretary arbitrarily decided that in future 'Self Defence' should no longer be considered 'Good Reason' for the grant of a permit.

So, what we have seen is a parralel social experiment. One section of the UK has RKBA laws (and CCW laws) as good as, and in some respects better than the USA, while the other section is systematically disarmed.  

And experience showed in NI there was no correspondence between gun ownership and crime, quite the contrary in fact!

Outside of the paramilitary controlled areas, NI has some of the lowest crime rates involving burglary, robbery and assault in the Western World.

So, when the GCN crowd tried pressuring the NI Assembly in 1997 to ban private ownership of handguns on the grounds of 'Public Safety' they were told in no uncertain terms to sling their hook as they were talking out of their arses, and the Assembly and the Police, who were in favour of private firearm ownership, had the facts to back them up.

ANdy

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Sounds great. Unfortunately sanity like that is nt allowed here in the mainland  UK legislative process.

Fixed it for you.

But it is true. When you have a right to use a firearm for 'self defence', regulation of arms for 'sporting purposes' is not an issue. When you are only allowd arms for 'sporting purposes' , that becomes a 'hobby' and a 'privilage'.... and as we know, provilages can be withdrawn.

On another point there is a body of opinion that if we been signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights at the time of Dunblane, the total ban may not have held. It specifically outlaws 'collective punishment'... and the ban was a pretty clear case of 'Collective Punishment'.


ANdy