Gun today, gun tomorrow

Lobbydog was chatting to a dad who has been campaigning for a change in the law governing the use of airguns.

A couple of years back his son was playing with two other lads who had an airgun, and was accidentally shot in the eye – he died two days later.

The dad had, among other things, wanted a law saying that air guns should be kept in a locked cabinet when not in use.

He was understandably happy when the Queen’s Speech included a line saying there would be a law requiring the weapons to be kept out of kids’ reach.

But after LD read through the detail of the legislation, which was published this morning and gave him a call, he was not so pleased.

The wording of the law, rather than requiring guns to be kept locked up, simply said “reasonable precautions” had to be taken to stop youngsters getting them.

Anyone that has watched any sort of court case knows that is far too vague a wording to make it easy to prosecute anyone who commits the offence.

The question has to be asked why they didn’t simply spell out that it should be locked up when not in use, as the dad put it – what harm would it do?

One MP mentioned it may be because the Government had wanted to keep the rural lobby happy, judging by comments on some airgun websites they are pleased with the “flexibility” of the wording.

Unfortunately I fear that in trying to keep everyone happy the Government may end up with a dud law.