Me and a gun

A couple of Colour Supplements back, we mentioned a piece on the biased bbc blog which complained about a page on the BBC website. We were surprised to get a response - mainly because we'd always sort-of-assumed that nobody read this part of the site. This, then is Phil Bulmer's response to our observations on his original Biased BBC Post:

I had a look around your website, the subject of which would have been enough to land you with a criminal record but a generation ago. My parents had at least one friend who was sent to prison for homosexual acts. Thankfully current UK attitudes are more informed on such issues, nobody gets locked up for being gay or bisexual these days, yet there’s still a long way to go. I therefore find it ironic that a website like yours fails to understand the point of view of another
legitimate minority. Not only does it not understand, it actively attacks my point of view. Call it democracy if you like but hypocrisy might be more appropriate. As a total outsider, I appreciate, though don’t profess great understanding of your issues, so how about you at least appreciating mine? Intolerance is our common enemy.

More on the biased BBC thing, I'm afraid - our friends over at the
biased BBC blog seem to still not quite get the point that balanced
reporting doesn't mean that when you report A, you also have to report
the existence of not A.

Take this single BBC web page in isolation and you may begin to mount a plausible defence. Set it against a backdrop of repeated articles and a pattern soon emerges.  A quick search of the BBC archives shows 31 airgun related articles and only one has comment from a shooting organisation. There also appears to be a recent trend of posting links
to the Gun Control Network and forgetting (or posting only when prompted and when the page has dropped off the header sheet) a link to a shooting organisation such as the BASC. The GCN is a secretive organisation with probably no more than half a dozen members.  The shooting press have called into question the validity of such a small organisation and rumours allege that it consists of the spouse of a Labour MP and a senior police officer amongst others. The truth is nobody appears to know for sure and quite who is funding them and their London poster campaign is also a mystery. Before the BBC starts posting links to their website, perhaps they might like to investigate the GCN and expose their membership and funding. If ever there was an organisation that needed to roof blowing off for public scrutiny then this is it.
The BASC on the other hand is quite open about its organisation and funding. BASC membership is measured in tens of thousands yet apparently it's not worth a link, most notably on the news article in question. The GCN (remember, half a dozen members) got one though, you still think this is unbiased?
 
The sort of bias that made me take to the keyboard isn't necessarily glaringly obvious to the casual reader.  It's a subtle undercurrent that's irritating to those with real knowledge of the sport and it gradually distorts public perception of legitimate shooters. If you want to see BBC bias towards shooters then you need look no further than the Commonwealth Games. 18 medals for shooting, 3 of which were gold, the BBC coverage was scant to put it mildly. Mike Yardley explains all here,  I rest my case.

and the police don't think they [guns] make a very good Christmas gift for
children

What, all the police or just one officer? It can't be all the police, that I'm sure of. I know of one officer who shoots airguns at our club and supervises his young lad doing the same. I'm sure a new airgun in this situation would make an ideal present. There are plenty of other supervised youngsters at the club, so much so that I'm delighted to say I've not managed to get a spot on the range for a fortnight!
Many of these said youngsters receive an airgun for Christmas and use it responsibly. They go about enjoying their sport and never make newspaper headlines. Try telling these young adults that their Christmas gift is unsuitable.
There is a hole through to the other side of this blanket statement. An airgun simply handed over to a 14 year old by a parent who subsequently abandons all further control isn't in my view acting responsibly, here's the case of the unsuitable gift.

The Queen's speech hinted at legislation designed to tackle criminal misuse of airguns. Tony Blair apparently recognises the need to tackle the small minority who use airguns in an anti-social manner but at the same time not restrict legitimate users (there are between 4 and 7 million of us by the way). If he can tackle the small criminal element and leave legitimate shooters alone I'd be the first one to congratulate him, the devil as they say is in the detail.

Now, to be totally balanced, the BBC should have interviewed someone
who enjoys being shot at by guns, true, but it's a bloody short piece
about the amnesty.

Now you're just being very silly. Remember, if the Beeb can provide a link to the dubious GCN they can link to the BASC, half a dozen members verses tens of thousands, balance see?

Nowhere does it editorialise that guns are bad. Or that airguns are
bad

No, no, no, journalists are not that daft. You don't editorialise your views, journalists interview those whom they think may provide their views regardless of how informed they are, then arrange the juicy sound bites to their liking, not forgetting those all important quotation marks. They spice the language up with emotive words or phrases such as 'airgun crackdown', 'weapons' and 'amnesty', all of which lend a seedy disreputable criminal quality to the prose and seemingly tar all shooters with the same brush. When reading the end news product I find I can read a subtle underlying agenda, call me perceptive if you like, perhaps it’s a talent.
 
I'm guessing the complainant doesn't live in a neighbourhood like
mine, where all we want for Christmas is for the kids to declare a
Holiday Truce  

Interesting guess. True I live in a rural area, I live in a place where seemingly every third household has an airgun or firearm for
sporting or pest control use. There's no gun problem that I know of and the village goes about its peaceful way as it has done for generations, the land that political correctness forgot if you like.
Not that this should blur my views and make me a person unsuitable for passing comment, for I work in a big city with a reputation for crime second only to Manchester. It’s a city in which certain areas have routinely armed police officers to counter the drug fuelled criminal gangs intent on killing each other. I'm a teacher and I teach pupils who whilst in their bed at night can hear the gangsters ‘busting caps’ at each other with handguns that were banned years ago but somebody forgot to tell them.
Some pupils from these areas arrive at school with social baggage and I’ll leave it up to you as to the potential causes. I think this qualifies me to comment and I for one would go much further with my Christmas wish list than yourself. The major gun problem in this generally law abiding country stems from drugs dealers using firearms to protect their turf.

Lets hope BBBC don't find out that an equally biased reporton a guns
amnesty in sunderland - they actually imply that knife is a weapon
which, as B-BBC correspondent Phil Bulmer would be quick to point out,
is as ridiculous as calling a baseball bat a weapon. Presumably

The point you missed is this. Airguns are neither sold as or intended to be used as weapons. Thousands of everyday objects can be used as a deadly weapon without modification, a hammer, clothes line pole, screwdriver, tent pegs or even an HB pencil. Sporting equipment is the same. A golf club can be deadly if used inappropriately yet we don't see repeated calls for licensing of five irons. They are sold as and intended for use as sporting equipment. Life imprisonment awaits anyone who feels the urge to kill or maim using one, the UK judicial system doesn't have anything more severe than life imprisonment, they stopped hanging four decades ago.
 
The knives in the photograph are different. At least four are military weapons, (two bayonets, a kukri and a British Army issue knife with 'pig sticker' attachment) and the butterfly knife is illegal to own anyway. These are designed as true weapons from the outset and their presence on the street will not be missed. Guns and knives on the street are a problem, guns and knives within a legal context are not a problem, spot the difference?
 
What we don't understand is how B-BBC can condemn the ITC for thinking
that the British public can't tell 'news' from 'comment', and then gets itself
into a big, sexy, pouty sweat because it believes that the British public can't
tell a news report of an airgun amnesty from a definitive statement on gun control

On the whole I think the British public is quite savvy when it comes to making judgements about news. If however the member of the public derives their views on airguns entirely from the media, the view is clouded behind hysteria, sensational headlines and factually dubious reporting. When a solicitor friend of mine came out with the line 'You mean you actually own two cats and shoot an airgun?' said as if it were an untenable paradox, you do tend to smack your forehead like a thespian luvvy and wonder what they've been watching and reading.
Organisations such as the BASC go a long way to promote a true reflection of the sport through public events and coaching sessions, the annual game fairs such as the CLA and Western Park see tens of thousands of airgun enthusiasts flocking to the exhibitions and trade stands. Fund raising shoots such as the one held at Lea Valley Airgun Club in July of this year raised £3,000 for Macmillan Cancer Care and the Swan Sanctuary at Eggham in Surrey has its rats cleared by shooters with airguns, it's the safest method. This is just a fraction of what really goes on in the UK airgun scene. Does any of this get reported in the media? I think not.

Unlike yourself, I don't exhibit the same blasé confidence in the ability of the entire British public to distinguish 'news' from
'comment' when looking at shooting issues. Some will, some wont. If you report only bad news and then subtly fail to seek a breadth of opinion within this angle (like posting one sided links), you are going to influence sections of the population over a period of time.
No one news item will do this, you can go online and mount a plausible case for the defence of a feature, but a steady drip-drip-drip of media attention will taint views. I spend a considerable amount of time combating ignorance of shooting sports, a lot of media mud has been slung over the years and trust me, much of it has stuck.
 
Well, it's been an interesting experience replying to your post, it's nice to know a gentle ripple went out pinged some nerves and bounced back from a distant shore. Somebody is listening, possibly even someone from the BBC, as I don’t actually know who you are. You never know, millions of airgun shooters may begin to get a balanced hearing after all, both sides of an issue, nice idea, someone ought to set up a website on that very principle.
 
Far from breaking out in a sexy sweaty pout (I wish) I'm freezing my toes off here in my concrete floored office, time to get some blood around my feet. I'll go and pack my air rifle into its case ready for tomorrow's club meeting, you ought to try it sometime, 4 to 7 million of us can't all be wrong.

 

and, this, then, is our response:

 

Phil

Thanks for your email, which raised a lot of points; I'm going to include both it and this response in the update to the colour supplement this weekend, which I hope is okay; it just seems better to use your actual arguments and thoughts than me trying to precis them and re-write them.

Deep breath.

I recognise your plea for tolerance - although I have to say as a bisexual man, I've never quite got the argument that because an unfair law was changed thirty years ago this means I should naturally throw my weight behind anyone and everyone who feels that they're at a disadvantage compared to other people. It always seems to be done slightly as if people like me should feel gratitude for being able to engage in my own choice of consensual sexual activity and it's now my duty to never stop anyone else doing whatever they want, to whoever, whenever. I'd like to think my attempts to live a liberal, generally tolerant life have nothing to do with the urges of my body and more because its right.

I should say that I don't really understand the attraction of shooting as a hobby, but then i don't understand golf, watching formula one racing or listening to Geri Halliwell albums; it doesn't mean that I'd outlaw them totally. I do, however, find myself puzzled as to why anyone would want to own a gun, have a gun in their house, want to shoot a gun at anything other than target on a range. I acknowledge that countryside people may feel the need of a gun for professional reasons - to shoot critters, and to fire over the heads of ramblers. But a gun in the house? It puzzles me, I must admit; in the same way that those people who choose to keep tigers and bears in their homes puzzles me.

That BBC News has only once spoken to a shooting organisation in thirty-one pages on airguns is disappointing, but I suspect shows more the level of importance BBCi attaches to the issue than any real bias. And what would be the point of seeking a shooting organisation's views on a case such as this, from Wales, where an airgun was let off in a pub? No more point, surely, than seeking the opinion of a brewer or the RSPCA because beer and a dog were involved.

But, there again, I can see you have a point - this most recent example doesn't offer any opposing view and I agree with you that that the page could benefit from some sort of balancing voice in this case.
Especially with the reporting of the statistic that sixty percent of firearms offences involve air weapons, which is the bit that bothers me. Clearly, there is a problem there that needs to be addressed. My solution would be to not let people take their guns home; but I'd be interested to hear other ways of dealing with it.

I don't think this makes a case that the BBC are biased against airguns; you could argue that what the website suggests is that the BBC is just a little too quick to report the Police's point of view on everything.

The GCN matter is something else entirely - the BBC do make clear that any external link is nothing to do with it, guv, and to expect it to comb through every single website it links to and investigate the affiliations of everyone involved with them is unrealistic. It's not really that secretive an organisation, is it? Max Mortimer and Mick North are the names behind their website - which is incredibly badly designed, by the way; and interestingly has their links page headed up "BASC". I can't speak for the BBC if their constant appearance on gun-related news stories links is down to any affiliation with New Labour; I'd imagine they've probably got niftier PR than the BASC. It's easier to get sympathy for dead children than it is for people with guns. Again, though, I think what you're mistaking for bias is just lazy journalism. Unforgivable, perhaps, but less sinister.

Moving onto the sports coverage, I can share your frustration. You want to try being bisexual in a world that has only gays and straights in it - there's absolutely no room for bisexuality in the media in the same way that there's no room for shooting in the sports news.

I'm not sure why Michael Yardley shoots (no pun intended - oh, alright, there was) himself in the foot by carping about the amount of coverage "blind bowls" got - first up, he's talking complete bollocks, secondly, why should able-bodied sportsmen automatically get precedence over disabled athletes?; if the media ignores the voices of shooters how did he get talked over by Sue McGregor (if I had a pound for every shit interviewee on Today who blames the presenters...). My gut instinct about the lack of live coverage of the shooting on the BBC's Commonwealth Games programming is that you are, basically, talking about a minority sport. I know you'll tell me that millions of people go shooting every day, but that doesn't really automatically guarantee there's going to be a large television audience for what is, frankly, not much of a spectator sport. You could equally kick up a stink over the way the nation's most popular sport never features on Grandstand; but fishing doesn't look good on TV. If the TV had cut out all references to the events at Bisley, I'd concede. But they didn't. I have no interest in the Commonwealth Games, but I had heard about the troubles the national team had had over their trainings, and that they'd won some medals. BBCi has a huge chunk of reports on the shooting events. And so on.

Airguns for Christmas? Sadly, while I'm sure there are many thousands of young people firing things at things all the time, as you know "People Don't Commit Crime" isn't a headline-grabbing story. My desire is not to stop young people using proper ranges in a responsible way, supervised by responsible people. But I don't see why they need their own guns tucked in their stockings to do this. People go bowling, but are happy to hire a ball at the alley. If you want to learn to fly, you don't go out and buy a plane. My interest is not in stopping people enjoying their hobbies, but in getting guns off the street. People running shooting ranges are - in my experience - level headed and trustworthy. I'd feel a lot happier if they kept the shooters locked up in their cupboard when evening comes around.

I think basically we have common cause that guns should be treated with respect; I think we diverge as to where exactly the line should be drawn. Like you say, the devil is in the detail.

I hold my hands up and admit that I was just being silly suggesting that the BBC should interview people who want to be shot for balance - you saw through my overblown and florid rhetorical style. But there is a crucial element here - while the BBC may be neglecting to listen to the gun lobby, what's also missing from most of these reports are the people who've lost eyes, and days of work, and friends to people who use guns. What has to be most important is the greatest comfort of the largest number of people, surely, and this is where the comparison with the 1969 Sexual Offences Act breaks down. If a bloke has sex with another bloke, it doesn't impact on anyone else. If he keeps a gay porn magazine in his house, and someone breaks in and steals it, they can't really do much harm to someone else with it. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has even accidently been hurt by someone having homosexual sex, must less killed because a man had his safety off. Guns hurt and maim and wound and kill. That's why they have to be controlled. Gay men, lesbians and bisexuals make sticky messes of sheets and sometimes dance about with their shirts off. There's a world of difference.

You see, I really don't see how someone who works in an area where people's lives are blighted by plastic gangsters (let's not pretend these people are the real deal; they're fuckwits who walk on their dealer's leash) waving guns about could possibly argue against taking every care to ensure these people can't get their hands on guns. Remember, sixty percent of all firearms offences use airguns; they're easier to get hold of and just as effective at scaring people. I can see your point that airguns aren't sold as weapons, but they make bloody effective ones. And while I concede that golfclubs can be used to inflict injury, at least the attacker has to make the effort to cross the road to use it. And - seriously - when did you last hear a story about a masked man terrorising a pub by waving a golfclub about? Equally, while anyone misusing an airgun is looking at life imprisonment, if the bloke across the street from me had been holding his hostage with a golfclub, we wouldn't have had to spend a day locked in our homes, trying to stop our cats from going near the window, while scared looking policemen tried to reason with him.
I see the difference between things designed for sport and things designed for taking lives. The sad fact is, though, the bloke who went to The Thatched House in Wavertree on Tuesday night apparently didn't. Nutters who want to injure people don't say "Ah, but this is sporting equipment - I can't wave this at a traffic warden." Similarly, the guy who waved a samurai sword at Merseyside Police seemed to be paying scant attention to the tradition that such devices are only meant to be used ceremonially. It does seem that a quick puff on a crack pipe and people forget the rulebooks.

Interested in your remarks about the good work does for places like the Swan Sanctuary in Egham, I went to see if they had any press coverage from the rat-cull. Instead, I came across this- which may both illustrate the problems your sport has with image, and the problems people like me have with airguns.

So, to conclude - I accept your point that BBC News can be sloppy about granting coverage to the sport's point of view; I don't agree that this is due to a conspiracy so much as laziness and over-reliance on PR and press releases. In fact, over BBC News Online as a whole, rather than the original article we both started out with, I'd have to agree that there's not been enough room for the voice of responsible airgun users to be heard. But maybe part of this is because there is a tendency amongst some people to approach the BBC as if it's against them - "as I said in all of my radio and TV appearances, nobody ever listens to us" - and approach any criticism or question as if it's got a hidden agenda of enforced beating of guns into ploughshares attached to it.
Oh, and, no, I don't work for the BBC. They wouldn't have me.

This page is a supplement to this week's No Rock and Roll Fun Colour Supplement


The Colour Supplement is a beta-test version of stuff that may have made No Rock And Roll Fun, but was off-topic.
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