Survival Arts

NRA of Great Britain: I'd not known such an organization existed

I lived in London the early part of the '90's, and had the opportunity to go shooting with the Imperial College Non-Staff Shooting Club - on campus! - at their indoor range, where I learned some neat tactical tricks from a retired Hong Kong cop. Even then, though, I didn't know there existed an "NRA of Great Britain", but now I know, according to a Samizdata article by David Carr.

I do hope the NRA/GB is not like the crowd of statist wimps which characterize the National NRA of the US, crying out to "enforce the existing laws" of the land. I wonder if there's a JPFO/GB or a GOA/GB... until then, the UK Libertarian Alliance is the closest thing they have.

Speaking of the club at Imperial College, I see that while they apparently still exist, and under the name Imperial College Rifle and Pistol Club, there is no mention other than in name of the word "pistol" on their website. I'm assuming that the nice little underground pistol range that ex-girlfriend Nagako and I trained at a decade ago has been turned into a rimfire range, at best. Ugh.

Another glance at the ICRPC website mentions this sad fact, emphasis mine:

ICRPC only owns one fullbore target rifle so we normally organise our shooting trips in conjuction with the University of London Rifle Club. The rifles we use fire 7.62mm rounds, normally 155 grain.

As I implied in a piece I wrote for Samizdata a few months ago, a once-great country has been strangling it grassroots culture of weapon ownership at its base. I predict that the ICRPC will eventually lose even that one rifle... unless the students are willing to fight for it.

Posted by Russell Whitaker at February 17, 2003 12:50 PM | TrackBack