Terry A de C Foley

Dear Tom - three years too late, I'm afraid, to even rescue the wreckage. Sorry about that. Not all is gloom however, and the British shooter has a very wide choice of weapons that aren't available anywhere else on earth, as far as I know. Hand-cocked versions of many previously selfloading weapons of all kinds, starting at about $1500 or so, to replace the self-loaders we lost back in 1988. Where once we shot pistol we now shoot lever action carbines or the ubiqitous 10/22, and boy, do we have some great fun doing that. Just about every discipline we had before as a pistol competition we now have as 'action carbine' or .22. We are determined that we will go on in spite of the ever-increasing pressure to give it all up and take up crochetting or basket-weaving. We are, of course, villified in the press and made to feel guilty about it all, and in an incredible admission, the Home Office published figures that proved that armed criminality had actually increased by 140% since we handed all our guns in. Hey, we can put up with the rest of the world laughing at us for a bit longer, with our funny guns that nobody else has [or could possibly want],the 24" barrel revolvers with shoulder stocks, the wacky single shot M-16 HB with a couple of thousand dollars-worth of sights, and the 'just for UK' Garands. But one day, if and when people who know their way around guns are needed, who will be there? We won't......


TF