Foxy loxy

[BloomingMarvellous]

Shooting Firearms in the dark, am I missing something here?

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by BloomingMarvellous

Shooting Firearms in the dark, am I missing something here?

you might be - but the guy concerned presumably has a lamp (or a night scope) so he probably doesnt.

btw i had a further thought about the noise issue, which is that if caerfione pursues that he might choose, or be persuaded, to use a silenced rifle (which would be the first choice for manyshooters anyway) instead of a shotgun.

that would solve the noise abatement side of things , and reduce the maiming, which tends to be a result of the edge of a shot cone catching the target - but not stop the foxes being shot - in fact the kill rate would probably be higher due to the rifle's increased range compared to a shotgun.

[stripee]

As the noise may be unreasonable (after 11pm for eg) try getting in touch with your local council's Environment officer. They will get you to log the noise, and may take it further if they feel it warrants it and they are usually more effective than the police I have found. Better if all your neighbours do as well at the same time. Also a Rights of Way officer may be interested if the person is carrying or discharging a loaded firearm in a public place (or discharging within 50 feet of the centre of a right of way). Or if the person in question is using "threatening or insulting words or behaviour with intent to threaten violence". Or to point his gun at you, loaded or not comes under the Public Order Act. They may go out and speak to the landowner. Maybe worth a try

[caerfaione]

Eeyore/Blooming Marvellous/Stripee

Thank you for your posts.

Firstly, Eeyore, I understand what you are saying although I do not like it.
This guy obviously wanted to show me he was boss and probably discharged the firearm in the air whist the beam was on my face. Without witnesses and actually being able to see anything it is difficult to prove. However, I did want to make maximum fuss about this but is it right if he is not formally charged nothing will go on record for when he applies for a licence.?That is what I wanted to achieve. According to the police, he was worried he may not get a licence as he was applying for a different sort of gun.

As I am new to this Forum and from your comments, it looks as though you have been in long debates about hunting. However anyone can see that this sort of behaviour does not help people to understand the character behind the gun.

As for silencing the gun, I had thought of that but that would make matters worse. Can't win can we?

BloomingMarvellous.

Thank you for your comment. Yes I was amazed. Look up the gun laws of this country and they are a farce. It is about 50 feet near to a footpath that someone can shoot. Anyone can own a shotgun, there is no minimum age, the youngest person in this country is 13, shall I go on?!!!

When this incident went on I was on a public footpath which I have walked for 25 years and do you know what the police said?

I "should make a health and safety risk assessment "before i set off"!!!!!

This was a revised comment after I pulled him up on the first which implied that I should not walk a public footpath at night! One of the reasons given was "in case there was a bull in the field."This was a general comment to all public footpaths in this country.

Rearrange the words , head, brick wall, bang!

Stripee

Thank you also. You have given me some very good pointers which I had not thought of especially the rights of way people. I had thought of contacting the Rambler's Association as they must have a legal team but i will have to join first I suppose.

I need to make maximum fuss if nothing else.

Please all sign my petition, ( I know Eeyore won't, the one in Winnie The Pooh would have!) But I do appreciate your comments Eeyore.

Number 10 closedfoxseason

[RAINBOWRUSSELL]

Signed !
We have had a lot of problems here too with people shooting only yards from our property..sometime all through the night..maybe poachers because the guy that usually helps with the 'control' of rabbits (which he has only had to do once!)for our neighbours estate doesn't know who it is!He doesn't shoot foxes as there are only about 2 around here that he has seen!
They even shoot 4.30 in the afternoon,near a footpath,but after many calls to the police they said they can only be prosecuted if they shoot across the footpath...so of course the killers won't shoot anything that runs across the footpath.....yeh right!!!!

I understand that to shoot a fox humainly a rifle must be used,I know the difference now in the sounds & can confirm that both shotguns & rifles are used here!!
We are 5 minutes tops from the police station & it took them 1.1/2 hours to get here one evening about 5.30 because they didn't know where we were....I would have thought 'local' police should be a little more clued up as we are only 1/2mile out of Bridport and next door to a'prominent' member of the community!!I was really angry,what if one of us had been shot etc etc!!!

This time the killers were shooting birds on the small lake next to us(20 feet!)...without the owners permission so I now know,it was dark as it was december and VERY frightening !!!
I screamed at them to ....go away & that I had called the police....they shot a few more birds....some flying over heard by the sounds of them..and then ran off up the track.Saw lights about 1/2hr later of a quad bike or something,picking up their kill!?!
I must have phoned the police about 7 times in the end!Bloody useless!
Another time when someone was shooting in the next field(with 2 footpaths across!)on a sunday afternoon,the police said that as long as they had gun licences they could do it!!So I started on about the noise nuisance and he said to get hold of the local body that would deal with that!
Strangly enough since then the day time shooting(apart from the bloody clay meeting every Saturday!)stopped except for one rifle last Thurday about 4pm in the next field again!The gamekeeper has asked me to watch out & see if I can find out who it is as no-one has permission to do it!
Only my opinion but the police man I had spoken to in the afternoon seemed to want to say the 'if you can't live with the country ways' etc,but I was brought up in a rural region so I stopped him in his tracks with that and said that I believed there are rules such as the killers should inform the police if they are shooting at night etc,then he just told me to have a word with the local farmer..etc etc...got no-where ,maybe he knew who the people are !?!
Who gives these people to kill when & what they want to?????
ps...I also reported a 'hunt'going on here too...which they said they were not informed about!They didn't appear!!So I called the league against cruel sports & told them with all the details,eg shotguns were not with the hunt acroos the fields & no birds of prey!

Sorry to go a bit,but our life here has been ruined by these people !

[James M]

Signed.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by caerfaione

Please all sign my petition, ( I know Eeyore won't, the one in Winnie The Pooh would have!) But I do appreciate your comments Eeyore.

Number 10 closedfoxseason

The one in winnie the pooh couldnt write

you are right though , I wont, as though i do sympathise with the plight of fox cubs if one or both parents are shot, the problem is that this time of year is also the time when fox control is most necessary to protect the nests of ground nesting birds

(for background as you are new I would clarify that i am talking about wild ground nesting birds such as terns, stone curlew , lapwing etc - I am a conservation proffesional not a hunter or keeper) I am not going further into this as the rights and wrongs of fox control have been debated to death on here already and it always winds up with feelings on both sides running high , personal comments being made, and the thread having to be closed

I would however support the tightening up of the firearms legislation so long as it was done intelligently as it is ridiculous that minors can have a shotgun licence , and even more so that anyone over 14 can buy a crossbow or sub 12ftlb air rifle without even needing a FAC (not that either of these are germane to the case here).

I also agree that the idiot in question is not a suitable person to have a FAC as his behaviour damages the efforts of more reputable licence holders and the image of shooters generally.

[aland]

As a fox and bird lover of both pheasants and partridge i agree totally on what you have just said, the cubs or some fox killed and ate a nesting pheasant in our field a very short distance from our hay shed where they are living and i was very annoyed but we have to put up with this if we are going to love both predators and prey, we have had the same cock pheasant living here and visiting our house for at least six years now, aland.

[SilverLass]

I have signed your petition and I'm really sorry to hear about your ordeal. What a cretin.

[RAINBOWRUSSELL]

Have emailed the petition site to all the people I could think of!!!!