Shooting in the Media

The Telegraph recently published an interesting piece featuring Ruth Mwandumba, a talented young shooter who made her mark as the 2018 English Champion in the 10m Women’s Air Rifle.

‘I drive in British Shooting clothing in case I get stopped by police’ - Ruth Mwandumba on life as a black international shooter

The article is topical, discussing race in a sport which - in the UK - has been predominantly white to date. A hot topic with the current focus on BLM and associated scrutiny of systemic and institutionalised racism.

And it is an eye-opener. Many of us don’t think twice about slinging our gear in the car. Some even neglect to routinely carry their Firearms Certificate.¹ A young, black female transporting firearms in her car could be construed in many unfavourable ways by those of a closed mind or certain disposition.

That black shooters might feel the need to wear overt sporting colours to set the tone of interactions with Police is not something many will have considered. Worse yet, Ruth actually occupies a relatively privileged position - many rifle clubs do not have a “club strip” or branded apparel equivalent to the Team GB tracksuit she has available. In the same way you would not typically drive to a sailing club wearing your wetsuit, most people arrive at shooting clubs wearing jeans and a t-shirt before changing into the specialist sportswear we use.

It’s an eye-opening and important article and I encourage you to read it. I’m not going to comment on that aspect of the content because frankly - as a white male - there’s probably not much I can add of value other than to read it and reflect on whether our sport harbours institutional racism. I also congratulate Ruth on her accomplishments and on bringing generally positive media attention to the sport.

What to watch out for

The article also contains some all-too common media blunders, not by Ruth nor even really the author. Most journalists have tight deadlines on a bunch of articles. They are not experts in every sport and it’s unreasonable to expect them to be. But certain comments still jump out from the text:

It is common to find target shooters competing at Olympic Games in their 50s and 60s and, in that sense, time is on 25-year-old Mwandumba’s side – not just in the pursuit of an Olympic medal, but to drive change in her overtly white, elitist sport, where competition rifles can cost up to £7,000.

Whilst we’re a diverse sport which doesn’t burn out competitors by the age of 30 (at least not physically), there is a common theme in the press to describe Shooting as elitist. I suspect this is mostly due to the perception of “Shooters” as a gaggle of hunting-shooting-fishing blue-bloods bearing £100k pairs of Purdeys, and is one of the reasons it’s so refreshing to see people like Ruth featured in the mainstream media. But whilst it is true that an Olympic-grade Grunig & Elmiger R3 can set you back £7k with accessories, this is not representative of the sport. That’s the very top-level gear - go and see how much a Laser dinghy, match kayak or top-grade compound bow costs. You can’t even buy the helmets and bicycles used by British Cycling as they are custom-made in accordance with the team’s exacting requirements and mantra of marginal gains.

The simple fact is that below the rarefied air and giddy heights of Team GB, it is perfectly possible to compete - and win medals - with less than £1000 worth of equipment. I won my first medals and shot my first ‘ton with club equipment (a battered zip-up jacket and an older but well-maintained Anschutz 1907) at Southampton University.

So why the perceptions?

This is a very broad question, but there are a couple of key topics.

BASC are good at what they do

BASC are great at PR and publicity. They drown out the NRA and NSRA, and can - to the untrained eye - perpetuate the “hunting-fishing” trope. Of course the majority of their membership are doing basic pest control of rabbit, fox and woodpigeon and are not the Lairds of a Highland estate offering driven Game shoots for £10k/weekend. But the public rarely see beyond the Barbour jacket.

We are really bad at doing what BASC do well

The above is not of course the fault of BASC for doing their jobs well. It is the fault of NRA/NSRA for not effectively communicating our story to press and public. It is also the fault of rifle clubs for doing their darndest to pretend they don’t exist.

It is up to each and every one of us to represent the sport, publicise ourselves in the local press and bring the sport out of the shadows.

The Gun Control Network

We don’t have much of an anti-gun presence in the UK. When people complain about “the antis”, it’s usually a lazy shorthand for “journalists I disagree with” (or indeed “journalists who don’t know the subject well enough to write about it”). There’s just one real anti-gun body (more a loose grouping - Gill, Mick, Pete & Chrissy - no, not an ABBA tribute group), and they are relatively quiet these days. They stick out a handful of press releases in July/August, hoping to capitalise on “silly season”. These are typically stuffed full of carefully selected or woefully distorted facts, attempting to make a mountain from nothing, scraping the barrel with “Lots of people have legally held firearms”. Um, okay then.

One article by Peter Squires of Brighton University and a long-time GCN activist (though usually just introduced as “Professor of Criminology” in the media, glossing over his political affiliation) set the following scene:

Flicking through the pages of Shooting Gazette, as you do, displayed adjacent to the cash tills at my local garden centre, I came across several pages of advertising for new and used shotguns. One of the cheapest guns displayed, included in a full page advertisement placed by a regional ‘country sports’ stockist, was a ‘used Browning’ in ‘very good condition’. It had a stock in ‘stunning dark wood’ and was embellished by engraved hunting scenes: yours for just £8,750. A little more exclusively priced was the ‘used Beretta’ at £18,750 or, if you prefer your hunting with a friend, an ‘elegant pair’ of new Beretta’s could set you back £69,950. Shooting is not a cheap sport,…

Yes Peter, and clearly all car-owners are millionaires. Have you seen how much a Jaguar E-Type is going for in Classic Car Magazine? This disingenuous bullshit *cough* selective use of facts relies on his readers being ignorant of shooting or knowing that their local RFD will have a wide selection of shotguns available for <£500. Presenting exceptional items as “normal” is of course misleading and academically dishonest.

The tilt of that article was that fees for Firearm and Shotgun Certificates are far too cheap and “it scarcely seems plausible that the shooting fraternity cannot afford more”.

Whilst railing at the landed gentry is always an entertaining pastime, it ignores entirely the vast majority of the sport. This seems a poor basis on which to make policy. You wouldn’t make road policy based on an afternoon watching motorsport. It is downright careless to cast aside the Bell Target fraternity, shooting in the back rooms of pubs and working men’s clubs on a shoestring budget. And it’s just rude to wilfully ignore the £40/yr airgun clubs borrowing village halls and Scout huts on a Tuesday evening. To say nothing of the British Shooting Schools Pistol Championship, where competitors are provided with match air pistols by the organisers. I wonder how much Prof Squires spends on his mobile phone tariff - £20 per month? More? That’s more than the membership fee to most shooting clubs. He must be a very rich man to afford such luxury. Okay, enough sarcasm.

So what’s to be done?

Earnestly insisting that people are wrong is rarely a fruitful way forward. Actions over words. I charge the shooting fraternity to reassess how they present themselves to the public (if they present themselves at all). What image does your club’s website portray? Is it truly representative of your club?

If you are not a bunch of white elitists (and you’re probably not), then get that in the local press! Make sure that it does not cross the minds of journalists to write those words because they already know it to be untrue. They shouldn’t need telling, they should simply know that you are the local rifle club - no different to the local rugby or hockey clubs. Send them your news. Make sure they know about what you’re about - Veterans and Juniors.