Folks,

Please take a look at the following film that is currently appearing on the Barnardo's website.

Film Campaign

To say that it insults legitimate shooters is an understatement.

BASC have already taken the matter up with them and have released the following statement:

BASC CALLS ON BARNADOS TO WITHDRAW CAMPAIGN FILM


BASC and all those who are active in legal shooting sports will be shocked and deeply concerned by the irresponsible portrayal of people involved in shooting in Barnardo’s latest awareness campaign. Shock advertisements such as this demean the cause of child protection.

Barnardos claims there is an unjustified and disturbing intolerance to children in modern society, and that they are demonised; yet the organisation thinks it acceptable to demonise people who lawfully shoot.

The film clearly shows sporting guns being used by the adults wearing country clothing. The style is graphic and realistic, and it makes no attempt to show the weapons are illegal. In fact it depicts extreme, Illegal and shocking behaviour which risks encouraging precisely the behaviour that Barnardo’s seeks to campaign against.

BASC Director of Communications, Christopher Graffius says:

]“This film and the way it portrays people who are clearly involved in lawful sporting shooting, is totally unacceptable. BASC will be making an official complaint to Barnados and if the film is not withdrawn we will be taking this to the Charities Commission. We are also urging our members, and others who support our position to also make their feelings known to Barnados.â€

In response Barnado's have made the following apology but have not with withdrawn the film:

Barnardos says it never intended to offend anyone and has released a statement of apology which will be carried on the BASC website.

Barnardos Director of Communications, Diane Tickell said:

“This film in no way intended to negatively portray legitimate shooting sports or offend BASC or your members and any offence caused is entirely unintentional. The overall aim of our campaign is to highlight that Barnardo’s Believes in Children and in particular highlight our work with children in trouble.â€
She added: “This film quotes actual comments left by members of the public on message boards within UK newspaper websites. Barnardo’s think it is unacceptable to talk about children in this manner: words like 'animal', 'feral,' 'vermin' and “shoot a few†used in reference to children. We felt it was necessary to show these words in action to bring home just how prevalent and damaging the use of this language is, hence the use of the hunting imagery. We are using the concept of people shooting as a metaphor to highlight the severe and irresponsible way in which society has begun to demonise children in the UK.â€

Barnardos campaign says that there is an unjustified and disturbing intolerance to children in modern society, and that they are being demonised. The British Association for Shooting & Conservation argued that the charity appeared to demonise people who lawfully shoot, in their campaign film, which was not acceptable.

Barnardos says the film will be superseded by a television advertisement campaign, which will begin next week and which will contain no images of hunting or legitimate firearms.

Knowing that many Shoots raise money for Barnardo's I feel the film is doubly insulting.

If members here see it in the same light, I urge you to email Barnardo's directly to voice your disgust. Emails can be addressed to dorothy.howes@barnardos.org.uk.

The made front page in expressen in Sweden, that is one of the leading evening papers.


http://www.expressen.se/

The organisation, I sent a mail to them by the way, is being througly taken apart,

I bet that they will make the headlines in the evenning news as well.

In sweden a video like this would mean the end of the organisation, there are 300 0000 hunters fees paid each year in Sweden, we are about 9 milion people, guess how they would all react.

Besides the law suits for slander would have them declare bankrupcy within a week.


Best regards Chris

Pete,

Can a shooter be legit? It's generally held in the hands of someone wearing a balaclava doing a bank job.

As moderator we expect you to uphold standards - what would the St Herberts club think of that English usage!

Am I missing something?

Just looked at the clip and saw no shooters at all - shocking clip all the same...

Nightwalker,

The original clip has now been removed; no doubt they realized that it alienated many potential donors and had caused considerable negative publicity with in field sport circles...

Regards,

Peter