I think I made a mistake asking if you have had any bad experiences!! You seem to have been most unfortunate.

With regards to Deerdogs experience, that no-plate should have been followed up and would have been, maybe there was no registered keeper or it was used a pool car for the travelling fraternity, it does happen with annoying regularity. Criminal dont register vehicles in their name!

I have no desire to see new sportsmen fleeced by those who would take advantage of them, however, if there were to be some kind of mandatory, impartial training given by some agency, government or otherwise, it would go a long way towards making our sport safer not only to us, but to non shooting members of the public, who rightly or wrongly have rights to be on land.

I don't pretend to know all the answers and am not advocating involvment from polititions but feel strongly that these recent incidents could have been avoided by better training - something which is missing at present.

Ask yourself this, would you take out a new stalker (someone who has just attained their FAC and a rifle with no previous firearms experience) on your ground without any kind of safety briefing?

Steve,

I haven't seen or read any new updates for a couple of days. Unless someone can correct me on this.

308, the Norweigan training course sounds like a good way of ensuring all start off with the basics. Is it state run or do private organisations conduct the training. Just out of interest, are there many accidents involving firearms in your country?

Andy,
with all the best intentions and training accidents do happen!
I am all in favour of training, But only if it benefits the individual concerned and does not line someone else's pockets.
As for the police I think that you are one of the few that have not had a bad experience..

Several years ago my local firearms officer told me that Scotland was only small and that he didn't want any English coming up shooting our deer..... I didn't argue at that point as they were following up a friends application who I had given permission to shoot on my land who lived in England..
In retrospect I should have taken them both to the cleaners..

Griff

Hmm,

seems like there have been ALOT of bad experiences.

I don't believe there is an easy answer to the issue but still maintain that if there were some kind of training programme, there would be fewer accidents. I don't think that private industry should be involved in this if it is to be a money printing exercise.