Back before Al Gore invented the Internet, porn was a hard to come by (so to speak). “Mainstream” or “soft core” porn magazines (think a clothing-free version of thechive.com) appeared monthly. On the other side of the pond, high street stores selling these quasi-pornographic stroke books placed the material on top of their magazine racks—so little hands couldn’t reach them. And now the UK animal rights group Animal Aid wants Shooting Times and The Field magazine to join this “age restricted” material on the top shelf . . .

Animal Aid’s just released Gunning For Children: How the gun lobby recruits young blood. Their “report” reveals that. . . .

Across the country, in high street newsagents such as WHSmith, and on supermarket shelves, children have easy access to publications that encourage and even celebrate the killing of animals for ‘sport’. Shooters are featured posing boastfully alongside animals they have just slaughtered. Grinning young children are also shown holding up or standing over shot pheasants, rabbits, foxes and pigeons.

As you might imagine, Animal Aid Director Andrew Tyler claims his org’s anti “shooting porn” campaign (the telegraph.co.uk‘s characterization) is all about the children.

Children who kill animals for sport in urban areas are considered dysfunctional and a social menace. Yet, Britain has a gun lobby, composed of well-connected groups such as the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) and the Countryside Alliance (CA), that devotes considerable resources towards encouraging children to take up guns at a young age. Their actions are damaging not just to wildlife but also to the emotional development of young people.

The British Association of Shooting and Conservation’s Simon Clarke responded to the campaign

These blithering idiots don’t have a clue about the importance of shooting sports to land conservation, or the connection between firearms and the freedoms established by the Magna Carta. Every man, woman and child in the UK should be fully conversant with firearms. We will do everything in our power to restore respect for shooting sports as part of a wider effort to reclaim our right to personal self-defense, including publishing glossy pictures of guns and game.

No he didn’t. I made that up. He actually said:

Shooting is carried out for a number of reasons. It is either just pest control or shooting game. There is no glorification of the shooting itself, it is a means to an end.

So much for the Land of Hope and Glory then. I mean with a po-faced defense like that it’s no wonder the shooting sports are losing ground in the birthplace of our firearms freedoms.

Good thing magazines are as dead as a Dodo (not the best analogy but there you go). Of course, curious Brits can surf the web for gun porn to their hearts content. Thank God, and Al Gore.

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27 COMMENTS

  4. Imagine my surprise to open TTAG and see Melissa Midwest holding a shottie in the top post.

    Oh, her name wasn’t in any of the articles attached? Oh, nevermind then, I don’t know who she is. Pretty girl, though.

  5. Damn you, RF! Your fake quote from Simon Clarke pulled me in. I was about to write a comment about how impressively those Brits can turn a phrase.

    I should have known it was too good to be true. It read like a line from an Aaron Sorkin script. They’re really awesome, but nobody actually talks like that.

  6. for a number of reasons i no longer hunt. i support the right of others to hunt. i’m lukewarm at best for trophy hunting, but i will not hinder those that wish to. and as a one time farm boy, pest control is a real need on a farm.

    • Doesn’t getting on TTAG while you’re supposed to be working qualify as the main problem here? 😉

  10. Want to question trigger discipline…yet trigger faux pas makes public post possible….error 404 witty post not found…….what about London?

  11. I thought that first statement from the BASC was a bit far fetched for them. Although as you mentioned the Magna Carta (as part of the British Constitution), I take it you are aware of the British Constitutional Group led by Roger Hayes.

  12. False equivalency rules the day in Britain, where the animal rights extremists are apparently unable to tell the difference between rural and urban settings. Or maybe it’s just that they don’t trust their fellow Brits to understand that game animals are found out in the countryside (you know, where there’s actually room to shoot a gun and the animals run wild, not the people).

  13. Children who kill animals for sport in urban areas are considered dysfunctional and a social menace. Yet, Britain has a gun lobby, composed of well-connected groups such as the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) and the Countryside Alliance (CA), that devotes considerable resources towards encouraging children to take up guns at a young age.

    Yes, there’s a double standard between hunting in an urban environment and hunting in the countryside. There’s also a double standard between relieving yourself in a urinal and relieving yourself in your boss’ coffee cup. Double standards are good things when the two situations being compared are completely different from one another.

    • …relieving yourself in your boss’ coffee cup.

      What about on Debra’s desk?

      /like a boss

  16. Caption:
    Expensive fowling piece a shot spoiler.

    One might have overlooked the otherwise bulky appearance of the gloves, had she been modeling only the gloves and say, the latest fashion in shooting glasses.

    Classified ad:
    Wanted: Blonde model with expensive fowling piece and appropriate accoutrements.
    Please send pictures.

  17. Heck, Mikeb might even convert to progun were Melissa doing all the talking, uh pictures do speak a thousands words, mostly hubba, hubba, hubba!

  19. Blast! You so got me with your faux response I was ready to sell my first born my alienware X51 to fund his organisation. Then I read on and got depressed.

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