Tim Bonner: Gold, guns and the next generation

If you have ever tried shooting Olympic Trap you will know it is very difficult and you will be in awe of Nathan Hales’ remarkable gold medal performance in Paris. Nathan won gold with an ice-cold attitude and a brilliant score as he saw off five other competitors from across the globe in the final shoot-off. The international appeal of shotgun shooting was emphasised even further in yesterday’s women’s final when Adriana Ruano Oliva became Guatemala's first ever Olympic champion. It is a wonderful thought that right now the hero of that Central American nation is not a footballer or a revolutionary, but a clay pigeon shooter.

We need to be honest and accept that despite the addition of flash targets in the finals which record a hit with a cloud of pink smoke, shooting is never going to be a mass spectator sport. It is, however, a great participation sport which is widely accessible and cuts across culture and geography. The two Olympic shotgun competitions – Olympic Trap and Olympic Skeet - are disciplines which can be repeated from Malta to Taiwan to New Zealand and all those countries have shooters at the Olympics.

Of course, we can just celebrate Nathan Hales’ medal and hope that there is more to come from Amber Rutter in her Olympic Skeet competition as well as two representatives in the rifle disciplines, but there is also a wider message from the Olympic shooting competitions. They are a rare showcase for a sport which millions of us participate in around the globe which normalises shooting for the many people who are not otherwise exposed to it.

Gun ownership faces some significant challenges in the years ahead. The first of those will be the delivery of the government’s manifesto commitment to raise £21 million by recovering the costs of the firearms licensing system. If it requires gun owners to pay for the current ridiculous system which involves 42 separate licensing authorities and licence renewals every five years, the cost to individuals could rise by hundreds of pounds. That will very obviously be a significant barrier to people getting into shooting and especially exclude those on lower incomes. It is worth noting that many of those parts of the country that have the highest proportion of gun owners are in areas where income is lowest. 

As Ministers celebrate Olympic gold with us they should reflect on the power they have to influence the next generation of British shooters. Making the ownership of guns unaffordable to a significant part of the population might exclude potential Olympians from ever being able to pick up a gun.