I wa corresponding with an friend and he mentioned that he has friends in the UK, read England, Scotland and Wales, that there is really strong pressure to outlaw all hunting in the UK.

I thought you all would like to check out an old bookmarked website that I found a while back.

http://www.deer-uk.com/

In itself has a lot of interesting information form a different point of view, but may be a look at an activity, that most of us consider part of our lives, that may be gone in the UK in the future.

What a shame. One time England ruled the waves and a lot of the earth, now they are more worried about rabbit rights than the the rights of man. Makes me even more appreciative of being an American.

<<What a shame. One time England ruled the waves and a lot of the earth, now they are more worried about rabbit rights than the the rights of man.>>

They have no one to blame but themselves. I thought the same when the Aussies began destroying 'military' rifles. How could it be that a proud Australian veteran who would have fought to the death rather than hand his SMLE over to the Japs at Buna would so meekly surrender the same keepsake to the bleeping Ozzie politicians.

I agree they have no one to blame but themselves.

I wonder the complacincy that we "red staters" have that we won the last election may come home to roost sometime in my sons future. The urbanization, hence the disconnect with the what really is the real world, where food is grown in the dirt and meat is killed, dressed - not bought in a store, is what happened to the majority of the Brits, and the Aussies.

Nonetheless, the articles on the site are interesting and have some good perspectives in hunting that we don't see here in the US.

chuck

I have lost my semi auto rifles in 88, and my handguns more recently, after a long legal battle with the police here in the uk, and I can tell you what the problem is.

The press control peoples perceptions of things which the general public know little or nothing about. People seem surprised when they find out I am a shooter (I dont broadcast it here) as I am not wearing camo and dont go leaping around the woods with the TA. ok, a bit extreme, but thats the general picture here - ignorance. More people live in the cities than in the countryside, and they all get to vote on issues with different levels of understanding of the matter..

Its all a sad joke here, but at least as an 11 year old kid I had a Bren go fully auto on me, got to shoot a AR15, Styr, Stens, FALs and various other goodies before they were outlawed. Fireforming 375 weatherbys was all that was left for me after 88... no fun in that.

Still got my Remmy 1100, 280 remmy, and 358 win, dunno how long for tho.... I miss my Jericho 9x21 the most.

We have surrendered lots of firearms in Australia in the past 10 years, but Lee Enfields aren't among them. SMLEs III and IV, in varying states of preservation, are prominent in any feral pig shoot. Pigs don't vote, so I expect the venerable rifle will be around for a long time to come.

I'm years late to this but need to point out that Australia has a very different history to the USA in that we have never suffered civil wars on our soil and we have nothing in our own constitution which sets forth that we have a basic right to carry or bear arms for personal safety generally - unlike the USA. The fact is that Australia was not set up as a republic and is still not a republic to this day. Australia was a colony of the British populated with convicts/prisoners and forced labour - they were hardly going to encourage the early population of freed men to bear arms or write that into the basic constitution as a result. Add to this that we had the Martin Bryant massacre down in Tasmania at Port Arthur - which was the single largest massacre in history - and you had enough public shock and sympathy to support an ignorant backlash against responsible ownership of firearms in this country.

As has been stated above, there are plenty of .303's in private ownership in this country and they served our armed forces very well in it's service during various world wars. It is not that you no longer can own guns here but the restrictions are greater and it is just tougher to go through the red tape ... longer waiting periods etc. You can't really compare the US gun situation to Australia ... completely different backgrounds and political contexts.

I love my smles,pry them from my cold dead fingers

That'e the picture here in the US, too. It seems ironic to me that in the Information Age we have access to more information than ever before, but people seem more than ever determined to accept whatever they hear or see at first blush and without an ounce of critical thought. They end up parroting whatever they hear most often, even if it's completely nonsensical.

I shot my first Smelly when I was 8 years old at an Army open day in Sydney - My Grandfather was at Gallipoli - guess what rifle I plan to buy as my first when I get my liscencing sorted?

I agree Pisgah. It doesn't matter what sort of political persuasion someone is. So many people and sadly it is the great majority here in the states, are not interested in education themselves about the rights they have and the threats to them. That goes for those who think themselves conservative as well as liberal.

Tikirocker, very nice pic and great example of a very good rifle.

__________________
Be popular? Heck, I have enough friends.
and...
"That way lies madness".

Have fun finding one buddy,there getting very rare and expensive.Heres a couple of my smles

Didn't realize the sniper versions were so exxy these days - guess I'll stick with the MKIII's and the standard jobs - how do the MKIII's handle with a modern scope added on by the way?

Very nice examples above mate - I'm very keen to get my hands on a few. I'm not familiar with the second sample - looks like a carbine but with a full length barrel???

The smle works well with a scope,I will not put one on my no1mk3 303 unless i find one of those b square kits with no holes drilled.Same goes for the no4mk1 ive just bought. The bottom rifle is a sporterized smle 303/25.