My prediction may sound extremely cynical and grim, but here it is: Eventually all hunting and firearms ownership will get banned in the United Kingdom. It’s only a matter of time. However, I’m hopeful and confident that hunting and firearms ownership shall remain strong in Continental Europe and the United States.
If you compare and contrast hunting cultures in the United States and Continental Europe with the hunting culture in the United Kingdom, you will see exactly what I mean. In the United States, hunting has always been regarded as a hobby for the common average man as a means of putting meat on his table/ protecting his farm crops or even basic recreation. The same goes with Continental Europe. But this can’t be said for the United Kingdom. The kinds of hunting which are most representative of the British, are invariably deer stalking and driven grouse shooting. And in the United Kingdom, hunting has always been viewed as an elitist hobby of upper class aristocracy. This is exactly the reason why the United Kingdom will keep having such a rancid increase in anti hunters until these people manage to push their agendas and make them legally enforceable. By contrast, you have people from ALL classes in the United States and Continental Europe who absolutely love hunting and will fight to support it.
As the class barriers in developed countries slowly disappear, poorer people are becoming increasingly vocal about “Old Money“ rich people and are quite condescending towards them and their ways of life. This is exactly how British Labor Party portrays hunting - As a “ Cruel outdated hobby of bloodthirsty aristocrats that harken back to the colonial days”. You couldn’t pull this trick off in places like the United States or Continental Europe, because hunting is accepted as common practice by people from all classes .
@mark-hunter is right, in the sense that Brexit is actually a very good thing for the rest of Europe. At least the United Kingdom won’t be able to exert so much influence on Continental Europe, anymore.
There are countless other reasons why the hunting fraternity in the United Kingdom will eventually collapse. The British hunting crowd is extremely one dimensional in their way of thinking. Deer stalkers and driven grouse shooters are not bothered by a ban on importing African trophies, because “We don’t partake in trophy hunting ”. If they pulled their head out of their asses, then they would see that the problem doesn’t just end here. Now that importing African trophies has been banned, will the vegan/anti hunting crowd simply shut up ? No. They will next keep coming after deer stalking, then grouse shooting and then they won’t rest until hunting is completely banned in the United Kingdom ( at which point, they’ll go after meat consumption ). By the time the British hunting community realizes that their rights have been taken away from them, it will already be too late.
Before I became the Divisional Forest Officer of the Sundarbans in 1972, I had to take a three year long course in “Principles Of Forestry” in the University Of Peshawar. And one of our text books clearly said “ Cultures where hunting is prevalent amongst all classes are far more likely to preserve their hunting traditions, than cultures where it is only enjoyed by only one particular class “.
There is another problem which nobody likes to talk about, because they’re afraid of being called a “Racist”. In the last ten years or so, the United Kingdom has had a rancid increase in the number of Indian immigrants. People who come from a culture, which is inherently opposed to meat eating and hunting ( because of their religion which treats animals as deities ). You know that the United Kingdom has a serious Indian problem, when people start demanding that Sir Winston Churchill’s statue be torn down … All because of some politically incorrect comments he made about India during the 1930s. In the United Kingdom, you will see that in a lot of places Indian food is far more prevalent than British food. And it’s disturbing.
So yes, the problem isn’t Boris Johnson ( or as I like to call him, “ The pig in the yellow wig” ) or that Carrie hooker who’s completely got him wrapped around her finger. The problem is British culture as a whole. In the past, there used to be several British companies who used to commercially manufacture firearms ( such as Parker Hale or Birmingham Small Arms or the Firearms Co. ). Today, you won’t even find one. You only have expensive bespoke gun makers such as Holland & Holland ( who, by the way, are now owned by Beretta ), Westley Richard, James Purdey or John Rigby. And with this new trophy import ban, mark my words. Their days are numbered too.
What’s most disgusting, is that the British used to tell people in Africa and Asia how to live their lives while we were their colonies. Even after relinquishing their colonies, they still see fit to tell other people in other countries how to live their lives. It was a British guy by the name of Guy Mountford who is responsible for getting hunting completely banned in India and tiger hunting banned all across Asia. In 1966, he visited East Pakistan and wrote a completely fictitious set of lies about our hunting culture in his book “ Vanishing Jungles “ and even defamed two of the best tiger hunters of the Sundarbans - The late Pachabdi Gazi ( who was alive and active at the time ) and his younger brother, Shafiq Gazi (
@PerH knows Shafiq extremely well and often chats with him ). Despite knowing that they both only kill man eating Royal Bengal tigers under the orders of the Sundarban forest department, he made it look as both of them simply kill Royal Bengal tigers indiscriminately to increase their body count. After the government of East Pakistan wanted to have nothing to do with Mountford, he shifted his interest to India. He convinced Indira Gandhi ( who had just come to power and was already a radical vegetarian/anti hunter ) to get hunting completely banned in India and to get tiger hunting banned all across Asia. Guy Mountford would eventually go on to found the WWF.
