Foreign Guns on the rise

New Home Office statistics show that the UK remains an attractive destination for foreign shooters, despite the global economic downturn.

Last year, the number of sportsmen from overseas covered by visitors? permits, which allow the holder to possess a firearm or shotgun in the UK without holding a UK certificate, reached an all-time high of 10,415.

John Duncan, director of shooting at sporting agency Roxtons, told Shooting Times that he was not surprised at the high numbers: ?Despite what?s happening in the world, our overseas business is holding up pretty well ? the UK continues to prove very popular with both Americans and Europeans.

?This is the home of driven pheasant shooting, and we offer such a variety of sport in the British Isles. If you look at a country such as Spain, they just concentrate on the driven partridges, so they really don?t have the diversity of sport that we have here.?

The rest of this article appears in the 28th March issue of Shooting Times.

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