Shooters claim unfair treatment

There are fears that the EU may ignore shooters’ responses to an EU consultation on the criminal use of firearms, the European Federation of Associations for Hunting & Conservation (FACE) has said.

More than 80,000 responses were received on the European Commission’s Directorate General for Home Affairs (DG Home) consultation when it closed in June.

But FACE is concerned the responses are not being treated fairly. It told Shooting Times: “DG Home seems to be unsatisfied with the replies to its recent public consultation on firearms, since most of them stated that there is no need for further EU action on legal firearms.

“DG Home has argued that the consultation was not ‘representative of a cross-section of the general public’ and was not ‘scientifically based’ so a Euro-barometer survey will be launched. FACE questions whether DG Home, which could have thought of such shortcomings when the consultation was designed, would have reached the same conclusion if the replies had called for further EU action on legal firearms.”

DG Home claims there are “strong” links between legal firearms and trafficking. It recently turned down FACE’s application for a seat on the Firearms Expert Group it set up to tackle firearms trafficking. There was no explanation for the refusal.

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