Shoot first, ask questions later – police back off new gun monitoring plans

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a new Crimestoppers telephone hotline that the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) decided would be a good idea, that was going to be dedicated specifically to ‘concerns about legally held firearms’. What ‘concerns’, exactly? Well, mainly that shooters could be ‘vulnerable to criminal or terrorist groups’ which is why the new phone line was designed to help the police ‘gather intelligence’, by urging members of the public to report any signs of ‘radicalism, extremism and vulnerability to terrorism’ among gun owners.

But after a dedicated campaign from the Countryside Alliance, the decision has been made to abandon the plans. The organisation had previously accused Acpo’s campaign of being ‘unjustified and ill-judged’, and encouraged their members to ask their MPs to oppose what they referred to as ‘the Acpo firearms campaign’.