I mean holiday, of course. It's a very interesting article on Bisley, the National Shooting Center and home to the UK National Rifle Association. I had heard of Bisley before this article because Royal has experienced shooting there before. There are a few funny moments in the article (emphasis mine):
-- "Bisley's managing director Jeremy Staples says children are happy to spend their time gambolling in the sunshine at the site, seemingly unperturbed by the nearby sound of gunfire."
I can't believe they weren't on the ground cowering in fear. Covering their ears, screaming to make it stop. Make it stop.
-- "Shooters are also desperate to dispel the idea this is an inherently male pursuit, and there are plenty of female competitors walking around the site, although anyone passing the stall advertising "Big Boys Toys" might think otherwise."
This is nice, it's even nicer as they have a photograph of a pretty woman with a gun. Way to go guys!
-- "But Mr Cheshire insists the image of shooting "is generally [dictated] by what the media chooses to perceive. If only the media were prepared to come here more often. You don't have accidents, you don't kill people, you shoot at targets." Yet this is a sport that involves real guns and real ammunition, the same bullets used in an AK-47.
Is there a point to that last sentence. Always has to have the last word.
-- "For those people who do not care to find out more about the sport, the shooting aficionados on their unusual holiday in Surrey could be dismissed as "gun nuts". And Bisley is after all the base of the National Rifle Association. Its US counterpart conjures up images of Charlton Heston inviting the authorities to take his rifle out of his cold, dead hand.
Bisley's faithful seem a lot less ardent. Remove the futuristic rifles and the participants appear utterly ordinary."
Riiiiight. And we Americans don't. I'm not so sure "Bisley's faithful" would appreciate being labeled "less ardent." And by the way, it's "cold, dead hands" plural.
Very cool that this "unusual sort of holiday" even made the BBC site in a fairly positive way.
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