h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is that a common way to do things? Generally, I don't fly unless it's more than 800 miles or so (a 12 hour drive).

Fairly common, yeah. The boat doesn't take that much longer when you factor in all the time you waste hanging around airports, but flying can be a lot cheaper, oddly enough.

I often fly if I'm going to London from Edinburgh which is a 7 hour drive: a flight means I can go to a meeting in London and back in a day. I prefer the night train, which is awesome and means that I don't get tired because of the 4am start, but that's only feasible if I'm on expenses as the flights are usually cheaper.

Pheasant?

Or am I being 'too country' again?

B

Half an hour in the air East Midlands airport to Dublin. Less faff than driving to the boat then from the boat to Dublin.

In answer to your original question, your best bet of getting any shooting done would indeed be shotgun. Be that clays any time of the year, or birds in season. Rabbiting these days in usually an informal affair, using .22 air rifles, it doesn't sounds like you'd enjoy that 2Bit.

I too have a weapon which I keep locked under lock, and key, for shootings of the vermin that digress onto my market garden.
I have suffered much pest infatuations from such species as Rat,Pigeon,Widgeon, and Ptarmigone, easles, rabbits, and the flying rookeries that are common to Kidderminster.
I have also had problems with next door's cat which soils my parsnips with it's dirty business (I don't shot the cat obviously, I scare it away with an air horn, or pepper spray)

So far I have had no problems with the Cassius Clay pigeon I have heard tell off thankfully!!!! I suspect that would be one mean pigeon!!!!!

I hope this helps

I don't shoot animals unless I absolutley have to. I don't really have the heart for it. I'm happy to put holes in paper.

Clay shooting would probably be your best bet then, if you don't fancy rifle shooting.

2Bit! Good to see you about after such a long time.


It hasn't been mentioned here yet, but as a peace officer
you no doubt know, that you can't take a weapon on a plane
or into a foreign country.

Even if you have credentials to carry in the US and could
convince the airport security you were one of the good guys
you wouldn't get past the arrivals security in the UK.

Best bet is to search for 'shooting clubs' in the UK and
make arrangements to use their weapons at their gallery.

Hopefully, you'll find someone there to correspond with
and learn much more about the possibilities than you will
from the average h2g2 researcher - who tend to be more of
the torches and pitchfork variety. Often their weapon of
choice is a cricket bat, at least from what I've seen of
them on telly.


~jwf~

I suppose shooting paper targets with a shotgun probably isn't a major recreational activity. I imagine shooting skeet would be good training though.

Clays and Skeet are similar.

Quote often, clay traps are set up to mimic game shots, so some are set up to fly like pheasants, others like different kinds of birds. Some traps are even set up to send a clay along the ground like a rabbit.

Avert your gaze people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_pigeon_shooting

B

I don't actually own a shotgun. I doubt that anything I do own would be legal for a private citizen to own in most of the parts of Europe that I'd be interested in visiting. If I were to visit for the summer it would be on a leave of absence from work as a student. T

One nice thing about the United States being so large and diverse, is that I can travel a long way to some signifcantly different places without having to worry about gun regulations. Last Christmas, we went to Puerto Rico, which sort feels like foreign nation (A Puerto Rican officer told me things were different there than in the US. I reminded him that we were in the United States). Since it is the US, I was able to check my backup gun and carry while I was there. We've considered some trips to other US possession in the future.

Unfortunately, Europe has a different attitude. I doubt that any gun I own would be legal for a private citizen to own. Well, maybe some of the ones that were passed down like the German pistol my grandfather brough back from WWII, but I'd be scared to shoot a 70 year old gun.

Even if the gun was legal in Europe, transporting it through customs would probably be a nightmare.

TRiG.

Dunblane: A11103580

Well, there's a different culture there, and I recognize the right of a nation to deal with things in their own way. I'm glad that no one can enact such sweeping bans here.

I don't think that liberalized gun legislation would do a thing to stop a determined person from committing mass murder at an elementary school. No one who works at one would probably be inclined to carry.

In the United States, we're obviously creeping the other way. There's a move afoot to allow permit holders to carry on college campuses in the wake of the Virignia Tech shooting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/13112819

In Atlanta, we have several large universities downtown near very crime ridden areas. We've had a rash of robberies, and so there's a move here to allow permit holders to carry here.

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/some-tech-students-want-1252664.html

There are different ways of approaching these issues.

The anti-gun legislation we have here would be impossible in the US.

B

I think the Swiss have it right, they require every man within a certain age bracket to keep a gun at home, but forbid ammunition

Right. The other way round would just be silly.

They'd just buy catapults with extra-strong elastic, abandon their centuries of neutrality, and use the bullets to invade the whole of Europe.

2Bit - if you went on an organised clay shoot you would be able to hire/borrow a gun - you don't need a licence to use a shotgun, just to own one and buy cartridges. It would be perfectly legal for you to use one, if you were under the supervision of a licence holder, which you would be.

And, frankly, shooting some rabbit and deer is only a good thing. Good countryside preservation, some tasty dinner and possibly some clothing if you let Kerr beat up the skins for you.

B