Mr. Desmond Crofton:

It is no secret that this has resulted in more than 650 court challenges by licenceholders simply to force compliance with the law, and in over 95% of cases, the Judiciary has agreed with the firearms owners. The current recommendations have nothing to do with a link between lawful firearms ownership and crime but seek to legitimise the breaches of the legislation and to provide a legislative framework within which they can happen. To use the arguments which have been put forward to justify these recommendations is extremely offensive to a very large section of society, the members of which, as I have said, are four square law-abiding. Having suffered five years of inconvenience, cost, arbitrary decisions and disregard for the laws which govern our sport at the hands of those whose constitutional duty is to uphold the law, this group of citizens have become exasperated and exhausted and have had enough.

There are still 40 cases of challenges in the High Court. Only yesterday, the Deputy Master of the court remarked that it was rather unfair to the applicants, and the matter has now been referred to the President of the High Court.

We are willing, able and ready to work with the authorities if there is a problem in order to address it, but nobody has approached us to work with us on that. We trust that the committee members will have due regard to our factual arguments, data and proposals, as set out in our submission. I am quite happy to answer any questions the Chairman's colleagues may have.