Shooting and fishing: ‘Plinking is frowned upon by the usual suspects, on the usual grounds’

So the name of Matt Skelhon hadn’t come up on the radar, possibly because he “only” made silver and bronze rather than the gold he won at Beijing in the 2008 Paralympics. Matt’s game is rifle shooting (he also comes from Peterborough, and north of the Border we don’t pay as much attention as we might).

He lost the use of his legs after a car accident when he was 21. But he had taken up shooting ten years earlier when he came across his father’s air rifle in the garden shed when they were getting out the mower. At which point any number of bossy people will be snorting that Skelhon snr should have been hauled before the justices and severely reprimanded for keeping the “weapon” in a garden shed, a place where any passing ne’er do well might have found it and gone berserk in the local car park.

Anyway, Matt’s father let him have a shot with the air rifle and his son became one of the vast communities of Plinkers. Plink is the noise an airgun pellet makes when it hits metal, a target holder or a cutout in the shape of a rat or rabbit. Hence a “Plinker”.

“We used to shoot cans in the garden and that’s how it all started,” said Matt. Indeed it is how most of us started. But it is not how today’s children or future Olympians are likely to start. Plinking is deeply frowned upon by the usual suspects – the Scottish Government and the police – on the usual grounds – safety. They don’t like plinking because it does not fall into any quantifiable category. It is not formalised target shooting, nor is it vermin control or game shooting, although there must be plenty of plinkers who go after rats and pigeons in grain stores or empty sheds. It’s this randomness, freedom if you will, that they find suspicious.

They have been saying as much in the Scottish Firearms Consultative Panel now looking at firearms legislation. It is of course the first duty of government to seek out something the people enjoy and put a stop to it. “If there isn’t a point to it apart from fun you shouldn’t be doing it” goes the thinking. The latest statistics for offences involving an air gun, show a drop of almost 50 per cent without any licensing or extra legislation. License air guns if we must. But why exclude the chance of producing a future Matt Skelhon for Scotland? Heaven knows, if we are to compete in the Olympics as an independent nation we will need  all the natural  talent we can  nurture.