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We all know how gun collectors play a fundamental role in the preservation of our traditions and our passions. Those who are not into guns should instead listen carefully to Stephen A. Petroni's words for a better understanding. Mr. Petroni was so keen to speak a few words to us after the 2014 plenary session of the World Forum on Shooting Activities (WFSA), which was held in March in Germany, at the Nuremberg Exhibition Center, the day before the official opening of the 41th edition of the IWA & OutdoorClassics expo.
A Maltese citizen, Stephen Petroni is the chairman of FESAC (Foundation for European Societies of Arms Collectors). The main task of FESAC is to provide some degree of coordination to all these national-based and national-focused associations, and to represent them all with a single voice whenever possible and necessary − particularly in front of the EU and other international organizations and authorities − in order to safeguard the rights and privileges of all gun collectors, and gun owners in general.
Mr. Petroni's words highlight a time of light and shadows for gun collectors and hunters, sports shooters, and simple citizens who own guns for passion or defense, all throughout Europe; and these shadows are even more alarming as armed citizens are notorious guardians of a democratic State and of the rule of law.
Indeed, while FESAC and other European and international associations have managed to bring the work of national groups to a good degree of syntony, the proposals of the white paper titled "Firearms and the internal security of the EU: protecting citizens and disrupting illegal trafficking" proposed in October 2013 by Cecilia Malmström − the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, a member of the Swedish centre-right Alliance Folkpartiet liberalerna party and a staunch enemy of gun rights − could, should they ever be made into law or regulation, make the gun collectors' lives much harder if compared to the "good service" that the current 2008/51/CE directive provided so far.
The commitment of gun collectors is fundamental to preserve historically or technically significative firearms for further generations − so much that it goes far beyond a simple complement to the work of national museums: it's often way superior to that. Unfortunately, unlike the collectors of other historically significative tools, gun collectors are often targeted for real all-out termination by oplophobic politicians, bureaucrats, so-called "public opinion leaders" and other decision-makers, just hateful and scared of the meaning of these items in their twisted minds.
Their attempt to harm gun collectors is an all-out attempt to remove a true historical heritage from European history and culture, and it's just as dangerous as if we look to examples of where it did in fact happen (such as the United Kingdom): destruction of gun collectors and their collection is indeed a way to wipe out a positive gun culture from any people or Country: all that would be left is the bad gun culture, the one associated with violence and prevarication, which in turn causes more crime, more violence against unarmed law-abiding citizens, and gives the anti-gun front more excuses to push for even more regulations.
Of course, ALL4SHOOTERS.COM is committed to support the efforts of all those who will take the necessary steps to protect the rights of gun collectors and gun owners in general in front of all national, European and international authorities. We'll do it in the way we know best: providing accurate, exact, unbiased gun-related informations to counter the lies of the anti-gun front and the falsehoods of all those who'd want to see a part of the human historic and cultural heritage wiped away forever.
