Wild Justice and how to deal with them: More wise words from Matt Cross on WJ

[Papercase]

 

Article and some cracking others here. I hope he doesnt mind me copying it here but it's really worth a read.

 

Papercase

Wild Justice and how to deal with them

Date: July 25, 2019Author: wildmattcross1

I was wrong and naive about Wild Justice. When Chris Packham went on Farming Today and said “This is about crime” I believed him. In fact, so far, Wild Justice has entirely been about ‘administrative law’ which sounds, and is, a lot less sexy than crime. Specifically it is about using a tactic called ‘lawfare’ (many thanks to Dr Mils Hills to introducing me to this term) against shooting. Essentially this is the use of repeated legal action in an attempt to disrupt, tie up resources and generally cause bother. I doubt they think they can land some sort of magic blow which will cause shooting to be banned, instead they intend to wear down our willingness and ability to fight.

Their current legal challenge is a case in point. If they succeed it will actually be of very little significance, the Government and a small number of shooting operators may have to do some additional paper work. That’s it. Yet by the degree of flapping and squawking it has induced you would think shooting was teetering on the brink of some sort of catastrophe. That, more than anything else, is what they want. The key place they work is not in court or the press, but in the mind of the shooter.

They want to panic and confuse you, they want to get you angry so you do stupid things like hang crows on gates, send threatening letters, or shout at people at game fairs, or say stupid things on facebook which earn the condemnation of influential journalists . They want to push you into a bunker where you deny obvious truths because admitting them is breaking with the team and where you refuse to change because ‘we mustn’t give them an inch’. The consequence of this is that we get locked in a cycle of nonsense and backwardness that makes us look ridiculous and that we can not sustain. They want to persuade you that our organisation are stupid or lazy so they can shear off chunks of their membership and weaken them.

There are five things we need to do to defeat them; be calm, maintain our collective strength, develop an activist corps, make progress and behave ourselves .

Calmness is essential, look at the detail of their challenges, not the grandstanding headlines. Both of their challenges have been far more limited than they first appeared and far easier to deal with. The first was seen off by a gigantic paperwork exercise by DEFRA, the second will probably be dealt with the same way. Hardly a cause for panic.

Shooting has a number of powerful, well organised lobby groups. I am an ordinary member of one of those; BASC. I am just that an ordinary member, I have no role advocating for them. It doesn’t matter which organisation you choose to join or support, but stick with them. Small groups like Wild Justice can make large organisations look foolish and slow to react, that is inherent to the way different sizes of organisations work. But those big organisations have the resources and expertise to deal with their legal challenges, no-one else does. Should any of these challenges ever come to court those resources will tell. Wild Justice would love to have a load of members lose faith and desert, thereby reducing the resources of those organisations. Imagine it like an Iranian speedboat and a Royal Navy frigate. The speedboat can dart about and cause chaos, before the crew of the frigate even gets her heading in the right direction. But when it comes to the crunch the frigate will win. Unless, of course, half her crew has jumped over board in terror convinced that their captain is useless and that their ship will be sunk.

 

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Alongside those organisations we need our own corps of activists. People who can move as fast in their decision making as Wild Justice and who can take the risks that big organisations can not.  A hatful of smart activists could cripple Wild Justice by using the law against them in the same way they have used it against us. And wouldn’t it be just brilliant if Pro-shooting activists decided to challenge wildlife criminals in the way anti-shooting activist have done while being clear they were doing it to protect and preserve shooting.

It is essential shooting does not get locked into a mindset of opposing every thing Wild Justice say – just because they say it. We must tackle our own problems and continue to change as society changes. Obviously the last of the wildlife crime associated with shooting must be stamped out, if you have read this blog before you will know what I think about that. We must own that problem, deal with it and take it away from our critics. Denying it, trying to hide from it or flat lying about it are what has got us into this mess. It’s time to confront and tackle some very uncomfortable truths. The storm shortly to come on this will be far worse than anything we have seen so far. The question is whether senior leaders in shooting have the courage to do what needs to be done. It’s not just about crime. Where our actions are environmentally harmful we must change them and where the environmental affect is unknown we must study it and act on the basis of the science. If we don’t, we will simply hand Wild Justice another set of sticks with which to beat us. The important thing is to preserve shooting as an opportunity for human fulfillment and environmental benefit, not to pickle it exactly as it is now.

Finally a plea; behave. Just behave. When wild Justice brought their general licence challenge we had them, they were on the ropes getting pummeled . In the media the were the people who let crows kill lambs and pigeons decimate crops. But then some fool decided to hang a couple of Jackdaws on Chris Packham’s gate and that gave him all the space he needed to change the discussion from one about he harm he had done to one about how he was being bullied by meanies. It was a stupid, pointless own goal. Don’t do stupid things like that.

[KB1]

Acts of violence and vandalism are indeed stupid, however, preaching to stupid people has, and always will unfortunately fall on deaf ears…… I would wager that most people on this forum wouldn't indulge in those type of actions.

I too am an 'ordinary' member of BASC, but I do care if my subscription is not spent wisely.   We live in times now where loudmouth minority groups seem to pull the strings of many feeble politicians and ratings driven MSN, so I would implore the likes of BASC to develop new strategies in combating this unchecked trend.

Calmness is always essential, but silence is destructive 🙄

 

[islandgun]

5 hours ago, Papercase said:

 

Article and some cracking others here. I hope he doesnt mind me copying it here but it's really worth a read.

 

Papercase

Wild Justice and how to deal with them

Date: July 25, 2019Author: wildmattcross1

I was wrong and naive about Wild Justice. When Chris Packham went on Farming Today and said “This is about crime” I believed him. In fact, so far, Wild Justice has entirely been about ‘administrative law’ which sounds, and is, a lot less sexy than crime. Specifically it is about using a tactic called ‘lawfare’ (many thanks to Dr Mils Hills to introducing me to this term) against shooting. Essentially this is the use of repeated legal action in an attempt to disrupt, tie up resources and generally cause bother. I doubt they think they can land some sort of magic blow which will cause shooting to be banned, instead they intend to wear down our willingness and ability to fight.

Their current legal challenge is a case in point. If they succeed it will actually be of very little significance, the Government and a small number of shooting operators may have to do some additional paper work. That’s it. Yet by the degree of flapping and squawking it has induced you would think shooting was teetering on the brink of some sort of catastrophe. That, more than anything else, is what they want. The key place they work is not in court or the press, but in the mind of the shooter.

They want to panic and confuse you, they want to get you angry so you do stupid things like hang crows on gates, send threatening letters, or shout at people at game fairs, or say stupid things on facebook which earn the condemnation of influential journalists . They want to push you into a bunker where you deny obvious truths because admitting them is breaking with the team and where you refuse to change because ‘we mustn’t give them an inch’. The consequence of this is that we get locked in a cycle of nonsense and backwardness that makes us look ridiculous and that we can not sustain. They want to persuade you that our organisation are stupid or lazy so they can shear off chunks of their membership and weaken them.

There are five things we need to do to defeat them; be calm, maintain our collective strength, develop an activist corps, make progress and behave ourselves .

Calmness is essential, look at the detail of their challenges, not the grandstanding headlines. Both of their challenges have been far more limited than they first appeared and far easier to deal with. The first was seen off by a gigantic paperwork exercise by DEFRA, the second will probably be dealt with the same way. Hardly a cause for panic.

Shooting has a number of powerful, well organised lobby groups. I am an ordinary member of one of those; BASC. I am just that an ordinary member, I have no role advocating for them. It doesn’t matter which organisation you choose to join or support, but stick with them. Small groups like Wild Justice can make large organisations look foolish and slow to react, that is inherent to the way different sizes of organisations work. But those big organisations have the resources and expertise to deal with their legal challenges, no-one else does. Should any of these challenges ever come to court those resources will tell. Wild Justice would love to have a load of members lose faith and desert, thereby reducing the resources of those organisations. Imagine it like an Iranian speedboat and a Royal Navy frigate. The speedboat can dart about and cause chaos, before the crew of the frigate even gets her heading in the right direction. But when it comes to the crunch the frigate will win. Unless, of course, half her crew has jumped over board in terror convinced that their captain is useless and that their ship will be sunk.

 

REPORT THIS AD

Alongside those organisations we need our own corps of activists. People who can move as fast in their decision making as Wild Justice and who can take the risks that big organisations can not.  A hatful of smart activists could cripple Wild Justice by using the law against them in the same way they have used it against us. And wouldn’t it be just brilliant if Pro-shooting activists decided to challenge wildlife criminals in the way anti-shooting activist have done while being clear they were doing it to protect and preserve shooting.

It is essential shooting does not get locked into a mindset of opposing every thing Wild Justice say – just because they say it. We must tackle our own problems and continue to change as society changes. Obviously the last of the wildlife crime associated with shooting must be stamped out, if you have read this blog before you will know what I think about that. We must own that problem, deal with it and take it away from our critics. Denying it, trying to hide from it or flat lying about it are what has got us into this mess. It’s time to confront and tackle some very uncomfortable truths. The storm shortly to come on this will be far worse than anything we have seen so far. The question is whether senior leaders in shooting have the courage to do what needs to be done. It’s not just about crime. Where our actions are environmentally harmful we must change them and where the environmental affect is unknown we must study it and act on the basis of the science. If we don’t, we will simply hand Wild Justice another set of sticks with which to beat us. The important thing is to preserve shooting as an opportunity for human fulfillment and environmental benefit, not to pickle it exactly as it is now.

Finally a plea; behave. Just behave. When wild Justice brought their general licence challenge we had them, they were on the ropes getting pummeled . In the media the were the people who let crows kill lambs and pigeons decimate crops. But then some fool decided to hang a couple of Jackdaws on Chris Packham’s gate and that gave him all the space he needed to change the discussion from one about he harm he had done to one about how he was being bullied by meanies. It was a stupid, pointless own goal. Don’t do stupid things like that.

Some very sensible words there. I completely agree with those ive highlighted. take this to them . counter the untruths with truths.. thanks for posting Papercase of Newark

[oowee]

Good post. Calmness in the face of provocation. All of us acting within the law is another essential. Looking at how we portray our sport in images is another. 

[rapid .25]

Cracking post with some very wise words but how many " fools" will actually change there ways, not many me thinks!.

[Capt Christopher Jones]

23 hours ago, Papercase said:

 

Article and some cracking others here. I hope he doesnt mind me copying it here but it's really worth a read.

 

Papercase

Wild Justice and how to deal with them

Date: July 25, 2019Author: wildmattcross1

I was wrong and naive about Wild Justice. When Chris Packham went on Farming Today and said “This is about crime” I believed him. In fact, so far, Wild Justice has entirely been about ‘administrative law’ which sounds, and is, a lot less sexy than crime. Specifically it is about using a tactic called ‘lawfare’ (many thanks to Dr Mils Hills to introducing me to this term) against shooting. Essentially this is the use of repeated legal action in an attempt to disrupt, tie up resources and generally cause bother. I doubt they think they can land some sort of magic blow which will cause shooting to be banned, instead they intend to wear down our willingness and ability to fight.

Their current legal challenge is a case in point. If they succeed it will actually be of very little significance, the Government and a small number of shooting operators may have to do some additional paper work. That’s it. Yet by the degree of flapping and squawking it has induced you would think shooting was teetering on the brink of some sort of catastrophe. That, more than anything else, is what they want. The key place they work is not in court or the press, but in the mind of the shooter.

They want to panic and confuse you, they want to get you angry so you do stupid things like hang crows on gates, send threatening letters, or shout at people at game fairs, or say stupid things on facebook which earn the condemnation of influential journalists . They want to push you into a bunker where you deny obvious truths because admitting them is breaking with the team and where you refuse to change because ‘we mustn’t give them an inch’. The consequence of this is that we get locked in a cycle of nonsense and backwardness that makes us look ridiculous and that we can not sustain. They want to persuade you that our organisation are stupid or lazy so they can shear off chunks of their membership and weaken them.

There are five things we need to do to defeat them; be calm, maintain our collective strength, develop an activist corps, make progress and behave ourselves .

Calmness is essential, look at the detail of their challenges, not the grandstanding headlines. Both of their challenges have been far more limited than they first appeared and far easier to deal with. The first was seen off by a gigantic paperwork exercise by DEFRA, the second will probably be dealt with the same way. Hardly a cause for panic.

Shooting has a number of powerful, well organised lobby groups. I am an ordinary member of one of those; BASC. I am just that an ordinary member, I have no role advocating for them. It doesn’t matter which organisation you choose to join or support, but stick with them. Small groups like Wild Justice can make large organisations look foolish and slow to react, that is inherent to the way different sizes of organisations work. But those big organisations have the resources and expertise to deal with their legal challenges, no-one else does. Should any of these challenges ever come to court those resources will tell. Wild Justice would love to have a load of members lose faith and desert, thereby reducing the resources of those organisations. Imagine it like an Iranian speedboat and a Royal Navy frigate. The speedboat can dart about and cause chaos, before the crew of the frigate even gets her heading in the right direction. But when it comes to the crunch the frigate will win. Unless, of course, half her crew has jumped over board in terror convinced that their captain is useless and that their ship will be sunk.

 

REPORT THIS AD

Alongside those organisations we need our own corps of activists. People who can move as fast in their decision making as Wild Justice and who can take the risks that big organisations can not.  A hatful of smart activists could cripple Wild Justice by using the law against them in the same way they have used it against us. And wouldn’t it be just brilliant if Pro-shooting activists decided to challenge wildlife criminals in the way anti-shooting activist have done while being clear they were doing it to protect and preserve shooting.

It is essential shooting does not get locked into a mindset of opposing every thing Wild Justice say – just because they say it. We must tackle our own problems and continue to change as society changes. Obviously the last of the wildlife crime associated with shooting must be stamped out, if you have read this blog before you will know what I think about that. We must own that problem, deal with it and take it away from our critics. Denying it, trying to hide from it or flat lying about it are what has got us into this mess. It’s time to confront and tackle some very uncomfortable truths. The storm shortly to come on this will be far worse than anything we have seen so far. The question is whether senior leaders in shooting have the courage to do what needs to be done. It’s not just about crime. Where our actions are environmentally harmful we must change them and where the environmental affect is unknown we must study it and act on the basis of the science. If we don’t, we will simply hand Wild Justice another set of sticks with which to beat us. The important thing is to preserve shooting as an opportunity for human fulfillment and environmental benefit, not to pickle it exactly as it is now.

Finally a plea; behave. Just behave. When wild Justice brought their general licence challenge we had them, they were on the ropes getting pummeled . In the media the were the people who let crows kill lambs and pigeons decimate crops. But then some fool decided to hang a couple of Jackdaws on Chris Packham’s gate and that gave him all the space he needed to change the discussion from one about he harm he had done to one about how he was being bullied by meanies. It was a stupid, pointless own goal. Don’t do stupid things like that.

Thank you, i have lifted this & posted on the Airgunforum

 

[panoma1]

The very reason I posted in support of Packham and co having their invitation to the game fair retracted! All it would take is one out of the tens of thousands present to assault any of them and they get everything they want!.........And shooting would be the loser!...big time!

And they knew it!.........if you walk into a lions den it's odds on your gonna get eaten!

[JJsDad]

That without doubt is the best and well presented post I have read on the subject. Puts to shame the few people on here who cancelled their BASC membership because they considered they had missed a trick over the revoking of the General Licence`s or were not doing enough to counter Wild Justice.

[NatureBoy]

Thanks for posting Paperchase!! Great informative stuff! Matt Cross's other stuff make some interesting enlighten reading to!      NB

[Scully]

4 hours ago, panoma1 said:

The very reason I posted in support of Packham and co having their invitation to the game fair retracted! All it would take is one out of the tens of thousands present to assault any of them and they get everything they want!.........And shooting would be the loser!...big time!

And they knew it!.........if you walk into a lions den it's odds on your gonna get eaten!

Don’t agree I’m afraid. We shooters need to learn that the best way to beat these lot is to play them at their own game. We need to show them that they have nothing else to fear from entering the lions den but a well informed counter argument. 

2 hours ago, JJsDad said:

That without doubt is the best and well presented post I have read on the subject. Puts to shame the few people on here who cancelled their BASC membership because they considered they had missed a trick over the revoking of the General Licence`s or were not doing enough to counter Wild Justice.

I left BASC years ago because of their ineffectiveness, and now we have Conor Graham on a forum asking for suggestions...really!  Do you think they are doing enough to counter WJ? 

[panoma1]

43 minutes ago, Scully said:

Don’t agree I’m afraid. We shooters need to learn that the best way to beat these lot is to play them at their own game. We need to show them that they have nothing else to fear from entering the lions den but a well informed counter argument. 

 

How can we play them at their own game? They are the aggressors, they are a small group of extremist activists, we can't get them to debate the issues anywhere, let alone on their own territory, because they haven't got a territory! Whereas shooting has many venues such as gamefair's, where we have, in the past offered them a platform, where they verbalise their anti shooting views to a partizan shooting crowd, in the expectation they can incite anger and provoke a reaction, and let's face it, they are gonna say things we don't like, and there are tens of thousands of people present, who support what these antis are attacking, I imagine there would be at least a few, who could be provoked into direct action, which would undoubtedly involve the police, and later when the incident was embellished and related on social media, would evidence their allegations that shooting/farmers/country people are members of the "nasty brigade"

They are keen to put themselves in the lions den, because they are likely to get what they want! ............attacked verbally and most likely physicall too!...........They are just hunt saboteurs without the hoodies and masks! Trying to provoke a reaction!

Its not likely anyone can "show them they have nothing to fear" in the forum they choose to use, such as a Gamefair, for the reasons given above! The only way I can see we could do it is in a neutral venue, as a filmed debate between two people Packham or Avery or whoever from the protectionist side, and a carefully selected  a. n. other from the shooting and conservation side.........but I believe they would never accept such a challenge because they would lose! And they know it!

[greylag]

Very good post from Papercase.Some very sound advice.

[JJsDad]

1 hour ago, panoma1 said:

They are keen to put themselves in the lions den, because they are likely to get what they want! ............attacked verbally and most likely physicall too!...........They are just hunt saboteurs without the hoodies and masks! Trying to provoke a reaction!

Its not likely anyone can "show them they have nothing to fear" in the forum they choose to use, such as a Gamefair, for the reasons given above! The only way I can see we could do it is in a neutral venue, as a filmed debate between two people Packham or Avery or whoever from the protectionist side, and a carefully selected  a. n. other from the shooting and conservation side.........but I believe they would never accept such a challenge because they would lose! And they know it!

👍👍👍

[markm]

5 hours ago, Scully said:

Don’t agree I’m afraid. We shooters need to learn that the best way to beat these lot is to play them at their own game. We need to show them that they have nothing else to fear from entering the lions den but a well informed counter argument. 

I left BASC years ago because of their ineffectiveness, and now we have Conor Graham on a forum asking for suggestions...really!  Do you think they are doing enough to counter WJ? 

Not inviting them into the game fair had them rattled, look at their twitter feeds, as much as I think it would be good to answer their shallow claims, stopping them seems to have worked  

Maybe an offer for a live YouTube debate would be a good idea. The 3 WJ leaders v 3 BASC (or ANO). If they turn it down, publish it to the ends of the earth. 

 

Win / win in my eyes. 

Edited July 26, 2019 by markm

[dodgy dave]

i dont think basc has got anybody who is good enough speaker who can stand up against packham and his cronies they certainly dont no what to do so they send poor ole conner to ask us allen jarret  might have been the one but he never lasted i dont know why 

[panoma1]

16 minutes ago, dodgy dave said:

i dont think basc has got anybody who is good enough speaker who can stand up against packham and his cronies they certainly dont no what to do so they send poor ole conner to ask us allen jarret  might have been the one but he never lasted i dont know why 

I believe they do! 

[dodgy dave]

i hope they bring him out off the box and dust him down soon

[islandgun]

Good for Conner/BASC asking for input. it's a start at least..WJ have a good argument against the number of pheasants being released which would be very difficult to argue against, but much less strong for other issues, such as moor management and the GL. they need to be discredited as often as possible and for whatever reason, so all input should be welcome !

[Pigeon Shredder.]

Just seen a publication called The Canary WJ etc getting a write up and why sab’s wear masks to protect them.

Have a read 🤮

Edited July 28, 2019 by Pigeon Shredder.
Error

[Papercase]

On 26/07/2019 at 13:28, Scully said:

Don’t agree I’m afraid. We shooters need to learn that the best way to beat these lot is to play them at their own game. We need to show them that they have nothing else to fear from entering the lions den but a well informed counter argument. 

I left BASC years ago because of their ineffectiveness, and now we have Conor Graham on a forum asking for suggestions...really!  Do you think they are doing enough to counter WJ? 

I've considered the effectiveness of BASC a few times. From a campaigning group - I'm not sure what effect they can have on hardliners, its not going to happen.

Joe public they do the best to engage at events like countryfile live and usually attempt to get onto mainstream to media when WJ etc have spoken out of turn and I cannot fault them in this - they are at the mercy of the media as whether they are allowed a platform.

The main pressure groups are attempting to use science, that is often open to interpretation to evidence/reinforce their argument. In which case the GWCT is better placed to combat this as well as assisting/informing BASC (this is why I am a member of both organisations).  It would be nice to see BASC supporting independent studies to strengthen the research behind the defence.

However BASC have great strength in lobbying government, advising/assisting members around hopeless police force licencing departments, encouraging and developing the next generation of shooters . Never mind all of the work they do with wildfowling. 

They have been there for me when I've needed them and I for one wouldn't be without them.

 

 

[Scully]

Each to their own; you pays your money and makes your choice. 🙂

[Papercase]

3 hours ago, Scully said:

Each to their own; you pays your money and makes your choice. 🙂

Indeed Scully, appreciate the input

On 28/07/2019 at 14:19, Pigeon Shredder. said:

Just seen a publication called The Canary WJ etc getting a write up and why sab’s wear masks to protect them.

Have a read 🤮

Yes I've seen a few of these fanboy articles utter garbage