- To: National Rifle Association of Australia
We whose names are listed below, being members of NRAA Member Associations, respectfully request that you reverse the decision to stop awarding Queens badges to F Class shooters at Queens Prize meetings. As with Target Rifle shooters, many F Class shooters place a high value on competing for a Queens badge. Most Member Association and the National Queens have been awarding such badges for up to 10 years.
We think your decision indicates that you do not consider F Class shooters to be of equal worth to Target Rifle shooters, and we consider that to be insulting and discriminatory.
We understand that there is some concern that the NRA of GB has the power to remove the “Queens Prize” status entirely from all Australian shoots, and may do so if F Class shooters continue to receive Queens Prize badges. However, there has been no convincing evidence that they are likely to do this. Furthermore, in the unlikely event that they did threaten such action we would be disappointed if the NRAA was prepared to give in to such a threat by sacrificing F Class for the benefit of Target Rifle.
We want to emphasise that regardless of which discipline we shoot, we bear no malice towards the other over this issue, as there was apparently no broad consultation with shooters from any discipline. We are disappointed that the NRAA could allow such an old-fashioned and potentially divisive decision to occur when there has been so much effort to unify the disciplines in recent years.
Note that petition forms will be available for downloading and printing and we'll be asking you to help distribute and collect these from clubs, and send the names in by e-mail. The petition and all names collected to date will be displayed on ozfclass.com, and it will remain there and grow until the issue is resolved in a reasonable manner. The petition will never be sent to the NRAA, but will they and the S &Ts can be given its URL address.