Olympics Official Banned from Starting Elementary Race with Pistol Shot

In a nation that forbids children from attending trap and shooting events, because functionaries and fiddlers insist such competitions promote gun violence, it is not surprising that a globally respected track and field official has been banned from his neighborhood elementary school because he uses a pistol to start races.

Is there a more hoplophobic nation than England?

Alan Bell is a British track and field official who has used a pistol to start more than 25,000 races worldwide in his career. He has been named this summer's London Olympic Game's "chief starter."

It is quite an honor.

Unfortunately for Bell, he gets no respect at home.

After agreeing to start a race at a local elementary school, he was told to stay home by the school board, which claims the sound of a pistol discharge would frighten the children and, perhaps, psychologically scar them forever.

Instead, the board instructed school officials to use a klaxon, the horn known for its "ahooga" sound.

The board's hysteria struck a sour note, even among notoriously anti-gun British citizens. "The (board) tied themselves in knots trying to sort this out," one parent told The Scottish Sun. "Anyone who believes they would be frightened by a starting pistol has never experienced the noise at a typical three-year-old's birthday party."

On the surface, it seems a silly story of little consequence to efforts to protect the Second Amendment. But British culture, perspectives, personalities, and money have a dramatic influence on the American media.

It is often British TV commentators and writers who officiously sniff and scoff at the Second Amendment and dismissively mock what they derisively label "America's obsession with firearms."

Perhaps Britain -- and its biggest export: condescending media personalities -- should come to terms with its own "obsession with firearms" before imposing its paranoid anti-gun hysteria on others.

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