Animal rights group calls for Shooting Times and The Field to be classed alongside porn
Country Life magazines including Shooting Times and The Field are facing calls to be relegated to the top shelf, a spot traditionally reserved for porn magazines, by Britain’s largest animal rights charity.
In their ‘Gunning for Children: How the gun lobby recruits young blood’ report, Animal Aid claim that titles depicting country sports amount to ‘shooting porn’ which could have a ‘corrosive’ effect on children who glimpsed it.
Such titles, the group claims, have depicted young children standing over dead game in a manner which ‘glorifies’ hunting.
Animal Aid director Andrew Tyler said: “Children who kill animals for sport in urban areas are considered dysfunctional and a social menace. Yet Britain has a gun lobby, composed of well-connected groups, that devotes considerable resources towards encouraging children to take up guns at a young age.
"Their actions are damaging not just to wildlife but also to the emotional development of young people."
David Taylor of the Countryside Alliance demurred however: “Shooting is a perfectly legitimate interest and hobby. You can't just ban something because you don't like it. Lots of people don't like cars but they don't ban magazines about motor sports."