Tayside Airgun Club says it will continue to fight against tighter controls despite local shooting incidents.
Chairman Kathleen Male said the club was standing by its submission to a parliamentary committee that such measures will only penalise law-abiding airgun users.
The comments emerged as police in Perth continue to investigate an alleged shooting outside a pub that left a man with an air pellet trapped in his abdomen. Police in Fife are also investigating an air pistol attack in Glenrothes.
Mrs Mole told The Courier: “Bringing in licensing is not going to stop this sort of thing from happening. People with the mentality to shoot someone in the street are still going to do it whether there is licensing in place or not.
“Once this licensing comes in we are convinced that these sort of people are not going to buy a licence. All it means is that the law-abiding majority are punished.”
Tayside Airgun Club was responding to the Scottish Government’s consultation with regards the proposals for licensing air weapons in Scotland.
The Government aims to introduce a system of licensing and regulation to “ensure that only those people with a legitimate reason for owning and using an airgun should have access to them.”
The Government does not think that it is appropriate that there can be up to half a million “unregistered, uncontrolled and often forgotten firearms in circulation.”
Tayside Airgun Club said it does not agree that greater restrictions should be placed on where air weapon owners can shoot.
They said: “The idea of restricting shooting to licensed clubs is not possible as firstly there are no licensed airgun clubs and very few licensed firearms ranges across Scotland.
“Approval of air weapon licences should be fair and proportionate and given the level of risk, significantly lighter than those applied to shotguns.”
The organisation said with 500,000 airguns in circulation any scheme needs to be easy to administer and, above all, allow airgun users to apply quickly, and where there are no concerns they should be granted a licence.
The spokesperson added: “If, as indicated, the same level of checks as used for shotguns and high power firearms is applied the practicality would overburden the existing firearms organisation.
“The use of online licensing should be considered. Most members have few concerns with registering as airgun users and should an online solution be made available it could run automatic background checks as well saving a vast amount of time and manpower.”