I urge you, seriously, to please, please think carefully before accepting at face value the apparently reasonable point being made by the "faces" being wheeled out by the pro-bird killing lobby.

The point I'm referring to is the one that goes "why should anyone's hobby be regulated? Mine isn't" and the latest one I saw was of a musician holding is gorgeous saxophone, looking like the very epitome of intellectual seriousness.

There were others during the course of Wednesday, and no doubt there will be more on Thursday, all left online for people whose minds are not yet made up to fall for, hook, line and sinker.

This argument should be discarded, just as that group of "sports" (inverted commas intended to convey raised eyebrows) people should be disregarded as legitimate role models, given that a substantial number of them have convictions for failing to abide by the law on hunting.

Ironic, that, or what?

Let us be quite clear on a single, fundamental, point: no-one is trying to regulate anyone's hobby.

Leaving aside the perfectly valid point that killing birds is hardly a hobby, it is ALREADY a pursuit that is regulated and it is allowed to happen in spring, when birds are on the way to their breeding ground only because of an exception in the law itself, an exception which the referendum will, hopefully, abrogate.

I know this point has been made umpteen times, but it remains valid: every other hobby, pastime, leisure activity, off-duty time occupation (firework manufacturing, anyone?) may or may not be licensed but NONE OF THEM (forgive the capitals, but the point has to be made) is permitted because of any exception in the regulations themselves, so there is nothing that can be done, even assuming anyone is dumb enough to try, to stop these activities taking place through an abrogative referendum.

It may be that some bunch of officious do-gooders might take it upon themselves to PROPOSE a law that bans motor-sports, but that would still have to go through Parliament, even assuming they managed to get enough people to vote for it in the first place.

And one has to assume that our Honourable Members have not taken collective leave of their senses.

So everyone's hobby is safe, notwithstanding the faux fears that are being bleated about by people who should, frankly, know better.

Hunting in spring starts from a position of illegality and was allowed to become legal by an exception: every other activity starts from a position of legality and any removal of a regulatory structure would - perversely - make the activity even more easy to pursue, rather than banning it.

This is what the bird-killers are conveniently ignoring and what their apologists are failing to grasp, to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not willing participants in this brazen bit of misdirection.

The referendum being won by the "NO" to spring hunting side will not constitute any sort of precedent whatsoever that would put in danger any other legal pursuit and there is no reason to vote in favour of killing birds on the way to breeding because stopping this might put other activities in danger.

It simply does not: who would you prefer to believe, Judge Giovanni Bonello or the hunting lobbyists?

Get out there on Saturday and vote "NO".

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