The World Forum on Shooting Activities (WFSA) is an association of several national and international associations for shooters, hunters and arms collectors, as well as various arms trading and industry groups. WFSA is one of the few recognized non-governmental organizations[1] to be invited to speak at all five United Nations Small Arms Conferences. The main objective of the association is to support scientific studies, preservation, promotion and protection of shooting related activities on all continents.
History
In 1996 at the IWA & OutdoorClassics in Nuremberg, several hunting and shooting associations, manufacturers of hunting and sporting firearms, firearm rights organizations
and dealer organizations met and founded WFSA as an umbrella association. The WFSA has become the international arms lobby for privately held firearms, and has over 100 million members in affiliated organizations.[2]
Since 2001 WFSA has, together with the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), been invited to speak at all UN Small Arms Conferences, and participates in national and international preparations (PrepCom) for the upcoming conferences.[3][4][5]
The WFSA is seeking a separation of privately held firearms from the UN definitions on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW).
Committees
WFSA consists of four sub-committees.
Legislative Committee
The Legislative Committee has been involved and contributed to all five United Nations Conferences on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons. It develops solutions for the marking and identification of firearms in order to prevent illegal arms trade. It also tries to create international definitions of firearms and antique firearms, and on how to identify legal and illegal firearms separately.[6][7][8][9][10][11]
Image Committee
The Image Committee is intended to convey and publicize the positive aspect of shooting, and for this reason a new ambassador for the committee is elected annually. Previous ambassadors include, amongst others, Chiara Cainero, Superintendent Colin Greenwood, Wilbur Smith, Sir Jackie Stewart, Garry Breitkreuz and Ugo Gussali Beretta.[12][13][14]
Environment Committee
The Environment Committee is concerned with protection of the environment, the conservation of biodiversity, the study of the consequences of shooting with lead ammunition in nature and on shooting ranges, and monitors international treaties that may affect hunting and shooting sports and biodiversity.[15][16][17][18]
Statistics Committee
The Statistics Committee gathers information to counter myths and pseudo scientific facts used against hunters and shooters. They also collect data and statistics on the number of hunters and shooters, as well as statistics proving the economic advantage of hunters and shooters on society.
Member associations
Asociación Armera ("The Firearms Association", Spain)
^"Prep-Com 2006"(PDF). Archived from the original on October 30, 2010. Retrieved November 9, 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) einseitige Kurzfassung auf IANSA.org, PDF-Datei, Seite 6 (338 KB)
NGOs and the small arms issueArchived 2007-07-07 at the Wayback Machine (PDF; 140 kB) by Peter Batchelor at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) - How do the NGOs WFSA and IANSA work on government decisions?
