Sportsman’s Newsletter February 2011
TOP DORSET COPPER TALKS SENSE
Adrian Whiting, the Assistant Chief Constable of Dorset Police and Chairman of ACPO firearms licensing division has called for the age limits on firearm ownership to be lowered from 14 to 10.
Campaigners, meanwhile, have already demanded the limit be raised to 18.
The law currently allows children to have a license to fire a shotgun at 10 as long as they are supervised by a license-holding adult, but Mr. Whiting has called upon MPs to lower the age at which they can apply for a firearms certificate for guns which shoot bullets – such as rifles – to match.
Addressing the Home Office Affairs Select Committee into June’s Cumbria shootings, in which taxi driver Derrick Bird killed 12 people and injured 11 others before shooting himself, Mr. Whiting said:
‘When the certificate is granted it does not give the young person the ability to purchase firearms or ammunition, nor does it give them an opportunity to shoot other than when they are supervised.’
ACC Whiting has submitted proposals to assist the Home affairs committee in completing a report that will affect every shooter in the country; his observations have lead to this preliminary report from Keith Vaz & the Home affairs committee.
The report’s proposals include recommendations that: - Rather than adding new rules and greater confusion, the Government provides proposals for early consultation on how to codify and simplify the laws that govern firearm control. - there should be tighter restrictions on the granting of firearms and shotgun certificates to individuals who have engaged in criminal activity. - there is a change in the law to create a single system for the licensing of Section 1 firearms and shotguns, based upon the current process for granting certificates for Section 1 firearms. - Home visits undertaken for renewal applications should be compulsory. - The Home Office should consider raising the £50 licensing fee. - The life of a proportion of certificates should be extended to remove the peaks and troughs created when the renewal period was extended to five years. - The Government brings forward proposals to simplify and clarify the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot. The committee believed there is no good reason to maintain the current differences in age restrictions between Section 1 firearms and shotguns. - Deactivated guns are only sold through Registered Firearms Dealers.
IF GUNS ARE OUTLAWED ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS
I am please to report that the Home Affairs select committee is to drop the idea of police asking for medical records of shooters being tagged.
When will the Firearms police realize that decent law abiding certificate holders and Registered Firearms dealers, whose very livelihood relies on their integrity and honesty, when will they realize that they are not a problem with criminal use of firearms.
Every time there is a criminal act with a firearm the knee jerk do gooders galvanize into action, calling for tougher gun laws and more draconian useless legislation. The gun laws in the UK are already tighter than a ducks arse!
Operation Trident called for all the Olympic .380 blank firers to be banned,
What had that got to do with legitimate certificate holders?
Hark back to the Brocock fiasco of 2005. All self contained air cartridge firearms including rifles were to be handed in to the police for no compensation, or the owners had to apply for a section 1 firearm certificate, which authorized possession, but not able to sell give of bequeath. In effect they must be taken to the grave!
Over 65,000 Brococks were sold in the UK, less than 4,000 takers for a FAC.
It was bad law, nothing short of an outrage.
THE RIGHT CAPACITY REVISITED
Sportsman’s Director Savvas Toufexis, an acknowledged modern firearms expert, Deer Stalker and Game shot, is still experiencing trouble with the firearms police. A case is to be heard in the Crown Court and two other matters in the Court of Appeal. The police still are attempting to go against the ruling of a Judge.
At this moment Savvas is only allowed 12 rounds of pistol ammunition.
How do you buy 12 rounds of .357? They are sold in boxes of 50, this goes against CIT regulations. Crawford custard creams are sold by the packet, not singly
It seems to me that the police have decided to be as restrictive as possible in what they will allow, as a result of the judgment they can’t say “No” any more. The police now wish to pass judgment on a subject that they know very little about, and disapprove of, then suggesting that they will allow a one or two shot .32 or perhaps 38/357 caliber. Even though two of the Crown Court appeals involved using 44’s. I understand that one police force is asking for the barrel of a dispatching firearm to be drilled in a certain manner as to make the pistol inaccurate. They are likened to a celibate Priest giving advice on heterosexual sex, which is something he disapproves of.
Parliament made no comment on capacity or caliber.
At a registered Firearms Dealer liaison meeting with the Metropolitan Firearms Licensing police held at New Scotland Yard in November 2007. Just a few of the delegates were from Purdy, Boss, Holland, and Holland, J Roberts & Son and Joe Beatham of Gunshop. Savvas called for unrestricted dispatch pistols for finishing off wounded wild animals.
Former Firearms Licensing Manager Gary Smith, who does not shoot by the way, stated that if Savvas needed more than two shots, he should not be shooting wild animals. Savvas retorted that the police needed seven shots to kill the wrong Brazilian. Jean Charles de Menezes was a Brazilian man shot in the head seven times at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground by the London Metropolitan police, after he was misidentified as one of the fugitives involved in the previous day’s failed bombing attempts.
In December 2010 a woman was mauled to death by a Belgian Mastiff in South London. Police marksman needed four shots to kill the animal. Are two shots enough? We think not!
At a meeting with ACC Whiting at Dorset Police HQ Savvas raised concerns that a stalker could be killed whilst reloading a two shot restricted handgun. Last month a Hunter was killed by a wild boar in Germany and a Stag killed a stalker in Northern Ireland. Since our meeting ACC Whiting has recommended that dispatch pistols for wild animals are not only required for the safe humane dispatch of an injured beast, but also for self protection of the hunter.
More common sense and a step in the right direction.
WHAT IS A RIFLE?
Confused, you can be;
A long arm with a barrel machined with helical cut grooves in the bore from the breech to the muzzle, this is known as rifling.
Muskets were originally smooth bore long arms. When rifling was introduced to improve accuracy by spinning the projectile, these long arms were known as Rifled Muskets. Over the years the word musket was dropped.
Short firearms were commonly known as pistols or revolvers. Most pistols have rifled barrels to improve accuracy. A short firearm is a gun that can be easily concealed, either, in the trouser waistband, in a pocket or a holster worn on the hip or a shoulder rig, or sometimes strapped to the ankle.
A short firearm is defined in the Firearms act as being less that 600mm in overall length with a barrel less than 300mm.
A long arm must be at least 600mm ( 60 cm )overall in length, with a barrel not less than 300mm ( 30cm ).
It is as simple as that. In Law there are no such things as long barreled pistols, or revolvers, or long pistols, these are purely descriptive marketing terms.
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