New laws coming?

[Nelly2014]

Knowing what we know now, it is likely that sometime in the future there will be very limited access to firearms by the general public. Perhaps only farmers, gamekeepers, police and services, possibly olympic sports people (and of course criminals).
I feel there is an agenda which involves gradually abolishing private gun ownership by constantly narrowing the range of actions and calibres, creating laws and legislation deliberately confusing/difficult to interpret, keeping licensing as onerous and un-user friendly as possible and generally creating fear among gun owners by threats of ludicrous sentencing for even minor infringements of the mess we know as Firearms Law.
In light of the above I wonder how many gun owners would give up their right to private ownership and storage if there were clubs with ranges and an armoury where you could store your guns and ammunition with the possibility of shooting any type of rifle or pistol apart from full auto? Yes, I know this is already possible if you are prepared to travel or shoot certain historic weapons.
I would agree to this in the UK and would be prepared to pay for it.

[JSC]

Knowing what we know now, it is likely that sometime in the future there will be very limited access to firearms by the general public. Perhaps only farmers, gamekeepers, police and services, possibly olympic sports people (and of course criminals).
I feel there is an agenda which involves gradually abolishing private gun ownership by constantly narrowing the range of actions and calibres, creating laws and legislation deliberately confusing/difficult to interpret, keeping licensing as onerous and un-user friendly as possible and generally creating fear among gun owners by threats of ludicrous sentencing for even minor infringements of the mess we know as Firearms Law.
In light of the above I wonder how many gun owners would give up their right to private ownership and storage if there were clubs with ranges and an armoury where you could store your guns and ammunition with the possibility of shooting any type of rifle or pistol apart from full auto? Yes, I know this is already possible if you are prepared to travel or shoot certain historic weapons.
I would agree to this in the UK and would be prepared to pay for it.

It was proposed when handguns were about to be banned and rejected for various reasons.
I would not support such a proposal and if you gave it some thought you'd realise that it's completely impractical and would kill our sport.
We should not be thinking about giving up any of our rights. It's weak and plays into the hands of those who want to take them away from us.

[Daryll]

Knowing what we know now, it is likely that sometime in the future there will be very limited access to firearms by the general public. Perhaps only farmers, gamekeepers, police and services, possibly olympic sports people (and of course criminals).
I feel there is an agenda which involves gradually abolishing private gun ownership by constantly narrowing the range of actions and calibres, creating laws and legislation deliberately confusing/difficult to interpret, keeping licensing as onerous and un-user friendly as possible and generally creating fear among gun owners by threats of ludicrous sentencing for even minor infringements of the mess we know as Firearms Law.
In light of the above I wonder how many gun owners would give up their right to private ownership and storage if there were clubs with ranges and an armoury where you could store your guns and ammunition with the possibility of shooting any type of rifle or pistol apart from full auto? Yes, I know this is already possible if you are prepared to travel or shoot certain historic weapons.
I would agree to this in the UK and would be prepared to pay for it.

But what would this achieve..? Using reasoned logic, (which we all know any government is unable to do), as you state, the Criminals will still get guns, so why alienate members of the general public, spend time and resources creating new laws, (when the old ones should be good enough if they actually enforced them), and spend money compensating gun owners for guns they should be able to lawfully keep anyway...?!?!

[Rearlugs]

Knowing what we know now, it is likely that sometime in the future there will be very limited access to firearms by the general public. Perhaps only farmers, gamekeepers, police and services, possibly olympic sports people (and of course criminals).
I feel there is an agenda which involves gradually abolishing private gun ownership by constantly narrowing the range of actions and calibres, creating laws and legislation deliberately confusing/difficult to interpret, keeping licensing as onerous and un-user friendly as possible and generally creating fear among gun owners by threats of ludicrous sentencing for even minor infringements of the mess we know as Firearms Law.
In light of the above I wonder how many gun owners would give up their right to private ownership and storage if there were clubs with ranges and an armoury where you could store your guns and ammunition with the possibility of shooting any type of rifle or pistol apart from full auto? Yes, I know this is already possible if you are prepared to travel or shoot certain historic weapons.
I would agree to this in the UK and would be prepared to pay for it.

But what would this achieve..? Using reasoned logic, (which we all know any government is unable to do), as you state, the Criminals will still get guns, so why alienate members of the general public, spend time and resources creating new laws, (when the old ones should be good enough if they actually enforced them), and spend money compensating gun owners for guns they should be able to lawfully keep anyway...?!?!

If the agenda is to eliminate shooting sports and all associated interest in firearms by the general public, then there is no need to apply any logic or give any justification. I seriously doubt that "use of guns by criminals" is even considered to be a linked issue.


Possibly the only things that have so far inhibited total bans are (a) the lingering legacy of parliamentary democracy, property rights and civil liberties, and (b) the lack of money for compensation. However, we are nowadays in a situations where:

(a) parliamentary process and political representation has deteriorated to such an extent that new criminal laws can be knocked through without debate or consultation, so no further need to worry about shooters writing to their MPs, etc, and -

(b) government has discovered and tested the method of "grandfathering" categories of firearms. I.e. leave them legal to own for now, but make it impossible to give, sell or transfer them, at least without major cost. Ker-ching! No compensation required. (p.s. I wonder whats happened to the £millions of de-acts that are now useless scrap? Compo for the owners? No, just a second £150 re-cutting/re-proofing fee in a matter of months).



Do you need tinfoil to believe in a cross-party agenda to wipe out all firearms ownership/interest?

Well, not really. Quite apart from the long litany of evidence - in the existing history of bans, restrictions and repressions, plus the relentless anti-gun message across the main stream media, its outbreaks of mob hysteria, even the police' breathless exaggerations of risible incidents - you only have to look at what is happening in UK society.

Law and order is plainly falling apart (with too many contributory factors to list here) and in tandem, there is a rapid erosion of the current model of policing by consent (from the beginning of the 20th century there was an unspoken social contract in Britain that the public would be protected from crime by a police and judicial system, in return for the public substantially losing the right to armed self defence or protection of property). Undoubtedly, there are secret assessments on the government's desk that predict serious uncontrollable lawlessness in the near future, and with it a rise in vigilantism and self-protection by the public. That could well be the reason why there appears to be a rush to disarm the populace. It would certainly explain why there is always a ferocious reaction to anyone mentioning "self defence" and "guns" in the same sentence...

[GeeRam]

Undoubtedly, there are secret assessments on the government's desk that predict serious uncontrollable lawlessness in the near future, and with it a rise in vigilantism and self-protection by the public. That could well be the reason why there appears to be a rush to disarm the populace. It would certainly explain why there is always a ferocious reaction to anyone mentioning "self defence" and "guns" in the same sentence...

Nail, head, hit......

[Nelly2014]

Knowing what we know now, it is likely that sometime in the future there will be very limited access to firearms by the general public. Perhaps only farmers, gamekeepers, police and services, possibly olympic sports people (and of course criminals).
I feel there is an agenda which involves gradually abolishing private gun ownership by constantly narrowing the range of actions and calibres, creating laws and legislation deliberately confusing/difficult to interpret, keeping licensing as onerous and un-user friendly as possible and generally creating fear among gun owners by threats of ludicrous sentencing for even minor infringements of the mess we know as Firearms Law.
In light of the above I wonder how many gun owners would give up their right to private ownership and storage if there were clubs with ranges and an armoury where you could store your guns and ammunition with the possibility of shooting any type of rifle or pistol apart from full auto? Yes, I know this is already possible if you are prepared to travel or shoot certain historic weapons.
I would agree to this in the UK and would be prepared to pay for it.

It was proposed when handguns were about to be banned and rejected for various reasons.
I would not support such a proposal and if you gave it some thought you'd realise that it's completely impractical and would kill our sport.
We should not be thinking about giving up any of our rights. It's weak and plays into the hands of those who want to take them away from us.

We already have given up our rights and will continue to do so. If we were realistic we would realise that the battle is over and we are being told the terms of our surrender.
In USA they refuse to give up their guns and have a strong lobby to back it up. In this country we bitch and moan and sign petitions. Then we keep really quiet and hope it will all go away if we don't make too much fuss.

[JSC]

Knowing what we know now, it is likely that sometime in the future there will be very limited access to firearms by the general public. Perhaps only farmers, gamekeepers, police and services, possibly olympic sports people (and of course criminals).
I feel there is an agenda which involves gradually abolishing private gun ownership by constantly narrowing the range of actions and calibres, creating laws and legislation deliberately confusing/difficult to interpret, keeping licensing as onerous and un-user friendly as possible and generally creating fear among gun owners by threats of ludicrous sentencing for even minor infringements of the mess we know as Firearms Law.
In light of the above I wonder how many gun owners would give up their right to private ownership and storage if there were clubs with ranges and an armoury where you could store your guns and ammunition with the possibility of shooting any type of rifle or pistol apart from full auto? Yes, I know this is already possible if you are prepared to travel or shoot certain historic weapons.
I would agree to this in the UK and would be prepared to pay for it.

It was proposed when handguns were about to be banned and rejected for various reasons.
I would not support such a proposal and if you gave it some thought you'd realise that it's completely impractical and would kill our sport.
We should not be thinking about giving up any of our rights. It's weak and plays into the hands of those who want to take them away from us.

We already have given up our rights and will continue to do so. If we were realistic we would realise that the battle is over and we are being told the terms of our surrender.
In USA they refuse to give up their guns and have a strong lobby to back it up. In this country we bitch and moan and sign petitions. Then we keep really quiet and hope it will all go away if we don't make too much fuss.

The battle isn't over yet but if you think so go ahead and roll over.

You really think the answer is to stockpile all our guns in massive armouries? The first time one of those gets raided by terrorists they'll just take all our guns away in one fell swoop and that will be that.

[Nelly2014]

It was proposed when handguns were about to be banned and rejected for various reasons.
I would not support such a proposal and if you gave it some thought you'd realise that it's completely impractical and would kill our sport.
We should not be thinking about giving up any of our rights. It's weak and plays into the hands of those who want to take them away from us.[/quote]

We already have given up our rights and will continue to do so. If we were realistic we would realise that the battle is over and we are being told the terms of our surrender.
In USA they refuse to give up their guns and have a strong lobby to back it up. In this country we bitch and moan and sign petitions. Then we keep really quiet and hope it will all go away if we don't make too much fuss.[/quote]

The battle isn't over yet but if you think so go ahead and roll over.

You really think the answer is to stockpile all our guns in massive armouries? The first time one of those gets raided by terrorists they'll just take all our guns away in one fell swoop and that will be that.[/quote]

Show some evidence that we haven't all 'rolled over'.
Do police or service armouries get raided? There are amouries and stockpiles of guns all over this country for various reasons. How many clubs already have large amounts of guns and ammunition held for members. Both the clubs I attend have and neither have been raided.
I terrorists want guns there are huge stockpiles of them left over from conflicts in Europe and elsewhwere.
I travel to other countries to shoot semi auto pistols and rifles as many others do. Some keep their guns abroad and I may do this myself in future. I would prefer to do it in my home country but it will never happen.

[Laurie]

This was all risk-assessed at the time of the pistol ban, and despite your opinions nelly, it was deemed to add to the public risk not reduce it as previous posts have pointed out.

As to previous experience, the late 20th century Red Army Faction / Baader-Meinhof terrorist organisation was armed almost entirely from raids on German police and military sources. That has applied elsewhere too before now.

The buildings security demanded for centralised civilian armouries would be staggering as unlike military bases, they are rarely in high-security locations, and the costs would be astronomic - enough to shut civilian shooting down in itself. There is the issue then of people being allowed to remove weapons and ammunition to shoot in competitions elsewhere which could be abused by a would-be Ryan or Hamilton. (There was a murder back in the 80s or 90s in which a probationary club member signed out a club revolver and ammunition from the club armoury / attached shop, walked off the premises shooting club officials who tried to stop him, drove off, murdered a man he'd known since school days and then committed suicide. It turned out he had just been diagnosed with a terminal disease and had apparently decided to settle a longstanding score as well as doing himself in faster and less unpleasantly than waiting for cancer or whatever he had to do it. Club membership and probationary rules and access to firearms by non-FAC holders was changed as a result, but it shows how little protection club armouries provide to a person who wishes to get around them.)

It would all be a waste of time anyway as all it takes is a bunch of thugs to turn up at a club official's home, take his family hostage, and say you'll take us to the armoury and unlock it or your wife and kids get it.

[Hunter87]

One thing i do know for sure, unless specifically required for compensation purposes, they won't be getting a complete rifle. I'll be stripping any non-licensed parts off it, giving the dissassembled licensed parts in a bag and it'll all be getting painted bright pink/yellow/orange, i'm not having my rifle paraded around on the news with some beaming MP pr!ck showing off a 'scary' looking gun "Look at these terrifying weapons we've taken off the street"

Bend the barrel at a 90 degree angle for a laugh