Is there a ban Ahead

[cometa300s 20]

well all above is correct i think so. all this s**t goes bad against me as i am a young hunter and i live in a built up area but to be fair i dont do any thing stupid with my air rifle as i was brought up by my uncle shooting and was taught the rights from the wrong at a young age so i think that as helped me through the years plus my ow experiences out in the feild

 

regards liam

[Coney 3]

Scarey times my friends, it just takes a couple more high profile incidents like these and we will all be in the shite....and don't the Anties just love it!!....they must fecking pray for shit like this to happen just to further there so called "cause" and get a complete ban!!!

[ChrisJones 7,973]

I saw an article a while ago rubbishing claims of a ban in Scotland. I don't think a ban is workable but nothing this shower of sh**e government does surprises me. I think they may go for some kind of licensing similar to FAC / Shotgun, but I can not decide if this is a good idea or not :wallbash:

Too many rifles in circulation for it to be totally effective.

 

When they announced the Brocock ban, gun shops were inundated with calls, from law abiding people, trying to offload old air rifles. This was purely down to the poor wording of the law and the journalists paraphrasing it, in the media. Any announcement of a ban will see the law abiding hand over their guns, like crazy. Will it stop the swan/cat/fox shooters?

 

Personally I think licensing would be a good idea. Especially on the lines of the SGC. It's not ideal but neither are toy shops selling air rifles to anyone with cash, or free papers showing people how to circumnavigate the 12 ft/lbs power restrictions. I think if we were to take these steps, to professionalise and regulate our rifles, we will stop a complete ban further down the line. Also we could remove the 12ft/lbs limit on over the counter rifles. The current government loves self regulation and what better way to stop them than this? We've seen two major law changes, in the last couple of years, that effect air rifles and their usage... only an idiot will think this is the end of it.

 

A licensing system won't stop crime but at least it will allow legal shooters a degree of movement within the law. I think the longer the shooting groups wait for the government, to come up with something, the sooner we're likely to see an outright ban on air rifles. We can take the initiative, and offer a workable solution, or we can continue to bury our heads in the sand and wait for thousands of £'s worth of gear, years of accumulated knowledge and experience, to be worth f**k all.

 

Think about it.

[Tyla 3,179]

and how many armed robberys ect with shotty's and all , how many of them do you think * have a licence* , it will limit it yes , but not eradicate it . .. if someone wants something bad enough , sure they will find a way ,

 

i agree. i think the only people that would be affected by licensing would be the responsible law abiding shooters who are not the problem. The moronic little oiks would carry on as they do now but every now and again one would be nicked which seems to make no difference. A good example is the fiasco following Dunblane, its hardly solved the gun crime issue has it?

[Grim Reaper 1]

I'll go along with you on this one Chris, what you've said mate seems to be logical to me.

 

So, how could we self regulate and 'make the first move' on this . . . . suggest it to the basc top knobs?

 

 

Cheers,

Grim.

Edited August 14, 2008 by Grim Reaper

[ChrisJones 7,973]

i agree. i think the only people that would be affected by licensing would be the responsible law abiding shooters who are not the problem. The moronic little oiks would carry on as they do now but every now and again one would be nicked which seems to make no difference. A good example is the fiasco following Dunblane, its hardly solved the gun crime issue has it?

You could ban lots of things and it wouldn't stop the criminals. The kneejerk after Dunblane was so short sighted it didn't even scratch the surface of what was to come. They decided to ban handguns 4 years after the collapse of Communism in the old USSR. They banned guns just as millions of them were being offloaded onto the market, after the combined armed forces of the Eastern Bloc decided that everything must go... then they appear in Britain.

 

The point of licensing wouldn't be to stop air gun crime. As it won't. As you've rightly said only the morons would carry and they'll do whatever they want, regardless. The point is to draw a line and offer a solution, to the government, so that legal and law abiding shooters can be left alone. We license air rifles. You carry the license and then when you're stopped you can prove that you're not a problem. Same as it is with cars. Ask any fire arms officer. They would rather more people had legally held rifles/shotguns etc so that they have a database of people that they can eliminate from their enquiries.

 

I genuinely believe that if we don't make moves towards a reasonable licensing system the government will speak instead of us and will ban them all. How many toddlers will it take before they get enough hate mail to act? 2? 3? 4?

 

We regulate ourselves. We offer the solution and remove the casual sale/trade etc of air rifles. It's the only workable solution I can see to our next threat.

 

I'll go along with you on this one Chris, what you've said mate seems to be logical to me.

 

So, how could we self regulate and 'make the first move' on this . . . . suggest it to the basc top knobs?

That's a start but everyone has to be reading from the same page for it to work. BASC, BASA, SACS, CA etc. If the shooting lobby did what the hunting lobby did then we might as well hand our guns in now.

 

If the top shooting organisations drafted a proposal, that your average minister can read, then it could/should work. Waiting for more injured children just hardens the public stance and makes it harder, everytime it happens.