Thread: Strict new firearms laws in England

Look familiar? Cops gave a living handgrenade and it went wrong, now new rules brought in



I’ve been in the gun trade for 40 years. I fear Labour’s crackdown will destroy it https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...the-gun-trade/

They wouldn't want any peaceful protesters defending themselves when they're unlawfully arrested!

So apart from having landowners interviewed pretty much what we have here.

Originally Posted by Bert 71

They wouldn't want any peaceful protesters defending themselves when they're unlawfully arrested!

I thought the same thing. I was there in the 90,s when they had their "hand in". Now I see a country absolutely ruined with no way to defend it, its just bizarre what is going on there. Thank god most of the veterans of the world wars are not here to see. Our MMS media isn't showing a fraction of what's going.

Originally Posted by Waynesworld

I thought the same thing. I was there in the 90,s when they had their "hand in". Now I see a country absolutely ruined with no way to defend it, its just bizarre what is going on there. Thank god most of the veterans of the world wars are not here to see. Our MMS media isn't showing a fraction of what's going.

That isn't surprising the media is anti firearms

Originally Posted by Waynesworld

I thought the same thing. I was there in the 90,s when they had their "hand in". Now I see a country absolutely ruined with no way to defend it, its just bizarre what is going on there. Thank god most of the veterans of the world wars are not here to see. Our MMS media isn't showing a fraction of what's going.

Lets be honest, the WW1 and WW2 veterans are the ones who set these events in motion

Originally Posted by SneedFeed

Lets be honest, the WW1 and WW2 veterans are the ones who set these events in motion

You say WHAT????

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

You say WHAT????

I tried so hard not to bite lol. There is no words to use is there.

I think the point he is making is that the politicians who started this stuff in the 70's were raised by WWII veterans. Hippies had parents who were adults during the 40's.

Originally Posted by Ross Nolan

I think the point he is making is that the politicians who started this stuff in the 70's were raised by WWII veterans. Hippies had parents who were adults during the 40's.

So those who risked their lives and endured horrors many of us simply cannot comprehend,are now being blamed for the poor decision making of their offsprings offspring????? If so I have but three words. Well fuck me!!!

I think the old adage of "hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times" better sums things up.

Originally Posted by XR500

I think the old adage of "hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times" better sums things up.

So hard that someone oover there is suggesting a 100% inheritance tax....Thats right 100%...Its worse- they dont take everything....they tell you how much it is worth then you have to pay for it....Thats nearly as dumb as the suggestion of GPS trackers in Knives to prevent knife crime....the ones who will actually use knives with criminal intent are ones who will make a shiv rather than pay fror a knife with a tracker in it...let alone the absurd stupidity of the suggestion.

Originally Posted by XR500

I think the old adage of "hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times" better sums things up.

The older I get, the more I realize how very accurate this saying is.

For those that don't want to deal with the paywall

‘I’ve been in the gun trade for 40 years. I fear Labour’s crackdown will destroy it’
Experts claim newly tightened shotgun licensing laws will only serve to kill shooting sports and curtail conservation
Richard Negus
Garry Doolan (left), Deputy Director of Communications and Public affairs at BASC, and Nick von Westenholz, Chief Executive of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, attend The Game Fair, held at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire last month Credit: John Lawrence for The Telegraph
For more than 60 years, The Game Fair has been one of England’s largest annual celebrations of the countryside. Dubbed “Glastonbury for the green welly brigade”, this year’s event, which took place at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire over the last weekend of July, drew a record crowd of 128,000 visitors.
While the wild cooking and falconry demonstrations, fly-casting competitions and gun dog displays kept the tweed-clad throng entertained, there was just one hot topic on the lips of most fairgoers: the Government’s imminent amendments to shotgun licensing.
Things were particularly heated down on Gun Maker’s Row, which is, without a doubt, always the most popular of the fair’s retail areas. Here, customers can browse, try and buy anything from a handmade Holland & Holland 12-bore to a high-tech digital rifle scope or second-hand gun for an occasional day’s clay shooting. But this year everyone knew that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s tightening of shotgun ownership rules – which came into force on August 5 – means that by next year’s fair, the shooting trade may be very different.
A trade under threat
Gunsmith Jason Harris owns Trulock and Harris, the renowned gun shop in Framlingham, Suffolk. He describes the Government’s new legislation as a “knee-jerk reaction” and worries it could kill the industry he loves.
“I’ve been in the gun trade for over 40 years,” says Harris. “I’ve seen and survived many changes. Some backed by common sense and thought through, others not so much.
“Until now, if a buyer came into my shop and a shotgun caught their eye they could buy it, provided they held a valid shotgun licence. Customers like that are the lifeblood of stores like mine, but under the new licensing system all that will change.”

Jason Harris: ‘If you destroy shooting, you remove all of the conservation that comes with it’ Credit: John Lawrence
Harris, who was attending The Game Fair with his wife and family, adds: “I had hoped that my daughter would follow me into the gunsmith trade, but now I fear for the craft’s future as a whole.”
It’s a fear that is backed up by the stats. Polling by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) has revealed that at least one third of shotgun license holders say they will consider giving up shooting altogether under the new system.
This new tightening of firearms-licensing rules comes in response to a gun rampage in Plymouth in August 2021, in which five people died. The then 22-year-old Jake Davison, an apprentice crane operator from Keyham in Plymouth, shot his mother with a shotgun he legally owned before murdering four other local residents, wounding two more, then turning the weapon on himself.

Using a legally owned shotgun, Jake Davison murdered his mother and four other people in August 2021 during a 12-minute attack in Plymouth Credit: PA
Inquests into the deaths of the victims later revealed that there had been “catastrophic” failures within the Devon and Cornwall Police force, which allowed the killer to hold a firearms certificate despite a history of violence and mental-health issues.
Now, new licensing reforms bring shotguns in line with other firearms, and require applicants to provide two referees who have known them for more than two years, who must be interviewed by Firearms Enforcement Officers (FEOs) before they can make a purchase. Until last week they only needed one.
Applicants also have to supply a GP’s letter confirming their mental suitability for gun ownership. Every landowner on whose property the applicant wishes to use the gun will also to be contacted and each gun owned, plus its ammunition, will require an authenticated reason for use and ownership. FEOs will also be encouraged to speak to family members before granting licences, to ensure the applicant is not a domestic-violence risk.
Harris says: “I have a very good working relationship with Suffolk Constabulary firearms licensing team, and I work hard to maintain that. I know from talking to them that they couldn’t even keep up with the previous requirements, let alone with these changes.
“My understanding of the Plymouth incident is that it was largely caused by the police giving guns to someone who clearly should not have had them. Obviously, lessons need to be learned, but to further penalise legitimate gun trade and the shooters that support the industry is not the way forward.
“Laws were already in place to prevent something like [the tragedy in Plymouth] happening, it’s simply the relevant protocols were not followed – and the police licensing team in that county was responsible for that, no one else.”
‘This is Labour sticking the boot in’
Harris is far from alone in his views. Tony Butler, a gamekeeper from Dorset who was also browsing on Gun Maker’s Row, feels this is just another battle in an ongoing war of attrition against rural businesses and communities. “This has nothing to do with safety, it’s just Labour sticking the boot in to people they don’t like – country people like me,” he says.
Shooting sports have continued to grow in popularity in recent years, with 147,000 people owning Section 1 firearms certificates and 575,000 currently holding a Section 2, or what most would know as a shotgun licence, as part of a licensing system which was already viewed as one of the most rigorous in the world.
Roger Seddon, Campaign Manager for Shooting at the Countryside Alliance says it’s important to highlight the incredibly low threat the public faces from licensed gun owners. “A mere 0.002 per cent of holders have had their certificate revoked for a firearms-related offence,” he explains. “Licensed gun owners are statistically some of the most law abiding citizens in Britain.”

Shotguns are big business for sellers at The Game Fair, with Gun Maker’s Row stocking everything from Holland & Holland 12-bores to high-tech digital rifle scopes Credit: John Lawrence for The Telegraph
Simon Rheinhold, one of shooting’s most respected figures and Head of Operations for Holts, the country’s leading specialist gun auctioneers, believes the Government has wholly misunderstood the issue. This new legislation, he says, will create greater challenges and costs for police, rather than reducing them.
“Firearms licensing is about two things: public safety and providing a service to individuals who wish to own guns,” he says. “If you place shotguns under Section 1 firearms, you are doing neither of those two things well. All such a measure will do is increase the cost and burden [on police] and thereby reduce public safety. Neither the police, nor the gun-owning public, are adverse to change. They just don’t need these changes.”
Many members of the shooting community agree that it is not licensed gun owners, but the creaking administrative system of firearms licensing that puts the public at potential risk. Shotgun certificates are still made from paper and their issue relies on manual input by FEOs in the applicant’s own local police force. Each of the 43 police constabularies interprets the law slightly differently, as their Chief Constable sees it. Individual forces are also responsible for the time consuming, and therefore costly, administration, compliance and enforcement of gun ownership in their area.
Seddon believes the Government’s additional changes to licensing will “more than double the workload of FEOs who are already experiencing backlogs in applications and renewals, in some cases for up to three years.”

Roger Seddon: ‘Licensed gun owners are statistically some of the most law abiding citizens in Britain’ Credit: John Lawrence
Tim Bonner, CEO of the Countryside Alliance adds: “Firearms licensing would be significantly improved if its administration was removed from the hands of the police completely and instead run by a centralised body, along the efficient lines of the DVLA.”
While the Government claims the new legislation will better protect the public and save police up to £103 million a year, experts within the UK gun trade insist the reforms will fail to make any cost savings or improve public safety. Instead, they say that the moves will decimate an industry worth more than £3 billion annually to the economy and place rare wildlife under greater threat.
Conservation and wildlife will suffer the most
BASC has calculated that the shooting community carries out £500 million worth of conservation work each year. Much of this involves the use of shotguns to control pest species such as carrion crows, grey squirrels and foxes.
The importance of lethal predator control was proven in two recent landmark studies by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), which highlight that if red-listed species, such as the curlew, golden plover and grey partridge are to be saved, the use of shotguns and rifles in predator control is essential.
Dr Alastair Leake, Director of Policy at the GWCT says: “The free service provided by amateur keepers and pest controllers is invaluable to wildlife, and saves the Treasury millions per annum. The RSPB recently calculated that professional predator controllers cost them an average of £180 per hour.”
With the ONS reporting a record 6,365 agriculture, forestry and fishing businesses closing since Sir Keir Starmer took office, it is understandable that the shooting sector feels it is just the next rural sector in line to fall into Labour’s seemingly vindictive sights.
As Harris points out, this will have wider implications than solely ruining his beloved gun trade. “If you destroy shooting, you remove all of the conservation that comes with it. It is our wildlife that will suffer the most.”

Originally Posted by SneedFeed

Lets be honest, the WW1 and WW2 veterans are the ones who set these events in motion

if people understood history we wouldnt be in this current situation.