Your Views On Gun Law

[woottonp]

very curious to your guys opinions on firearms law and gun prevalence in our society. So, do you think we should have more guns, less guns, or does it seem pretty good as is?

I only ask as i have spoken to some friends (non-airsofters) and a few think that i'm therefore pro gun, which for me is not the case, and i think that there is some real good to come from airsofting and gun attitudes, teaching gun etiquette and that its not the tool but the operator that is often the problem.

sorry if this has been done here before but my feeble search effort didn't find anything

Ciao

Paul

[tackle]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

Sorry, this threads doomed to failure, & rightly so, before the idiots start posting up & therefore put airsoft in a bad light.

[KenIchikawa]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

Less guns in the hands of bad people.

How we would go about this I have no idea.

For the general public it's almost but not quite right.

I say this as somebody who has worked late night hot food and had people bring in bats, knives and blank firing replicas to try and rob us. It dropped right off when it was widely known my dad kept a couple of shotguns on site. A lot of my Indian friends who worked in their parents' shops had similar issues.

[colinjallen]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

Clearly, there are too many guns in the hands of the wrong people. Do current UK firearms laws have a significant and useful impact on the availability and use of such guns? It is hard to know as there is no absolute comparison; comparing with the USA is not really useful as not only are there a lot more guns in circulation per person, but there are also clear differences concerning both general attitudes to gun ownership and willingness to use them. Neither is comparing with other countries particularly useful.

It is very easy to make a rational case for zero legal firearms ownership in order to reduce the supply of weapons, but this would only really work if it was accompanied by rigorous and hard hitting action against those who import, manufacture, own or use illegal weapons.

Ultimately, no government can ever remove all illegally held weapons from society. Banning all legally held weapons would be unpopular with a minority and would affect the livelihoods of an even smaller minority, but it would cut off one route of supply, namely stolen weapons.

I would support either retaining the status quo or toughening gun laws with regard to both legal and illegal ownership.

[Roundel91]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

Id say im satusfied with them tbh. Although i do find it slightly annoying that i can go buy an air rifle or pistol with just 2 forms of ID and being over 18 whilst i have to jump through hoops to be able to buy a black airsoft gun.

[woottonp]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

interesting points. Tackle, while in get what your saying we should still discuss these sort of things openly. If that does happen then a thread can be removed.

Colinjallen, got points, and i think your right in that a complete ban would not be ideal, I think controlled ownership is best, it should be possible for any person with fit use to aquire one, but also with enough checks and measures to avoid abuse, tough line to find i guess.

yeh i dont think anyone can really compare to the states anyway

[Eradicus]

Your Views On Gun Law

Current U.K. Laws are pretty appropriate for our society I think. They'd be too lenient for some societies and too strict for others, horses for courses.

Current U.K. Laws do have some foolish aspect to them that are counterproductive such as no long barrelled pistols on club licenses (has created a proliferation of pistols!) and the foolish nature of the like for like variation requiring a new license ( if someone sells one 5.56 they must wait months to replace it with another 5.56) but in general they are about right in my opinion.

Personally I think that any society that has legalised the carrying of firearms for defensive use has some serious failings to address, poverty and inequality are the root of most violent crime.

I'm glad we can't carry firearms for self defence and I'm glad the majority of our police do not carry firearms. I'm equally glad they do in airports.

Sadly this is not to last, our world is becoming more unequal, not less.

[StargateP90]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

The law itself isnt bad, isnt good. Its convoluted and shrouded with red tape and bureaucracy. I have both Sec1 & Sec2 (SGC/FAC) licences, took a while to get them and the validity of the FAC is subject to my continued membership with my local shooting club, if I leave or get kicked out of the club my FAC is no longer valid as I have 'no good reason' to own a firearm. The system is pretty robust in terms of owning legal firearms which does not need changing as it is already pretty confusing, complicated and expensive as it is, especially if you have to be a member of multiple clubs to own multiple variations of firearms, i.e more than 3 shot 12G, .22, .308s etc.. The .308 may not be allowed to be used at a .22 range and vice versa. Some are lucky and have clubs which host multiple disciplines and multiple variations.

It would be nice to have a larger selection of full bore rifles to choose from that do not have to be custom made for the UK market to abide by our stringent rules. A decent .308 Lantac (effectively a straight pull .308 M4) is £3k+ where as in the US a similar rifle would be considerably less. Same goes for 1911s & .357 magnums both run for around £1K+, would be nice to do some 3-Gun over here, but alas VERY difficult but not impossible.

Would be nice to have some actual shooting ranges as well, where you can pop down with your AR15 etc.. and rattle off 2000 rounds and some targets. Instead of having to have expensive club booked trips to Bisley for half an hours shooting.

[muzzleflash]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

Id say im satusfied with them tbh. Although i do find it slightly annoying that i can go buy an air rifle or pistol with just 2 forms of ID and being over 18 whilst i have to jump through hoops to be able to buy a black airsoft gun.

Airgun legislation is a very real possibility I reckon and will either be in the form of a tightening of the 1968 act, or a separate amendment dealing with licencing of low powered replicas, tacked on to the Vcra. Clearly, the current status quo regarding Airsoft replicas and Airgun replicas is ludicrous. I would also like to see FAC and SGC holders exempt from VCRA requirements and able to buy RIF's without hindrance.

[tackle]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

Guys, gun crime is much worse than most people realise, the government does its best to hide this by not releasing the numbers of weapons intercepted prior to their use in a physical crime, we only hear about the use of guns after the event has been witnessed & cannot be concealed from the media.
Therefore discussing current legislation means very little, it won't be improved upon for those who are pro gun, more likely to get worse not better.
How do I know this, a mate is a copper, been in the met around 25 years, used to be against arming the police, but because of what he's faced, he's changed his view, so much so that he's now a skipper in co19.

[Phoenix_rising]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

After things like Hungerford, Dunblane, and the Cumbria shootings, i think the laws are pretty spot on

[Eradicus]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

Crimes like those are no less possible now than they were then. The legislation didn't make anyone safer. $.02

[KenIchikawa]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

Guys, gun crime is much worse than most people realise,

Oh I know it's bad. I live in Bolton. Last year four or five shootings. They were dressed up as 'incidents' involving an armed man. They generally couldn't hide it when three blokes got out of a car and machine gunned a rival gang's front for drug dealing.

Nor could they hide the knee capping of a gangsters wife and (teenage) son.

[colinjallen]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

Eradicus, that can only ever be an opinion.

We cannot know if the restrictions on firearms have made anyone safer or not; it is likely that they have but that cannot really be proven as such events are so random and rare that there is no truly reliable way of assessing the effects of the restrictions. Michael Ryan's guns were all held legally, as were Thomas Hamilton's and Derrick Bird's; restrictions on ownership may have prevented other shootings but we cannot really know.

[Ragemelon]

Re: Your Views On Gun Law

The laws are fine as they are. No need to change it up

I say this as an airsofter and a person who is very much enthralled with firearms, but realistically speaking we don't need mass shootings coming to the UK. Yes, the argument can be made for illegal weaponry can still be used but it's harder to get a hold of and it only takes one slightly off kilter guy to shoot up a school. I'm not so selfish as to suggest my enjoyment is worth more than the lives of others which is what it really boils down to.