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Thread: Airgun licensing

  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by struth View Post
    Ive a mate who shoots and he is very safety concious, as i think most are. its drilled into them
    Dead right. I belonged to shooting clubs and used to do a fair bit of range shooting years ago and safety was always foremost.

    It's a perfectly legitimate pursuit and requires considerable skill. It's also very satisfying to do.
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  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by scotty38 View Post
    And this is where organisations like BASC will come in and fight your corner based on the reasons given for refusal, because unless you have a record of criminal or mental issues there should be no reason to refuse you just because the CC didn't like the colour of your wallpaper or that you had a baseball cap on back to front

    I think it's fair to say some forces are more strict than others and do have CCs that have their own opinion of how licences should be dished out. Some folk will take the refusal and move on but that doesn't mean the refusal was the correct thing to do, hence why some organisations will fight for your right to have a shotgun licence.
    If you can demand it, it's a right. If it requires a grant it's a privilege.

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  3. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by walpurgis View Post
    Meaning what exactly? And where is it you watch these owners?
    Its whether you think its acceptable for people to generally have them on housing estates or what they are doing taking them to the countryside.

    I think it moves quickly from shooting cans to shooting wildlife with them. I dont like them and I dont like the seedy little shops I used to see in Mcr selling them alongside the replica guns.

    A rifle shooting pellets at high velocity...what could go wrong eh?
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  4. #44
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    Guns are a funny thing. As a typical townie (even thought I've lived in or near the country for much of my adult life) I've never seen the point personally. I recall going to Ireland to visit family in about 1968 (when I was seven), coming into Larne and seeing RUC officers carrying real guns in holsters, which looked absolutely enormous compared to the little toy cap guns we played cowboys and indians with. Obviously they were doing this for good reason at the time, but it scared the hell out of me and I'm not sure I ever quite got over it. I went shooting rabbits with a .22 once with one of the teachers at school and a small group, I was a bit sickened by that thankfully almost every shot missed.

    I was also a journalist in the Scotsman newsroom the day the Dunblane massacre happened, when a colleague and good friend sitting next to me had to go home because his kids were at Dunblane primary (a different age than the class that were killed, thankfully, but he didn't know that in those days before widespread mobile phones, as he jumped in his car for the 45-minute journey back from Edinburgh). Seldom has a news event had such a personal impact. Essentially nobody in Scotland had any objection to the law banning handguns that followed, and to hell with the Olympic squad who had to start training in France.

    And yet .. I have friends who enjoy shooting rifles on ranges, who get a thrill from the precision of the whole thing and who take safety incredibly seriously.

    I'm not quite sure where airgun use fits in this, most people who own them seem to get off on shooting rabbits or squirrels or whatever but I don't personally see the joy in that. But then again I don't see the fun in stamp collecting, in dressing up in lycra to go cycling, or in dogging, for that matter. I suppose it takes all sorts.

    What is unfortunate is that any rational debate on guns in America has been lost in the culture wars, which is an out and out tragedy. I guess the only conclusion you can draw is that as a society they are happy on some level to trade off 30,000 gun deaths a year (vs a few dozen in most other countries) against some nebulous idea of freedom - not an equation most of us in the rest of the civilised world could go along with.

    Ultimately I'm pretty happy with laws as tight as you can make them, there are a lot of idiots out there but somehow we manage (for the most part) in keeping guns out of their hands, whereas they utterly fail to do that in America. Long may our strict gun laws continue and if a few people on the margins of getting permision or affording permits are inconvenienced by that then I have no problem. The very fact that firearms are very tightly restricted here means that it's a big step to carry them and while obviously some people choose to break the law, it will be far fewer than if our laws were more lax.

  5. #45
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    When firearms were (essentially) banned in the UK I was a “shooter” - belonged to a local gun club and used to love going to the range to shoot targets. I also used to shoot competitions, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Even though I owned my own pistol I never felt the need to take it home and always left it at the club. I guess it started as a teenager with air rifles and pistols. Never felt the need to kill anything, even rats.

    When the ban came I took it on the chin and moved on - human lives are more important than my leisure, but I do think banning air guns or licensing them would be a step too far. As has been said above, crossbows or a compound bow would be far more dangerous, and with knife crime out of control we need to sort that out before worrying about a few air weapons.


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  6. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by scotty38 View Post
    Still missing the point of the difference between a shotgun licence and a firearm's certificate. A shotgun licence IS a right we have and the onus is on authorities to give good reason why you shouldn't have one (mostly medical and/or criminal). A FAC is a privilege and YOU have to show good reason why you should have one before it is granted (usually with restrictions).

    Whether you like it or agree with it or not that is a fact in the UK right now.
    Sorry it is not. It is a privilege like any government granted licence. You also have to show good reason to have a shotgun licence, they are not given away at the post office.
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  7. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
    Guns are a funny thing. As a typical townie (even thought I've lived in or near the country for much of my adult life) I've never seen the point personally. I recall going to Ireland to visit family in about 1968 (when I was seven), coming into Larne and seeing RUC officers carrying real guns in holsters, which looked absolutely enormous compared to the little toy cap guns we played cowboys and indians with. Obviously they were doing this for good reason at the time, but it scared the hell out of me and I'm not sure I ever quite got over it. I went shooting rabbits with a .22 once with one of the teachers at school and a small group, I was a bit sickened by that thankfully almost every shot missed.

    I was also a journalist in the Scotsman newsroom the day the Dunblane massacre happened, when a colleague and good friend sitting next to me had to go home because his kids were at Dunblane primary (a different age than the class that were killed, thankfully, but he didn't know that in those days before widespread mobile phones, as he jumped in his car for the 45-minute journey back from Edinburgh). Seldom has a news event had such a personal impact. Essentially nobody in Scotland had any objection to the law banning handguns that followed, and to hell with the Olympic squad who had to start training in France.

    And yet .. I have friends who enjoy shooting rifles on ranges, who get a thrill from the precision of the whole thing and who take safety incredibly seriously.

    I'm not quite sure where airgun use fits in this, most people who own them seem to get off on shooting rabbits or squirrels or whatever but I don't personally see the joy in that. But then again I don't see the fun in stamp collecting, in dressing up in lycra to go cycling, or in dogging, for that matter. I suppose it takes all sorts.

    What is unfortunate is that any rational debate on guns in America has been lost in the culture wars, which is an out and out tragedy. I guess the only conclusion you can draw is that as a society they are happy on some level to trade off 30,000 gun deaths a year (vs a few dozen in most other countries) against some nebulous idea of freedom - not an equation most of us in the rest of the civilised world could go along with.

    Ultimately I'm pretty happy with laws as tight as you can make them, there are a lot of idiots out there but somehow we manage (for the most part) in keeping guns out of their hands, whereas they utterly fail to do that in America. Long may our strict gun laws continue and if a few people on the margins of getting permision or affording permits are inconvenienced by that then I have no problem. The very fact that firearms are very tightly restricted here means that it's a big step to carry them and while obviously some people choose to break the law, it will be far fewer than if our laws were more lax.
    Excellent post Tom.
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  8. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by walpurgis View Post
    A bow and arrow or crossbow are far more dangerous than air weapons. There doesn't seem to be much of a clamour to control those.
    True, bows and arrows are capable of great harm if used irresponsibly, but a number of factors help them pass under legislators' radar. Firstly, they are not very portable and a devil to conceal. Mine is 68" long, and I'm not bragging, that's about average. So walking into town with would not go unnoticed. Also the load/reload time will be about 5 seconds. And you would need space to use it - out of a car window is never going to happen.

    Even when it comes to accidental injuries, I'm told that by far the greatest number of injuries are caused not by the point but by the rear (nock) end of an arrow. Caused by standing too close to the target when arrows are being withdrawn, also by people injuring shins when walking into arrows in the ground!

    Slightly different with crossbows, I would certainly have their sale removed from everywhere but properly licensed dealers.

    Their used to be a woman at my archery club who claimed to keep her bow and arrows beside her bed in case of intruders. But she was thick as a workhouse butty. I suppose she could have hit them over the head with it. But really she had nothing to worry about!
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  9. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by struth View Post
    Had a shot of a smaller bore air rifle once that was ?? .177 or summat like that with much stronger 22 spring in it.. by god this thing could do damage. was a mate of my brothers.. way back in 60's i think
    I think the restrictions on air rifles are to do with muzzle energy, regardless of bore size. Most air rifles can use a .177 barrel or .22, some even .25. But on any given weapon a .177 pellet will have a greater muzzle velocity than a .22, but the pellet itself will weigh less. a physics thing I guess.

    If my HW97k air rifle had a .177 barrel on it, the muzzle velocity would probably be around 800 fps, which is about the same as a Colt .45 ACP pistol. But I know which one would do the greater harm. All down to velocity/mass I reckon.
    I just dropped in, to see what condition my condition was in

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  10. #50
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    Average gun deaths in the US - 36,383 in one year

    England and Wales for 2018 - 31 fatal shootings (one year)

    These are approximate figures only gained from Google searches and include suicides

    I have to ask the question then, why are a few people in Britain on a crusade to criminalise airguns ?

    I also used to shoot at the local club back in the day when we could and had a deep respect for the firearms used. The government then banned possession of them and paid off the public who owned them but of course this doesn't stop the problem as the illegally held firearms are still out there. The government only persecuted the good folk who obeyed the law. The problem still exists today as it did back then.

    The government unlicensed dog ownership because it cost more than it was actually worth. How the hell are they going to Police and enforce the ownership of airguns..? How many airguns are there out there..?

    I can't wait to see what the government eventually do.

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