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What gun confiscation is like.

Scoop

.30-06
A few days ago I wrote to Daryll from England the following note. He agreed to share his experiences in the 1997 round up of newly prohibited guns. Standby. This should be and eye-opener.

Daryll. You have only been on Mossberg Owners just a short time, but the few posts you have shared about firearms ownership in England are eye-opening. In the States we have been picked to death by more and more restrictions, taxes, prohibitions, registration, shortages, environmental attacks on the raw materials of arms on and on. Most of these have been done on the state level.

I suspect that there is a very good chance that after the election here in November that our next pres will do her best to keep her promises to put severe restrictions on our ownership and use of firearms.

Would you be willing relate your experience of complying w/ the regulations in England?

Things that interest me are how were official notifications made to owners that they would have to surrender or register their existing collection. What happened to surrendered arms? How many people refused? What happened to them?
 
Thanks Scoop, after that Intro I hope this won't be an anticlimax..!!

Maybe first we should have a rundown of the Uk legislation over the years...

Up until the late 1800's anything could be owned and carried, pretty much as in the US... An English Gentleman needed protection from ruffians and footpads.. :D

In 1870 a licence was introduced for anyone who wanted to carry a gun outside their home. But there were no restrictions on keeping a firearm indoors.

The 1903 Pistols Act which denied ownership to anyone who was "drunken or insane". It also required a licence for firearms with a barrel shorter than nine inches - what we nowadays refer to as handguns.

The 1920 Firearms Act, which introduced a registration system and allowed local police forces to deny a licence to anyone who was "unfitted to be trusted with a firearm".

The 1937 Firearms Act, which banned most fully automatic weapons.

The 1967 Criminal Justice Act required licences - but not registration - for shotguns.

The 1968 Firearms Act consolidated existing laws and gave the Home Office the right to set fees for shotgun licenses.

Then we come to modern times, with the modern media outcries, and nanny-state Governments.

In August 1987 Michael Ryan went "postal" as you would call it, and walked through the town of Hungerford with a Beretta 92, M1 carbine, a Type 56, and a couple of large capacity shotguns, killing 16 people including his own mother.
This lead to the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, which banned semi-automatic and pump-action rifles; weapons which fire explosive ammunition; short shotguns with magazines; and large capacity pump-action and self-loading shotguns. Registration was also made mandatory for shotguns, which were required to be kept in secure storage

In March 1996 Thomas Hamilton (a rumoured paedo, who had been complained about to the police on a few occasions) went to the Dunblane primary school with 2 Browning HPs, and 2 S&W M19s, and killed 16 children and 1 teacher.
This lead to the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 banning private possession of handguns almost completely.

.22 pistols were not banned until the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, later that year which outlawed .22s as well.


So, up to 1988 in the Uk we could own any shotgun, without registration, and any firearm, (but not full auto), with a licence available to anyone of good character.


To be continued.....
 
Awesome thread...and an eye opening wake-up call !!

Looking forward to more installments...
 
Incrementalism.

Each time it has been done. Every country.
 
Ok, part 2…

More explanation I’ve afraid...

There are several different classes, or “Sections” of firearms in the UK, and depending on which section a firearm is in, depends on who can own one.

The main 3 are:

Section 5”: These are prohibited weapons, so Full Auto, large calibre, (over 2 inches, so no morters or artillery!!), and small firearms (including pistols.), and also semi auto rifles, apart from .22lr

Owning an S5 firearm is by the Home Secretary permission only, very difficult to get unless you live in Northern Ireland, and are considered to be threatened by the IRA. Then you can have a Personal Protection Weapon ( think CCW…)

Some hunters, Vets, etc can apply to have a pistol for Humane Dispatch of animals, but they are normally revolvers physically limited to 2 rnds by welding up of the cylinder.

Section 2”: These are Shotguns, holding no more than 3 shells, with a barrel length over 24’’ and overall length of 40’’, and can be double barrelled, pump or semi.

Anyone can apply to their local police for a Shotgun Certificate (SGC). The police have to show good reason not to grant a SGC.

Section 1”: This is the main firearm section, and covers all rifled firearms with a barrel length over 12‘’ and overall length of 24’’, (smaller than that and they’re Section 5) and also shotguns with barrels less than 24 ‘’ or capacity more than 3 shells.

To get a S1 Firearm Certificate (FAC), you have to apply to the local police but it’s up to you to show good reason for owning a firearm. The normal reasons are target shooting or vermin control/hunting. For target shooting you have to have been a member of a recognised club for at least 6 months before applying for your FAC, and the police will ask the club if you’ve been attending, and their opinion of you. For vermin or hunting you must state where you will be using each firearm, and they will inspect the land. (You can’t have 1 acre of land to shoot a .308 on!!... in the Uk we don’t have the open spaces like the US)

Edit: I forgot to mention that "self defence" is NOT a good reason, and any mention of that will probably ensure you never get an FAC..!!

The police also can ask your Doctor whether he thinks you’re safe to hold a firearm… no history of depression, suicide attempts, drink problem, etc…

Obviously, if you have a Police record for anything more than speeding, don't even bother applying..!!

When you apply for your FAC you have to state what firearms you want. Obviously this depends on whether you’re target shooting or vermin control/hunting. If you’re a member of a target club, but they only have a smallbore range, you’ll only be allowed a .22.

Most target clubs have access to a range certified up to .30 with a max MV, so you could apply for anything up to that, (unless you’re a member of something like the .50 shooters association… but theres only 3 ranges in the country that you can shoot .50BMG on..!)

Most target shooters will ask for something like a .22, .38/357 and .308 or .303 rifle to start with, then add more by variation of their FAC at a later date, or when they renew their FAC after 5 years.

During the application process you will be interviewed by your local Firearms Enquiry Officer (FEO) who will assess you and discuss your firearm choices, the amount of ammo you can possess at any one time, and whether you can possess expanding ammo (only allowed for vermin/hunting).


So, when you finally get you nice new FAC, (anywhere between 6 to 20 weeks after applying, depending on which county you live in), it will have “slots” on it that you are “authorised to purchase or acquire” various firearms, by calibre, and up to an amount of suitable ammo.

Wooohooo… time to go shopping… :D

To be continued....
 
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So… when a bad guy goes off and shoots someone in the UK, what happens…??

I have to admit, my first thought when I hear the news is “I hope it wasn’t a legal gun owner”…

If it’s a gang shooting… yes, we have those here too… or criminal related then there will still be the media outcry about people with guns, but as we all know, criminals by definition don’t respect laws so any further legislation won’t stop them shooting each other.
(Maybe we should give them free guns, and pretty soon the problem will have solved itself!!)

If it is a legal gun owner, thats when the problems start for legitimate shooters, as they did in 1987 and 1996.

I hadn’t seriously gotten into shooting in 1987, so wasn’t affected in the wake of the Hungerford massacre, but from what I remember there was a lot of debate about why members of the public needed, or should be allowed, what were effectively military weapons. There was hysteria from the liberals saying that these psychopaths (shooters) had guns that could “spray bullets everywhere killing hundreds of people in a few minutes”…bearing in mind that full auto weapons were banned in 1937, that’s some good mag changing in semi autos..!!

The main problem in the Uk is the general ignorance of the populace about guns…. So when the media start sprouting out garbage about guns and shooters in general, the populace believe them because they know no different… and Hollywood doesn’t help….

As far as I know, when the 1988 act became law, owners of semi auto rifles were given time to dispose of them… obviously as our weapons have to be registered, the police have a list of what everyone has, so that can check them off as they’ve disposed of. I think the owners had a choice of having their rifles exported out of the country, deactivated, handed in to the police, or sold to firearm dealers for export.

The biggest problem for the police was that while they had a list of everyone’s rifles, they were not sorted by type, so they didn’t know which were semis, or bolts…
John Lott notes:
“..the Home Office estimated that there were some 8,000-10,000 fullbore SLR's in Britain in 1988 (the licensing system accurately segregated rifles from pistols, but did not specify action type), and the British Shooting Sports Council (which might have wished to stress the likely compensation cost) estimated that there were 20,000 such weapons in circulation. In fact, only 3,548 rifles were recorded as having been handed in…”

So the Uk government is fully aware there could be somewhere between 4,500 and 16,500 semi auto rifles unaccounted for. Some may have been deactivated or exported, but the police should have been notified of those.

At the same time, as Michael Ryan carried, but didn’t actually use a couple of shotguns, they were required to be registered with the police for the first time…. So, I wonder how many shotguns were around, and how many were actually registered..?!?!

There are stories of caches of guns being found occasionally, probably shotguns or semi auto rifles stashed away to avoid registration or deactivation….


To be continued…
 
March 1996…. The worst shooting massacre in the Uk.

Although Thomas Hamilton killed the same number of victims as Michael Ryan had 9 years earlier, the Dunblane massacre hit the country much harder as his victims were 5 and 6 year old children, and one of their teachers.

Following the massacre there was the usual media outcry about how people could legally own these “weapons of mass destruction” and despite some high profile people trying to voice reason, they were shouted down. A campaign (the “Snowdrop campaign”) started to get all guns banned, led by a woman who everyone assumed was a mother of one of the children… in fact she was a local lawyer who jumped on the bandwagon… their campaign motto was “if it saves one child”…

Again, the media were influencing the minds of the sheeple, and the politicians realised this. The problem was, this was an election year, so both political parties realised that the party that was seen to do the most “to protect the children” would get most votes.

The party in power at the moment was the Conservative party under John Major, and they proposed to make it more difficult to get firearms, and possibly to ban centre fire pistols, but keep .22’s, as they were used in the Olympic shooting events. They started the process of the Firearms Amendment Act 1996.
The Labour party, led by Tony Blair announced that they would not make the massacre a political issue… but then invited the head of the Snowdrop campaign to speak at the Labour party conference…!!

Eventually Labour won the election, and Tony Blair passed the act that also banned .22 pistols.

(Actually pistols were not “banned”, but Section 5 was changed to include firearms with less than 12’’ barrels and 24’’ overall…. So all normal pistols became Section 5… I hope you paid attention to my earlier post.. ;))

By this time I was fully into shooting, and had a collection of 7 pistols (Glocks 17 and 21, S&W 686 and M19, Walther PPk, Pardini Fiocci and an .22 Erma Colt Commander copy, which I intended to teach my kids to shoot with.)

Again, the Police had a complete list of everyone’s pistols, so they contacted everyone and told us our options. We could hand them in and get compensation, or we could export them out of the mainland. Some people did take the export option, I knew of a couple of top IPSC shooters who actually emigrated and took their guns with them, and some of the Olympic shooters joined foreign clubs and exported their guns to them so they could go shoot them abroad.

The rest of us took the compensation. To be honest, the amount of compensation wasn’t bad for the value of the guns…. They published a list of guns available in the Uk with their new price, and gave us a percentage of that. (I can’t remember the actual figure.) If, like me, all your guns were second-hand, you could get more than the gun was worth.
You also had an option of a flat £150 for any firearm, or you could take a 3rd option if you had a pistol that wasn’t on their list, or had specific extra value… either historic, or highly customised. These would be individually assessed for value.
Also, accessories and reloading kit qualified for compensation and ammo….again with pretty good prices.

I, and most other people were finding every last bit of scrap brass to throw a bullet and primer in to hand in for the extra cash….
I kept my .38/.357 loading setup as I planned to get a Marlin underlever.

I ended up with £4500 in compensation which was paid pretty quickly as I’d gone for the list price option. It seems that those that had special value pistols had to wait years for their valuations and payments.

I felt very aggrieved losing my pistols, but in defiance I went straight out and spend my compensation on rifles… those bas$%^&ds are not going to stop me shooting…!!



A quick Bio:

I'm 57, married for 31 years, 2 grown up kids, (One still at home, one left the nest) and a mad Springer Spaniel..!
I've worked for the same company for 40 years in various departments and I'm currently in IT.

I started shooting air rifles when they were longer than I was tall…!! Continued into my teens, then joined the local Air Cadets (think ROTC) where I shot .22 and .303 rifle.

Left the Air Cadets at 17, took up Archery for a few years, then gave that up when work and girls took over my interests :p

In 1987 I joined the Royal Auxillary Air Force, (the Reserve Forces) where I qualified in every small arm the RAF could provide (Browning pistol, Stirling SMG, L1A1, Bren, GPMG), and also qualified as a range safety supervisor and military instructor.
I also joined the RAF Pistol club, and started my love ( and collection) of pistols.
In 1994 they disbanded my R.Aux.A.F unit, so I used the extra time to concentrate on competitive pistol shooting, covering everything from UIT slow fire to IPSC.
Qualified as a NRA Range Officer.

After losing my pistols in 1997, I bought a Marlin 1894CS underlever and Ruger 10/22, and we started shooting the old pistol competitions with pistol calibre rifles… these became known as Gallery Rifle events.

I still shoot these events now whenever I can, and also now I’m back up to 7 firearms… Marlin, 10/22, Cz .22, WASR, MVP LC, and 2 “long barrelled” pistols… (12.5’’ barrel, 24.5’’ overall :D) a .38 Taurus 66 and a TSC 1911 copy in .22.



I hope my extremely long waffle hasn’t bored you, and you’ve learned something… if you have any questions that I haven’t covered, let me know…


Regards,

Daryll.
 
Excellent topic. Very informative gents. I can see everything you mentioned, happening here, little by little....
 
I hope my extremely long waffle hasn’t bored you, and you’ve learned something… if you have any questions that I haven’t covered, let me know…
No way am I bored. There will be some questions. Big thanx for all that work.
 
… obviously as our weapons have to be registered, the police have a list of what everyone has, so that can check them off as they’ve disposed of.

WAKE UP UNITED STATES! Friends, this is your future. You have just been delivered confirmation of the old saw, "Registration equals confiscation." Prepare yourself for this truth now. Think "off paper" if you get my drift.

Again, the Police had a complete list of everyone’s pistols, so they contacted everyone and told us our options.
Daryll, I assume you received written notice of your options. Do you know of anybody that still has a copy of the notification that would let you post a copy of it?

I felt very aggrieved losing my pistols, but in defiance I went straight out and spend my compensation on rifles… those bas$%^&ds are not going to stop me shooting…!!
I glad you could keep shooting.

Was there any level of outrage that resulted in mass protests, political recalls, refusals to comply?

What level of authority actually got involved in the weapons collections. City, county or Crown?

Here this is essentially a death penalty case because the federal authorities can starve you to death and freeze any currency transactions while you are barricaded or on the run. And you can't run far w/ the size of the gun/ammo/tool stock that many of us have. I admit I haven't had the foresight or opportunity to bury or hide anything yet.
 
The new laws proposed today in California will essentially run all gun shops out of business if they are voted into law.

These laws are glancing violations of the restraint of trade law because only the largest & wealthiest dealers will be able to continue business in California. The cost of guns will soar to the point where illegal gun smuggling will become a major gang activity.

Remember prohibition folks. It didnt stop drinking and created much violent crime.

This law will not stop street shootings and is guaranteed to increase crimes of theft, smuggling, and related activities of a foul and violent nature.

It will instantly subject hundreds of local businesses to bankruptcy.

Cheap latin american guns will start flooding the border illegally.

This law is really hurting citizens of ordinary means, who can only afford to pay so much for a gun, or are only able to charge a customer so much for one.

But a guy using guns to rob people will pay whatever he needs to get one. It'll make sense to him to steal $1000 to buy an illegal $89 gun, because he can make 10x the money back in one heist.
 
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Some pretty crazy regulations for sure. Can't really see that happening here; or at least not nearly as easily.

First, there's that whole pesky Constitution thing getting in the way; doubt that gets butchered to the extent they saw in the U.K., if at all. Legal wrangling and lawsuits would keep the issue tied up in the courts for years, maybe even decades.

Second, the U.S. is a much bigger country, with many states and different state laws; many of which would be unlikely to cooperate with any federal confiscation program... there'd probably be another civil war first.

Third, the U.S. is a much more populated country, with nearly half of the households having at least 1 of the approximately 350,000,000 guns in existence. Buying all those from owners, even at only $200 apiece, plus accessories, is prohibitively expensive... like $70 billion (with a B) expensive, before we've even gotten to accessories or demands for additional compensation for more valuable guns. And that's just the cost of the guns themselves; that doesn't take into account how much it would cost to send feds around this immense country to try and round them all up, and all the additional resources and logistics to dispose of them. Just for the sake of comparison, to get an idea of how much more area there is to cover, the U.K. isn't quite as big as Michigan.

And finally, and maybe most importantly, there's no registration or records of who owns what firearms in the vast majority of states; can't confiscate what you don't know even exists... relinquishing firearms here would have to be almost entirely voluntary. Good luck with that.
 
Thanks for posting this wake-up call Daryll...

This is why I'm an NRA Life Member...because, whether or not you agree with "everything" they do and say...the NRA does protect and represent the 2nd Amendment Rights of all Americans...whether you join or not. !!
 
WAKE UP UNITED STATES! Friends, this is your future. You have just been delivered confirmation of the old saw, "Registration equals confiscation." Prepare yourself for this truth now. Think "off paper" if you get my drift.


Daryll, I assume you received written notice of your options. Do you know of anybody that still has a copy of the notification that would let you post a copy of it?


I glad you could keep shooting.

Was there any level of outrage that resulted in mass protests, political recalls, refusals to comply?

What level of authority actually got involved in the weapons collections. City, county or Crown?

Here this is essentially a death penalty case because the federal authorities can starve you to death and freeze any currency transactions while you are barricaded or on the run. And you can't run far w/ the size of the gun/ammo/tool stock that many of us have. I admit I haven't had the foresight or opportunity to bury or hide anything yet.


Yes, we had written notification, but remember that this was nearly 20 years ago... I'm a hoarder, but I remember throwing all my paperwork out a few years ago when having a rare tidy up.. I'll post on some Uk shooting forums and see if anyone has kept theirs and can scan them in..

Edit: someone does still have their paperwork, they'll scan some over the weekend and email them to me.. I'll post them on here.

Yes, we had mass protests... I went on 2 marches through London, along with 100,000 other shooters, protesting our innocence but to no avail. (my shooting cap still has one of the badges they gave out on the march!!).
Obviously Firearms dealers, gun Customisers etc faced losing their businesses and livelihoods, but again it fell on deaf ears. I think at least 2 people committed suicide due to their businesses going bankrupt.

Since 1997, several politicians have admitted that it was a "knee-jerk" reaction, made worse because of the election, but Uk shooters are realistic enough to realise that the legislation will never be overturned.
I don't know of any refusals, but I'm sure there must have been some people who held out.

We were informed where we had to hand our firearms in, normally at the County level... I had to go to my county police headquarters. The police officers there were pretty sympathetic, and even they said that all this was a waste, and wouldn't solve anything.


I think the US is a lot better off than the Uk was, (particularly with your NRA) and I think even your dimmest politicians realise that they're pi**ing in the wind if they think they can remove firearms from the public...

G8R8U2 is correct, they have no real idea who has most of the guns in many states, and I'm sure you'll all be queuing up to hand in your guns.. :rolleyes:

Daryll.
 
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Oh, Clinton has already said she will be pushing for federal mass confiscation if she gets elected.
And she stands a good chance too.

If the people who never believed that Obama could get elected would believe it this time, maybe she could be defeated, but it's not hopeful.
 
...Can't really see that happening here; or at least not nearly as easily.

First, there's that whole pesky Constitution thing getting in the way...
Second, the U.S. is a much bigger country, with many states and different state laws; many of which would be unlikely to cooperate with any federal confiscation program... there'd probably be another civil war first.
Third, the U.S. is a much more populated country, with nearly half of the households having at least 1 of the approximately 350,000,000 guns in existence. Buying all those from owners, even at only $200 apiece, plus accessories, is prohibitively expensive... like $70 billion ...

And finally, and maybe most importantly, there's no registration or records of who owns what firearms in the vast majority of states...
G8, that is a well-reasoned response. My projected timeline is not quite so sanguine. As long as we have presidents who feel that ruling with pens and phones [and Blackberries] is defensible, I quake at the possibilities. I expect things like taxes on each bullet, onerous insurance requirements, environmental excuses, eminent domain attacks on shooting venues, stupid "smart gun" requirements. And, yes, attempts at confiscation.

As a reminder of CA debacle of 2000 read
http://jpfo.org/common-sense/commonsense08.htm
That's the old "you don't have to register those; ooops, yes you do, but we won't take them; thanks for coming in; ooops, changed our mind, give me that gun" trick.

Although we disagree, I sure hope you are right and I am wrong.
 
Just don't start stocking up and empty your shops of ammo, powders and primers, like you did a few years ago....we suffered a drought of shooting supplies for a year or two after that as all the US companies were working flat out to supply the home market, never mind exports to us..!!

Anything shooting related thats US made is twice as expensive here as in the US....far more than just adding on the shipping charges...

When i bought my MVP LC I fancied a hard case for it, and was looking at the Plano All weather case. I see you can buy it in Walmart for $80 (£56)... over here, the cheapest I can find the same case is £123 on Amazon..!!!
 
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