Attention UK deact owners.

[IanC]

Hi Mike, until there is more solid news I would be concerned over the use of the word "curators" as this is not the same as "collectors". This is typical New Labour "spin".

Cheers, Ade.

I'm loving that quote: "genuine curators". Superb!

Just to rewind a bit, why have deact's come into the political spotlight again?

Have I missed a high profile case where it was proved a deact was "re-born" and used to deadly effect?

[Anthony N]

A presenter on Radio 5 today was interviewing a senior police officer & pointed ou that the figures for gun crimes using re-activated guns in 2004/2005 was 8 out of a total of................................................ .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..........................................11,000 gun crimes
Gun crime solved then!
Ant.

[Bjørn]

A presenter on Radio 5 today was interviewing a senior police officer & pointed ou that the figures for gun crimes using re-activated guns in 2004/2005 was 8 out of a total of................................................ .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..........................................11,000 gun crimes
Gun crime solved then!
Ant.

According to this, even fewer... 4 useless deactiveted weapons, and 4 re-activated
weapons out of a total of 21,521 recorded incidents.

http://ukpress.google.com/article/AL...gq6isHmQ-AKh_w

Go figure.. By banning de-acts totally, they still got to do something with the other 99,96% of
all the weapon related crimes committed...

[Patrick Dempsey]

Just been catching up on the thread...

Have I missed a high profile case where it was proved a deact was "re-born" and used to deadly effect?

Not that i am aware of, there was the fairly high profile case involving a Father and son team who were convicted of supplying reactivated weapons in 2004.
Naturally the Police have been pushing the Home Office to act further on this issue since that time.

This potential ban is another typical example of maximum headlines for minimum effort.
We all know full well that the impact of such a ban will be negligible on the circulation of illegally held functioning firearms, but that is not the point of the (impending) exercise.

Crime has been used as a political football to score political points from both major parties for at least the last 20 years.
We have seen both red and blues hued politicians try to outdo each other in being "tougher" on crime in the role of Home Secretary.

Being able to appear to be doing something about gun crime is the single most important thing in todays short attention span,soundbite obsessed political climate. Not actually to do something, but only give the appearance that something is being done.

I have been struck by two things;

1.The blatant use of the death of a child to further the agenda.

It is virtually impossible to bring any logical argument to bear when faced with such an accusation,you have effectively brought "on-side" the vast majority of the population who will now regard deactivated weapons as death bringers. All with one high profile visit.

2. The use of direct, unambiguous, language.

We all know how politicians are loathe to use any turn of phrase that can be put on the record to haunt them in the future for fear of it being used against them in the Westminster circus.
This Home Secretary has said repeatedly over the last week that she will ban deactivated weapons.
No wiggle room, no possible excuses of misinterpretation or lack of context, just a clear expression of intent.

That troubles me the most....

Once again we have to remind ourselves that outside of our little collecting bubble the majority of the country views collecting the things that we do with at best confusion and at worst disdain.

There will be few calls of protest at these measures from the population at large.

I do not know if they have any time in the current Parliament left to legislate on this, but the issue is still (pardon the savage irony) live and will no doubt be continued into the next.

If you have a pen and paper to hand, find out where your MP stands on the issue.


Patrick.

[Bob Hritz]

Guy Fawkes is dead as are the brave men who threw the tea overboard to protest the Tea Tax Act, in Boston.

We have all getten too comfortable and are now ruled insted of free.

Bob Hritz

[Ostmark]

The next big problem is that the english politicians started to spread their spirit of a wonderfull gunfree world over whole europe.

There is only one good thing about the gunban in UK. No politician in the rest
of europe can say that this is a good thing and everybody is save now.
Our association here has only to point to the crimereport of UK, and the polititcians have troubles with their arguments.


Stay together and good luck for all of us

[kompanie]

when the the rumors say pre 1995 when did the deact law change as i have two deacts from 01/95 and one from 09/95 could these possible be safe unless the go and ban the whole lot that is.

[Josh Beckett]

"We need sustained action to tackle the other 99.96% of this serious problem, bearing in mind that gun violence has increased four-fold over the last 10 years."

10 years ago, you banned handguns. Wonder why gun crime is up? Here is your sign.

[Soldat de Fer]

Hello
What I would like to know is ,What is that politician Bit*h going to target once she gets her way ? who/what is she going to blame for the gun crime ? once the deact are gone ,what are they going to target ? bows ?
Politicians all over the world should be reminded ,every single days , that WE ARE the BOSS and they are the employees , not the other way around.
The only way to win , is for all the deact owners to get together and protest , go to the medias and make yourself heard .
Regards
P-Y

[Time Bandit]

when the the rumors say pre 1995 when did the deact law change as i have two deacts from 01/95 and one from 09/95 could these possible be safe unless the go and ban the whole lot that is.

October '95 I think it was or maybe Nov '95 can't quite remember now?

[scotty1418]

So 4 deactived and 4 RE-actived firearms were used in crimes. I can see how a reactivated i.e. functional gun could be used, but the 4 that were still deactivated?

Were they used as clubs?

[Harry]

From what I understand, it is Pre-'95 ie 'old spec' deacts. that are being considered for a ban.

10 years ago handguns were banned. What happened? Gun crime went up 40% over 2 years. The ban gave the criminals the advantage...they knew then that their victims, the law abiding citizens, would not have a gun. Prior to the ban, the crims. could never be certain that their intended victim did not have a gun.

[Ostmark]

Just for info .... found a interresting link in the Spiegel magazin ...

The crime rate in Europe (is written in german but easy to understand i think)

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/0,1518,464776,00.html

Guess what country is always in the top 5 (if not in first place) in most of the crimes like assaults, housebreaking ....

[Danziger]

Oh no, I wonder when the "effects" of this new proposal can be felt in Ireland....probably much more rigorously. At the moment it is ok to collect deacts with authorisation under the Irish Firearms act but I wonder will it be changed?

[Harry]

I doubt it, since in Eire you can now legally own a 'Live' pistol, as long as you are licenced and a member of a recognised shooting club