Air pistols & guns. Time for them to be licensed?

[Dungbeetle]

you have an amnesty, you have an ad campaign educating / warning people about new laws and whats needed.

anybody in future found with a none licensed gun (even if its been in the loft 30 years) gets into bother

 

??

Seeing as the firearm amnesties - and there have been a few - have netted a tiny percentage of the illegal firearms out there, just how many of the millions of air guns do you think would be handed over?

I remember South Yorks Police showing a picture of the huge horde of illegal knives that were handed in after the knives amnesty - it was just dozens, out of a city of half a million people!

 

Amnesties are a waste of time - the people who hand stuff in are not the ones who would use them illegally in the first place.

[melthebell]

Seeing as the firearm amnesties - and there have been a few - have netted a tiny percentage of the illegal firearms out there, just how many of the millions of air guns do you think would be handed over?

I remember South Yorks Police showing a picture of the huge horde of illegal knives that were handed in after the knives amnesty - it was just dozens, out of a city of half a million people!

 

Amnesties are a waste of time - the people who hand stuff in are not the ones who would use them illegally in the first place.

amnestys are never a waste of time, getting a few weapons off the streets better than none.

 

talking about an amnesty for already illegal things and about something that is just made illegal (or licensed) is two different matters.

 

maybe people that have an airgun in their loft WILL hand it in, get it licensed precisely cos they dont want an illegal firearm

 

in that way i think they will have considerable success

[Dungbeetle]

Well, I still have my FAC and Shotgun ticket, and to be honest, am not in the slightest bit concerned about blanket bans etc.

That's what I thought about my pistols.

 

There is NOT going to be an air weapon Dunblane, and to raise it in a thread regarding air weapons is not, I assure you, going to help......... any of us

No, there won't be an air pistol massacre, but we have a number of lefty politicians who have voiced a desire for blanket bans of all guns - including farmers' shot guns - with the justification that there are alternative pest control methods.

 

There will be more gun bans - it's only a matter of time before, say, lever action rifles, semi-auto .22s, and black powder revolvers get the chop - it just needs one of them to be used in a high profile crime.

 

The same could apply to airguns. Have a series of offences, and have a newspaper editor or two decide to set the readers off as a baying mob, and anything could happen.

[TimeTravelle]

I read somewhere Phan that a 3/8 steel ball had as much kinetic energy as a .32 bullet when fired from some of these high powered catapults.

Not sure about their use increasing though, a drive by catapulting has little street cred, unless you kill someone of course.

 

 

Nope. It's been recently tested in one of the magazines. A catapult firing a steel ball round generates 8ft/lbs.

[Dungbeetle]

amnestys are never a waste of time, getting a few weapons off the streets better than none.

talking about an amnesty for already illegal things and about something that is just made illegal (or licensed) is two different matters.

maybe people that have an airgun in their loft WILL hand it in, get it licensed precisely cos they dont want an illegal firearm

in that way i think they will have considerable success

Yes, but again, the pensioner who drags his 40-year-old BSA Meteor out of the loft and takes it to the nick isn't the type of person who's going to commit crimes with an airgun. Amnesties remove safely held weapons, handed in by people with a responsible conscience who would not use them illegally anyway, and therefore achieve nothing except publicity for the government.

[TimeTravelle]

If they do ban airguns, it'll cost the taxpayer. Mmmm ... 4m estimated weapons @ around £150 each (at least). Nah ... let's do that rather than spend it on hospitals.

[Dungbeetle]

I read somewhere Phan that a 3/8 steel ball had as much kinetic energy as a .32 bullet when fired from some of these high powered catapults.

Not sure about their use increasing though, a drive by catapulting has little street cred, unless you kill someone of course.

Nowhere near - it will be something like two orders of magnitude lower in muzzle energy.

 

As time traveller just stated - 8 ftlbs for a powerful catapult, compared to 300ftlbs for a small pistol.

[melthebell]

If they do ban airguns, it'll cost the taxpayer. Mmmm ... 4m estimated weapons @ around £150 each (at least). Nah ... let's do that rather than spend it on hospitals.

 

im afraid lots of moneys got to be spent in various solutions to cut this growing firearms / youth crime problem

[melthebell]

Yes, but again, the pensioner who drags his 40-year-old BSA Meteor out of the loft and takes it to the nick isn't the type of person who's going to commit crimes with an airgun. Amnesties remove safely held weapons, handed in by people with a responsible conscience who would not use them illegally anyway, and therefore achieve nothing except publicity for the government.

 

as ive said tho IF afterwards somebodys found in possession of an unlicensed one then we know theyre in bother

[TimeTravelle]

im afraid lots of moneys got to be spent in various solutions to cut this growing firearms / youth crime problem

 

Two thirds of a BILLION pounds? LOL ... and that's just the compensation.