Am a member of the NRA and have been for many many years. Let above posts be a warning is right. Right now I wish we had another 4-5 million members. I believe we are facing an uphill battle for the right to keep and bear arms. Am afraid you know who is going to get in next year
I will post some pics up as soon as she arrives, the loft sounds good but a bunker maybe better lol, there are still deact's for sale this morning but according to the new regulation the people selling them are now breaking the law it's crazy how this has been done and how many people are still completely unaware .
Cheers John
New guidance here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...l_2016_v20.pdf
2.21 An EU Implementing Regulation establishing common guidelines on deactivation standards and techniques for ensuring that deactivated firearms are rendered irreversibly inoperable will come into force on 8 April 2016. This places a new level of standard for deactivating firearms across the EU. The new standards shall not apply to firearms deactivated prior to 8 April 2016 (when the Regulation comes into effect) unless those firearms are transferred to another Member State or placed on the market. The Proof Houses will be applying these standards to firearms submitted to them on or after 8 April 2016. A link to the Implementing Regulation 2015/2403 is attached here.
I have just emailed all the members of the Police and Crime Bill committee the following:
I am writing to you as a member of the Police & Crime Bill Committee. I am a re-enactor and as such am involved in many educational and commemorative activities for the heritage industry and public bodies.
For some months now our group has been monitoring the process of proposed EU legislation to severely restrict the ownership and movement of deactivated weapons, and lobbying key figures in Europe.
Notionally the EU measures are to prevent the use of deactivated weapons reactivated by criminals and terrorists. The proposals include the total banning of the ownership of deactivated automatic and semi-automatic weapons, a licensing system for deactivated weapons, and the introduction of a EU wide 'higher' standard for deactivation.
In practice the measures will have no impact on criminals and terrorists who have ready access to live firing weapons without the need to re-activate deactivated weapons. Much taxpayer's money will be spent on regulating the law-abiding without any impact upon criminal or terrorist activity. This money would be better used in providing the law enforcement, security and intelligence services with the means to gather intelligence and pursue prosecutions. Instead taxpayer's money will be wasted on regulating the law-abiding.
These measures have largely come about through the misconception that the AK47 assault rifles used in the Charlie Hebdo attack were deactivated weapons which were reactivated. This is false, they were in fact illegal live weapons, poorly converted to fire blanks only and then converted back again to take live rounds. I would ask why it is that Vicky Ford has been able to correctly differentiate between properly deactivated weapons and these illegal converted blank firing AK47s where as so called law enforcement experts, Commissioners and other politicians incorrectly see them as the same thing and are prepared to waste legislative time and taxpayers money as a result. The European Commission are also justifying their actions by saying that they are also in response to 10,000 firearms related deaths in the EU over the past decade. However, when pressed, they are unable to provide any details on this. How many were as a result of illegal weapons, how many were as a result of shotguns or bolt action hunting rifles? These categories of firearms may well have contributed to these figures, yet are not included in the scope of the EU legislation. I would suspect that not one UK deactivated firearm was part of these tragic statistics and therefore it is highly likely that this law is targeting the wrong areas. I would ask that the committee revisit the extensive work done by Parliament in 2006 on the Violent Crime Reduction Bill and consider why MPs then decided to drop deactivated weapons from the scope of that legislation.
Of particular concern is the proposed EU deactivation standard. The UK deactivation standards are already acknowledged as the best in Europe. The UK standard allows for the sympathetic and effective deactivation of the weapon, whilst allowing the collector and historian to understand and demonstrate the workings of each weapon. The UK regulations are covered in some 50 pages of professionally developed measures that prevent a weapon being reactivated. By contrast the proposed EU regulations have been hastily conceived and provide only five pages of general direction.
Mike Penning MP and Home Office Minister, has put forward the following amendment to the Police and Crime Bill to align it to the EU Deactivation Regulation that is due to come into force, we understand, on 8 April 16. The amendment can be found at the following link,
Page cannot be found - UK Parliament ... 36-42.html
In essence all pre 8/4/16 UK specification deactivated weapons will be classed as 'defectively deactivated weapons' and it will be a criminal offence to sell, or gift, such a deactivated weapon within the UK and EU (but not to a country outside the EU),and conviction will carry a prison sentence of between six months and five years. Ownership of the pre-Apr 16 deactivated weapons will not be illegal, however should current owners wish to travel to Europe with the weapons, the owners will be required to have the weapon deactivated to the EU standard before travel.
The Conservative MEP Vicky Ford has been conducting some outstanding work in the European Parliament subjecting the proposed EU regulations to rigorous scrutiny. As chair of the committee conducting the review she has done much to protect the legitimate interests of the heritage industry, collectors and historians, the deactivated firearms industry, the film industry and the living history/re-enactor community. In particular she is fighting to ensure that UK deactivation standards are accepted as equivalent in law to the proposed EU deactivation standards.
The rushed introduction of this bill is UK 'gold-plating' of substandard and poorly drafted EU regulations of the very worst sort. The amendment is being introduced before the Jun 16 EU referendum - indeed it feels as if the Home Office is rushing through the legislation before the vote. Worse still the introduction of the amendment appears to be working against the outstanding parliamentary work undertaken by Vicky Ford that will protect British interest across the heritage, film, firearms and collector industries and communities.
The impact of the proposed amendment requiring the application of the EU deactivation standards is broad:
The legitimate firearms trade have already seen a considerable drop in prices for deactivated weapons. I would anticipate that the fall in values will be sustained. Ultimately this represents a drop in tax revenue. I should add I hold no brief for the trade other than wishing to purchase firearms from legitimate traders.
Fewer weapons will be deactivated for legitimate sale to collectors. Instead the healthy trade in the purchase of the large number of live-firing weapons in Europe for the purposes of deactivation will decline, leaving more live-firing weapons available for criminals and terrorists (not that they have any issues accessing firearms already).
Owners of deactivated weapons purchased in good faith will see a considerable drop in the value of their collections. They will also have to bear the additional cost of further deactivation work on the weapons before they can sell the weapon a much reduced price. I note that there is no provision for compensation for the arbitrary application of this expense on collectors. Unfortunately the one outcome will be that some private owners will choose to trade illegally rather than see perfectly good deactivated weapons relegated to lumps of iron and wood. This is the precise opposite of the outcome intended by the proposed EU legislation and Home Office amendment.
There will be a considerable impact on a range of museums - large and small - who will have to bear deactivation costs if weapons are transferred between collections.
Police efforts will be diverted to regulating legitimate collectors, and away from supporting the counter-terrorism and crime effort. This is a considerable waste of tax-payer's money and increases the risk to UK security rather than enhancing security.
This ammendment creates a situation where an owner selling a UK spec deact which is deactivated to a higher standard than the EU spec (and therefore safer) after Mr Penning's amendment becomes law will be committing a criminal offence and will be liable to imprisonment.
It is estimated that there are currently at least 300,000 deactivated firearms in the UK, which will all fall into Mr Penning’s “defective deactivated weapons” category, made worthless by his amendment as they effectively cannot be legally sold. I would suggest that that is a lot of law abiding voting members of the public to penalise with ill conceived and poorly targeted legislation.
Should Mr Penning's amendment be passed I will no longer be able to take my deactivated weapons to France or Belgium for display without the expense of the weapons being deactivated to the EU standard, when the UK standard should have been adopted or at the very least recognised as an equivalent which at least achieves the same end. Ironically, those with live-firing weapons and fire arms certificates will be able to take their weapons on a European Firearms Permit. The introduction of the amendment is placing future events in jeopardy. This will effectively end UK participation in 20th Century reenactment in other EU countries.
The proposed EU legislation and Mr Penning's amendment amount to regulation of the law abiding with no impact upon the criminal and terrorist. The United Kingdom already has the most rigorous control of firearms - live firing and de-activated - in Europe. We should not be lowering our standards through the adoption and introduction of this hasty and ill-prepared legislation and amendments.
I would ask that you please oppose Mr Penning's amendment, and request a delay at least until Ms Ford's work in the EU parliament is complete. My strong hope is that Ms Ford's own amendments will result in a rational approach to control of deactivated firearms across the EU, and indeed that EU standards will be raised to match this currently applied in the UK.
Thank you for your consideration of this issue.
Not my letter, but the author has given us all permission to use it and the more emails they get the better. Not sure if it will do any good, but to quote Edmund Burke, "all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing"
A marvellous letter, but I fear it is one that will change nothing. If our government could find a way of banning deactivated guns altogether, they would not hesitate. Governments (and Police) do not like their citizens having weapons in their homes - working or not! There is currently a two week amnesty in greater Manchester, where people can hand in guns with no questions asked. The Police displayed a 'terrifying' selection of weapons which had been removed from our streets, on Granada TV. Most were air rifles, toy guns - and the occasional bright orange blank-firers. Vicky Ford has tried her best, and it is to be hoped that her arguments will eventually be listened to.
I did a quick search this morning of sites that sell deact's here in the uk and all of them have pulled them from sale until the new spec is known, I was also told that the Birmingham proof house have a meeting with a representative from Brussels today so maybe things will be a bit clearer as of next week but I don't think things will change unfortunately, The whole thing is just pointless and solves nothing.
Cheers John
John- I too looked this morning and whilst most had pulled thier deacs, a couple of the smaller more general militaria sites still had examples for sale. Blunderbuss Antiques is still listing a number of old specs for sale...
Duplicate post.
Yes I also found a site still offering them for sale (Aubrey militaria) but all sites that are members of the (deactivated weapons association) have stopped all sales pending the new spec deactivation and the sites still offering them for sale are technically breaking the law I guess, it seems there are still many grey areas around the whole thing hopefully we will all no more next week but I really don't think we stand a chance in things changing from here, I just hope it all ends at this and the next step isn't a total ban. The whole thing is a complete joke that only affects the innocent whether collector or people who make there living from the sales of deact's it won't change a bloody thing when it comes to the criminal.
Cheers John .
MASSIVELY IMPORTANT! It is not over yet! Get yer chins up lads!
IMPORTANT the Crime & policing bill which the new controls on deactivated weapons is attached to has passed its second reading and it currently with the Public Bill Committee. Submissions from the public regarding the law can be submitted up to 14//04/16 to scrutiny@parliament.uk The main points here are the retrospective clauses which neither Germany or Portugal have enacted in their law revision to incorporate the Directive, and the wording 'defective deactivated weapon' also the adherence to anything that is sold complying with the deactivation in force at the time of sale, this means that anytime there is a change to speicifcation, however small, a deac will have to be re-deactivated and proofed before sale with all the subsequent costs involved. It is badly worded and rushed. BEFORE WRITING see the guidance on submission formats here Page cannot be found - UK Parliament
Thanks to Ian Durrant hope you don't mind the share.
It is also worth lobbying MPs about these changes.
Keep the pressure up on MEPs and MPs
There is still not a workable EU deact spec. The National ballistics intelligence service say UK deact specs were fit for purpose and they claim that the EU specs for SMGs and assault rifles are dangerous.
Using these specs issued by the EU it would be easy to smuggle a live weapon under the pretence it is deactivated as it is impossible to check the deactivation.
The U.K. Has been deactivating firearms for 28 years and have continuously updated the specifications and they are trying to write off all this work with a paper drawn up over night.
It is not fair that people will lose their life savings
It is not fair that businesses will be forced to close
It is not fair that the film and TV industry will suffer
And above all it is not fair that we are all about to lose a harmless hobby we all enjoy!
Please please please keep the pressure up. We need to keep fighting
Use
WriteToThem - Email your Councillor, MP, MEP, MSP or Welsh, NI, or London Assembly Member for free to find your Mp and write to them
(Be polite)
Home office
public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Theresa May Home Secretary
mayt@parliament.uk
Just found this on a group I'm a member on so there may still be hope that this ridiculous EU rubbish will get thrown out if enough speak up, got to be worth a try.
Cheers John
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