NEW UK/EU Deactivated firearm legislation Dec 2019

[Grimebox]

The Firearms Regulations 2019

Something to try and get you’re head around. The legislation created on the 28th October and laid before Parliament on the 31st October before coming into effect on the 12th December. They clearly had time to rush this through rather than deal with the more serious matters at hand!

In a nutshell it looks like if you own a deactivated gun you are going to have to register it with the ‘Secretary of State’. Quite how that is done does not appear to be clear, but undoubtedly they’ll be a cost involved as with most bureaucratic processes. The most important part at the moment would appear to be:
‘Regulation 3 (notification of deactivated firearms) does not have effect until 14th March 2021 in respect of deactivated firearms which came into the person’s possession before 14th September 2018.’

As with all of our current legislation (not just Firearms) this appears to be ill thought out and rushed through. The punishment for possessing an unregistered deactivated gun would be £200 (level 1 fine) which is about half the price of the cheapest deactivated guns in the UK which doesn’t appear to be much of a deterrent.
I’m not adverse to registering my guns, the annoying thing is that you can guarantee that there’ll be an ‘administration charge’ and knowing my luck it’ll be per gun (and probably yearly)
This is an EU directive and anybody thinking that we might be leaving the EU shortly and the law will be revoked don’t get excited. It’s been laid before Parliament and whilst there might be amendments I can’t see MP’s wasting their time debating something that only effects a few thousand people at most.

[Narcis]

It's coming in Belgium. Same rules will apply shortly.
Luc

[Grimebox]

What I especially like is the loop hole for the criminally minded:

It is not an offence ‘if the person is in possession of the deactivated firearm for a period of 14 days or less.’

Fairly easy to convict a ’law abiding‘ collector if they have a collection of guns, it would be fairly evident that they’ve had them for a period of more than 14 days (especially if you’ve put images of them all over WRF and not cleaned them for a long time like me!), however, if the police turn up at some scrote bags house and find a deactivated gun “I was given it to look after by Bob from down the pub three days ago, don’t quite know where he lives” or “I found it in my dead aunties brothers cousins house last week and haven’t got around to bringing to the Police station’. As I said, ill thought out and as usual only effects law abiding people and gives the criminally minded loop holes to get off.

[Grimebox]

I have been trying to search amendments to the Firearms Act and interestingly I cannot find any amendments in relation to obsoleted calibre guns - which I would have thought would be more dangerous than deactivated guns. Nor can I find anything in respect of registering replica firearms (which are covered by VCR Act) which in essence could be used in any offences which could be committed with a deactivated gun (which are already covered by legislation).
Whilst one can argue about the rights and wrongs of the new EU deactivation specification it was clearly created with the view of preventing loss of life, however, I can not see any benefit in registering deactivated guns whilst not registering obsolete calibre or replica guns. It serves no benefit other than bureaucracy. If someone commits a crime with a gun I find it very unlikely that the victim would be able to identify the offending weapon to such an extent that the Police could check a local record of locally owned deactivated guns.

[BrodieBartfast]

More pointless bureaucratic twaddle...

It’s a good thing I don’t own any deacts!

B.B.

[Grimebox]

More pointless bureaucratic twaddle...

It’s a good thing I don’t own any deacts!

B.B.

It’s entirely up to the individual, but on a serious note you can guarantee that a ‘usually law abiding’ member of the public would get convicted of this offence (just like speeding). It’ll be the collector who has their house burgled and the guns are spotted in their bedroom or person who has had a gun hanging over their fireplace since the dawn of time who will be convicted. Unfortunately ignorance of the law is not a defence and for a level 1 fine (£200) most magistrates will impose the fine and order the destruction of the gun. I have no issue in registering my non-working guns, they don’t leave my house and despite what conspiracy theorists may think I really don’t believe that the authorities are bothered that I have them. What annoys me is that I own something that is legal, some of which I have legally owned for a 30+ years that I will now have to go out of my way to register, undoubtably at a cost, for no rational reason. It can’t even be argued that this is a money making exercise as it has come from the EU and in all likelihood any admin fees will have to be paid to the Police who will be forced to register them. When you think of the cost of passing the legislation, trying to sort it out, registration, etc it’ll probably cost the Government more than what they’ll get back. I find it frustrating that politicians (UK and EU) are supposed to be intelligent people (I know) and are paid to make these decisions on our behalf, that’s why we vote for them (yes I know). You can see that somebody has asked the question ‘how can we stop terrorists getting guns’ or ‘how can we prevent deactivated guns being used to commit offences’ and one person has piped up and said ‘let’s register them’ and then there has been no discussion, no debate, no questioning loop holes or raising issues, they’ve just passed the legislation.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Sadly I see it as the thin end of the wedge. It will just be a matter of time before they are banned outright...

[PRE]

We always need good, solid people here in the US. Just a hint...!

[Grimebox]

Sadly I see it as the thin end of the wedge. It will just be a matter of time before they are banned outright...

I think you’re probably right, although in all likelihood they’ll make them untenable, i.e. they’ll be expensive to register and you’ll have to keep them in safe, etc, etc. That way the Government won’t have to pay out compensation and any rich collectors who normally lobby will just take the financial hit.
I think the bigger issue is 20 years down the line when we have millennials in positions of power making Nazi memorabilia/militaria illegal along with historical statues/paintings. Don’t want to risk offending someone - outlaw the thing they're offended by.

[BrodieBartfast]

Every day, I find the idea of emigrating to the States becomes more and more appealing. If only it was that easy...

B.B.