An example of the sort of guff we Brits are regularly subjected to ...

Dark Skies

Dark Skies

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Since self defense is a hit or miss proposition legally in the UK, it would be interesting how a sort of castle doctrine could contribute to deterrence of burglaries.

Instead it would appear the onus once again falls on the material objects, or lack thereof, of the citizenry to deter crime instead of gaining lawful compliance of the deviants.
 
I especially like this part.

"We have gone on the front foot and are speaking to people to encourage them to bring the weapons back to Merseyside Police."

Bring them "back" to the police. As if the police had some ownership or right to them. Like the gun "buyback" programs police have here.
 
natman said:
Next they'll want to confiscate your jewelry, electronics and artwork so it doesn't get stolen.
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I made that exact point on another forum!

Call me a stuffy old traditionalist if you must, but I prefer the tried and tested approach of enjoying my legally owned possessions until such times as they break, or I sell them.
 
No stats on where the bad guys are getting these "battlefield" weapons though? I doubt they can trace those guns back to lawful owners.

It feels like this proposed solution - lawful owners turning in weapons to the PD - doesn't apply to the problem they describe - criminals using full auto weapons to kill each other and bystanderso_O
 
Dark Skies said:
For the record, modern handguns have been proscribed for civilian ownership since 1997 (apart from Northern Ireland). Fully automatic firearms have never been permitted for civilian ownership.
Not that facts should ever get in the way of our prurient newspapers when concocting a non-story about firearms in the UK.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/licensed-gun-owners-urged-hand-26628220
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During WW2 there was a shortage of small arms in the UK for the military AND to be used by the citizenry and territorial forces (I guess ya'll are called subjects?) in order to repel a potential axis invasion. As a result, obsolete/excess US military weapons were sent to the UK on a program known as Lend-Lease. When these weapons were determined to be insufficient in numbers for the intended purpose, US citizens generously donated privately owned firearms of every type to this program, in order to help our Tommy friends defend themselves. Just sayin' mate.
 
FL-NC said:
During WW2 there was a shortage of small arms in the UK for the military AND to be used by the citizenry and territorial forces (I guess ya'll are called subjects?) in order to repel a potential axis invasion. As a result, obsolete/excess US military weapons were sent to the UK on a program known as Lend-Lease. When these weapons were determined to be insufficient in numbers for the intended purpose, US citizens generously donated privately owned firearms of every type to this program, in order to help our Tommy friends defend themselves. Just sayin' mate.
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I know about the lease-lend debt. We finally paid it off in 2006 - one of the few nations that actually kept it up.
I wonder what actually happened to the civilian donated firearms? Probably still stacked up in some warehouse where they were intended to be handed out in case of actual invasion.
The logistics of catering for such a wide variation of arms and calibres when ammuniton was scarce would have prevented them from being dished out widely.
But even under those circumstances, fully automatic arms would have been kept for Home Guard use rather than ordinary civilians.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark_warehouse_scene.jpg
 
Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Mark Kameen said: "We have work ongoing to remove and reduce the amount of lawfully-owned firearms across Merseyside so they don't fall into the wrong hands."

Words fail me on this one.

But I'll give it a go anyway.

Are the police giving up their firearms as well, lest they fall into the wrong hands?"

I find it ironic that the police guy admitted they "have to work an awful lot harder," noted that the firearms discharge homicide rate in Merseyside decreased by 50% from the previous year, while the gang-related homicides were committed with full-auto Skorpions (??) capable of firing 850 rounds per minute (how many mags do their gang-bangers carry?) and their solution is asking law-abiding citizens to turn in their guns lest their homes get burglarized?

If this is what the British desire, God save the King. I'm glad of two things: that America won its war for independence, and that my dad's father immigrated, alone, to this country at the age of 16 (sailed from Liverpool, ironically).
 
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CDW4ME said:
Meanwhile in the USA majority of states have concealed carry and many citizens (like me) go about in public happily armed everyday.
Just saying...
View attachment 1144289
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I was married to a lass from Ohio. I was working for a US company based in the UK. I'd already started selling some of my firearms and possessions to gather some stake money. Then all of a sudden she wanted to come to the UK. Then she got a job she loved and dug her heels in here. Post divorce, it's one of my great regrets. I'd let go of some really nice JM Marlins. :(
 
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The Skorpion Submachine Guns they are complaining about are not in British homes waiting to be burgled.
They are smuggled into Britain by organised gangs and are acquired from European underground sources including illegal copies.
Skorpion SMG "capable of firing 850 rounds per minute" Pfft Capable of firing a 10 or 20 round magazine at a cyclic rate of 850 rpm. Brrt brrt and it's empty. Count magazine changes 850 rounds a minute is impossible to do. A 12ga double barrel shotgun can fire 18 buckshot pellets in a second (two rounds of 9 #00)

I am tempted to dig out my copy of HARRY BROWN (the Michael Caine movie about a pensioner in a bad neighbor, often called the British version of DEATH WISH). Harry Brown's nemesis is an underground armourer supplying drugs and guns..

cut'n'paste from me:

Gavin Hales, Chris Lewis and Daniel Silverstone, Gun crime: the market in and use of illegal firearms, Home Office Research Study 298, Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate December 2006.

http://www.ligali.org/pdf/home_office_gun_crime_the_market_in_and_use_of_illegal_firearms.pdf

"Home Office Research Study 298 Gun crime: the market in and use of illegal firearms" by Gavin Hales, Chris Lewis and Daniel Silverstone, Home Office Research Study 298, Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate December 2006.

[my summary:] This study into the criminal gun culture in England and Wales included a short survey of 80 incarcerated gun criminals and gives a good view of the street criminal view of gun crime in the UK.

I come away from that read with the impression that banning civilian guns has not disarmed criminals, but created a class of criminal known as "armourer" who serves as a source for criminal weapons: trafficking stolen or smuggled guns, repairing or modifing guns, converting blank guns or deactivated guns to fire live ammo, or using replicas or air guns as frames for zip guns. UK inmates told interviewers that they could have a gun within a week of release, including submachineguns if they had the money and wanted one.
 
Old Dog said:
Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Mark Kameen said: "We have work ongoing to remove and reduce the amount of lawfully-owned firearms across Merseyside so they don't fall into the wrong hands."

Words fail me on this one.

But I'll give it a go anyway.

Are the police giving up their firearms as well, lest they fall into the wrong hands?"

I find it ironic that the police guy admitted they "have to work an awful lot harder," noted that the firearms discharge homicide rate in Merseyside decreased by 50% from the previous year, while the gang-related homicides were committed with full-auto Skorpions (??) capable of firing 850 rounds per minute (how many mags do their gang-bangers carry?) and their solution is asking law-abiding citizens to turn in their guns lest their homes get burglarized?

If this is what the British desire, God save the King. I'm glad of two things: that America won its war for independence, and that my dad's father immigrated, alone, to this country at the age of 16 (sailed from Liverpool, ironically).
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This is what we're up against in the UK. The hoops we have to jump through to obtain a firearm certificate are severe and intrusive. Those that make it through could rightfully be considered the cream of British citizens - the slightest blemish in your personal record could deny your grant.
Meanwhile, astonishingly, having a criminal past need not bar someone from becoming a police officer. How crazy is that?

Whenever there is a shooting carried out by a criminal, using illegally held firearms of the kind legal shooters cannot obtain, the first thing some delusional MP will cry for is "a tightening up of the rules regarding firearm ownership." And generally they will get their way in obtaining some sort of pointless tweak of the legislation. Firearm law in the UK is mostly derived from gesture politics and pandering to the gutter press for some votes.
 
FL-NC said:
During WW2 there was a shortage of small arms in the UK for the military AND to be used by the citizenry and territorial forces (I guess ya'll are called subjects?) in order to repel a potential axis invasion. As a result, obsolete/excess US military weapons were sent to the UK on a program known as Lend-Lease. When these weapons were determined to be insufficient in numbers for the intended purpose, US citizens generously donated privately owned firearms of every type to this program, in order to help our Tommy friends defend themselves. Just sayin' mate.
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Yeah and I may be wrong, but the privately owned weapons were supposedly intended to be returned to the United States and instead, when the war was over, it was decidedly more convenient to dump all of the surplus weapons the U.S. Gov't and private citizens provided into the English Channel.......

I'm not a historian so take that for what it's worth, but that's what I heard and/or read somewhere.

Logistically, I don't see how returning 10's of thousands of privately owned small arms would even be feasible, but from what I hear, they were supposed to be shipped back, but wound up going overboard instead.
 
I don't know enough about UK laws regarding firearms but there was a brisk trade here in the US in the 90's in British game guns that were purchased, probably before the turn in, and imported to the US. It may have been that some were auctioned off by the local police. IDK. Anyway, I knew a guy who was an importer, a British citizen from Newcastle who had what seemed like an endless supply of handmade game guns from the UK trade. Guns like Papes, Greeners, Lewis, Holland & Holland and the like.

Your lose was my gain, sorry to say. I can't imagine anyone giving up their right to own a firearm. Or maybe you never had it to begin with. Like I said, I don't know enough about UK law.

There were plenty of weapons and ammo in UKR when the war started. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said we have a rifle for anyone who wants to fight. Evidently they had lots of weapons in storage from the USSR years.
 
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