Owning a gun in my country
- Thread starter d-dogg
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Definitely, mainly because gun manufacturing is an important part of the economy here, although most of the production gets exported. Also, our laws have become more gun friendly in the last couple of years, though they are still difficult to understand and even more difficult to apply.
Bye,
Goerz
Calibre44
Member
You can but they must be in a gunslip. Obviously you can also transport them in a car etc from your house to the range.
Calibre44
Member
Actually that's not quite true. You could buy a gun off a Police Office here so long as he/she was a registered firearms licence holder, off duty and he wanted to sell his gun to you. He wouldn't do it out of the back of a squad car though.
Finland
A short description of what we have here...
o All firearms require a license that's issued by the police; one firearm, one license
o Firearm = handgun, rifle, shotgun, 'other weapon', flare gun, machine gun, mortar, cannon, rocket and missile launching system
o Suppressors aren't registered and they're sold commonly over the counter, you just have to present a gun license at the time of purchase, same goes for ammo
o Magazines of all capacities are free to buy and own
o No limit on the number of guns you can own or their caliber, 20mm and larger rifles are regarded as cannons
o Handgun caliber hollow point and frangible ammo requires a special license, so does anything armor piercing and/or incendiary
o Rifle/shotgun license is easy to obtain if you're 18 years old and have a hunting license or can prove you need one for sport shooting
o SBR/SBS (barrel shorter than 16", the gun shorter than 33") license for hunting or sport shooting can be had if you prove why it's necessary for the particular hunting or shooting sport
o Handgun hunting is prohibited, semiautomatic rifles and shotguns must be limited to 2+1 or 3+1 rounds for hunting, there's a minimum bullet energy for hunting different game species
o Handgun license requires 20 years of age and two years of 'active sport shooting background' in a recognized sport shooting club, supervised by a police-approved firearms instructor
o All sporting handgun licenses require their holder to prove every 5 years that they've been practicing actively, by a signed statement from a police-approved firearms instructor
o Handguns smaller than 7.1x5.1" are considered 'pocket pistols' hence non-sporting and can't be licensed as target handguns
o Self defense is generally not an acceptable reason for a license, unless you're employed in commercial security industry and your employer confirms that you need a firearm in your job
o Even though license can't be had for self defense (anymore), using a firearm for self defense is legal at your home if you cannot retreat and are threatened with deadly force. No castle doctrine, though.
o Collectors that have gone through a special approval process can buy anything that's included in their official collecting plan: pocket pistols, machine guns, even heavy artillery - machine guns are common among collectors
o Old licenses are grandfathered; that includes pre-1998 handgun licenses for self defense, pre-06/2011 licenses for 15 year old license holders etc.
o Gun parts require license, this includes the frame, barrel, bolt and breech block
o You can't change the caliber of any firearm without a license
The law (unlike its interpretation by some police officials and especially home office) was fairly reasonable until June 2011, when minimum age was raised from 15 for any sporting gun to 18/20, the requirement of using an official 'firearms instructor' for proving your practice activity was added, as well as the unconstitutional (failing to do so will result in having your handguns confiscated!) requirement of doing so every five years.
Official figures of legally owned firearms are around 1,500,000 with a total population of 5,400,000. This is highly questionable because the funds allocated in 2002 for updating the registry have been spent to harass licensed gun owners with illegal licensing policy 'orders' by the home office. The only reliable records are kept of gun collectors, who are required to keep track of everything themselves. Interestingly enough, the number of legal, privately owned machine guns per capita is higher than that in the US and there's no limitation of when one has to be manufactured in order for it to be legal - collector can build one from parts and register it with minimal paperwork. Same goes for breech-loaded cannons, mortars, rocket launchers and I've even seen one privately owned, fully functional anti aircraft missile system with my own eyes.
The number of unlicensed, illegally owned guns can only be speculated. The official figure has varied between 50,000 and 100,000, but especially unlicensed WWII era SMG:s, LMG:s and pistols are a dime a dozen; having one in the attic is almost a national sport. Additionally, black market imports from southeastern Europe are fairly common, but the rather abundant domestic supply indicates that there's no real need for that from a supply/demand standpoint.
Felons aren't prohibited from owning firearms for the rest of their lives (damn socialist lawmakers!), even convicted killers can obtain a license a few years after they've served their sentence. Possession of an unlicensed firearm is punishable by a short prison sentence, but even having an unlicensed machine gun rarely leads to actual imprisonment.
Until mid 2000's registering illegal guns was somewhat common, people wanted to have paperwork for their guns because it was easy, rational and the right thing to do. This doesn't happen anymore, few previously unregistered guns are registered and more and more registered guns are being reported 'lost', mainly because their owners are afraid of future confiscations and don't want to give up their property willingly.
There have been a number of incidents where illegal gun shops have been raided and their owners prosecuted - they've been building machine guns like M4 rifles, Uzi and M31 SMG:s and Glock pistols from illegally imported parts, but that seems to be just the tip of the iceberg. Licensed gun owners who wouldn't have even thought about owning unregistered guns just a few years ago have changed their mind because recent law changes have made it virtually impossible for many people to buy new guns. And when they can, the risk of confiscation is real if they don't have time to visit a range often enough to collect signatures from a 'firearms instructor'.
All in all, what worked quite well in the 90's and reasonably well just a few years ago has become a real mess, thanks to local, 'liberal' (green, social Democrat) politicians' hysteria. Even the traditional conservative party betrayed gun owners in 2011 by voting for the current, illogical and prohibitive law.
I'm not sure I want to see what's going to happen in the near future. Private ownership of guns isn't at stake anymore than consumption of alcohol was during the prohibition, but I'd much rather keep everything legal than let the socialist politicians screw up the situation like they did in the UK, Belgium, RSA, Australia and many other countries. They're going to blame someone else for the end result anyway.
There's still some hope. I haven't 'lost' my reasonably extensive collection of SMG:s, assault rifles and crew-served machine guns.
Yet.
A short description of what we have here...
o All firearms require a license that's issued by the police; one firearm, one license
o Firearm = handgun, rifle, shotgun, 'other weapon', flare gun, machine gun, mortar, cannon, rocket and missile launching system
o Suppressors aren't registered and they're sold commonly over the counter, you just have to present a gun license at the time of purchase, same goes for ammo
o Magazines of all capacities are free to buy and own
o No limit on the number of guns you can own or their caliber, 20mm and larger rifles are regarded as cannons
o Handgun caliber hollow point and frangible ammo requires a special license, so does anything armor piercing and/or incendiary
o Rifle/shotgun license is easy to obtain if you're 18 years old and have a hunting license or can prove you need one for sport shooting
o SBR/SBS (barrel shorter than 16", the gun shorter than 33") license for hunting or sport shooting can be had if you prove why it's necessary for the particular hunting or shooting sport
o Handgun hunting is prohibited, semiautomatic rifles and shotguns must be limited to 2+1 or 3+1 rounds for hunting, there's a minimum bullet energy for hunting different game species
o Handgun license requires 20 years of age and two years of 'active sport shooting background' in a recognized sport shooting club, supervised by a police-approved firearms instructor
o All sporting handgun licenses require their holder to prove every 5 years that they've been practicing actively, by a signed statement from a police-approved firearms instructor
o Handguns smaller than 7.1x5.1" are considered 'pocket pistols' hence non-sporting and can't be licensed as target handguns
o Self defense is generally not an acceptable reason for a license, unless you're employed in commercial security industry and your employer confirms that you need a firearm in your job
o Even though license can't be had for self defense (anymore), using a firearm for self defense is legal at your home if you cannot retreat and are threatened with deadly force. No castle doctrine, though.
o Collectors that have gone through a special approval process can buy anything that's included in their official collecting plan: pocket pistols, machine guns, even heavy artillery - machine guns are common among collectors
o Old licenses are grandfathered; that includes pre-1998 handgun licenses for self defense, pre-06/2011 licenses for 15 year old license holders etc.
o Gun parts require license, this includes the frame, barrel, bolt and breech block
o You can't change the caliber of any firearm without a license
The law (unlike its interpretation by some police officials and especially home office) was fairly reasonable until June 2011, when minimum age was raised from 15 for any sporting gun to 18/20, the requirement of using an official 'firearms instructor' for proving your practice activity was added, as well as the unconstitutional (failing to do so will result in having your handguns confiscated!) requirement of doing so every five years.
Official figures of legally owned firearms are around 1,500,000 with a total population of 5,400,000. This is highly questionable because the funds allocated in 2002 for updating the registry have been spent to harass licensed gun owners with illegal licensing policy 'orders' by the home office. The only reliable records are kept of gun collectors, who are required to keep track of everything themselves. Interestingly enough, the number of legal, privately owned machine guns per capita is higher than that in the US and there's no limitation of when one has to be manufactured in order for it to be legal - collector can build one from parts and register it with minimal paperwork. Same goes for breech-loaded cannons, mortars, rocket launchers and I've even seen one privately owned, fully functional anti aircraft missile system with my own eyes.
The number of unlicensed, illegally owned guns can only be speculated. The official figure has varied between 50,000 and 100,000, but especially unlicensed WWII era SMG:s, LMG:s and pistols are a dime a dozen; having one in the attic is almost a national sport. Additionally, black market imports from southeastern Europe are fairly common, but the rather abundant domestic supply indicates that there's no real need for that from a supply/demand standpoint.
Felons aren't prohibited from owning firearms for the rest of their lives (damn socialist lawmakers!), even convicted killers can obtain a license a few years after they've served their sentence. Possession of an unlicensed firearm is punishable by a short prison sentence, but even having an unlicensed machine gun rarely leads to actual imprisonment.
Until mid 2000's registering illegal guns was somewhat common, people wanted to have paperwork for their guns because it was easy, rational and the right thing to do. This doesn't happen anymore, few previously unregistered guns are registered and more and more registered guns are being reported 'lost', mainly because their owners are afraid of future confiscations and don't want to give up their property willingly.
There have been a number of incidents where illegal gun shops have been raided and their owners prosecuted - they've been building machine guns like M4 rifles, Uzi and M31 SMG:s and Glock pistols from illegally imported parts, but that seems to be just the tip of the iceberg. Licensed gun owners who wouldn't have even thought about owning unregistered guns just a few years ago have changed their mind because recent law changes have made it virtually impossible for many people to buy new guns. And when they can, the risk of confiscation is real if they don't have time to visit a range often enough to collect signatures from a 'firearms instructor'.
All in all, what worked quite well in the 90's and reasonably well just a few years ago has become a real mess, thanks to local, 'liberal' (green, social Democrat) politicians' hysteria. Even the traditional conservative party betrayed gun owners in 2011 by voting for the current, illogical and prohibitive law.
I'm not sure I want to see what's going to happen in the near future. Private ownership of guns isn't at stake anymore than consumption of alcohol was during the prohibition, but I'd much rather keep everything legal than let the socialist politicians screw up the situation like they did in the UK, Belgium, RSA, Australia and many other countries. They're going to blame someone else for the end result anyway.
There's still some hope. I haven't 'lost' my reasonably extensive collection of SMG:s, assault rifles and crew-served machine guns.
Yet.
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