U.K. -- Replica Guns to Be Banned

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Are replica guns like replica liberty?

from The Guardian -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1499827,00.html

Replica Guns to Be Banned

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Monday June 6, 2005
The Guardian

The government is to announce this week that it will press ahead with a ban on the manufacture, import and sale of "realistic" replica and imitation guns a year after the Home Office said a blanket ban was unworkable and impractical.
The ban will not be as wide-ranging as gun control campaigners had been pressing for but it will be accompanied by a measure making it illegal for anybody under the age of 18 to buy any kind of imitation or replica firearm.

The violent crime reduction bill, to be published on Wednesday, will also include an aggravated offence of using children or otherwise innocent parties to hide or carry guns or knives.
Ministers appeared to rule out a ban on imitation weapons a year ago because of the difficulty of coming up with a precise legal definition of a replica. But senior civil servants have managed to circumvent the problem to ensure that the crackdown does not include toy guns and water pistols in a wholesale blanket ban.

The bill will make clear that the ban on the sale of replicas only covers imitation guns that "any reasonable person could mistake for a firearm".

The ban will also be crafted to ensure it applies to sales over the internet and by mail order.

Ministers have included a number of exemptions in the legislation including the "theatrical use of imitation firearms". They have heard representations from television and film companies who feared the ban could hit the production of police and crime dramas.

The ban is being introduced after the latest gun crime figures showed that the use of imitation weapons rose by 66% in the last year and is fuelling a 10% increase in all gun crime. Ministers are particularly worried about BB or ball-bearing guns that fire plastic pellets.

At the same time the use of real handguns fell by 13% in the last year.

At present, it is illegal to carry an imitation weapon or an air gun in a public place without a reasonable excuse and to sell replica weapons that can be converted into firing live ammunition.

It is expected that this week's legislation will increase the sentences for carrying replica guns and introduce tougher standards on manufacturers to ensure that replica weapons cannot be converted to fire live ammunition. The bill will also raise the age limit for buying knives to 18 and tighten the law on air guns.

Headteachers will also be given the legal right to search pupils for knives or guns and "at-risk" pubs and clubs will be required to search for them. :scrutiny:

The legislation will also implement the government's crackdown on drink-related violence.
Click to expand...
 
Oh yeah - this'll help... :rolleyes:

The brits ain't done a thing right ref. firearms for quite a while now... Toys, pointy knives, etc. - whey are they going to learn it is the individual criminal's fault and not the inanimate object's?
 
There should not be any legitimate reason to exempt the British entertainment industry, especially for "police or crime dramas" wherein firearms are rarely, if ever, realistically depicted anyways.

[uksheeple]What if imitation firearms were stolen from a movie lot and sold on the black market?[/uksheeple]
 
RepliGuns

There is a movie called Snatch which involves replica guns, real guns, great direction, and English accents so thick it should have subtitles. It is hilarious.
 
...it will be accompanied by a measure making it illegal for anybody under the age of 18 to buy any kind of imitation or replica firearm.
Click to expand...

In other words, a toy. The irony is maddening.
 
No one over there wants to ask why the hell so many people want to rob other people in the first place -- they just want to give those would-be robbers trouble acquiring the things they use to scare people into giving up their money.

It's amazing -- this is utter, unmitigated willful blindness to the fact that there is a MUCH LARGER PROBLEM in their society than what kind of weapon is being used in the robberies... :rolleyes:

People are willing to rob others! Isn't that worth looking at and trying to fix?! I mean, say you could ban all those replica guns -- wouldn't the robbers still be wanting to rob?

-Jeffrey
 
Opposition anger over latest delay to national gun register

GERRI PEEV
POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

THE failure to roll out a national firearms register nine years after the Dunblane massacre was labelled a scandal yesterday, as the Home Office revealed it had missed yet another deadline for implementing the list.

Peers, opposition MPs and MSPs said the government was leaving people exposed to a repeat of the tragedy - in which 16 schoolchildren were shot dead - without proper scrutiny of more than one million private firearm owners in Britain.

Although the register is only for England and Wales, it will affect Scotland as police forces north of the Border, who have their own register, will be able to tap into the system.

Yesterday, politicians in Westminster and Holyrood said the delays were unacceptable.

Lord McNally, the Liberal Democrat leader in the Lords, accused the Home Office and police of dragging their feet in implementing the register, having opposed it from the start.(He's right enough there)

"We have got a government that is going to put us all on ID cards and that is going to track every car on every road in the land, and yet it can't put gun owners on a database," he said.

Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice spokesman for the Scottish National Party, said the delays underlined why "all gun legislation should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament".

Rather than trying to address a Scottish problem through Westminster, the Executive should have the jurisdiction over gun crime, he said. "What we need is action. What we cannot have is an ongoing hiatus which puts people at risk of being either injured or killed."

Pilot tests of the scheme in Lancashire and London were hampered by technical glitches when the DNA database would not link up with the criminal records database. Trials will not restart until next month and the Home Office could not tell The Scotsman how long they would run for.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=623712005
 
Family of murdered optician sue police
By Times Online

The police did "absolutely nothing" to protect the life of a prospective witness at a criminal trial who was murdered before he could give evidence, the High Court heard today.

Giles Van Colle, a 25-year-old optician, was shot dead with a silver bullet at close range by former employee Daniel Brougham in November 2000 - just a few days before the gunman stood trial for theft.

His parents, Irwin Van Colle, a Tory councillor in Brent, north London, and his wife, Corinne, are claiming unlimited damages from Hertfordshire Police under the 1998 Human Rights Act in a landmark legal case.

Monica Carss-Frisk QC, acting for the family, today told Mr Justice Wakerley at the High Court in London that Giles had been asked by the police to be a witness at Brougham’s trial.

She added: "But, only a very few days before that trial could take place, and after a number of instances of witness intimidation, including two threatening telephone calls to Giles himself, Giles was murdered by Brougham.

"It is our case that despite the history of escalating instances of witness intimidation, including specific threats to Giles and his family of which the police were well aware, they did absolutely nothing to protect the life of Giles."

She alleged that the police failed in their positive duty to protect life under Article 2 and to ensure respect for family life under Article 8.

Counsel said that the police accepted that the officer in charge of the case - Detective Constable David Ridley - did fail in his duties in the sense that was established by a June 2003 misconduct panel that looked into the case.

It was also accepted that DC Ridley should have arrested or at least have contacted Brougham - but, she added, the police still declined to accept that any of that had involved a breach of Giles’s or his family’s Convention rights.

As well as unlimited damages, Mr and Mrs Van Colle, of Greenhill Way, Wembley, Middlesex, are seeking declarations that the police failed to protect their rights or those of their son.

Brougham, 36, who was born in Iran as Ali Amelzadeh but used a variety of names, was convicted of murder at the Old Bailey in March 2002 and his appeal was dismissed in May 2003.

He had been employed by Giles Van Colle as a laboratory technician for three months during 1999 but was dismissed after equipment was stolen.

Court papers issued by the Van Colle family, and obtained by The Times earlier this month, state: "Although DC Ridley was fully aware of the attempted bribery and intimidation of the witnesses, he took no steps to prevent any repetition by Brougham or to protect the witnesses, including Giles, from the clear and unequivocal threats of violence and intimidation.

"No steps were taken to revoke Brougham’s bail or even impose conditions." The writ alleges that Giles Van Colle’s death "was caused by the failure of the defendant [Hertfordshire police] to take any or any adequate preventative operational measures to protect Giles’s life".

After Mr Van Colle's death Mr Ridley was investigated by the Police Complaints Authority and charged before a disciplinary panel. The officer, who still serves with the force, was found guilty in June 2003 of failing to perform his duties diligently, failing to investigate thoroughly the intimidation of witnesses and of failing to arrest Brougham.

The hearing continues.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1644254,00.html
 
How long before England develops a department of "thought-crime", like we have in the states?
Josh
 
"The police did "absolutely nothing" to protect the life of a prospective witness at a criminal trial who was murdered before he could give evidence, the High Court heard today."

I'll wager that the British are about to discover, as we have already found here in the US, that the police have no duty to protect individuals. This in a country where "self defence" is not deemed sufficient reason to be allowed to own a handgun.

Tim
 
From what little I've heard about this case, it seems that under previous laws, the police couldn't be liable in such a case. But that they are attempting to argue that the previous laws are incompatable with subsequent Human Rights legislation.

Don't know how it will be judged (or how the government will actually respond to the judgement).
 
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