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kent
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I'm intrigued to find out how.

The 'genuine', whom already have licenses, have been 'over legislated' against because of the acts of criminal activity. How will licensing prevent criminal activity?

 

Yes, it is bad legislation as it has no effect on those who wish to act criminally, but don't forget this legislation was accepted and introduced with the full knowledge of UK shooters and our shooting associations, the very associations you seem to think can broker a deal and influence ministers to introduce air gun licensing to the benefit of air gun owners. Do you still not get it?

I thought you had quit? Still your missing the point in making the mistaken claim that I don't get it

perhaps you should reflect on Japan at the closing stages of the war? Give it time for public funds to recover and we will have std fac conditions imposed or we can start something rolling now that's a better deal

 

Presently it don't work for either side and frankly it's not good for recruitment to the sport when kids can't use them anyhow without the. supervision proviso

All each incident does is take funds we should be spending on contributers to the causes we stand for as a sport and it ain't shooting working blokes in the head when they walk into thier own back yard

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I thought you had quit? Still your missing the point in making the mistaken claim that I don't get it

perhaps you should reflect on Japan at the closing stages of the war? Give it time for public funds to recover and we will have std fac conditions imposed or we can start something rolling now that's a better deal

 

Presently it don't work for either side and frankly it's not good for recruitment to the sport when kids can't use them anyhow without the. supervision proviso

All each incident does is take funds we should be spending on contributers to the causes we stand for as a sport and it ain't shooting working blokes in the head when they walk into thier own back yard

You simply ignore any questions or input from people who quote figures and facts to you in an effort to try to make you understand and explain the flaws in your proposals, and blindly repeat the same old incomprehensible ramble with the odd skew ball (Japan) thrown in for good measure.

 

I'm not mistaken; it is obvious from your posts you simply don't get it at all, and as no one can debate with someone who is blinkered to common sense, logic and reason then I see no point in continuing really.

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Hey Kent, you don't work for the SNP by any chance do u? ☺

Far from it have you met anyone who got shot in the brain and paralysed in his own back yard?

No I am a tory voting English shooter of many decades who now sees we only have freedom with airguns for the law breakers not honestly for the young shots and are wasting money given over by the responsible to defend the irresponsibles rights who don't pay up or speak up for our sport and seem to be very good at getting us a bad reputation

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It's not that the comparison goes over anybody's head, it is just that it is an utterly pointless comparison.

 

The premise of your argument was that some sort of voluntary action to deal with a problem, that is almost statistically irrelevant, is better than being legislated against.

 

The counter point to your argument is that action, whether elective or imposed, must be effective in seeking to address the given problem otherwise it is a waste of time, effort and expense.

 

With the level of airgun misuse that we currently experience there is not an effective fix as there is not an identifiable single problem. Individually there are of course cases that could be resolved with an individual solution, but you cannot apply individual solutions across a general population.

 

You wish to sign us up to do something that effectively says "we have a problem and here is a solution that won't make any difference at all". You want to be seen to be doing something in the hope that it might prevent something worse maybe happening, but as it will be ineffective then all you are actually doing is promoting fear.

 

It is an ill considered solution based on nothing other than speculation that something bad might actually happen. The reason that it is ill considered is because it will achieve nothing as the individual problems we do have really need individual solutions.

 

Sometimes we just need to have the courage to say no, it isn't broken so don't try and fix it.

 

Scotland is imposing an ill considered and utterly ineffective solution and I know that before it even leaves the statute books. It is actually a mathematical problem and we are already at the point where any improvement of the measurable criteria, airgun crime/misuse, is already at the point where it is impossible to make a meaningful improvement.

 

A 30% improvement, i.e. a reduction in incidents of crime/misuse, would mean a reduction of actual incidents in the double digits, against a distribution ratio of 500,000 guns in Scotland. The SNP suggested that an airgun crime is committed in Scotland once every day, so let us be generous and say a 30% improvement would mean 100 less crimes committed, so a reduction of recorded crime of 0.0002% against the total number of airguns.

 

10 years of political campaigning, 10 months of public consultation, 5 months going through the legislative program, years of administration within Police Scotland to get this in place then add on all the peripheral effort involved, the risk of criminalising people who don't get a license because they don't understand or just don't know that they need to, any attendant prosecutions under the new rules, the cost will be running into the millions quite comfortably.

 

Even if they totally eliminated every incident of misuse, so a 100% reduction in reported airgun crime figures, it is still just 0.0007% improvement in terms of the total distribution of guns. A complete and utter waste of time, effort and money.

 

It isn't broken and it most certainly does not need fixed, voluntarily or legislatively.

Bad legislation yes? Brace yourself because at some stage it will come here why not make more effective measures before we let the politicians loose to decide?

Frankly I recon mostly all would say stick em on fac and be done with it after meeting such a victim. Forget the swans. Cats and dogs vandalism etc

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Whilst I do not know the exact facts or stats about what I am about to say I believe it to be true. A friend of mine who used to work for the forensic science service, he worked in the firearms section, told me that very very few of the gun crimes committed were done so by holders of valid licenses, proving the point that the licensing system works under most circumstances and that the vast majority of licence holders have been and are law abiding citizens. So if it aint broke why fix it!

 

 

I should have also read the whole thread and not the first couple of posts, apologies!!

 

However guns held by licence holders do not seem, on the whole, to be used in unlawful activities, guns held by licence holders are sometimes involved in tragic accidents. If licensing airguns means that law abiding hunters and shooters can keep on shooting, which would be the aim, I can't see the problem, its only people who want to use such weapons for unlawful use that should be worried, they would not be bothered with licences and therefore do not deserve to be allowed to own such weapons and if licensed could have them taken away.

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Bad legislation yes? Brace yourself because at some stage it will come here why not make more effective measures before we let the politicians loose to decide?

Frankly I recon mostly all would say stick em on fac and be done with it after meeting such a victim. Forget the swans. Cats and dogs vandalism etc

That is the point i have tried repeatedly to make, you cannot make the measures more effective. Whether it is voluntary efforts or whether it is "stick 'em on fac" or whether you just choose to outlaw the things entirely, it will make no appreciable difference at all.

 

You suggest there is some sort of general fix that will address a range of individual issues that represent less than 0.5% of the total population of airgun owners - there isn't.

 

More over you suggest that this could be some sort of voluntary elective scheme, but the people that would elect to subscribe to that scheme are the existing >99.5% that are already not shooting people in the head.

 

Here is a ground breaking piece of news, it is already against the law to shoot a swan/cat/dog in the face, there is already an act of statute that forbids people from shooting other people in the head, why on earth do you think that some sort of self serving scheme initiated by the shooting community is going to magically be effective when the numerous other laws that already cover that ground so manifestly fail?

 

Driving on the public highway mandates that every driver must be insured yet it is estimated that between 5% - 10% are not, every driver must be licensed and certified as being competent to drive yet it is estimated that a similar amount of 5% - 10% are unlicensed.

 

If multiple acts of statute and intensive levels of policing fail to achieve a level beyond 90% - 95% compliance in driver licensing and maintaining motor vehicle insurance, literally costing hundreds of millions of pounds per year, then why would you think a self imposed bargain basement scheme would better existing compliance rates in excess of >99.5% of airgun users?

 

The <0.5% are just numpties who couldn't give a rats *** about the law, voluntary schemes, public sentiment, or anything else, that is why they shoot swans in the face and other people in the head, they are idiots and you cannot legislate against idiocy.

 

You would be just as well served throwing poop at the moon, despite all your efforts you are simply going to end up frustrated lying amidst a pile of poop having changed absolutely heehaw. A bit like I feel right now as it happens.

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Far from it have you met anyone who got shot in the brain and paralysed in his own back yard?

No I am a tory voting English shooter of many decades who now sees we only have freedom with airguns for the law breakers not honestly for the young shots and are wasting money given over by the responsible to defend the irresponsibles rights who don't pay up or speak up for our sport and seem to be very good at getting us a bad reputation

In answer to your question, no I haven't met anyone shot with an airgun as it's an incredibly rare occurrence, I do however know several people with terrible injures ranging from losing there sight in one eye after getting attacked by a drunk, another of my friends was badly disfigured having boiling water thrown over him. I also know someone who is seriously disabled due to being hit by a car. All terrible things which I would obviously do anything to avoid someone else having to go through. But banning cars, hot water, alcohol etc two of which are already licenced would do nothing to prevent further people getting hurt. Which I'm afraid is the same with airguns the vast majority of which are used responsibly.

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One thing to add on to this:

I was at a gun shop buying some ammo and a chap had just brought himself a airgun. He was middle aged, from the city and just moved to the country and had some 'nuisance rabbits' damaging his garden.

I heard him say to the chap who owns this shop and this is the truth: "So, I just line up the cross thing on the middle of the rabbit and pull the trigger, right?"

 

Can't imagine a very nice end was in store for the rabbits in his garden, if he was lucky enough to actually 'line up the cross thing' in vaguely the right direction...

I feel formal licensing across the board , and having a reason and interview etc... is a bit much, however I do thing a shop competency thing would be showing at least due diligence... I.e a demo and safety thing which needs signing from both parties. Bit like a scooter driver CBT.

 

In fact, there in lies an example - how many people on here get angry with moped riders on the roads? Christ, one of them could easily paralyse or kill someone innocently out and about... but at least they have done SOME training and are held accountable and insured - would you mind moped riders zooming around with no CBT test or insurance?

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One thing to add on to this:

 

I was at a gun shop buying some ammo and a chap had just brought himself a airgun. He was middle aged, from the city and just moved to the country and had some 'nuisance rabbits' damaging his garden.

 

I heard him say to the chap who owns this shop and this is the truth: "So, I just line up the cross thing on the middle of the rabbit and pull the trigger, right?"

 

Can't imagine a very nice end was in store for the rabbits in his garden, if he was lucky enough to actually 'line up the cross thing' in vaguely the right direction...

 

I feel formal licensing across the board , and having a reason and interview etc... is a bit much, however I do thing a shop competency thing would be showing at least due diligence... I.e a demo and safety thing which needs signing from both parties. Bit like a scooter driver CBT.

 

In fact, there in lies an example - how many people on here get angry with moped riders on the roads? Christ, one of them could easily paralyse or kill someone innocently out and about... but at least they have done SOME training and are held accountable and insured - would you mind moped riders zooming around with no CBT test or insurance?

Sorry to be a bit of a pedant, but there are already very many moped riders zooming around with no CBT test or insurance.

 

What would you do about private sales of people selling their own air rifle, how can you establish that they would do a suitable competency test?

 

The chap from your story, he gets rid of his bunnies and decides that the air rifle now has to go, is he fit to check the competency of someone else?

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Sorry to be a bit of a pedant, but there are already very many moped riders zooming around with no CBT test or insurance.

 

What would you do about private sales of people selling their own air rifle, how can you establish that they would do a suitable competency test?

 

The chap from your story, he gets rid of his bunnies and decides that the air rifle now has to go, is he fit to check the competency of someone else?

Woah, hold on: I'm no expert - just throwing an idea for the PW committee to think on.

 

It's a tough one, and something I wouldn't want to be in charge or sorting out the mess of - however it does need to be thought on a little.

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Woah, hold on: I'm no expert - just throwing an idea for the PW committee to think on.

 

It's a tough one, and something I wouldn't want to be in charge or sorting out the mess of - however it does need to be thought on a little.

I appreciate that you are just throwing some thoughts out there and I promise i'm not being hostile, sorry if it came across that way.

 

Although I completely understand where you are coming from with witnessing someone who is currently clearly inappropriate to use an air rifle on live quarry, it is also a very individual issue and one which cannot be solved with a general catch all solution.

 

I know you saying "sorting out the mess" is just a turn of phrase, but I don't think it is a mess. Again apologies for being a pedant, but we need to be careful not to make out that isolated individual incidents equate to a wide scale problem as they don't, the problems totals less than 1% of the number of guns in circulation (based on best guesses and estimates, etc).

 

As unfortunate as the individual case in your post is it is just something that we need to accept will happen, but be thankful it is exceptionally rare relative to the number of guns in circulation. Ideally the gun shop owner would just take an arbitrary decision not to sell him the rifle or at least not without some instruction/guidance, but you can't make that part of legislation without creating a bigger problem and potentially putting more people outside the law.

 

Of course we would wish there were no individual cases, but sadly people are pretty rubbish at being perfect so there will always be individual cases.

 

I do agree that we should always be challenging the status quo and think about things, but unless we can make meaningful improvement then we should leave it as just a thought.

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