wymberley Posted October 31, 2021 Report Share Posted October 31, 2021 18 minutes ago, CharlieT said: Not correct. The vast majority of FEO's are civilian employees of the police. And many of those are supplementing their police pensions. Mine is ex BTP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scully Posted October 31, 2021 Report Share Posted October 31, 2021 Without exception, all the FEO’s I’ve known over the years have been retired police officers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windswept Posted October 31, 2021 Report Share Posted October 31, 2021 3 hours ago, CharlieT said: The whole purpose of unannounced visits is that they are just that, unannounced and designed to catch you on the hop, they are not designed to be convenient. That depends on what the visit is for. One was for delivering a new cert and then expecting to check all my firearms and the other was to inspect my security about a year after I moved. Neither met the guidelines for an unnanounced visit that I'm aware of. Another thing I remember, BASC advise you to call your local firearms licensing dept if you have doubts but both my visits were on a Saturday and the department isn't staffed on a weekend. My reference to civilian FEO was mearly trying to separate them from a uniformed police officer. Anyway, this is the advice I now follow. https://basc.org.uk/unannounced-visits-to-certificate-holders-basc-advice-to-members-2/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharlieT Posted October 31, 2021 Report Share Posted October 31, 2021 Around 40 years ago, when we had a village Bobby who dealt with such matters, he used to turn up at 9.30 on a Sunday morning exactly at breakfast time, when he knew I'd be in from feeding the stock, to deliver my certificate. Did I complain and send him on his way with a flea in his ear for not phoning first.............no, my wife would but another couple of rashers of bacon and extra eggs in the pan, pour an extra coffee and he would pull up a chair and tuck in. His timing was always perfect. I didn't or wouldn't class that as unannounced, he was doing me a service delivering my certificate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windswept Posted October 31, 2021 Report Share Posted October 31, 2021 (edited) I didn't send either one their way. But using your analogy, if your were in the middle of sorting our a difficult lambing would you just drop everything and happily spend an hour with the bobby going through everything whilst the lamb died? Would you happily cancel a days shooting because they turned up out the blue? And then when you read the cert it's wrong and you post it back and get the replacent in the post! It is not always convienet to drop everything. Again using your annalogy, would you welcome someone in plain clothes you had no idea who they were just as long as they said "I'm your bobby"? Edited October 31, 2021 by Windswept Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
udderlyoffroad Posted October 31, 2021 Report Share Posted October 31, 2021 6 hours ago, CharlieT said: Not correct. The vast majority of FEO's are civilian employees of the police. Sigh. The police are civilians. That is in their very nature, in the UK at least, that they are not a branch of the military or some sort of paramilitary organisation. That was part of Robert Peel's original concept. The fact that people, including serving officers, refer to not being in uniform as being in 'civvies' - having borrowed the term from the armed forces - does not make them anything other than civilians, uniformed or not. The term you are looking for is 'police staff'. Why is this semantic line a hill on which I appear to wish to die? Well, show me the country where there is a blurring of lines between police and military, and I will show you a country where I would not want to live. Nevertheless; everytime I have met an FEO, he has been a serving (in possession of a warrant card) officer. He might very well have passed ordinary retirement age, but he is still a serving officer. No, I did not see a police staff badge and conflate it with a warrant card. May well be different in other forces areas. But in mine, that is the case, but of course I humbly submit to be corrected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AULD YIN Posted November 1, 2021 Report Share Posted November 1, 2021 Was told many years ago by my FEO .unannounced or arranged visit always ask for ID as part of your due diligence in the security of your WEAPONS or expect a severe talking to if you dont ask Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ditchman Posted November 1, 2021 Report Share Posted November 1, 2021 about 10 years ago i was made aware that the police were making snap visits to certificate/liecence holders to check security.........which annoyed me cause they always cleaned me out of chocolate hobknobs..................the snap visit never came.... didnt really bother me tho' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wymberley Posted November 1, 2021 Report Share Posted November 1, 2021 "To mitigate any misunderstanding on the part of the certificate holder, the police should provide a clear and reasoned explanation to the certificate holder at the time of the visit." Will this include details of the informant? Nah, didn't think so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob85 Posted November 2, 2021 Report Share Posted November 2, 2021 Just read through this wee thread and my take on it is this... After what has happened with the Guntrader company, I would be asking for and verifying the ID of anybody, whether they be in uniform or not who just turned up unannounced and said they wanted to inspect my firearms. Criminals do impersonate the police, gas men, meter readers all the time to gain access to houses. Anyone genuine will be more than happy for their ID to be verified. There was a guy a couple of months ago over here who was impersonating a police officer with his blue lights on his car an all, pulling people over....idiot managed to pull over a serving officer and said idiot was soon detained. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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