Should police land checks be scrapped?

[London Best]

3 minutes ago, Sweet11-87 said:

must be confused, got 5 calibers on my ticket and  slots for another 2 ive not picked anything up in  yet and all say "on land over which the holder has lawful authority to shoot"  previously said something along the lines of "deemed suitable by the chief of police" and i never specifically asked for any to be opened, i was under the  impression it was a probation period of sorts  ill look into it make sure all is above board

Your FAC is ‘open’ 

Deemed suitable is closed.

But you still have to have a ‘base ground’ which has been deemed suitable, although it will not be mentioned on the ticket.

Edited June 6 by London Best

[Rewulf]

38 minutes ago, Sweet11-87 said:

"on land over which the holder has lawful authority to shoot"

This means its open, and if it doesnt mention specific calibres, then they are all open.

 

39 minutes ago, Sweet11-87 said:

"deemed suitable by the chief of police"

This refers to land that is cleared up to a certain calibre.

Until I got my 6.5 cleared , my only open calibres were 22lr, 17 HMR (when I still had it) and 223.

Interestingly, talking of probation periods, I only got my 223 a few months before a renewal, and it was granted as open upon the renewal, due to the fact I had 5 years of experience with 22lr and HMR , go figure ?

41 minutes ago, London Best said:

But you still have to have a ‘base ground’ which has been deemed suitable, although it will not be mentioned on the ticket.

This is an interesting point, if you lose that ground, will they remove the open condition?
I honestly dont know.

[Sweet11-87]

24 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

This is an interesting point, if you lose that ground, will they remove the open condition?
I honestly dont know.

i was wondering the same thing, as technically now you have an open condition, you can now shoot on new permissions if found, if you then lose the original permission  you still have new permissions to use the firearm/caliber on that may not have been cleared but is at your discretion. that make sense?

 

[Rewulf]

30 minutes ago, Sweet11-87 said:

i was wondering the same thing, as technically now you have an open condition, you can now shoot on new permissions if found, if you then lose the original permission  you still have new permissions to use the firearm/caliber on that may not have been cleared but is at your discretion. that make sense?

 

It does yes, Ive got a renewal in September and I will ask the FEO about this.
 

[London Best]

2 hours ago, Rewulf said:

This means its open, and if it doesnt mention specific calibres, then they are all open.

 

This refers to land that is cleared up to a certain calibre.

Until I got my 6.5 cleared , my only open calibres were 22lr, 17 HMR (when I still had it) and 223.

Interestingly, talking of probation periods, I only got my 223 a few months before a renewal, and it was granted as open upon the renewal, due to the fact I had 5 years of experience with 22lr and HMR , go figure ?

This is an interesting point, if you lose that ground, will they remove the open condition?
I honestly dont know.

No, open condition will not be removed for the life of the certificate, but you will need some ground ‘deemed suitable’ at renewal.

[oowee]

1 minute ago, London Best said:

No, open condition will not be removed for the life of the certificate, but you will need some ground ‘deemed suitable’ at renewal.

This. Open is open but you will need some land or opportunity. 

I am not sure how it works for shooting abroad. I want a 416 for May. 

[London Best]

1 minute ago, oowee said:

This. Open is open but you will need some land or opportunity. 

I am not sure how it works for shooting abroad. I want a 416 for May. 

I never had any bother obtaining a .375. 
I worded the variation application: for use abroad, primarily Africa, but with possible occasional use in the U.K. against the larger deer species. 
My existing ‘base ground’ was 1100 acres of heavily wooded, hilly ground with a high population of fallow deer, but as insurance I had a friend write me a back up letter inviting me to join him for a few days  after red stags on his ground in the Highlands. 
The variation was granted within a week and the ticket came back with no additional conditions. 
At renewal 18 months later, and subsequent renewals, my base ground had changed but no mention was ever made about the big magnum. 
I used the .375 in Africa, Croatia and Turkey but never did use it in U.K. , except for zeroing, although I had authority to do so. I no longer have the rifle.

[wymberley]

8 minutes ago, London Best said:

No, open condition will not be removed for the life of the certificate, but you will need some ground ‘deemed suitable’ at renewal.

Surely, If you can't name an alternative land  because you haven't any then open or closed you are in breach of the FAC requirement. I imagine that having lost the one named land it would be necessary to inform Firearms of an alternative ASAP.

I got caught out through no fault of my own. Instead of acting in a gentlemanly fashion and informing their tenant or myself first of all, the Estate told the police that they were taking the deer in house and would not in future be allowing 243 or bigger to be used on the Estate other than by their own staff. The first I knew of it was the police on the phone asking what I was going to do with my 243. Fortunately, I also had permission on some land which an old friend had bought as an investment from said tenant's parents - a rare bit of local land which wasn't owned by the Estate - and which I was already shooting over anyway prior to the sale.

As it happened I was toying with the idea of stopping the deer shooting anyway as although I could grass them, it had got so I couldn't pick them up owing to a Service injury so it was easy to negotiate a 223 for the fox instead.

[London Best]

1 minute ago, wymberley said:

Surely, If you can't name an alternative land  because you haven't any then open or closed you are in breach of the FAC requirement. I imagine that having lost the one named land it would be necessary to inform Firearms of an alternative 

In the case I quoted the land permissions were running concurrently.

But anyway, at no point would you be in breach of the conditions on your certificate. Until renewal, when you could be lacking in good reason criteria. 
I wasn’t.

[oowee]

28 minutes ago, London Best said:

I never had any bother obtaining a .375. 
I worded the variation application: for use abroad, primarily Africa, but with possible occasional use in the U.K. against the larger deer species. 
My existing ‘base ground’ was 1100 acres of heavily wooded, hilly ground with a high population of fallow deer, but as insurance I had a friend write me a back up letter inviting me to join him for a few days  after red stags on his ground in the Highlands. 
The variation was granted within a week and the ticket came back with no additional conditions. 
At renewal 18 months later, and subsequent renewals, my base ground had changed but no mention was ever made about the big magnum. 
I used the .375 in Africa, Croatia and Turkey but never did use it in U.K. , except for zeroing, although I had authority to do so. I no longer have the rifle.

That's worth knowing. I have invites for the larger deer species but struggle for the time. Africa has become a regular option and I have a few more things I want to do. 

[wymberley]

23 minutes ago, London Best said:

In the case I quoted the land permissions were running concurrently.

But anyway, at no point would you be in breach of the conditions on your certificate. Until renewal, when you could be lacking in good reason criteria. 
I wasn’t.

I think, perhaps, that 'in breach of the conditions' equates to 'lacking in good reason'. if somehow one had lost all other permissions other than the nominated land then there would be no need for an open cert' -  whether or not Firearms would decide to 'close' it is a mute question - and if then one were to lose that last one, then however you term it you have no need and therefore no entitlement for an FAC. Extreme circumstances I admit.

[Downforce]

I think there is an argument in some circumstances for some sort of independent (of the shooter) validation. Does it need to be the police - probably not IMHO.

In the scheme of things there’s going to be people who could judge better than some police so why not get licensed certifiers like every other verification system?

The other anomaly is that once a given piece of land is certified there’s not a national database that can be accessed by everyone so what happens? Stalker calls the landowner and landowner says they think it’s been certified for whatever calibre and Stalker takes it as approved BUT if the landowner gets it wrong or talks about the incorrect piece of land then who is that error on?

Database could  also be used to request an assessment or modify an existing certification for a bigger calibre or something 

it’s impractical to get a quick response directly from the police in the applicable county as some could be months to respond to an email.

So if there were a central database open to the public and any conditions or recommendations can be stated against that land, meanwhile if the land isn’t certified and you need it next weekend you can pay a commercial assessor to get it done now or wait until police can do it free whenever.

None of the above precludes someone with an open ticket shooting on their own assessment on uncertified land.

[Zoli 12 guage]

28 minutes ago, Downforce said:

 

None of the above precludes someone with an open ticket shooting on their own assessment on uncertified land.

but it has been certified 👍

by someone who has been "certified" by the police to make "that call" because he has "experience" of the particular calibre he intends to use.

Edited June 24 by Zoli 12 guage

[Downforce]

11 minutes ago, Zoli 12 guage said:

by someone who has been "certified" by the police

It could be but Not necessarily 

When you get building’s approval sign off by a commercial professional they are not certified by the council they’re certified by being an approved contractor but you can also wait for the council approval 

I just think that there’s potentially people with more experience and better skills than police and it’s more important that police focus on licensing so a scheme similar to building regs could help the applicant get a quick result and reduce the load on the police 

That said any system put in place should be as absolutely consistent as possible so it doesn’t matter if you’re in X county or Y county - so publish proper well thought out criteria and train the assessors to a high standard how to apply the criteria 

If there’s no real value in the whole process then by all means look to get rid of it

Edited June 24 by Downforce