New laws coming?

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The Event
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Re: New laws coming?

#1271 Post by The Event »

Lancs Lad wrote: The MARS / Lever release folks account for substantially more firearms owned than the FCSA club members and it wouldn't have been impossible for them to get their act together and put forward a far better argument than they did.
If nothing else, there is a lesson here on how to resist pressure from the anti-gun lobby by engaging with the right people and building a constructive, evidence-based argument on why your legally held property is no threat to public safety.
This is only my opinion of course.

Regards ...LL
The FCSA is a single club who can coordinate their activities easily. Lever release owners are around 2,000 people who don't know each other's identities and are spread out across the entire country and hundreds of different clubs. For them to 'get their act together' was essentially impossible. Just as it would have been impossible for all box magazine shotgun owners to coordinate or all LBR owners to coordinate.
That's why we have associations who should be able to act on our behalf. Unfortunately all the relevant associations such as NRA, BASC, UKPSA, BSSC threw their weight behind the .50 shooters and did virtually nothing for anyone else.
I read every written evidence to the Public Bill Committee. The UKPSA who one would expect to be the organisation with the most members affected by the ban on lever release did not even send a submission.
Maybe the FCSA members lobbied the other associations to support them but again, the lever release owners didn't have an association to lobby the other associations on their behalf.
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Re: New laws coming?

#1272 Post by dromia »

They do have associations as both the NRA and BASC claim to support target shooting.

Trouble is these associations are worse than useless when it comes to defending legal gun ownership in the UK.
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Re: New laws coming?

#1273 Post by Lancs Lad »

dromia wrote:They do have associations as both the NRA and BASC claim to support target shooting.

Trouble is these associations are worse than useless when it comes to defending legal gun ownership in the UK.

Exactly!

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Re: New laws coming?

#1274 Post by Blackstuff »

Fedaykin wrote:
Further, you need to be pretty minted to shoot a .50BMG
Actually no that isn't the case Blackstuff, I have shot alongside the FCSA when I was a member of their sister club the ODRC and most were fairly modest and not that flashy when it came to money or income.

The cost of buying and then running a .50bmg is not that unlike buying and running a classic car like an MGB. The age range and demographic were not that unlike retired classic car owners as well.

Pretty much all of them reloaded and also a fair few used solid brass bullets, the club had a deal with somewhere that would melt down the spent brass collected at the end of a FCSA/ODRC shoot then it would be turned into bullets.
Well everyone has a different perception of the wealth of others and if you can afford to sling £100 or so of ammo down range most times you shoot, you fall into the minted bracket for me! Sensible people don't flaunt their wealth, I know a property developer with a 7 figure property portfolio and 6 figures in the bank and I most frequently see him in a tatty pair of jeans and holey polo top!
The Event wrote: The FCSA is a single club who can coordinate their activities easily. Lever release owners are around 2,000 people who don't know each other's identities and are spread out across the entire country and hundreds of different clubs. For them to 'get their act together' was essentially impossible. Just as it would have been impossible for all box magazine shotgun owners to coordinate or all LBR owners to coordinate.
That's why we have associations who should be able to act on our behalf. Unfortunately all the relevant associations such as NRA, BASC, UKPSA, BSSC threw their weight behind the .50 shooters and did virtually nothing for anyone else.
I read every written evidence to the Public Bill Committee. The UKPSA who one would expect to be the organisation with the most members affected by the ban on lever release did not even send a submission.
Maybe the FCSA members lobbied the other associations to support them but again, the lever release owners didn't have an association to lobby the other associations on their behalf.
1. The UKPSA did make a submission covering all firearms involved, both as their own organisation and through the BSSC. However i'll admit it was at the last minute.

2. The UKPSA has done all it realistically can for lever-release owners in getting IPSC to re-write their rulebooks to specifically include LR rifles as a recognised division within rifles. This can only be done once per year and the new rulebooks come out in January so this year was the earliest it could have been done. IPSC has however decided it doesn't 'like' the MARS action, as it didn't like the idea of using the trigger for anything other than discharging a firearm (as well as being one of the golden rules of firearms, only having your finger on the trigger when aiming at targets is a core principle of safety for IPSC). As a former LR owner, and current MARS owner i was not happy with that decision. I have NEVER shot an IPSC based competition with my MARS, which is mainly down to their only being 2, possibly 3 ranges i'm aware of that could host such an event, none of which have ever attempted organise such a match.

3. IPSC is still primarily a handgun-centric organisation, shotgun and rifle are very much the second fiddles. The UK is a relatively small region in IPSC terms. IPSC shooting in the UK is primarily shotguns, with .22 rifles and long barrelled pistols/revolvers being the next 'biggest' group. Full-bore rifles/pistol calibre carbones (PCC) are far and away the smallest group. Usually when there is a match where .22 rifles, LBP/R's and PCC's can be used in the same competition there either no LR guns or 1 or 2. When i had my LR I was the only person in the North/Scotland 'competing' with one which was one of the reasons I ended up selling it. I would guesstimate there are less than 10 people nationwide who irregularly use their LR's competitively in UKPSA competitions. There were 3 entries in last years championship results for the (then unofficial) LR division. Asking the UKPSA to throw their meagre budget behind that level of participation is frankly, ridiculous.
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Re: New laws coming?

#1275 Post by DaveT »

The facts of the matter re the FCSA defence has much to do with the dedication and determination of key members in lobbying MPs etc and absolutely nothing to do with being 'minted' and throwing money at it.
A positive campaign to get FACTS on the table rather than allowing the drivel from some MPs and the media to hog the news is where the success arose.
FCSA has been criticised for its focus on 50 cal....duh huh!....thats its area of expertise and where it can make credible commentary...so why the surprise?
FCSA openly said that it was not placed to campaign beyond its area of competence and invited others to join in on the MARS etc issue... no real response received!
Where were the Mars etc supporters who could have picked up on the FCSA example? Too much effort? Somebody else should do it?
By the way.....better than 50% of FCSA members DO NOT shoot 50 cals but enjoy range access to places like Salisbury plain under the FCSA banner.....
I find the criticism of FCSA to be ignorant at best .... we should all know better than to bite lumps out of each other.
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Re: New laws coming?

#1276 Post by Racalman »

I complained to the BBC (twice because their first answer was inadequate) about their sensationalist coverage of the proposed ban.

Here is their final response:

Dear Mr ***

CAS-5210623-BJPW55

Thank you for contacting us with your further feedback about the story "Ban on military grade assault rifles dropped by MPs" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46377250).

I apologise for the length of time that it has taken to provide a substantive response to your second complaint - this is because of the time it took to investigate the points you raised and ensure we made the right corrections. I was also sorry to read that the previous response failed to respond to your satisfaction to your concerns.

I do take your point that it was incorrect to use the term "military grade assault rifles" in this story, and apologise for the mistake. We have since rewritten the headline, which now reads: "Ban on high-powered rifles dropped by MPs". We have also, for transparency and in accordance with our guidelines, published a notification, which can be found at the bottom of the article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46377250. Thank you for flagging this error, which gave us the opportunity to reconsider the editorial decisions made on this occasion. Regarding your other query, regarding the reference to fears of a 'black market' in such weapons, I have also investigated whether this is accurate. This line summarises part of the Parliamentary briefing paper number 08349 on The Offensive Weapons Bill 2017-19, which can be found here: http://researchbriefings.files.parliame ... P-8349.pdf. The line refers to the following section:
"Why the proposed prohibition?

The Government argues that there is a risk of these firearms "falling into the wrong hands" if they are available for civilian use.84 The Government is therefore proposing to prohibit these weapons in order to minimise the likelihood that these weapons could be obtained by terrorists or criminals in future. They have cited the Las Vegas shooting in October 2017 as an example of the type of incident they are hoping to prevent."

The reference in the article does, I feel accurately reflect the Government's concern about potential crimes in the future.

Clearly it is never our intention to mislead our users and I am that you had cause to contact us on this occasion. The BBC is committed to upholding its Editorial Guidelines https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidelines and I can assure you that we will continue to strive to meet the highest standards of quality and accuracy in the future.

Thanks again for taking the time to send in your comments, which allowed us to reconsider our editorial decisions and make improvements.
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Re: New laws coming?

#1277 Post by safetyfirst »

Brilliant. Good result!
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Re: New laws coming?

#1278 Post by The Event »

Blackstuff wrote:
1. The UKPSA did make a submission covering all firearms involved, both as their own organisation and through the BSSC. However i'll admit it was at the last minute.

2. The UKPSA has done all it realistically can for lever-release owners in getting IPSC to re-write their rulebooks to specifically include LR rifles as a recognised division within rifles. This can only be done once per year and the new rulebooks come out in January so this year was the earliest it could have been done. IPSC has however decided it doesn't 'like' the MARS action, as it didn't like the idea of using the trigger for anything other than discharging a firearm (as well as being one of the golden rules of firearms, only having your finger on the trigger when aiming at targets is a core principle of safety for IPSC). As a former LR owner, and current MARS owner i was not happy with that decision. I have NEVER shot an IPSC based competition with my MARS, which is mainly down to their only being 2, possibly 3 ranges i'm aware of that could host such an event, none of which have ever attempted organise such a match.

3. IPSC is still primarily a handgun-centric organisation, shotgun and rifle are very much the second fiddles. The UK is a relatively small region in IPSC terms. IPSC shooting in the UK is primarily shotguns, with .22 rifles and long barrelled pistols/revolvers being the next 'biggest' group. Full-bore rifles/pistol calibre carbones (PCC) are far and away the smallest group. Usually when there is a match where .22 rifles, LBP/R's and PCC's can be used in the same competition there either no LR guns or 1 or 2. When i had my LR I was the only person in the North/Scotland 'competing' with one which was one of the reasons I ended up selling it. I would guesstimate there are less than 10 people nationwide who irregularly use their LR's competitively in UKPSA competitions. There were 3 entries in last years championship results for the (then unofficial) LR division. Asking the UKPSA to throw their meagre budget behind that level of participation is frankly, ridiculous.

This page https://services.parliament.uk/Bills/20 ... ments.html shows every submission sent to the Public Bill Committee. I see BSSC, BASC, NRA, all making some (weak) defence of self ejecting rifles but nothing from the UKPSA. Even the MLAGB who are unaffected by the Bill managed to make a submission including lever release and MARS rifles.
How could it possibly be ridiculous to expect the UKPSA to make a submission if even the muzzle loaders managed to? Are their funds really so tight they can't afford to send an email?

There was no prospect of the Government dropping the proposal to ban LRs & MARS just because IPSC rules were changed to say there is a competition for them. Any time spent on that would have been better used writing to MPs.

I said that the UKPSA would be the association with the largest number of affected members, not that those members use them in official IPSC matches. While the owners are probably members of NRA affiliated clubs, pistol calibre lever release rifles in particular tend to be used in practical style gallery rifle shooting. Those shooting these events are the ones most likely to also be individual UKPSA members. The UKSPA probably had the best chance to reach the largest concentration of owners by contacting their members.
Regardless of whether people use LRs in UKPSA shoots, one of the main reasons to object to this Bill is that the same reasoning will later be used to ban LBRs, LBPs, .22 semi auto rifles & multi shot shotguns. But apparently still nothing has been learned about hanging together.
Both NRA and UKPSA should have made more effort in defence of lever release rifles. I got emails from the NRA urging me to contact my MP about opposing the ban on .50s but nothing about LR & MARS.
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Re: New laws coming?

#1279 Post by RDC »

The Event wrote:
There was no prospect of the Government dropping the proposal to ban LRs & MARS just because IPSC rules were changed to say there is a competition for them. Any time spent on that would have been better used writing to MPs.
I don't think anyone would expect them to 'just because'. However it's one more thing that can help to further legitimise those rifles. Recognised at an international level and used in international competition by UK competitors.

Although I personally believe law-abiding citizens should be free to enjoy shooting them purely for the pleasure of it, clearly loads of MPs (and many other shooters...) do not.
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Re: New laws coming?

#1280 Post by HH1 »

RDC wrote:
The Event wrote:
Although I personally believe law-abiding citizens should be free to enjoy shooting them purely for the pleasure of it, clearly loads of MPs (and many other shooters...) do not.
I totally agree!

I shoot Target Shotgun comps and Cowboy Action..... with other guns I own I am not competing against anyone other than me.

There are people I know who are primarily Collectors who occasionally test fire some of their guns. Is their justification for ownership any less valid because they don't shoot in competitions? No! Of course not.
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