Firearms Act 1997 Amendment and The Pistol Prohibition

[M1Charles1M]

Somewhere in the deep dark recesses of my memory I seem to recall signing an online petition asking for the return of Pistols to legitimate firearms holders and the return of pistols for range use to facilitate the British Olympic Team. I believe it was limited to .22 cal but cannot recall with any certainty, or even who instigated it.

Anyone recall this and any idea what became of it?

[billgatese30]

This one?

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/360

Not sure what became of it in the end.

[M1Charles1M]

Yes that's it!

What really saddens me is that on 13,000 shooters could be bothered to sign it. Someone here has a Signature that says something about democracy being killed by apathy, I guess that applies to Shooting too!

[John25]

Just because we signed a petition and even if it did get to the desk of anyone who considers themselves to be important, it doesn't mean thay are obliged to do diddly squat!

Sadly, politicians don't care for 'normal' people; only themselves.

[Primer]

Yes that's it!

What really saddens me is that on 13,000 shooters could be bothered to sign it. Someone here has a Signature that says something about democracy being killed by apathy, I guess that applies to Shooting too!

Yes this was very disappointing and could of been much higher had "The Sportsman Association" actually been proactive in collecting signatures at last year's shooting show. In the build up to the event they were advertising that most stalls at the show would have petitions for people to sign and that they would also be actively collecting, well the reality was I only saw a couple of clipboards on a couple of stalls and "The Sportsman Association" were definitely not actively collecting as I walked past their stall/table several times and nobody asked me, the petition was just lying on the table amongst their other stuff and no one at the show apart from my club actually asked me to sign the petition. They missed an ideal opportunity to collect 1,000's of signatures, all they would of needed was a couple of scantily clad dolly birds.

The issue apparently is not dead in the water, according to the owner of my club who is on some firearms committee we were set to get .22 pistols back (albeit similar to sec7.3 regulations) but then Derek Bird decided to go shooting people in Cumbria so unfortunately the government couldn't be seen to be giving us guns back when all the anti's were shouting for more to be taken away, however the home office are still looking into it (albeit very slowly), so it may come to fruition in the future if the conservatives stay in government but will never happen if anti gun labour get back in.

[The Cupcake Kid]

This is another example of shooters in different disciplines thinking "it doesn't affect me so I can't be bothered".

If every FAC holder in this country had signed that petition, there may have been a different outcome by now, but we'll never know.

[20series]

My understanding is that any petition like this require 100,000 signatures before it would get a reading in parliament.

There have been several such petitions in the last few years but sadly no cohesive single drive has been made. I believe that I received an email about this one and it was also being pushed on the forums.

I know that in the run up to London 2012 about fourty temporary section 5 licenses were issued to a selected band of the elite pistol squad and coaches so that they could train in the UK, I think that they could only train at Bedford and a club in Kent. I don'tknow what happened to these after the Olympics, I no longer have any involvement witht the NSRA having now packed in as county rep on the NSRA shooting council.

Alan

[Primer]

I know that in the run up to London 2012 about fourty temporary section 5 licenses were issued to a selected band of the elite pistol squad and coaches so that they could train in the UK, I think that they could only train at Bedford and a club in Kent. I don'tknow what happened to these after the Olympics, I no longer have any involvement witht the NSRA having now packed in as county rep on the NSRA shooting council.

Alan

Also my club in Dorset as we had one of the female pistol shooters training there, the owners fighting to keep it at the moment.