New consultation announced

[YattonShooter]

Everyone should take a look and respond to this latest consultation.
Relates to referees, length of certificates and lots more:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultat ... or-changes

[1066]

Survey completed.. I sincerely hope there is more response from the shooting community than the abysmal effort for the consultation on the lead ban. There, only 500 or so shooters out of nearly three quarters of a million FAC/SG cert holders responded, an embarrassingly poor show.

[YattonShooter]

I always worry that some certificate holders will take the “This won’t affect me” attitude and we end up with legislation or conditions that affect all of us.
So no matter what you own/shoot please respond and then all we can do is hope for the best.
We could end up with certificates costing £500 and only lasting 2-3 years!
You might agree with some of the referee or medical elements, you might not. But if you don’t respond then you will get what the majority of responders suggest.

[1066]

One of the main areas of concern in this most recent attack on shooting is the constant cry of "underfunding" of the police and the call, from many quarters, for full cost recovery when it comes to FAC/SC administration. There is no such demand when it comes to policing such events as the Notting Hill Carnival or Just Stop Oil protests that cost the taxpayer many millions.

One of the problems with "full cost" recovery is that we just know it it will be rigged - With Durham claiming it costs £521 to issue a certificate and Wiltshire saying an issue is only £56 - Where do you think the line will be drawn? How can Durham justify charging ten times as much as Wiltshire for the same job?

[450 Martini]

The Consultation also has a link to the results of the investigation into the Keyham shooting.
https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/sites/ ... ummary.pdf

[RDC]

I always worry that some certificate holders will take the “This won’t affect me” attitude and we end up with legislation or conditions that affect all of us.

The bigger concern regarding attitude is the "They will do what they want, doesn't matter what we say" brigade. Yet the 50 cal lot managed to win!

[Graham M]

I've just spent a while filling in the form and then writing a response to the consultation.

The trouble with opening a specific phone line to report licensed gun owners, is that it could be used as a tool to try and spoil someone's sport out of malice toward that person. There have been many cases of this when relationships have broken down and the spouse or partner has made a spurious complaint about the gun owner. If a new phoneline was created and advertised as such, it would be overwhelmed with false complaints which would take precedence over real or more serious complaints, which could then be lost or overlooked.
We already have some of the strictest gun laws in the world and recent events would not have happened in Plymouth had the D&C police carried out their job in a more efficient and less haphazard manner.
Stricter medical rules would not have helped in any way in the Plymouth shootings as the police carrying out the licencing didn't bother to follow the guidelines anyway. They removed a shotgun from a known troublemaker with a mental health history and then, gave it back to him despite knowing of his violent nature.
Even Jake Davison's own father had urged the D&C police not to give him a Shotgun Certificate in the first instance, so simply blaming law-abiding shotgun owners for the failings of the D&C police Firearms Licensing Department, is simply making those gun owners scapegoats for their own mistakes.
We already have the guidelines to do the job properly, but if those guidelines are not adhered to, or simply ignored, then no amount of new legislation is going to stop these shootings.
You cannot blame others for your own mistakes and then claim that you are putting things right because it's not your fault!!!!!!

Whether they bother to read it (or take any notice)is another thing.

[Dark Skies]

Completed. Forwarded the link to everyone in my club.

[Blackstuff]

Survey completed.. I sincerely hope there is more response from the shooting community than the abysmal effort for the consultation on the lead ban. There, only 500 or so shooters out of nearly three quarters of a million FAC/SG cert holders responded, an embarrassingly poor show.

Agreed. Although it was actuall in the region of 2,600 responses, but still pitiful out of a potential pool of near 3 MILLION (as it will affect airgunners too). Just those 2,600 responses have so far put the brakes on the lead ban (the response from the review was delated 6 months from December and as yet nothing has come out).

No one else concerned about the proposal effectively removing your human rights (under the 1998 act)?? It reads as if it would effectively mean that simply possessing a certificate would mean the Police have a right to enter your home without good reason or a warrant

[Graham M]

I certainly was concerned about that and put "NO". Let's face it, all they would need is the link to your FAC or SGC and they could force their way into your home whenever they felt like it.
The police already have the power enter your home if they need to so why do they need "Special powers" to be able to do this.