Shotgun certs costs on radio two today

It was the same tone yesterday about the shooting of turtle doves and quails in Malta. Another ***** by the name of Chris Peckham had travelled abroad to lead the protest

I don't know about the current situation in Malta, but they have earned themselves a reputation in the past for being a community of indiscriminate shooters with little concern for sustainability or their wider environment. Moreover, their location and terrain mean that most of the birds that pass in front of their guns are migrating from Africa to Europe, or vice versa, rather than species indigenous to the islands, so that what they do has an international impact.

Hopefully, a better informed SD member will come along and explain that this is all ancient history now, and that the Maltese have taken the situation firmly in hand, successfully inculcating a conservation-minded culture among the islands' shooters. Hopefully.

As for licensing, however many unnecessary complications might be removed (re-opening slots, reporting sales/transfers by post, pointless haggling over calibres, time spent correcting errors in gun details and conditions on returned certificates, etc.), the system requires investment if it is to be modernised and made more efficient. Where is that money to come from?
 
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I don't know about the current situation in Malta, but they have earned themselves a reputation in the past for being a community of indiscriminate shooters with little concern for sustainability or their wider environment. Moreover, their location and terrain mean that most of the birds that pass in front of their guns are migrating from Africa to Europe, or vice versa, rather than species indigenous to the islands, so that what they do has an international impact.

Hopefully, a better informed SD member will come along and explain that this is all ancient history now, and that the Maltese have taken the situation firmly in hand, successfully inculcating a conservation-minded culture among the islands' shooters. Hopefully.

As for licensing, however many unnecessary complications might be removed (re-opening slots, reporting sales/transfers by post, pointless haggling over calibres, time spent correcting errors in gun details and conditions on returned certificates, etc.), the system requires investment if it is to be modernised and made more efficient. Where is that money to come from?
Or the present money could be spent more efficiently, therefore allowing any rise in costs to be more effective??
 
Or the present money could be spent more efficiently, therefore allowing any rise in costs to be more effective??

No doubt it could, but even if the system that ultimately results is more efficient and can be run at the same cost, the process of change itself requires investment.
 
The concept is very simple, a service the same across the land, for a charge sensibly set.
It is not a service, it is enforcement of legislation. If government wish to enforce legislation that they enact, then they should pay for it (notwithstanding the fact that we ultimately pay for it). Can you imagine the outcry if the government suggested that we should have to pay to vote? Charging for enforcement of legislation is stealth taxation.
 
It is not a service, it is enforcement of legislation. If government wish to enforce legislation that they enact, then they should pay for it (notwithstanding the fact that we ultimately pay for it). Can you imagine the outcry if the government suggested that we should have to pay to vote? Charging for enforcement of legislation is stealth taxation.
I was leaning (Unusually) toward being polite, describing the "Service":D
 
I was leaning (Unusually) toward being polite, describing the "Service":D

I think WL and I are trying to make a similar point:

namely that whatever fee is set by the Goverment for the grant of FAC/SGC, to relate the size of that fee to the quality of the FLDs performance their duties is to misunderstand the relationship between the applicant, the FLD and the fee in a way that will only disadvantage law-abiding shooters.
 
Service,... to serve, to provide a product or deliver an outcome, we all understand that it is not incumbent upon ourselves to provide extra funds to enable this service, as it is a government requirement/duty, to keep the public safe, therefore the funds should come from them, but, as things stand we are already involved with supporting the cost of this "service"...... we are already at a disadvantage, and have been so since the origins of the firearms licence.
 
Rock & hard places?

Not really, no.

We should have good service anyway. The service would be better if they wasted less time/money on pointless nonsenses of various kinds - so it seems to me to suggest that good service should be conditional on a rise in fees is simply adding more rocks to the hard place.
 
Not really, no.

We should have good service anyway. The service would be better if they wasted less time/money on pointless nonsenses of various kinds - so it seems to me to suggest that good service should be conditional on a rise in fees is simply adding more rocks to the hard place.

We will never shake off the shackles we wear now, so only an improvement in their design & weight will be anything to to crow about.
 
We will never shake off the shackles we wear now, so only an improvement in their design & weight will be anything to to crow about.


Just say if they increased it to Ten Years , would that not immediately half the renewal administration cost , surely that would be a Good start ?
 
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