If BASC has this information, isnt it better, if we are to lobby MP'.s to have some corroboration of this from perhaps the Home Office ? Equally, the CA are able to provide details of all their members MP's via an embedded programme which relates postcodes to representation - why not BASC?
BASC opposes new proposals for medical fees
- Thread starter David63
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Highlandsjohn
Well-Known Member
+1 Our orgs left us to it in Scotland. Individual FAC holders v Police Scotland, pay or no FAC. I only had to pay £25.00, some have had to pay ten fold.
With no professional legal representation at our back, it looks like the same is going to happen UK wide, just like the unannounced visits.john
You did not "NEED" to pay anything Highlandsjohn you chose to pay the blackmail fee, if you and your countrymen had stood up collectively and said no to all this $hit rather then sit back rely on the organisations to do it for you, there most likely would have been a different outcome, as has been said in a previous post 8000 letters to your MP has far more effect then one from BASC or SACS.
Ian
Ian
Whitebread, you are doing the people of Scotland a disservice. Many of us did object, did write to our MSP's, did contact our shooting orgs.
The reply from my own (SNP) MSP was that the charge was in the public interest and she would not oppose it.
That left us with Hobson choice - pay up of give up our firearms.
It's very easy to sit back and say "don't pay" when you are not faced with the situation but when it comes down to it, in the face of this abhorrent blackmail, how many would say o and have their firearms confiscated then face possibly years off legal battles???
The reply from my own (SNP) MSP was that the charge was in the public interest and she would not oppose it.
That left us with Hobson choice - pay up of give up our firearms.
It's very easy to sit back and say "don't pay" when you are not faced with the situation but when it comes down to it, in the face of this abhorrent blackmail, how many would say o and have their firearms confiscated then face possibly years off legal battles???
Slider respect to you and other Scottish shooters who that stood up to this, and i did say so in my post No. 20
Ian.
Ian.
Tom D
Well-Known Member
Am I the only one who doesn’t mind paying a small fee?
The NHS is on its arse right now, I found out first hand recently just how bad it has got. I now have permanent nerve damage after a problem was missed twice by docs in the local hospital. It takes 3 weeks to get a gp appointment here.
My fee on renewal was £25, only £5 a year, I don’t think that’s too much to ask. If they start asking silly money it’s a different story. The powers that be should dictate the fee to the gp’s.
The NHS is on its arse right now, I found out first hand recently just how bad it has got. I now have permanent nerve damage after a problem was missed twice by docs in the local hospital. It takes 3 weeks to get a gp appointment here.
My fee on renewal was £25, only £5 a year, I don’t think that’s too much to ask. If they start asking silly money it’s a different story. The powers that be should dictate the fee to the gp’s.
Tom D, GP Surgeries are no longer part of the NHS they are private companies contracted to the NHS to provide first call medical services.
Ian
Ian
White beard
Would you have paid ?
Or
Have to put your guns into storage and lose the ability to carry out your passion ?
Our shooting organizations .... basically said if you want to carry on pay it .....
So if they folded what chance do we have ?
As for thank you Scotland?..... what about backing us up ?
Same thing happened with air rifle licensing.... didn’t hear much back up from south of the border
And that looks like happening too to our southern brethren ....
Lesson learned? ..... maybe we should have stuck together instead of usual
“ oh that’s not affecting me”
Yes we folded but we didn’t get much back up either
Paul
Would you have paid ?
Or
Have to put your guns into storage and lose the ability to carry out your passion ?
Our shooting organizations .... basically said if you want to carry on pay it .....
So if they folded what chance do we have ?
As for thank you Scotland?..... what about backing us up ?
Same thing happened with air rifle licensing.... didn’t hear much back up from south of the border
And that looks like happening too to our southern brethren ....
Lesson learned? ..... maybe we should have stuck together instead of usual
“ oh that’s not affecting me”
Yes we folded but we didn’t get much back up either
Paul
caorach
Well-Known Member
I think you were faced with a completely impossible situation and, as you say, in the end there was nothing the individual could do. It wasn't like shooters could go on strike and stop using their guns until the government backed down!
I think this is bigger than the cash. The police have a sort of legal obligation to the firearms applicant if they have good reason and the CC is satisfied they pose no risk. A doctor has no such obligation and it would be perfectly reasonable for them to reply and say "I object to shooting on all levels and so my advice is not to issue an FAC to this person." It also seems to me like the police are palming off the responsibility for deciding if a person poses a risk and they are placing this responsibility on a doctor. If a doctor was to say someone was fit and there was to be a tragic occurrence you can be pretty sure it will be the doctor getting the abuse on the 10 o'clock news and not the police. "We only gave this person a FAC because his doctor wrote to us saying it was safe to do so..." If I were a doctor then you couldn't pay me enough to take that responsibility.
My take on this is that the police have moved the responsibility for deciding you are a fit person from themselves to someone else who could be greatly disadvantaged by making any such decision and who has no actual obligation to make the decision at all.
White beard
Would you have paid ?
Or
Have to put your guns into storage and lose the ability to carry out your passion ?
Our shooting organizations .... basically said if you want to carry on pay it .....
So if they folded what chance do we have ?
As for thank you Scotland?..... what about backing us up ?
Same thing happened with air rifle licensing.... didn’t hear much back up from south of the border
And that looks like happening too to our southern brethren ....
Lesson learned? ..... maybe we should have stuck together instead of usual
“ oh that’s not affecting me”
Yes we folded but we didn’t get much back up either
Paul
Sauer, you hit the nail on the head saying "maybe we should have stuck together" and this is my point when i say "collectively" but you did not stick together to fight this, and as has been stated in previous posts, individual protests by those that had the guts to stand up were futile, as for support from south of the border why should we, you have a devolved government which your country voted for with that comes devolved policies, what grieves me is that Scotland's roll over could now effect effect licensing in England and Wales.
Ian
bang on the money
Rubbish plenty folk queried it , spoke to their organizations who told us to pay
If our shooting organizations let us down who the hell would fight it for us ?
I say again who was willing to pay for storage and lose their passion?
Who has the money to take on a case like that individually ?
Let’s see how many down south are willing to do same ...
Well, I didn't see much support from shooters in England and Wales who were all benefitting from their police forces following the HOG whilst Police Scotland made up and enacted their own policy.
The situation was, and still is, that only a successful legal challenge in the sheriff court by someone who has been refused a grant or renewal of an FAC or SGC purely on the grounds that Police Scotland did not get the letter back from the applicants GP, will cause Police Scotland to change their policy.
Thus far, no one has been prepared to suffer the loss of their guns whilst a court case goes through the motions and to bear the legal expenses of an appeal.
None of the shooting organisations comes out of this well - they should have been making much more noise about the situation both within and outside their memberships and making it known that they were actively looking to financially support someone who would be prepared to mount a legal challenge
Cheers
Bruce
The situation was, and still is, that only a successful legal challenge in the sheriff court by someone who has been refused a grant or renewal of an FAC or SGC purely on the grounds that Police Scotland did not get the letter back from the applicants GP, will cause Police Scotland to change their policy.
Thus far, no one has been prepared to suffer the loss of their guns whilst a court case goes through the motions and to bear the legal expenses of an appeal.
None of the shooting organisations comes out of this well - they should have been making much more noise about the situation both within and outside their memberships and making it known that they were actively looking to financially support someone who would be prepared to mount a legal challenge
Cheers
Bruce
It was fought by a campaign of letter writing to MSP's
It was fought by a campaign of personal appointments with MSP's
It was fought by our shooting orgs (SACS in particular)
The overwhelming number of responses to the Government consultation were against it.
Yet still it was imposed by our urban based socialist Government.
You talk about shooters standing together - yet you demean the actions of fellow shooters in another part of the UK. You talk utter b@llocks
We, of all folk, must be abundantly clear about this - even if the GPs and the Police are not.
GPs are not, as far as I'm aware at least, being asked whether an applicant is fit, safe or any other approving adjective, to own/use firearms. Apart from the act that they're not in a position to make such judgements, as Caorach points out - who would take a punt on making such a statement?
I think they are being asked based on their knowledge of their patient, whether the patent suffers or has suffered from any of a number of specifc medical problems, and whether those problems if present might affect their ability safely to use own/use firearms. Partly fact, and part professional opinion based on the understanding of illnesses and the patient. Not clairvoyance!
As far as I can see, the police are not in law able to move their responsibilities onto anyone else. GPs have always had responsibility to advise the police of medical-related risk in this context. What's the big deal here?
As folk have said, if the GPs want a few bob for the initial letter (say, £25) and the government is happy to pay it, then let them get on with it. They can put the renewal/grant fees up to meet it in the fulness of time - and the GPs won't be able to stiff applicants over one by one according to what they fancy they're worth per hour.
Not the applicants, though. We pay the statutory fee, which contributes towards the completion of the statutory process - not for our benefit alone, but for the public good.
Read this, particularly section 3 before you talk any more rubbish Whitebeard
87 yes that's 87% of responses to the consultation were against airgun legislation.
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00427855.pdf
87 yes that's 87% of responses to the consultation were against airgun legislation.
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00427855.pdf
Tom D
Well-Known Member
I know, but we pay our licence fee in the belief that it will go towards the entire process, medical included? That seems to be the general view.. but the gp’s are funded by the government so it’s all the same money whatever way you slice it. Supposing it takes 10 minutes on average for a GP to check your file and give his secretary the ok to approve your application, that’s one appointment lost, for the good of everyone in the community I can’t see why we can’t make a small contribution. Given that missed GP appointments cost the NHS £1bn a year how much do the annual licence processing costs add up to? Personally I’d charge a small fee for appointments anyway, then maybe people wouldn’t miss them so often.
reloader54
Well-Known Member
IMO with respect to all concerned whatever part of this chicken**** island you reside in,,, when the decision of legality or "right and wrong" is to be decided by who has the most money to spend on the case ,,,then justice has already failed. This doesn't just apply to shooting, take a look at various other forums,hunting,fishing, classic cars,hot rods, ect,ect, every single one of them has some kind of representative body or organisation to join, and still the government walks its hobnailed jackboot over all concerned while laughing at their feeble efforts. react with any form of anger and you just speed up losing more of your pastime, leave it to that organisation you joined and hope they can prevent it,,,,good luck with that. the long term object is no opposition to whats coming in the future.
as the saying goes,, "when guns are outlawed,,,only outlaws will have guns"
as the saying goes,, "when guns are outlawed,,,only outlaws will have guns"
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