Why I'm pleased we have tight gun control in the UK
- Thread starter daw
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CarlW
Well-Known Member
We don't need authority (other than as required in the Firearms Act).
I also have no authority to possess a refrigerator.
As I lack the education to contribute to the legal side of this fascinating discussion
I thought I'd leave this - made me chuckle
I thought I'd leave this - made me chuckle
I'm not sure that that's entirely relevant, though perhaps I should have said 'right' rather than 'authority'.
The 1920 Firearms Act appears to be worded on the basis that there is an in principle unaltered right to possess firearms. Hence the certificates (rather than licenses) and the right to appeal against refusal to issue them.
Where is that right? Is it perhaps the same as the right to own a 'fridge, in that, since there is no law prohibiting the possession of 'fridges you simply acquire it and off you go?
Soon enough, you might not even have to move from Scotland to do that.
CarlW
Well-Known Member
Yes. It is exactly the same. Although fridges, too, may be restricted, if Parliament chooses to do so.
Good - we therefore have a right to own fridges, just as we do firearms. The right to own arms is perhaps even less debatable as they, and unlike fridges, are specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights.
Deermanagement
Well-Known Member
When it comes to responsible and informed people having a need to own firearms, I always remember the days when I used to work close by to DJ Litt firearms so used to call in at lunchtime on a regular basis.
I did see plenty I would have been uncomfortable selling an air rifle too. I remember one customer with a new certificate coming in to buy a .22lr..... he was presented with a couple of options which included ruger 10/22’s in both synthetic and wooden stocked versions.
The only question he asked to help with his decision was......,..
“which one is the most powerful”.
Yes you did get the informed and responsible people but also plenty of these examples.
I did see plenty I would have been uncomfortable selling an air rifle too. I remember one customer with a new certificate coming in to buy a .22lr..... he was presented with a couple of options which included ruger 10/22’s in both synthetic and wooden stocked versions.
The only question he asked to help with his decision was......,..
“which one is the most powerful”.
Yes you did get the informed and responsible people but also plenty of these examples.
CarlW
Well-Known Member
Good - we therefore have a right to own fridges, just as we do firearms. The right to own arms is perhaps even less debatable as they, and unlike fridges, are specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights.
Law in our country doesn't really work like that.
The language (not the idea, of course) of 'rights' sits uncomfortably in the English (whole UK) legal system.
The simplest way to look at it is that - legally - Parliament can do whatever it likes, save for binding its successors. References to 'rights' born of now-superceded statutes (even posh ones, like the Bill of Rights) serve no purpose in protecting the interests of modern-day shooters.
No court will ever hold the Firearms Act (or any subsequent firearms restrictions enacted by Parliament) to be invalid. 100% guaranteed.
Rather than wasting time in head-banger land, shooters need to be working on other fronts, namely:
1. ensuring that Parliament passes the right laws;
2. insisting, via the courts where appropriate, that administrative bodies (including the police) follow those laws.
Now, back to my postman and those clouds...
Indeed - it isn't invalid, and it is absurd to try to maintain that it is. It's important to understand what it is actually doing, though...
...and that includes understanding that we have a right to appeal to the courts against refusal to grant certificates because of the right to possess arms. If there were not that right - i.e. if the Police and/or Parliament had the power to grant us the privilege of firearms ownership, I feel we'd be a few steps closer to the unarmed population which the Police and the Home Office have repeatedly shown themselves to be working towards.
To trivialise the concept of a right to possess arms using expressions like 'head-banger land', or the kind of article that BASC has quoted on this thread, seems to me to be playing into the hands of those who really don't want us to have guns at all.
I agree it isn't the thing which we should be arguing as the main point in defending our remaining rights in this area - but it is a fundamental point which we do well to keep in mind. 'insistence via the courts' might well be seen as a particularly effective remedy if rights are being infringed.
Yes. We have what The Firearms Act allows us to have (and in what manner) have in respect of "gun rights". And that is how it is.
My own view is that as a challenge to the legitimacy of the Firearms Acts would most likely be someone appealing a possible conviction for unlawful possession the case would be dropped by the Crown rather than risk a successful challenge to the Act so the question would never be asked at either the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court.
My grandfather went to war in 1914 with his privately purchased Webley pistol. By the time his daughter (my mother born in 1919 before the 1920 Firerams Act was passed and died in 2014) possession of such at home and with its ammunition was de facto illegal.
In but one lifespan we have seen the ownership of pistols go from no control to prohibition and other classes tightly restricted also.
CarlW
Well-Known Member
Parliament does have that power.
Wasting time on ideas like 'the right to bear arms' in the UK context helps none of us. As I said, that kind of nonsense belongs with barack-room lawyers and the more marginal shooting factions who sit fantasising about it on the interweb.
But it would have to take away the right first.
I think that's an important point, not to bang on about - but simply to keep in mind, and remind folk about from time to time. The fact it's there puts us in a better position than if it were not. It is a point that underpins responsible and sensible lobbying for the ongoing maintence of the rights of shooters in the UK.
While barrack-room lawyers and the marginal fantasists you describe undoubtedly exist, I can't see how mentioning them in this context helps at all? Or is your implication that anyone who doesn't agree that firearms ownership in the UK is privilege in the gift of the Police belongs in one or both of these categories?
CarlW
Well-Known Member
There is no 'right': simply a prohibition with exceptions.
Not at all. However, anyone asking the courts to invalidate an Act of Parliament, such as the Firearms Act, based on a previous Act (no matter how wonderful that earlier statute) is on drugs. And their lawyer would need to be smoking twice as much...
That's effectively how it's operated, I suppose. Though one might wonder why certificates, rather than licences? And why the right to appeal a refusal to grant?
Do you often take one stalking and, if you do, how do you find it compares against the more conventional CF options?
I'm with you on the BOR issue though, if not your unconventional stalking habits.
Someone will be along shortly to say:
1 Blaser fridges are best; and/or
2 Creedmoor variants have great long range knock down power; and/or
3 You can't get a fridge conditioned for deer.
CarlW
Well-Known Member
I think many people read too much into the whole 'certificates' vs 'licences' distinction. There is no legal significance to that choice of language in the context of the FA. What matters is the substance of the Act itself, and the mechanisms by which it permits exceptions to the general prohibition for the likes of thee and me.
Rights of appeal are quite normal features of any Act of Parliament that confers power on a civil servant to exercise discretion in relation to the individual. Pub-licensing and town-planning legislation has similar provisions.
Rather than looking for supra-legislative rights that simply don't exist, we as a community need to spend our time aggressively insisting upon to-the-letter adherence to the FA by the police. That is where we (and our representatives) have failed most abysmally.
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