Norfolk Deer Search
Well-Known Member
Im too blunt and too the point
Plus i wouldnt het my litte toe out the quilt for what their pian
Pay more for FAC to get better service?
- Thread starter Steve2_1
- Start date
Plus i wouldnt het my litte toe out the quilt for what their pian
Was that back in the 80's. Try getting 5k now... oh you are 42, it must have been late 80's.
Norfolk Deer Search
Well-Known Member
Early 2000’s shot that lot and decided rabbits are a mugs game and got 2 lads to do it for me!
What!? Which force was that with?
reiver
Well-Known Member
Yes shotgun and Fac in Cumbria
And a starving man would pay £20 for a bar of chocolate if he had enough in his pocket.
You cannot hold more powder, if you do you are breaking the law. Are you so thick you cannot comprehend that Lee?
timbrayford
Well-Known Member
Lots of people talking about stocking up on ammunition but apparently it has never occurred to parliament, home office and plod that this whole restriction on quantities to be held condition is unenforceable and easily evaded by anyone of malicious intent ? The only people likely to be caught out are absent minded law abiding types who have forgotten their limits and inadvertently exceeded it and failed to check in advance of a FEO visit.
Jamsie
Well-Known Member
Have you considered throttling back a bit on the amount of rounds you shoot until the present situation eases?
I primarily reload for most of my shooting ... which is nothing quantity-wise compared to yourself, but I have been much more conservative over the last year as regards where and when I pull the trigger. I am fortunate that I have a good stock of reloading components which I've been happy to share with my club colleagues if they are struggling.
Notwithstanding the bottlenecks within the licencing system, I can't help but think that we should all probably be cutting our respective cloth to suit. After all, it's not as if we hadn't already had a 'heads-up' from the knock on effects of C19 lockdown on the reloading component supply train.
Regards ... Jamsie
Jamsie
Well-Known Member
Quite simply, how does public safety benefit from controlling a licenced shooters ammunition which is held in a safe - are there stats to support this or is it another 'seems like a good idea to control shooting' type restriction ?
I do not have the stats for theft of legally held firearms - long guns - I wonder if the police discriminate between these and "other weapons" - I doubt it since it doesn't serve their purpose.
However were I to guess, most ammo would be stolen from someone with lots of calibres and huge quantity ie a firearms dealer. Also if a law makes the lawful into criminals its bad law - hoarding of ammo or bullets e.g. - there is a facility to trade surplus factory ammo when in dire need and rifle clubs stock plenty - you can even reload and it doesnt count to your FAC total since its held at the range.
The most important point for me is to ensure young people can get into shooting, should they wish so any view of paying anything "because I want to shoot" is selfish and short-sighted. Besides if those providing the 'service', believe there is room to increase the fee and support other parts of their services which don't serve a minority interest (shooting) then what are they going to do.
Remember we are the most law-abiding people and there is usually a flawed process between legally owning a firearm and using it to kill.
Isn't this why the sledgehammer is used, to hide the flaws?
I do not have the stats for theft of legally held firearms - long guns - I wonder if the police discriminate between these and "other weapons" - I doubt it since it doesn't serve their purpose.
However were I to guess, most ammo would be stolen from someone with lots of calibres and huge quantity ie a firearms dealer. Also if a law makes the lawful into criminals its bad law - hoarding of ammo or bullets e.g. - there is a facility to trade surplus factory ammo when in dire need and rifle clubs stock plenty - you can even reload and it doesnt count to your FAC total since its held at the range.
The most important point for me is to ensure young people can get into shooting, should they wish so any view of paying anything "because I want to shoot" is selfish and short-sighted. Besides if those providing the 'service', believe there is room to increase the fee and support other parts of their services which don't serve a minority interest (shooting) then what are they going to do.
Remember we are the most law-abiding people and there is usually a flawed process between legally owning a firearm and using it to kill.
Isn't this why the sledgehammer is used, to hide the flaws?
I think shooting folk need to demonstrate more caution with respect to this (to my mind utterly bizarre) service-based view of firearms certification services.
A few points to keep in mind:
1. Increasing costs is recognised as a useful way of reducing the numbers of certificate-holders. Those whose view is 'I'd happily pay £xxx per year if only they'd do such-and-such' should keep that in mind: not everyone can afford £xxx.
2. FAC/SGC applicants are not paying for a service. This is really the most important thing to keep in mind. The certification system is not set up to benefit lawful firearms-users, but the public in general; and the fees for which shooters were liable used to be fixed by parliament.
3. We now have a situation where the FLDs are permitted to saddle us with costs in addition to the statutory fee, payable to medical practitioners; though if the precedent isn't allowed to creep this might not be too much of an additional burden for most of us.
4. That notwithstanding, linking the statutory fee to the standard of service remains disingenuous. The FLDs are there to run a statutory system for the safety of the general public; a system which certifies us as fit to exercise a right in law, rather than to acquire a privilege. The modest statutory fee, as a contribution and to discourage vexatious applicants, seems not unreasonable - nothing more, though.
A few points to keep in mind:
1. Increasing costs is recognised as a useful way of reducing the numbers of certificate-holders. Those whose view is 'I'd happily pay £xxx per year if only they'd do such-and-such' should keep that in mind: not everyone can afford £xxx.
2. FAC/SGC applicants are not paying for a service. This is really the most important thing to keep in mind. The certification system is not set up to benefit lawful firearms-users, but the public in general; and the fees for which shooters were liable used to be fixed by parliament.
3. We now have a situation where the FLDs are permitted to saddle us with costs in addition to the statutory fee, payable to medical practitioners; though if the precedent isn't allowed to creep this might not be too much of an additional burden for most of us.
4. That notwithstanding, linking the statutory fee to the standard of service remains disingenuous. The FLDs are there to run a statutory system for the safety of the general public; a system which certifies us as fit to exercise a right in law, rather than to acquire a privilege. The modest statutory fee, as a contribution and to discourage vexatious applicants, seems not unreasonable - nothing more, though.
Why should I throttle back a bit because the police FLD are not capable of running their workload efficiently?
I would add the post above is hypothetical, I am under Wilts who are generally excellent. In the last 6 months I have had 2 variations whilst I waited, i.e. inside 15 minutes. I contacted them at 6 months asking about renewal and they said to wait for the letter, 4 months to go this week and I’ll probably put it in.
BUT unlike Lee I can see that not everyone is in the same situation as me with an excellent FLD to deal with.
As for being prepared, I have enough primers to last me for 24 months or more for some calibres, apart from small pistol which I am down to about 1500, I use a lot of small pistol.
I do shoot at 3 club shoots a month, including several hundred .22 and .357 a couple of times a month and 3-400 CF a month. I also stalk 3-4 times a month and out on foxes or vermin 8-10 times a month. I have just under 10 kg of powder but I reload for 12 calibres from 4 grains to 63.5 grains of powder. I could throttle back a bit on the club shooting but that is all practice for the quarry shooting, the deer, fox and vermin control can’t be throttled back on. Equally if I was a serious competition shooter I would need to practice so I wouldn’t be throttling back.
Even throttling back to half if I had to wait 12 or 18 months it would cause me problems, hopefully under Wilts I won’t have to!
Hornet 6
Well-Known Member
With licensing badly done by the police, somebody who's wages we already pay, why do we pay at all for the licence.
If you charge for a service, that service should be the same across the country, and everyone treated the same.
But it isn't, and never will be, retired coppers are not the answer to licensing
Neil.
If you charge for a service, that service should be the same across the country, and everyone treated the same.
But it isn't, and never will be, retired coppers are not the answer to licensing
Neil.
Jamsie
Well-Known Member
In which case, don't ease back on your present level of shooting and run out of ammo ... because you won't have the correct paperwork / authorisation to purchase.
It's the situation that some of us find ourselves in and there is very little that we can do about it. That some forces are incapable of providing anything like an efficient service is a fact of life at the present time and when / how that will change is another debate entirely and no one is arguing with you on that point. Therefore, prioritising what and when we shoot would seem like a reasonable action to take in the meantime.
Jamsie
Don’t feel you have to advise me on how to proceed, I am a big boy and can look after myself. I won’t run out of ammo, whilst at club there is no need to show an FAC or have ammunition recorded provided you do not take any home with you. However not everybody shoots at a club where ammunition is available, so some may struggle.
Field shooting wise I will run out of certain calibres but I have enough foresight to shoot some very frugal calibres, so I will keep shooting…..
.22 hornet will do 1000+ rounds to a kg of powder, my 25-45 sharps is one of the most frugal all deer legal rifles going; 26.4 grains of powder gets me deer legal with an 80 grain bullet to 1740 ft-lb or I can use 29 grains under a 100 gr and be deer legal for Scotland. 500+ rounds for a kilo of powder. These are both calibres chosen in part because they will allow a lot of shooting for not a lot of consumables.
Lee really has it wrong if he thinks I am not prepared but, unlike Lee I can see that not everybody is in the same boat.
More to the point people should t be needing to stockpile because FLDs cannot doe their job properly.
Pertinent to the OP People forget we had an increase in 2015, with a view of making things more efficient. Plenty have seen no improvement, why would it be any different with the next round of increases?
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