From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I think you might have found the answer...
...Clearly it is also impossible for the system ever to have full cost
recovery, because when fees are raised, more people give up shooting,
so fees have to be raised because fee revenue falls, so more people
give up shooting, etc.
....
This is, after all, the aim of the government and ACPO, to make people give
up shooting. Confiscation costs (them) too much.
We have just seen a great example of this in Lancs, at the meeting last week
where the senior copper stood up and said, "We want this return, of all your
members, with full details of the firearms used, the attendance nights,
a photo, the FAC details..." which is pathetic. He then said very openly
that both parties are reliant on goodwill, and that if we didn't all do
this, he would just revoke the club's authority. If I said something like
that to a copper, he would most likely arrest me for either threatening
behavior, or attempting blackmail! As far as I know, this guy is just
making things up, like the BS about BS cabinets, and the requirements
of the act for telling the police if a member doesn't turn up
for 12 months. IIRC, the Act says that the gun must be secure. Having four
bolts into a wall, and two into the floor, of at least the specified thickness,
in a non-existant gun cabinet that meets this British Standard, is secure if you
live in a bad area with hundreds of burglaries? If you don't have an alarm? If it is
in plain sight? Perhaps. But my cabinet is as solid as a rock, and I made it
myself. I know that just one of the catches can stop a 3" thick, six foot
long prybar and a half dozen men, when it is half open! (We know cos it
jammed while we tested it!)
For some plod to say thats not enough, your steel is too thick, and the
bolts too solid, get a thinner one that meets this standard, is nonsense. For the
police to demand, with menances, that every club in Lancs. sends a full membership
list to the police every month, with the masive amount of detail they want makes it
open to fraud, because it will be easier to not bother filling forms, and just do
one a month, or every two months, to keep up the numbers. A simple, single sheet
of A4 would be enough, just dated and signed by the member. As for whether you
shoot every gun you own every week, what do the police need to know that for? I
can think of at least two reasons. One, if you don't shoot your .44 BP pistol for 6
months due to the rain in the winter, or being at an indoor range, the police will
be wanting to take it away. Two, the police will start counting your ammo. Then
they can track what you bought when, what you shoot where, and then take your
ticket and guns for being out by one round over the course of five years. A third
reason will be to cut the amount of ammo you can have on ticket to the absolute
minimum.
Why would a non-reloader care that it is easier and more accurate for you to
make 200 in one go, than just make the 20 for the next days shooting?
I think a stand needs to be taken, as we are already well down the slippery
slope, and footholds are getting harder to find! The police should not be able to
put unreasonable demands like this on the most lawful section of society.
So, what is the legal footing for all this? Are they utterly out of order,
or what?
Nigel
Cynical? I haven't even started yet.
P.S. Note: I don't have a ticket, but I still object.
--
Requiring photos and some of the other stuff does not sound kosher, and
the Home Office are responsible for club approval anyway, not the police
(although in reality the HO act on their advice). I would check with the
HO on this one.
Also on one of my appeals the police made a real song and dance about
my buying ammo overseas as they said this enabled me to evade the ammo
controls. This was patently ridiculous and the judge told the police that
was his opinion as well. The police don't like people shooting overseas
because they cannot track down how much ammunition you may have used, and
also if you buy some and bring it back with you they cannot backtrack it
to an RFD. Tough, is what I say, it is bureaucratic overkill. The judge
in my case simply remarked, "But constable, surely anyone with criminal
intent can go overseas and buy ammunition without a license and smuggle it
in anyway? Isn't this a matter for Customs?" At which point said PC mumbled
something about how hopeless Customs was which really didn't impress the
judge at all!
My view is that the controls on ammunition numbers should be abolished, it
serves no practical purpose. A better system of control is simply to allow
an FAC holder to buy ammo for any calibre gun listed on his FAC, and the
only restriction on numbers should be that it is stored securely.
I remember the raid on Jan Stevenson, and the police spent over a day
counting all his ammo. It was a farce.
Steve.
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