Countryside groups attack plan for curbs on shotguns By John Steele, Home Affairs Correspondent (Filed: 13/05/2004)
The prospect of tougher controls on shotguns, including preventing young people using them, was raised by the Government yesterday. * * * The proposed changes to the legal framework covering ordinary shotguns - not pump-action versions [already banned] - would effectively bring them into the same category as licensed firearms, which have been subject to tougher controls. The consultation paper makes a number of key suggestions: Police currently have to show that no "good reason" exists for someone to own a shotgun. It is suggested the burden of proof for shotguns should instead mirror that for licensed firearms, such as hunting and shooting rifles, and owners should have to show a good reason for owning each weapon. Shotgun owners might have to meet the "standards of fitness" currently applied to owners of firearms, "covering areas such as mental state, general behaviour and willingness to co-operate with the licensing authority". Views are "invited" on whether tougher conditions should be allowed when shotgun licences are issued and whether licences, for the first time, should control the number of shotguns and cartridges held. The paper also raises the question of whether weapons of any kind should be available to those under 17. BETWEEN 1993 AND 2002, SHOUGUN CRIMES FELL BY HALF. Mike Eveleigh, the senior firearms officer of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, said: "Shotgun owners go through a robust licensing system, which includes police home visits, criminal record and medical checks. Attacking responsible shotgun users will do nothing to combat gun crime, which mainly involves illegal weapons already prohibited in this country." The Countryside Alliance cited research in 2001 which showed no link between legitimate gun ownership and incidence of gun crime. * * * Firearms offences in England and Wales rose from 13,874 in 1998-99 to 24,070 in 2002-03. Recorded crimes involving imitation weapons trebled from 566 to 1,815 during that period. [No records for shotguns were cited.] A separate report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, also published yesterday, showed that two thirds of gun crime was concentrated in London, Birmingham and Manchester, though it has spread to a number of other areas. [So, it's a local, social problem because gun crime is highest where LEGAL gun possession is lowest.] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=0BYLP4TZLWYBXQFIQMFSM5WAVCBQ0JVC?xml=/news/2004/05/13/nguns13.xml *********************************************************************** Professor Joseph Olson Hamline University School of Law tel. (651) 523-2142 St. Paul, Minnesota 55104-1284 fax. (651) 523-2236 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
