{"id":755,"date":"2018-04-26T19:27:16","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T18:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/?p=755"},"modified":"2018-04-28T02:13:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-28T01:13:35","slug":"the-tories-offensive-offensive-weapons-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/?p=755","title":{"rendered":"The Tories&#8217; offensive Offensive Weapons Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">26 April, 2018 <\/span><\/span>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/?p=737\">As previously mentioned<\/a>, <span style=\"color: #000000;\">the Tories are not our friends and now as the result of <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-england-london-43624392\">two people getting shot dead\u00a0in London<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">they have decided to press ahead with the bonkers proposals in their <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/consultations\/offensive-and-dangerous-weapons-new-legislation\">recent consultation<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">and even add to them, see if you can get through <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/home-office-announces-plans-for-offensive-weapons-bill-to-tackle-serious-violence\">the press release<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">without wincing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In the face of<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/news\/newslens\/2018\/0403\/951744-london-new-york-murder-rate\/\">hysterical headlines<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">, the usual cry of &#8220;something has to be done&#8221; has been made, so this nanny state nonsense is apparently going to be it.\u00a0 As the <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-england-london-43632352\">BBC points out<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">, armed crime hasn&#8217;t really changed that much, it was actually going down but has ticked up again in the past couple of years (the figure for 2010\u00a0includes the mass shooting in Cumbria, which makes the drop look more dramatic than it actually is).\u00a0 I cannot think of anything in recent memory more &#8220;nanny state&#8221; than a Home Office spokesman speaking after a shooting and saying that types of weapon that had literally nothing to do with the incidents being asked about will be banned.\u00a0 It sounded so impotent and callously bureaucratic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">What exactly two murders with handguns (already prohibited) have got to do with acid, &#8220;zombie&#8221; knives and .50BMG rifles is an interesting question, but logic has never been a strong point when it comes to weapon laws in the UK.\u00a0 Shotgun licencing was introduced in 1967 after the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shepherd%27s_Bush_murders\">murder of three policemen in 1966<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> &#8211; using handguns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Home Office consultations are usually an exercise in trying to say that black is white, then receiving responses to the effect that black is black and white is white, then the Home Office disregards them and insists that black is most certainly white and how dare you for suggesting otherwise.\u00a0 Thus foolish legislation prevails as a public relations exercise.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Bill has yet to be published, but based on the press release and consultation\u00a0it will:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">prohibit possession of corrosive substances in a public place without lawful authority or reasonable excuse;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">prohibit sale of corrosive substances to persons aged under 18;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">prohibit possession of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/PDFdocs\/offensiveweapons.pdf\">offensive weapons prohibited under section 141(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988<\/a>;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">prohibit the shipment of knives to residential addresses after being purchased from a website (you&#8217;ll have to go to a shop to pick it up to prove you&#8217;re 18 or older);<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">change the legal definition\u00a0of threatening with an offensive weapon;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">prohibit\u00a0the possession of\u00a0knives on further education premises;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">prohibit\u00a0lever-release and MARS rifles;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">prohibit rifles with a muzzle energy of more than 10,000 ft\/lb;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">prohibit bump stocks;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">update the definition of a flick knife.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Note the extensive use of the word: &#8220;prohibit&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The most controversial bits are the prohibitions on the possession of certain types of weapons and firearms as this is going to cause a lot of otherwise law-abiding people problems, as most of them won&#8217;t be aware of the ban.\u00a0 It also suffers from serious problems of definition, as those definitions were originally intended only to ban import, manufacture or transfer &#8211; not simple possession.\u00a0 A &#8220;blowgun&#8221; for example is described as a: &#8220;hollow tube&#8221; and a: &#8220;stealth knife&#8221; basically means a piece of plastic with a pointed end.\u00a0 How on Earth do you effectively prohibit the possession of those?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It gets even more absurd with the definition of a: &#8220;zombie knife&#8221;, which is basically a knife with: &#8220;images or words (whether on the blade or handle) that suggest that it is to be used for the purpose of violence&#8221;.\u00a0 Such a ban would also ban &#8220;batons&#8221;, which has in the past been deemed to include toy police truncheons!\u00a0 There would also be a ban on Samurai swords, which was only introduced a few years ago and although there is an exemption for bona fide collectors of the real thing, even some of the reproductions can be quite valuable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This is all going to lead to claims for compensation and inevitable arrests of people ignorant of the change in the law who merely possessed them as curiosities or ornaments.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Firearms<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The firearm ban has been extended to include bump stocks, no doubt as a result of the massacre in Las Vegas.\u00a0 As a practical matter, they can only be used on .22 rimfire\u00a0semi-automatic rifles and maybe the odd semi-automatic shotgun in the UK legally anyway so this is a bit pointless.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">More irksome are the proposed bans on lever-release rifles and rifles with a muzzle energy of more than 10,000 ft\/lb.\u00a0 The latter proposal is particularly silly because muzzle energy might be a reasonable determinant of lethality at air gun levels, but at the levels of a .50BMG rifle it definitely isn&#8217;t.\u00a0 Both .408 Cheytac and .416 Barrett for example have muzzle energies below that, but have higher retained energy at medium distances of around 600m.\u00a0 All that will happen if they&#8217;re banned is that people will take their compensation money and buy a rifle that is arguably more deadly.\u00a0 The Home Office apparently think they can change the laws of physics through legislation.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Compensation<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">There have already been\u00a0several Firearms Acts in 1988 and 1997 that banned various types of firearm, however the closest analogy\u00a0is probably the<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/uksi\/1992\/2823\/regulation\/3\/made\">Firearms Acts (Amendment) Regulations 1992<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">, which among other things banned: &#8220;firearms disguised as other objects&#8221;.\u00a0 At the time it was very hard to tell from the records the police had what was actually banned, because a .410 shotgun listed on a shotgun certificate for example might be a disguised firearm, but how do you tell?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">All of these changes in the law were accompanied by compensation, but in 1992 it was very unclear how many people might claim compensation.\u00a0 The Home Office simply set up an ex-gratia scheme and hoped for the best.\u00a0 Nothing has changed here, as the<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/651760\/IA_knives.pdf\">Home Office states casually<\/a>: <span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>&#8220;It is not possible to estimate the cost as the Home Office does not have data on the average value of restricted offensive weapons or the volume of offensive weapons that are kept in private.&#8221;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This Bill though affects a far, far higher number of people and even though most of the weapons probably aren&#8217;t worth much money, just the administration of such a scheme will be expensive (the Home Office reckons \u00a3600,000 for the administration of a hand-in but this doesn&#8217;t include the running of a compensation scheme).\u00a0 And if the Home Office fails to offer such a scheme, expect claims under the <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/1998\/42\/schedule\/1\">Human Rights Act 1998<\/a>\u00a0<span style=\"color: #000000;\">(First protocol, Article 1) to follow &#8211; this law didn&#8217;t exist last time the Government banned simple possession of any type of firearm or other weapon (there have been bans such as the ban on air-cartridge guns and realistic imitation firearms, but those had grandfather clauses).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It seems pretty unlikely there will be a grandfather clause for any of the guns to be banned this time around and the ban on offensive weapons is actually removing the grandfather clause for possession.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Get hold of your MP<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In a supposedly free country (stop laughing) you should be free of nanny state nonsense that prohibits possession of a sharpened piece of plastic or a hollow tube.\u00a0 So<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/get-involved\/contact-your-mp\/\">contact your MP<\/a>\u00a0<span style=\"color: #000000;\">and object to this legislation.\u00a0 Last time I checked car batteries contain a: &#8220;corrosive substance&#8221; so shall we expect people to be quizzed as to why they have a corrosive substance in a public place when they&#8217;re driving around?\u00a0 As the<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/651756\/IA_corrosives.pdf\">Home Office puts it<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">: <em>&#8220;We are not intending to define &#8220;corrosive substance&#8221; in this offence. As the proposed offence must be flexible enough to cover a range of possible situations&#8230;&#8221;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">There&#8217;s so much nuttiness in this Bill it&#8217;s hard not to criticise it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Note the police want this prohibition on offensive weapons because they &#8220;come across&#8221; them and want to be able to seize them.\u00a0 Well, as it&#8217;s already illegal to possess an offensive weapon in a public place, that means they&#8217;re coming across them in private places, and really in a free country should the police be able to randomly seize private property held in a private place?<\/span>\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/651760\/IA_knives.pdf\">As the Home Office puts it<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">:<em> &#8220;At present if the police find a zombie knife in someone\u2019s home they can only take action if it is considered to be evidence in a criminal investigation. Otherwise there is nothing that the police can do if they find such weapons in someone\u2019s home.&#8221;\u00a0 <\/em>Really?\u00a0 Otherwise known as: &#8220;private property rights&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Home Office continues: <em>&#8220;&#8230;we see no case for such dangerous weapons to be in someone\u2019s home and possession. Even if the owner of the weapon in question has no intention at all of using it, there is a risk that they may be targeted by criminals intending to steal it.&#8221;<\/em>\u00a0 Yes, a knife with writing on it.\u00a0 A hollow tube.\u00a0 A piece of sharpened plastic.\u00a0 And you could ban literally anything on the pretext that a criminal might steal it and misuse it.\u00a0 I think criminals will be far too busy writing threatening language on knives, likely to be a big black market, I&#8217;m sure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This is full-blown nanny state nonsense.\u00a0 Can&#8217;t let the citizenry have anything pointy, someone might get hurt, a bad person might steal it.\u00a0 They are\u00a0actually making an argument that you can stop any reasonably determined person from getting hold of something to stab someone with by banning it.\u00a0 Seriously, this is their argument, backed up by very limited research.\u00a0 They have done a study on the effectiveness of forcing retail sales to be made through shops to be fair, but that&#8217;s a long stretch from talking about the effectiveness of banning simple possession of basic types of weapon that any person could easily make.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Here&#8217;s a counter-argument, (which if it ever was spoken inside the Home Office, the windows would probably shatter) &#8211; people should be allowed to own various types of weapon in order to have a means of self-defence.\u00a0 You can argue about how guns are too dangerous for the average person, etc. but we&#8217;re not talking about guns.\u00a0 We&#8217;re talking about batons (aka &#8220;sticks&#8221;) for example.\u00a0 The Home Office want a ban on possession of\u00a0sticks designed for the purpose of self-defence &#8211; which the police themselves carry about.\u00a0 That they were banned from sale and manufacture was idiocy enough.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">My own personal favourite part of the Home Office rationale (and this is the major argument apparently)\u00a0is this bit: <em>&#8220;&#8230;<\/em><em>hospital admissions in England for assault with sharp instruments shows a rise of 13% in the year ending March 2016 compared with the previous year (from 3,590 in the year ending March 2015 to 4,054 in the year ending March 2016. Among them, 771 cases were children or teenagers aged 19 or under 6.&#8221;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Note the words: &#8220;sharp instruments&#8221;.\u00a0 So folks, it&#8217;s coming soon, a ban on the sale of screwdrivers and scissors to people aged under 18 and a ban on online sales to everyone as well.\u00a0 That is the only logical conclusion you can draw from the argument they are making.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Brexit<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I&#8217;ve heard many people in the shooting community go on about what a wonderful idea Brexit is.\u00a0 Well, as far as I can see, it managed to remove the first gun-owning Prime Minister for many years from office and isn&#8217;t going to stop the implementation of the changes in the new European Firearms Directive (these have to be implemented this year and the UK has to follow EU law until at least the end of 2020).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Home Office\u00a0and\u00a0various police organisations have always been\u00a0the main threat to shooters in the UK, not the EU.\u00a0 Some of the provisions in the original 1992 Directive originated in the UK.\u00a0 And even with Brexit consuming huge amounts of Parliamentary time, the Government is still going to find the time to come after shooters as well.\u00a0 If that doesn&#8217;t prove the point, I don&#8217;t know what does.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fortunately, this is essentially a minority Government and I don&#8217;t think the DUP is going to be too keen on this Bill.\u00a0 Labour and the Liberals will probably support it but if people take the time to get in touch with their MPs there probably is a possibility of stopping some of the sillier bits of it.\u00a0 Because, you know, logic, facts.\u00a0 Bit too old-fashioned though.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><i>The Home Office attitude was that a public inquiry was unnecessary since, as a senior official stonily told us, \u201cThere is nothing to learn.\u201d\u00a0 The 1988 Act, he was happy to say, was preceded \u201cby no research at all,\u201d nor could he \u201cpoint to any specific section and say that it addressed a particular problem.\u201d \u2013 Jan Stevenson commenting on the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 in the May 1996 issue of \u201cHandgunner\u201d.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>26 April, 2018 &#8211; As previously mentioned, the Tories are not our friends and now as the result of two people getting shot dead\u00a0in London they have decided to press ahead with the bonkers proposals in their recent consultation and even add to them, see if you can get through the press release without wincing. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,14,7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-editorial","category-legal-issues","category-political-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":772,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions\/772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybershooters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}