New laws coming?

[Fedaykin]

I believe one of the reasons cooked up by the Police for banning the .50 cal rifles is a round fired from them can penetrate standard police body armour.

Of course so can many hunting rifles in smaller but still hot calibres can do exactly the same. For that matter a shotgun firing a slug at point blank range into standard police body armour is probably not going to end well for the officer wearing it.

If this is considered a threat by the police how common a occurrence is an officer being shot and killed in the line of duty? Doing some quick Google-Fu research since 1900 70 officers have been shot in the line of duty leading to their death (this of course not Include Northern Ireland). That doesn't give the breakdown of gun type and if they were wearing body-armour at all! Interestingly enough that is over three times the amount killed by stabbing in the same time frame. 35 officers died by collapsing suddenly after making an arrest.

[ordnance]

I believe one of the reasons cooked up by the Police for banning the .50 cal rifles is a round fired from them can penetrate standard police body armour.

Of course so can many hunting rifles in smaller but still hot calibres can do exactly the same. For that matter a shotgun firing a slug at point blank range into standard police body armour is probably not going to end well for the officer wearing it.

If this is considered a threat by the police how common a occurrence is an officer being shot and killed in the line of duty? Doing some quick Google-Fu research since 1900 70 officers have been shot in the line of duty leading to their death (this of course not Include Northern Ireland). That doesn't give the breakdown of gun type and if they were wearing body-armour at all! Interestingly enough that is over three times the amount killed by stabbing in the same time frame. 35 officers died by collapsing suddenly after making an arrest.

If the police see it as a danger to them it would make you wonder why .50 was not banned 30 years ago.

[Gazza]

35 officers died by collapsing suddenly after making an arrest.

There you go then, people who are possibly prone to collapsing should not join the plod. Proof of not being suseptible to collapsing should be shown at sign up.

That's about as ridiculous as the latest impending ban so should hold up!

[GeeRam]

I believe one of the reasons cooked up by the Police for banning the .50 cal rifles is a round fired from them can penetrate standard police body armour.

Of course so can many hunting rifles in smaller but still hot calibres can do exactly the same. For that matter a shotgun firing a slug at point blank range into standard police body armour is probably not going to end well for the officer wearing it.

If this is considered a threat by the police how common a occurrence is an officer being shot and killed in the line of duty? Doing some quick Google-Fu research since 1900 70 officers have been shot in the line of duty leading to their death (this of course not Include Northern Ireland). That doesn't give the breakdown of gun type and if they were wearing body-armour at all!

Given body armour didn't appear into Police general usage until the late 1980's/early 1990's, you would have to only look at the numbers since then, not since 1900......!

[Oddbod]

Standard Police body armour is what's classed as Level IIIa in the US & thus only designed to stop handgun bullets, so using that in their reasoning is bolleaux. 223 FMJ will go right through it without hardly slowing down, never mind any of the deer stalking calibers.
IMO this is just one more step on the road of frog boiling.

[Lancs_Oakley]

As far as I know Sharon Beshenivsky is the only UK police officer to be fatally shot through a vest, although it was right on the edge of the insert and this did not help.

Standard issue to non specialist officers is only really offers ballistic protection to soft handgun rounds. Anything hotter or something like a solid copper round will zing straight through. So saying a .50 will go through is true, but so will a massive list of other much smaller rounds. Yes a 50 will go through AR500 plate, but virtually no front line cops have AR500 plates and if you have 50s coming down range you have other problems way worse than that!!

[breacher]

Standard body armour ( issued to non armed officers ) only "defeats" handgun rounds with the exception of Tokarev. Even when it stops a handgun round, it "dents" up to 45mm - that alone has the potential to be fatal.

It is useless against pointed articles and tanto shaped blades. A reasonably fit man can penetrate the vest with a sharpened screwdriver or tanto knife. I believe facebook took a while to remove an "instructional" video on how best to attack and officer wearing body armour with a knife.

Next you have the armour you see issued to AFOs at Downing street and airports etc - distinctive due to the collar and the extra ceramic plates. These plates defeat 7.62 nato and 7.62 x 39 etc at oblique angles. They MAY defeat them at right angles but not at close range. These plates are usually 6x4" so only cover the centre of the torso. They leave a LOT of torso exposed. In fact if you get hit and the round hits the plate, you would be lucky - far more likely to get hit elsewhere.

I think the "they defeat our armour" is a red herring. Lots of weapons will easily do this.

And the MO of most of the terrorism I have seen recently is against unarmed civilians. The bad guys usually rush the Police in a suicidal manner rather than engage them in a firefight. And I am not aware of a single "sniper" type engagement of a UK mainland officer by a terrorist.

[Fedaykin]

I think the "they defeat our armour" is a red herring. Lots of weapons will easily do this.

And the MO of most of the terrorism I have seen recently is against unarmed civilians. The bad guys usually rush the Police in a suicidal manner rather than engage them in a firefight. And I am not aware of a single "sniper" type engagement of a UK mainland officer by a terrorist.

Of course it is a red herring but here is the rub, the vast majority of the general public including politicians don't know that it is. All they know is the Police are telling them that there is a type of gun which is an increased threat to their officers.

The statistics and the basic fact that the scenario they suggest has never happened is not an issue, Continuity ACPO's noses were put out of joint the last time they tried to get .50bmg and MARS action rifles shifted to Section 5 and the previous home secretary and our current Prime Minister told them to wind their necks in as there was no observable problem. They waited for a weak minority government distracted by other issues, a public outcry about Acid crime and a convenient crime bill to have a go again at getting their way.

Deeply cynical true but there we go!

[snayperskaya]

Is there any truth in the rumour that civilian .50cal rifles have been banned from MOD field fire ranges???.

[Brian838]

We were due to go on the Salisbury plain Javelin range and my club sent me this -

The MoD have suspended .50cal shooting on their field firing ranges until
the results of the consultation are known - note to clubs to be posted later
today below. This action is singularly unhelpful; we are keeping a careful
watch to see how the MoD's regions interpret the new rules.

Civilian Shooting on MoD Owned Field Firing Ranges

Owing to a Home Office review of civilian gun club members owning and firing
12.7 mm weapon systems, DIO have suspended the surveying of fixed ranges
within a Live Firing Tactical Training Area. As such the risk of DIO staff
being involved in the planning process cannot be assessed as ALARP.
Therefore with immediate effect DIO staff are unable to provide any Weapon
Danger Area (WDA) traces for civilian gun clubs, in line with similar
direction which prohibits DIO staff producing WDA traces for military units.

Ranges likely to be affected are Salisbury Plain (Javelin), Sennybridge (F),
Warcop (C-10 and H-12), Lydd (Ser 45), and Lulworth.

Civilian shooting on MoD Gallery ranges and Electric Target Ranges where a
Range Danger Area based on surveyed fixed firing points and fixed targets
has been defined and published, will be unaffected; this accounts for the
majority of civilian shooting by NRA affiliated clubs on MoD ranges.


Andrew Mercer
Group Chief Executive & Secretary General"