New laws coming?

[Racalman]

(a) What are the details of the NCA / police Risk Assessments that apparently have identified .50 calibre / MARS rifles as particular risks to public safety

(b) what reductions in firearms crime are expected as a result of the prohibitions

(c) What is the incidence of these and other legally held rifles being used in crime; and

(d) Why are the strict rules on the granting of Firearm Certificates are deemed insufficient in the case of .50 calibre, MARS and lever release rifles.

I put these questions to my MP (Matt Rodda) last Friday but have had no reply as yet.

Not surprising really, as he hasn't replied to my previous letters and emails on this subject over the last few months.

Someone needs to remind him of the meaning of "representation of the people".

[artiglio]

If your mp has not replied to a written submission , you should contact his office and remind them that it is accepted practice for an mp to reply to any letter. Emails on the other hand are at their discretion.

My mp back handed my letter in december to the minister responsible and i received a non descript “ yes minister reply”.
I wrote again yesterday, though this will be unlikely to get reply before the second reading.

[Topic22]

I have no idea whether it's a waste of time as I understand my MP is out of the country but I've emailed again to-day and dependent on the outcome of the second reading will seek a meeting either at one of his "clinics" or at the House of Commons.

[HH1]

I've written to our local PM, even though he is a Labour Party Politician. Apparently he has helped with a few shooting related issues in the past.

[proteus]

I've written to my local MP, although given the number of bills going through at the moment it wouldn't surprise me if most aren't there and this barely gets any debate tomorrow.

[artiglio]

It’s only the second reading, there was a post on another forum setting out the complete process to become law, it was quite a list.

[Dombo63]

Some things that really shine out from the detailed assesment:

GENERAL ASSUMPTIONS & DATA
8. Police record 64 .50 calibre rifles are owned by individual and estimates by
the NCA put importation of MARS rifles at around 400 in total.

then

Benefits
32. The size of calibre or the fire rate of these rifles is likely to mean that were
used in a crime there is a significant risk of more deaths or serious injuries than if
other more conventional types of weapon were used. The cost of a homicide to
society was estimated in the cost of crime to be approximately £2,000,000 (2017
prices).
33. These rifles constitute 0.07% of all registered rifles. On average, there were
45 firearm related homicides per year between 2004/2005 – 2014/2015.

and finally the real stinker

35. Under the high cost scenarios the policy would need to prevent three
homicides over the next ten years to break even; in the midpoint the policy would
need to prevent two homicides, and one in the low estimate

So lets break this down .50cal and MARS action rifles represent 0.07% of all rifles registered in the UK. So I presume that they are leaving Shotguns out of that equation? If they were added that percentage would drop even further! They bring up the cost of how much a Homicide costs to the nation which apparently is £2,000,000 and then state if three homicides are prevented over a ten year period with .50cal and MARS action rifles they break even. They spuriously bring up the figure of 45 firearms related homicides over a ten year period, they fail to mention that ZERO of those homicides involved the rifles they want to ban. For that matter between 2003 and 2013 there were 28,029 road related fatalities...better ban the cars!

So considering there have been zero fatalities so far and these rifles represent a tiny proportion of the licensed Firearms and shotguns out there and the incredibly low number of firearm related homicides in the first place the better conclusion would be the chance of being killed by one is so low as to almost be impossible so why are they making the argument that the policy breaks even if the up to three homicides are prevented?

They also bring up the penetration of Police body armour again ignoring that pretty much all popular centre-fire calibers used in hunting rifles and modern pistol ammo can easily penetrate a stab vest. Military grade body armour ceramic inserts would struggle with hotter hunting rounds! The reality is if a scenario developed where a terrorist was actually using a .50cal best policy for the police would be to stay out of the way set up a perimeter to prevent the public getting close to the incident and wait for teams from 22 SAS to turn up and handle the situation!

So their whole reason to do this is to prevent the chance of an event happening in the next ten years that has never happened ever in the UK...great evidence based policy making!

How many of those 45 firearm related homicides were committed with legally held licensed firearms, either by the FAC holders themselves or by a third party gaining illegal possession such firearm?

[artiglio]

Lots of data here

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... datatables

[jmc67]

Lots of data here

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... datatables

The numbers in there really do put it all into context. So in Table 9, to year ending March 2017, 9578 firearms offenses, of which 61 one were with rifles (compared to 2685 with handguns and 1642 with imitation firearms). So, 0.6% of offenses were with rifles. And this does not say whether they were legally owned or not. 0.6%, and banning a few rifles is going to potentially achieve, what, a rounding error in the data? Never mind that we don't know how many of the 61 were legally owned or not.

Table 2. The data for rifles isn't even split out into airsoft, deactivated etc, like it is for hand guns, so that figure of 61 we don't even know whether that was actual live firing rifles.

Table 2, reactivated firearms. In 2017, I see 6 either reactivated or deactivated being used out of 9578, or about 0.06% of the amount. So all that fuss around deactivated firearms in the past few years is meant to achieve..... anything, or should we wait for tumble weed to blow past again?

Table 2, to years ending Mar 2017, 28 firearms offenses were with 'machine guns'. Machine guns for gods sake. Guessing we should ban those, oh wait, that's worked....

[Fedaykin]

Technically Machine Guns are not banned just placed into a licensing class that is beyond the reach of the vast majority of the general public, the same goes for Centre Fire hand guns.