The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

It’s just a waiting game gents they won’t throw us in boiling water straight away they will just slowly turn up the heat and wait

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQrLPtr_ikE

Pete

The Offensive Weapons Bill had its second reading in the House of Lords yesterday.
You can read the debate here
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/201 ... eaponsBill
and here
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/201 ... eaponsBill

I have had a glance through it, of course there is some pretty hysterical reasons to ban .50bmg rifles, MARS and Lever Release from certain quarters. There is also some pretty frankly disingenuous and down right sneaky interpretation of these rifles use by people like Lord Robertson and some nuggets of truth and reason from those who are opposed to the ban.

Nevertheless what caused me to sigh and shake my head in despair in the end is the shear ill informed gibberish spouted by both sides of the argument! The lack of knowledge or misinterpretation of the information that has been given to them is breathtaking at times.There was also the unhelpful contributions by well meaning supporters Like Earl Shrewsbury who suggests that the ammunition and bolts for the .50bmg rifles be stored at a club. Not realising that those in the shooting community regard that as a slippery slope and highly impracticable anyway as security of private firearms is based upon them being dispersed rather than held at one tempting to target location and the FCSA don't have a range of their own to store them at anyway.

Lord Robathon made some good points especially in relation to Thomas Hamilton and Dunblane.

BooBoo wrote:Well, just so long as the 50 cal boys and girls are ok!

I wrote to all of the MP's backing that amendment several weeks ago now, inviting them to apply the same logic to both MARS and LR.

But then of course that is just a trumped up reason after all...

I doubt that any of our representative bodies would be able to fight their way out of a paper bag!

Your comment about the 50 cal boys and girls is unfair.

From the very start the FCSA indicated that they would be very focused on fighting their own corner and this is exactly what they have done. They have provided the right kind of evidence, pillored, lobbied and pulled some high profile individuals on to their side and basically fought a good fight. I have no idea how much this has cost them but I daresay it wouldn't be cheap. Nevertheless, their efforts would appear to have paid off. If they had allied themselves with the MARS / Lever release groups whose argument was very poor compared to the FCSA's, then I think we would be looking at a very different result ... and it would NOT be positive for the 50 cal shooters.

If I have picked you up wrongly regarding the 50 cal boys and girls then I apologise. I'd also make it clear that I am not a member of the FCSA.

Regards ... LL

Lancs Lad wrote: If they had allied themselves with the MARS / Lever release groups whose argument was very poor compared to the FCSA's, then I think we would be looking at a very different result ... and it would NOT be positive for the 50 cal shooters.
Regards ... LL

what, the argument that a legally held firearm, not used in crime, but for the sport of shooting, should not be banned? how is that a poor argument, it is the same as the 50cal shooters!

You sound like someone who supports the ban of legally held property, that meets the current laws.

The FCSA has roughly 124 members if I remember correctly and they probably shoot once or twice a month at best?

I'm not sure how many MARS there are in the UK but I believe that there are several thousand Southern Gun Lever release rifles so they are going to be getting a dammed sight more use than any 50 cal. There will probably be several SGC Lever-release rifles being used any given day of the week.

A ban on SGC lever-release & Mars rifles will impact thousands more club shooters than the relatively small number of 50 cal. shooters.

The FCSA's small numbers count for them in a way. They're all part of the same club/organisation for a start, and its an organisation specifically for that type of rifle. On the otherhand there's no specific club/group who only shoot LR or MARS rifles so there's no co-ordination. Further, you need to be pretty minted to shoot a .50BMG and the ability and willingness of members to throw decent money behind the campaign makes a lot of difference.

As has been said many times on here, not having a proper NRA type organisation (or should that now be GOA - Gun Owners of America as the NRA has recently fallen out of favour with many of its members), is one of the biggest reasons we're getting picked off one by one over here.

Further, you need to be pretty minted to shoot a .50BMG

Actually no that isn't the case Blackstuff, I have shot alongside the FCSA when I was a member of their sister club the ODRC and most were fairly modest and not that flashy when it came to money or income.

The cost of buying and then running a .50bmg is not that unlike buying and running a classic car like an MGB. The age range and demographic were not that unlike retired classic car owners as well.

Pretty much all of them reloaded and also a fair few used solid brass bullets, the club had a deal with somewhere that would melt down the spent brass collected at the end of a FCSA/ODRC shoot then it would be turned into bullets.

bradaz11 wrote:

Lancs Lad wrote: If they had allied themselves with the MARS / Lever release groups whose argument was very poor compared to the FCSA's, then I think we would be looking at a very different result ... and it would NOT be positive for the 50 cal shooters.
Regards ... LL

what, the argument that a legally held firearm, not used in crime, but for the sport of shooting, should not be banned? how is that a poor argument, it is the same as the 50cal shooters!

You sound like someone who supports the ban of legally held property, that meets the current laws.

Bradaz

No ... I do not support a ban on legally held property and I never will, but I do however believe in fighting battles that are actually winnable.
I've always thought that some of the designs were deliberately sailing very close to the wind and although legal, it would only be a matter of time before somebody, somewhere was going to feel 'uncomfortable '. Well ... here we are ... and I take no pride in saying that I was right, although it didn't require a crystal ball to predict the likely outcome.
The MARS / Lever release folks account for substantially more firearms owned than the FCSA club members and it wouldn't have been impossible for them to get their act together and put forward a far better argument than they did.
If nothing else, there is a lesson here on how to resist pressure from the anti-gun lobby by engaging with the right people and building a constructive, evidence-based argument on why your legally held property is no threat to public safety.
This is only my opinion of course.

Regards ...LL