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

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TattooedGun wrote:

Pete wrote:On the other hand, a pair of decent shotguns stolen to order for resale or as collectables might benefit from such a system.

Pete

Surely any such stolen shotguns will be carrying a serial number which when trying to register with the force will be flagged as stolen...?

Not always - some older guns had no serial number.

Is it smart enough to prevent rust?

Gazoo wrote:OK, for those of us not in the Met area (thanks be to Allah), what is posted? There is an offer of smart water for firearms, but it is in an envelope and hidden presumably. Is the communication printed in the mail shot factory and put in envelope in said place, or do they collect envelopes from police already sealed...like a private postal service. I am not familiar with the operation.

They were in A5 envelopes with the mailing companies details printed on them, and then printed with my name, address and a reference number in the format 123-00034-11156 and 123-00034-11178 and the style of printing suggests it is being done at the mailing house who would have the facilities to put 75,000 flyers into addressed envelopes. There is no way the Met would have provided them ready sealed.

Dark Skies wrote:

TattooedGun wrote:

Pete wrote:On the other hand, a pair of decent shotguns stolen to order for resale or as collectables might benefit from such a system.

Pete

Surely any such stolen shotguns will be carrying a serial number which when trying to register with the force will be flagged as stolen...?

Not always - some older guns had no serial number.

Then equally guns with NVN and the same make and model as have been stolen should be easily identifiable on a database driven system. A paper trail of where they came from should be easily established. Specifically those that have not been notified as sold by a seller, and have come from non-certificate holders, or seemingly have not come from anywhere.

I will grant you that for rare instances such as items with no serial number and significant re-sale value that smartwater may be an added security measure in identifying stolen firearms, but for what I'd imagine are the majority of firearms holders in the country, there are serialised documents and databases holding that information along with systems in place to notify change of ownership from both the seller and the buyer.

I can believe that all this information may not be cross referenced and automated checking for non-notification and tying up with other forces.

But then is identifying stolen-recovered firearms that big of an issue to the Met that they felt it pertinent to fire out all these leaflets?

I wonder how many of those stolen from certificate holders are recovered, and how many recovered would be in any kind of legal (Not cut down/modified) state to be able to return to their owner.

Polchraine wrote:

Gazoo wrote:OK, for those of us not in the Met area (thanks be to Allah), what is posted? There is an offer of smart water for firearms, but it is in an envelope and hidden presumably. Is the communication printed in the mail shot factory and put in envelope in said place, or do they collect envelopes from police already sealed...like a private postal service. I am not familiar with the operation.

They were in A5 envelopes with the mailing companies details printed on them, and then printed with my name, address and a reference number in the format 123-00034-11156 and 123-00034-11178 and the style of printing suggests it is being done at the mailing house who would have the facilities to put 75,000 flyers into addressed envelopes. There is no way the Met would have provided them ready sealed.

looking at the flyer, as it has no personalisation on it, it will be printed on a litho press, sheeted, inserted into envelopes and then the envelopes run thru a simple printer to address them.

so the printers won't know how they are going to, or the enclosers, just whoever sticks the envelopes into the address printing line (unless its built into the enclosing line, in which case the enclosers might. but all these units are built to try to keep the data secure.
like no internet on the printer, USB's disabled. generally the data is also ripped into a format the printer understands, so raw data needs post processing to turn back...

bradaz11 wrote:

Polchraine wrote:

Gazoo wrote:OK, for those of us not in the Met area (thanks be to Allah), what is posted? There is an offer of smart water for firearms, but it is in an envelope and hidden presumably. Is the communication printed in the mail shot factory and put in envelope in said place, or do they collect envelopes from police already sealed...like a private postal service. I am not familiar with the operation.

They were in A5 envelopes with the mailing companies details printed on them, and then printed with my name, address and a reference number in the format 123-00034-11156 and 123-00034-11178 and the style of printing suggests it is being done at the mailing house who would have the facilities to put 75,000 flyers into addressed envelopes. There is no way the Met would have provided them ready sealed.

looking at the flyer, as it has no personalisation on it, it will be printed on a litho press, sheeted, inserted into envelopes and then the envelopes run thru a simple printer to address them.

so the printers won't know how they are going to, or the enclosers, just whoever sticks the envelopes into the address printing line (unless its built into the enclosing line, in which case the enclosers might. but all these units are built to try to keep the data secure.
like no internet on the printer, USB's disabled. generally the data is also ripped into a format the printer understands, so raw data needs post processing to turn back...

I had felt the need to do something (vent frustration I suppose) just prior to seeing this thread, and so had already sent a message to BASC, and I had a follow-up phone call from BASC this morning.
The original decision was to have these sent out with renewals/new grants certs by Met Firearms, but then some civvy bean counter not connected with Firearms team said that as Smartwater are a commerical company, they can pay for it, so (possibly without any check with the Firearms team, its not clear whether a check was made or not) someone agreed to send Smartwater all the cert holders details, and they have then contracted it out to this mailshot company, rather than pressumbly the bean counter thinking they would do it themselves?

While the story goes that there is much red faced embarrasment at the Met over this, the Genie can't be put back in the bottle.....so, short of the idiots responsible being dismissed for gross negligence (probably won't happen) it is what it is, which is an epic clusterf**k.

So, anyone having a break-in or being hijacked at their address and will know who to sue

bradaz11 wrote:

Polchraine wrote:

Gazoo wrote:OK, for those of us not in the Met area (thanks be to Allah), what is posted? There is an offer of smart water for firearms, but it is in an envelope and hidden presumably. Is the communication printed in the mail shot factory and put in envelope in said place, or do they collect envelopes from police already sealed...like a private postal service. I am not familiar with the operation.

They were in A5 envelopes with the mailing companies details printed on them, and then printed with my name, address and a reference number in the format 123-00034-11156 and 123-00034-11178 and the style of printing suggests it is being done at the mailing house who would have the facilities to put 75,000 flyers into addressed envelopes. There is no way the Met would have provided them ready sealed.

looking at the flyer, as it has no personalisation on it, it will be printed on a litho press, sheeted, inserted into envelopes and then the envelopes run thru a simple printer to address them.

so the printers won't know how they are going to, or the enclosers, just whoever sticks the envelopes into the address printing line (unless its built into the enclosing line, in which case the enclosers might. but all these units are built to try to keep the data secure.
like no internet on the printer, USB's disabled. generally the data is also ripped into a format the printer understands, so raw data needs post processing to turn back...

Whatever the printing/enveloping/posting method that is used a database of details has been passed on to more than one entity who I am sure know the value of such information if it was passed on. Theres probably a hundred usb sticks made of that now and maybe just sold on to grattens catalog or some other such bollox company to mailshot you, then again.......................

Is using this Smart Water any different than using a UV pen to write your post code on your rifle?

http://www.crimepreventionproducts.co.u ... arking-pen