New laws coming?

[artiglio]

You could legalise recreational drugs, but rather unlikely that

A legal enterprise could undercut the illegal market, by the time you’d legalised the whole supply chain, complied with all the business and hse regulation. So the illegal market would still be there but what offence would they then be guilty of? Supplying a legal product without a licence?

How do you protect the supplying legal business from law suits in relation to the effects of the products they sell and in the absence of such protection who would enter the market?

Having legalised the drugs there will be a greater number of users, as to how many who knows.

My local paper has weekly reports of “drug drivers”, drug use is likely far more pervasive than is generally thought.

Drug use and supply, is I’d guess a massive illegal industry supporting huge numbers of people, very unlikely they’ll go straight because their current job has been legalised. Plus those that commit crime to feed their habit will still do so no matter who sells it to them.

How you’d go about sorting the mess out i’ve no idea, but in the meantime there’ll be lots of pointless tinkering around the edges in terms of legislation and announcements that will achieve little if anything but sound good to the less inquiring mind.

[shugie]

I've never really had a regular use for anything beyond a penknife yet there must be at least ten biggish knives and bayonets tucked away in drawers and as wall-hangers in my house. I'm sure the bulk of families around the UK could say the same. That's not even taking into consideration ordinary kitchen knives. Sourcing the most basic hand tool known to man (second only to a rock) is not going to be an issue.
Not that it's beyond the wit of your average thug to get someone to buy a knife from a shop face to face if they fancy a stylish item with which to enforce due respec'.

These politicians have led such sheltered lives (probably with little knowledge of simple workshop skills) and they're in charge of legislating for the sort of people that can't be trusted with so much as a toothbrush.
Assuming you could do away with all the commercially made knives by pushing a magic button ... how hard is it to make a rudimentary stabbing instrument? A nine inch nail with a drilled bit of broom handle glued on for a handle would take all of three minutes to whip up.

And as for 'zombie knives' I suspect they figure very little in knife related crime stats. You only have to look at the size of the things to see they'd be too awkward to carry let alone discretely.
The thinking seems to be: 'They look good in photo ops and are terrifying to look at so let's just pretend they're a problem, introduce some tough sounding measures, and when people continue not to be stabbed by them claim it as a victory. Hurrah for us!'

Maybe I'm just an old fashioned kind of guy but why not build more prisons to house the animals? More prisons would mean the ability to make the buggers serve stiff sentences instead of the revolving door system of serving half a sentence in chokey and half on licence because it's expedient because our prisons are too crowded.

Why are they too crowded? Because criminals know the police are stretched as it is so the actual risk of getting caught is low. And even if caught they correctly read the likely sentence as being half what it says on the packet. So for a young thug or a wannabe the risk of a few years in prison with bonus points for street cred isn't much of a deterrent. Under those circumstances they thrive like a bad case of athletes foot.

And to free up some police resources maybe its time to have a rethink of our recreational drug laws. If they were legalized, regulated, and available at reasonable prices from registered outlets we could do away with a huge section of organized crime and their minions.
It used to be a stumbling block to this suggestion that a roadside check for driving under the influence (or using heavy machinery) was unavailable to the police or employers. Accurate checks relied on samples being taken and tested. That is no longer the case.

I don't believe a change in this direction would result in an explosion of drug users (people that want them get them anyway).
I do believe it would significantly relieve the prison system, freeing up a lot of space.
I do believe it'd be an end to silly kids dropping god knows what down their throats and hoping for the best that it wasn't going to kill them because it was too pure or cut with toxic crap.
I do believe it would allow the police to divert resources to more pressing needs.

While I can see that taxing what is currently illegal would both bring in money and reduce costs, it would also make drugs more accessible. A lot of people have problems with alcohol, and decriminalising other drugs might have some unfortunate but currently unseen consequences. But tax and quality control do make a persuasive argument for legalising the supply of some of the less damaging drugs.

[JSC]

It has been announced that the Offensive Weapons Bill will be presented to parliament this week:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... kdown.html

The only place I can find any mention of something happening on this Bill this week is the report in The Sun and subsequently The Daily Mail.
There is nothing on the parliament.uk website about any reading of it in the House of Commons and nothing I can find scheduled before the summer recess.

If someone would like to point out when this presentation to Parliament is supposed to be happening, that might be useful.

I watched Nick Hurd today answer questions from the Commons Select Committee about 'Policing for the Future'. There was no mention of the Bill but now I know why all I got from his office were boilerplate responses to my questions about the consultation. He was completely unprepared and just muddled his way through the whole thing, much like he's probably been doing with any questions about the Bill.

Has anyone got any factual information about where the HO are with the process? What happened at the meeting between the HO and the BASC/BSSC last Wednesday?

[A.J.P.]

Has anyone got any factual information about where the HO are with the process? What happened at the meeting between the HO and the BASC/BSSC last Wednesday?

I would also be particularly interested to know the content of the meeting.

[A.J.P.]

From the Conservative Party's twitter account:

Today @SajidJavid introduces the Offensive Weapons Bill to:

[*]Ban the delivery of knives & corrosives bought online to residential addresses
[*]Make it harder for young people to buy knives & acid online
[*]Ban possession of likes of zombie knives, knuckle dusters & death stars[/i]


https://twitter.com/Conservatives/statu ... 9194671104

[JSC]

Well that tweet doesn't seem to have met with many positive responses.

Anyway, no mention of any amendments to firearms legislation and nothing being discussed about it in the House today, so I can't see how this changes anything for the moment.

[TattooedGun]

Well that tweet doesn't seem to have met with many positive responses.

Anyway, no mention of any amendments to firearms legislation and nothing being discussed about it in the House today, so I can't see how this changes anything for the moment.

This is the same bill. Just because they're not discussing it, doesn't mean those changes wouldn't go through with the same bill.

[JSC]

Well that tweet doesn't seem to have met with many positive responses.

Anyway, no mention of any amendments to firearms legislation and nothing being discussed about it in the House today, so I can't see how this changes anything for the moment.

This is the same bill. Just because they're not discussing it, doesn't mean those changes wouldn't go through with the same bill.

Well, let's see what happens by the end of today.

[JSC]

I hope everyone here understands what a Bill actually is? Just because the HO announces a Bill, it doesn't immediately become law. It has to be debated in Parliament and there is very little time left before the summer break for that to happen.

Whatever might be announced or proposed today, it can't be taken as read it will become law.

[mr smith]

As someone who was about to put my lever release up for sale just as the consultation was announced this uncertainty and the length of time it takes for this sort of thing to run has been a right pain in the whatsit.Obviously as a shooter my preference would be to stay as they are and I could move my gun on but I'm currently stuck with a gun I don't want nor need.