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

For those who dont read the Sportsmans Association News in Gunmart , the following is an extract from this months Gun Mart .

…...............especially when an ex policeman takes on the role of a firearms enquiry officer.
For a start they probably see the main priority as cutting the number of firearms in civilian hands.
Not in administering the firearms act , which should come first.
Their manner can seem short and abrupt when talking to shooters.

It appears that GunMart has now received an "official" complaint about the article from a police force .

I wont say what police force it is , but they do have a history of being fast to pull the trigger !

It is quite often "Jobs for the Boys"!

One of ours did not like, "Black Rifles" and could see no need for anybody to have them. He had to be edumacated!

My personal experience of police Vs civvie FEO's is the police ones are more knowledgeable about the subject, reasonable and more willing to use common sense, rather than just follow their forces 'official line' on the interpretation of the legislation.

Blackstuff wrote:My personal experience of police Vs civvie FEO's is the police ones are more knowledgeable about the subject, reasonable and more willing to use common sense, rather than just follow their forces 'official line' on the interpretation of the legislation.

I would tend to agree with you Blackstuff, perhaps it's because they are used to dealing with people and it's not a new skill that they have to acquire.

Andy632 wrote:It is quite often "Jobs for the Boys"!

One of ours did not like, "Black Rifles" and could see no need for anybody to have them. He had to be edumacated!

I've found it to be the case that those who 'don't fit' in other departments get shuffled into the firearms licensing department!

Surrey Police was criticised by the IPPC following the Lowe shooting in Farnham because of the training of their FEO's. To summarise the findings (using my own words and interpretations) Surrey Police typically used ex-Police Officers who were familiar with firearms but not with the various police intelligence systems. Obviously the FEO's need a working knowledge of the firearms legislation, but it's very easy for them to refer queries upwards if they can't answer them directly. Their focus should be on assessing the suitability of the individual SGC/FAC holders, not on gaining an encyclopedic knowledge of all the Firearms Acts. So they need ex-Detectives, not ex-Armed Response Officers.

The IPPC concluded that, if Surrey Police Firearms had made more use of the intelligence available to them on Lowe, then they would have revoked his SGC. Whether or not he would have still committed the killings using other methods is a different question.

Triffid

What Blackstuff said..............our FEO was a nice old boy, ex job, very polite, who liked his tea out of a cup rather than a mug................

Pete

I found my the two FEO I had the pleasure to dealt with in the UK very pleasan, knowledgeable and very informative.
In France on the other hand, the previous "old skool" police officer was replaced by a policewoman who knows absolutely jack-sh*t about guns and the sport in general, and still manged to bore me silly with her dedandic sh*t and her very personal views how the state should have the monopole on guns during my last renewal interview
In my experience it comes down more about their "personality" character than anything else.