Our Morning Coffee and Weather

[Vaquero]

Morning all, last week in sunny Fla., it's 66º here this morning and going up to 84 this afternoon.
Hope everyone has a good Moanday.

RP

[daytime dave]

It's going to be 44 f and rainy. Coffee is in the Henry mug.

Les, thank you for answering Cate's questions in the way you did. It was interesting to learn this.

JCN, if you are curious, just google your question. I just did. I got lots of interesting information. You are welcome to PM Les or any members from there and have a private discussion.

Enjoy your day.

[JCN]

I will! Crazy stuff.

Good morning all. Cold here in Southern Nevada. Stay warm all....

[Catherine]

It's 34° and sunny - time to go airgunning!

I hope that you have a good time!

Les, did they change some more gun laws in the UK within the last 6 months to 1 year?
They keep fiddling around with the rules and laws, but I don't know of anything recently to cause any more tears. They are talking about introducing a licensing system for air rifles, but at this stage it's just conjecture. Scotland has already introduced a licensing system for air rifles.

Certain groups would like to see firearms outlawed completely, and unfortunately we don't have a 2nd amendment to fall back on.

Firearm style or load capacity for a rifle or shotgun?
We are not allowed any full-auto weapons at all, or semi-auto over .22 rimfire. We have a firearms certificate (FAC) and a shotgun certificate (SGC). There are several sub-sections to the firearms cert, but the shotguncert is a bit more straight forward. We can have a shotgun with a maximum capacity of 3 rounds (1 in the breech and two in a magazine) on a normal SGC (shotgun cert). Shotguns with a higher magazine capacity are available on a section 1 (firearms) certificate.

There are sections of our firearms laws that allow the use of full-auto firearms, but they are only allowed in extreme circumstances .... and I have no clear idea about what those circumstances might be.

The European Union are trying to limit magazine capacities to less than 10 rounds. If they had their way, all guns would be banned, but there is not much chance of that - I hope.

We can no longer buy 'normal' handguns - apart from black powder pistols. We can buy "long barreled revolvers or pistols". They must have a barrel at least 12" long, and the overall length must not be less than 24", so they will have an extention arm on the grip to make up the length to 24". If you Google long barreled revolvers, you'll see what I mean.

We cannot buy semi-automatic pistols over .22RF. We can buy revolvers up to .50 cal, as long as we can justify a 'need' and as long as they are at least 24" long.

Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man - both part of the UK - can buy normal pistols of any caliber on their FAC ..... a fact which leaves the rest of us spitting feathers.

Limit on how much ammunition that you can have on hand (Properly stored of course.) or with any reloading supplies?
The ammunition limit is set on a case by case basis. Somebody who shoots .22 rimfire at the top level might have a limit of 5000 - 10k rounds, but 1k to 2k is usually the norm. Centrefire limits are usually a lot lower - perhaps with a max of 500.
I don't know how the reloaders get on. I know that they can hold plenty of cases, and plenty of bullets, but I don't know what their completed round limit is. I'm guessing that it's similar to normal ammunition limits. I don't get involved in the dark arts.

The shotgun shell limit is probably around 10k.

Purchase limits on how much that you can buy at one time?
As above.

Types of ammunition allowed?
We can actually buy quite a selection of firearms, from .22RF to .50 BMG. There is a large black powder lobby too, with various calibers. We need to "show a need" for any firearm that we purchase. This would normally be target shooting, although .223/243/308 etc is frequently used for hunting. For target shooting, we need to be a member of a registered club. One of the clubs I attend has frequent shooting days on Ministry of Defence (Army etc) firing ranges, so that greatly increases the caliber of rifle available to us.

The hunting fraternity must either have land of their own, or be allowed to shoot on other peoples land. The land must be passed by the police for the caliber used i.e., you can't use a .50 BMG on land that is only passed for .243 etc.

Strangely enough, all of our firearm and shotgun laws don't seem to stop the criminals from obtaing any sort of firearm that they want .... something that tends to make the honest shooters hot under the collar, because we get penalised by increased legislation for any wrong-doing.

Any more changes in your knife laws?
It is illegal to sell a knife to anyone under 18, unless it has a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less. It is also illegal to carry, buy or sell any type of banned knife, use any knife in a threatening way (even a legal knife) etc. It doesn't stop the delinquents from carrying knives, though. They just use one of their Mum's kitchen knives.

Certain areas of the country have a lot of cases of knife crime, but up until the present time I don't know of any planned changes to the current laws.

Thanks and take care.

Cate

Les,

Outstanding report and explanation of your gun laws! Thank you!

I thought that some more restrictions had been placed on gun and knife folks in the UK.

Good shooting to you and have a good day.

Cate

[Jdl447]

60 today calling for 70 tomorrow. record high temperatures predicted. I'll take it for the middle of February.

[JCN]

I'm jealous. Been really cold here in the desert.

[RanchRoper]

-42f this morning at 5am. Weather supposed to start a slow climb back up tomorrow. Tea in Henry mug.

[Sir Henry]

-42f this morning at 5am. Weather supposed to start a slow climb back up tomorrow. Tea in Henry mug.

Is that ice tea?

[RanchRoper]

Ha! -12 now, feels pretty good.

[JCN]

Guess I'll stop complaining about 47 and sunny.