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Bramble

I am glad to hear you have praise for your local Police in granting you the weapons you desire, you, like myself have been lucky TO DATE.

Any further draconian legislation, which is a distinct possibility under this wrteched Government could well change that over night.

Of course, as has been said rightly above, the Police are there to enforce the law, not make it. Sadly under policy thinly veiled as "LAW" from the Association of Chief Police Offices, many forces contiunue to arbitrarily apply the law in an unfair and unjust manner.

A case in point is a friend who has owned both firearms and shotguns for in excess of 30 years, all lawfully.

He has complied with all storage requirements including at his penultimatellicence renewal a new gun safe that would hold 15 rifles, all scoped. It has a separate locker for ammo and a further one for bolts from the rifles. The safe is bolted with 8 x 10mm rawl bolts to both a stone wall and into the concrete floor beneath, it has been, as was the cabinet before it, in the same position for 18 years. The house also has the benefit of a monitored burglar alarm system.

On his laatest renewal in March this year the Police refused to renew his licences on the ground that they now said the cabinet was too visible to visitors to the house. ( where in the firearms act has Parliament stated this as a requirement of the ACT and therefore a Law of the land!!!). The cabinet is situated in a corner of an internal study in which there is no window, the room is kept locked also, in short no person has access either real or visual without being invited. An appeal was lodged against the refusal to renew in the magistrates court which was lost when the presiding DJ agreed with the police on grounds of " public safety" [sic] when the police had not long before this date shot, over 10 times, an innocent man on a tube train and who had not a single connection with terrorism.

I am afraid as citizens with guns, we in the U.K are viewed with scepticism and suspicion by the establishement, yes we are afforded a "priviledge" not a right to own guns (only rifles, shotguns and muzzleloaders at present) but we have no automatic right, Parliament has given ALL Chief officers of Police via delegated legislation the right to oppose any individual applications or renewal of gun licenses.

In the case of my friend, this time, having had his appeal dismissed the Police offerd him a compromise hand of "friendship" by advising him to have a joiner erect a wooden cupoboard around the BS standard apporved steel gunsafe so as to visually conceal it from "himself" when he enters his study. The Police then, to add insult to injury in a blatant affort at law making gave him a specification sheet for the lock and hinges to be used for the wooden cabinet!

Did you see one of the proposals put forward for consideration by the Home Office here that licences should become renewable annually and to defray the extra costs for the admin of such a gargantuan exercise the fee should be set at £500 p.a!

You are of course right that a great many of the rank and file Police officers have no say in matters and have to do what is required of them and at times are placed in a no win situation, but it always seems to be lawful gun owners that loose out. The recently published papers from the Dunblane enquiry are an illuminating read if you ever have a few spare hours!

See just how quickly scrutiny and emphasis all correctly aimed at the Police Force involved was divereted into a full fro9ntal attack on all gun owners with the inevtiable outlawing of hand-guns.

Sorry don't meant to make this an a-political thread or to nail any political colours to the mast so to speak, but we seem to get a bad deal here compared to most of the rest of Europe and can only look in envy at what our good friends in the U.S enjoy, long may they do so