There are moves currently ongoing to ban all lead shot, but it is still permitted in the UK under certain circumstances.
Common snipe and golden plover, for example, can be hunted with lead shot (except over foreshores / SSSIs etc).
Fair point - I still think UK lesiure shooters tend to view it more in terms of enjoyment of the technical skill required, rather than the “affirmation of pioneer spirit” that appears common in a certain sub-set of American shooters.
Heh. Over here, at least in principle you’re not allowed to bring home anything you’ve run over yourself. But if someone else hit it, you can help yourself. I’ve had a roadkill pheasant or two in my time, the trick is to look for something not too mangled and freshly killed (you can always hang it yourself).
In my experience this is true in the US too. The gun nuts are overexposed - many people I knew growing up had a shotgun in the house and none were Charlton Hestons. Those guys get all the press but for every one of them there are 100 normal folks who happen to have a shotgun lying in a closet.
Naw, my impression comes from - as I said in the OP - whenever we have British guests here, one of the guys at work who owns lots of guns usually takes them out shooting. It is always a big hit and I am lead to believe that guns are difficult to obtain in the UK.
I am lead to believe this by our British guests. We took one guy out to shoot two years ago when he came and then when one of the other guys from the office came, he insisted we take him too. They even wanted to take spent shells home with them, but we weren’t sure if they could get them through airline security.
From the input here it seems like it isn’t as hard to get guns as our British guests have lead us to believe.
It’s not hard to get a gun if you need to, but the vast majority of “normal” people - i.e. urban / sub-urban / rural-commuter won’t have any exposure to guns in their day-to-day lives.
No-one I know owns a gun, or uses one with any regularity, and it would be regarded as unusual for anyone apart from a farmer or gamekeeper to have a gun in the house.
In fact, I would have trouble finding anyone I know who owns a working gun - obviously that says more about my lifestyle and circle of acquaintance, but I’m not suprised your UK guests see shooting as a novelty.
And when the “sport” was banned, dozens of people had their fox hunting horses shot since they were now useless… have these people never heard of drag hunting?
:mad:
Cite?
Not saying it didn’t happen - just never seen any evidence of it.
It’s not happened - most hunts have carried on as before, despite the doom-laden predictions.
In the UK we have tight gun laws, supposedly anyone who has one has to have a good reason, a license and it must be kept in a secure ‘safe’ - which is inspected by the police.
I’m inclined to be a bit suspicious about the police being ‘unarmed’, about 15 years ago I spotted a pistol in a specially made pocket of the trousers of an ordinary looking policeman loitering in the Aldwych (London). Curiously it was his left pocket.
I’ve also seen some astonishingly heavily armed policemen conducting a siege in the same location about eight years ago - it was comical, one of them was taking cover from behind a plastic bollard in the middle of the road.
Anyone going to Israel from Heathrow will see some well tooled up policemen and I happen to know that there are undercover guys lurking around the airports.
Rifle shooting for an urban or suburban English businessman is a bit like a safari, so I am not at all surprized that your guests were interested.
You might get even more enthusiasm if you set up a range and let them compare Kalashnikovs, Uzis and US ‘stoppers’ - inside every adult male, is a little boy, and I must confess I would rather enjoy that.
The UK anti hunting stuff is supposed to be about using dogs for foxes, stags and hares. Personally I would not enjoy it, but I suspect that it is more a social occasion than anything else - interestingly it looks as if civil disobedience is overriding that ‘law’.
Your UK guys would probably prefer an open shooting range and a selection of slightly exotic weopons to shooting up deer - if you really want to clinch a deal, give them a shoulder launched missile and some beaten up pickup trucks to demolish.
You have actually latched onto quite an interesting business concept.
In a pissing contest, in the UK, comparing the pull of an Uzi versus an Ingrams would be a show stopper - you have a better lure than ‘The Best Little House In The West’
Just to add a bit more flavour. I have a SGC (Shot Gun Certificate) which allows me to keep shotguns in my extremely well secured safe. I first got into shooting when I saw an ad in the local paper for clay shooting on Sunday mornings just a few miles from where I live. I went there and using their guns shot many clays over a happy few months.
I then realised that if I wanted to progress onto the more interesting shooting ranges (e.g. not the trainer range) I needed my own gun - this club won’t lend you guns to go over the whole range - I assume because they would have to hold a large stock.
So, I asked my club chairman what I needed to do and he explains. Basically, it’s thus:
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Find who your firearms licensing officer is for your region. You do this by contacting a large police station.
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Write to them asking for a Shot Gun Certificate application.
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Wait a short while (think it took a week - not bad) for the form to arrive.
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Fill in the incredibly detailed form. All about yourself, whether you have ever had any mental health issues, where you’ve lived etc. 2 notated photos.
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I then when to my sporting supplies shop and bought two British Standard gun safes. These are big solid devices with double 7 lever mortice locks. You bolt these to solid (i.e. not partition) walls using 6x10inch long screws. These cost me about £150 each. You are meant to put them somewhere which isn’t very visible. I have, but I’m not telling you where. I use one for my guns and another for my cartridges. Secure storage of cartridges isn’t required but I wanted to.
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Some weeks later (I think it took me 4 weeks) you get a call that you FLO (Firearms Licensing Officer) is coming for the site visit.
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Normally, you get this visit before you buy your gun safes - cos if he says no, you’ve just blown a lot of money. However, people I spoke to said better install before, otherwise you need 2 visits - one to check you out and another to approve your storage.
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He asked me about why I wanted a SGC, where I would shoot, how long and so on. The “gun” part of the interview only took about 10 minutes. We shortly realised that he was the chairman of the board of my club and was aware of the chaps who had taught me, so I think that helped. I showed him the safes and he sat on it to make sure it was well mounted. Checked it couldn’t be levered off easily.
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My gf was with me at the time and he suggested that, because she shoots too, she should get her own SGC (would allow her to have my guns in her possession without me). He was very generous about this and even offered to interview her at work as it was close to the central police station.
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At the end of the interview he told me I had my ticket. I had a very refrained smile on my face until we saw him out of the house and then I whooped and jiggled a bit. I was a bit nervous because I’d put on my form that I had suffered from depression in the past - I was concerned this might blow it for me. We touched on that in the interview but t’was ok.
A short while later my ticket (seems to be the colloqualism for a SGC around here) arrived so we went shopping.
I’ve since taken my brother, his gf, a good friend and his wife, my dad and some other friends shooting. None of them had ever shot before but all enjoyed it.
I got my ticket in 2002 (I was in the 25-28 age range at that time) and shot regularly until about 16 months ago when I hurt my shoulder. In that time I think I only met 2 or 3 weirdos. I call them weirdos based on the fact that you suddenly become very aware of what they are doing when they’ve got a shot in the pipe.
One was an older man of about 60 who was going through his ticket application when I was. He had a license which had been revoked for some reason and his bug-bear at the moment was that he didn’t want to by a british standards cabinet. He made his own, out of wood and bolted it to the floor of a mobile home. When he had his inspection it was made clear this wasn’t ok, and then he decided it was a conspirary.
One of the scary things about him was when you were talking about a shot, he would always base his skill on from how far, or at what weird angle he could shoot somebodies head.
The other couple of chaps came dressed in full camo (inc grease paint) for a clay shoot on an exposed hillside with grass about 2 inches long. They didn’t last long. The majority of shooters I’ve experienced are very conservative (with a little, and often big ‘c’)
Tim
These guys own all kinds of guns. I’m not an enthusiast, so, even though I’ve heard about it plenty of times, I can’t tell you what they were shooting. But there were exotic guns, I’m told. Really big ones, some that shoot rapidly and at least one muzzle loading kind.
trmatthe gave a really good run down on British gun enthusiasts, basically a glorified golf club shooting clay pigeons - but I must confess I was tempted.
Whoever is running that gig, knows what he is doing, next time go along and observe - we British have a suppressed violence - keep the punters happy, but keep it under control. Probably you have a smart boss who has employed someone in a dual capacity, and you can’t quite see what is going on.
One thing to remember, if they shoot a deer and have to gralloch it, then unless they have done it many times before … if they don’t mind … then just don’t see them again.
I still reckon that this is a spectacular business idea, comparing classic guns beats wine tasting.
You should have a go! It’s good fun, and there may be some places with a “golf-club” atmosphere, but if you can find a village fete or something who are doing it for charity it’s not like that at all. I’ve never felt the urge to shoot real birds though.
These are v. popular with stag weekends - lots of travel firms in the UK run trips to eastern europe during which you can play with kalashnikovs etc.
£60 lets you shoot Makarov + Glock + Winchester + Kalashnikov in Bulgaria / Riga / etc.
There are venues in the USA that will let you shoot miniguns from helicopters at remote control cars - they showed it on Top Gear a couple of seasons ago.
Naw, most of the guys on that team own guns. We few who didn’t were in the minority. My boss (I’ve actually left that job) at the time was a Brit, but he didn’t have any more interest in shooting than I did. I remember when we did a business trip to the UK he took me to meet his family. His nephew was amazed and disappointed to find I didn’t own a gun. His first question to me was “What kind of guns do you own?” He appeared dubious when I explained that not all Yanks have guns.
I was entertained, imagining (for fun) that the Brits have this image of all us Yanks walking around daily armed to the teeth, just daring someone to get out of line.
The regular police are not armed - it was probably CO19:
'Operationally, our branch is here to provide armed support to allow the vast majority of policing activities throughout London to be conducted in the traditional
manner by unarmed officers.
'Each Armed Response Vehicle (ARV) is crewed by three officers in police uniform who patrol specific areas of London to ensure the fastest response. ’
http://www.met.police.uk/co19/armed_response.htm
The armed police patrol all Heathrow, not just Israeli flights:
‘Heathrow Airport OCU has primary responsibility for providing a visible armed deterrent and response to acts of terrorism within a specific area surrounding Heathrow International Airport.’
http://www.mpa.gov.uk/committees/mpa/2002/020228/10a.htm
The undercover guys are from Special Branch, who maintain an branch office at Heathrow:
'SO12-Special Branch
Within Special Branch there are two separate units with a firearms capability, each performing distinctly different roles.
Protection Team- The SO12 Protection team provides permanent armed protection for the Prime Minister, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary and other UK ministers and public figures assessed as being at high risk.
This is a national policing responsibility discharged on behalf of the Home Secretary. Consequently, SO12 officers are required to conduct armed protection duties throughout the UK and overseas.
Surveillance Team- SO12 Surveillance team officers undertake covert intelligence gathering against persons believed involved in acts of terrorism and serious crime.’
I’ve no idea whether my experience is typical (though I suspect not), but I’ve only ever known two people who owned firearms (shotguns in both cases). By coincidence, each was the MD of a company I worked for, and each managed to injure himself.
The first blew one of his own fingers off while trying to dig snow out of the barrel of his gun (yes, I know :rolleyes: ).
The other suffered a misadventure while attempting to to dispose of some surplus powder. It seems he took it into the woods near his home, and layed a trail of powder, intending to burn it off in a controlled manner. Now, I don’t know much about this sort of thing, so I can’t say what went wrong. But whatever it was, the sound it made was “WOOMPH!” and resulted in him startling his wife by staggering home shortly afterwards, blackened and gently smouldering. She, showing the resourcefullness of the typical British country woman, had him stick his head in the horse trough while she called the ambulance. Really, he was lucky to lose only his eyebrows and a layer or two of skin from his face – the respect of his co-workers, of course, had been gone for some time.
As it happens, neither of these gentlemen ever offered to take me shooting, which is perhaps just as well. I’d have been hard-pushed to find a diplomatic reason for declining.
It’s not only London that has ARBs on patrol regularly. A few years ago, Manchester police experimented with armed foot patrols in Moss Side - they publicly acknowledged that it was a PR exercise, on the grounds that the armed criminals already knew what the ARVs looked like, and all they were doing was putting the same officers on foot so that other people knew that they were there, too.
Sorry I didn’t mean to imply the ARV’s weren’t national (which they are). It was just convenient to post the Metropolitan Police link.