How difficult would it be for a Londoner/British Citizen to acquire a firearm?
Obviously, the acquisition would be illegal.
No idea for illegal. Always told that if one knows the right people one can buy one in a pub — after which the difficulty is obtaining bullets — but most of us don’t know the right people, and it would probably turn out to be a cop in the end.
Then there’s smuggling firearms over from the continent. There are a 1000 ways.
So why not go for legal ? You need a certificate from your local police force; shotguns are easy; rifles *, including military rifles, if you show good reason. Generally sporting guns are still quite big here. It’s just handguns unfortunately. And machine-rifles.
** UK law defines a “rifle” as a rifled firearm with a barrel longer than 30 cm (12 in), and a total length longer than 60 cm (24 in) that does not fall under the classification of long-barrelled revolver or pistol. Single-shot, bolt-action, Martini-action, lever-action (also called under-lever action) and revolver rifles and carbines are permitted, with certificate, in any calibre. Self-loading (also known as semi-automatic) or pump-action rifles are only permitted in .22 rimfire calibre.
*
Wikipedia
I think all these restrictions are nuts, just like drug restrictions, but parliament makes laws not people.
We do have a very high death toll from guns, 26 in the year ending march 2016, as you can see there. But that’s not a reason to stop people having fun.
I assume you mean we don’t have a high death toll ( for the whole country we typically have had 50-60 homicides by gun per year) or that you are being sarcastic.
Anyhow, I think these restrictions are perfectly sensible. Those that do genuinely need a firearm are able to access one even though the hoops to jump through are numerous.
Any inclination to change your mind in light of the recent prevalence of terror attacks over there? Not being snarky at all…
Does the Londoner have access to a 3D printer?
Well, really, you don’t even need to be that high tech, depending on how much skill or access you have to conventional tools, and/or how much crudity you’re comfortable settling for in the firearm. Or how much you like your fingers.
It’s not just the difficulty of acquiring a gun and ammunition, it’s the way it maxes out any penalties if you get caught using one in a crime. I think that for most citizens who don’t have criminal connections, it would be quite hard. If you are tempted to try to buy one in an East European country, where law enforcement is more lax, you are quite likely to be ripped off.
Those people who legitimately have guns - mostly shotguns have a duty to keep them secure:
Be seen with a gun of any kind, or even something that looks like a gun, in a public place and you are quite likely to find yourself surrounded by armed police asking you politely to lay face down on the ground.
About 10 years ago, it was fairly easy to get a gun in some parts of South London. When I lived in London, I worked with the Bar Free Representation Unit. A significant number of our clients were poor black men accused of gun crime, sometimes they even were guilty. I don’t know how it is now.
I do know that while I was there the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Trident was in full swing, ostensibly targeting gun crime in the black community. It did however come at the same time as the revelation of institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police, so relations between the community and the police were, delicate at best…I digress.
At least then, getting a firearm was fairly easy for a criminal. However, in real life, a gun does not really give a criminal much of an advantage versus the police, the Met is (contrary to what Americans might think) armed to the fucking teeth and not at all afraid to use it.
The problem is not the “hoops”. The problem is arbitrariness. Basically, you need to get a license from your local police. Some forces will make getting a simple hunting rifle almost akin to getting a tank, others give out approvals like smarties.
There is certainly a regional variability for rifles, the reason being that you have to have a good reason for wanting to own one. That’s where the arbitrariness comes into it. A farmer wanting it for rabbits, squirrels or foxes will have an easier time of convincing the authorities than an inner-city bank clerk.
Absolutely not. The three attackers last night were armed with knives not guns. I have no doubt that if our laws were more loose we’d see higher death tolls overall.
That not the problem though, that’s not arbitrariness that’s reasonable classification. In theory, the former should be granted as a matter of course while the latter should not be. What actually happens is that the farmer might be dealing with a gun hating Chief Superintendant, who makes everyone go through lengthy background checks. The Inner City Bank Clerk wants to show off to his gangster wannabe friends, applies for a “handgun for human dispatch”, and gets it five minutes after swearing he once saw a fox being run over in his street since his local police are giving it out without much thought. Incidentally, that’s one of the ways lots of guns find their way to the street.
And FYI, getting a rifle or a shotgun in theory at least is pretty easy at least compared to handguns.
What good is a gun against a suicide bomber? Unless you’re a telepath who can determine that he intends to blow himself up, you having a gun isn’t going to change anything.
I dispute that getting a handgun license is anywhere near that easy, I have know plenty of people at fairly high levels within several police forces and would be astonished to hear that such a flimsy justification would suffice. Also, it is not legal to buy a standard handgun at all in the UK and any license awarded has to have the details of the (legally obtained) gun. I don’t see how that process puts more guns on the street.
Yes, getting a shotgun is fairly straightforward, a rifle less so. Both have very stringent rules regarding storage, security and usage.
There are around 10 million residents of the city of London.
Suppose that from now on there was a terrorist attack similar to today’s on average once a week, and that at each one, around a thousand people are in a position to do something about it more effectively than the police if they did have a gun on them at the time.
In those fairly extreme circumstances, a person would have to be carrying that gun for about two hundred years, on average, before they got the chance to stop a terrorist with it.
I don’t think an armed citizenry is a good defence against terrorism, and I think that’s the general opinion in the UK too
Considering the extremely rare incidents of mass shootings compared to the United States, I would say that acquiring firearms in the UK, Ireland and other parts of Western Europe is very difficult.
I mean it’s not like English people or Europeans are less crazy than Americans contrary to popular belief; it’s just that those tiny minority of crazy people don’t have access to weapons that can cause great damage as the crazy people in the US do.
There is only one practical way to obtain a handgun in England and Wales (not the UK, N Ireland has different and easier regulations), and that is a “handgun for humane dispatch”, i.e to kill animals hit by cars and lorries. I am touched at your trust in the police though and knowledge of the party line. Its not the bosses who decide on the individual application, the set a policy and its the officers on the ground who apply it, and they have a lot of discretion.
Gun licensing was a big deal in Human Right law in the mid 2000’s, right at the time I was a student assisting in legal aid to black communities, so I do have a bit of knowledge about how people actually act. With the caveat its 10 years out of date.
Yes they are. How they are enforced, in time and space. is another issue.
Missed Edit:
.22LR rifle is perfectly legal and easy to get, but anything above that is a no no. (Ss5 of the Firearms Act 1968)
There is always going to be a degree of discretion and subjectivity with the laws as written but the fact remains that getting a license for a handgun license, let alone a handgun itself, is not a simple matter.
And I don’t subscribe to any “party line”
None whatever. Too many people with guns around means too many accidental casualties. Note, by the way, the police are saying that these men were dead within 8 minutes of their receiving the emergency call. I’d far rather leave all that to people who’ve been properly trained.
I’m not so sure that it’s so easy for a Londoner to get a shotgun certificate. It’s not as though many of us have crops or livestock to protect against vermin. You have to be specific and credible as to your purpose for having a gun (self-protection has been explicitly ruled out since 1936), and it has to be one suited for what you can prove you need it for (so, no sub-machine guns if you say you want to go grouse-shooting).
It is specialist senior officers who take the decisions, not any old copper. And if the statistics show they’re handing out licences like sweeties, by comparison with similar forces, questions will be asked and heads may roll. IIRC, the relevant officer responsible for the licence issued to the Dunblane killer was in considerable trouble. Likewise, in any largely rural constabulary, farmers who are finding their local firearms officers unduly obstructive have plenty of routes of appeal and complaint to the top.