Boat. Worked for the IRA, usually. Or ship them as air freight within some other legitimate cargo.
A more pressing problem is going to be: how are you going to demonstrate legitimate title when you go to sell them to those collectors? Some U.K. Doper barristers/solicitors chime in, but I think title still vests in the U.K. Government that acquired the firearms in the first place. I doubt the default rules about abandoned personal property apply when it’s the sovereign’s stuff.
What is your story going to be about how you acquired these weapons? Firearms collectors in the U.S. are not going to be thrilled at the prospect of paying you $2-7k to own a potentially hot full auto weapon. In fact, some of the more paranoid are going to suspect a BAFTE sting and may turn you in.
Most of the underground bolt-holes were stripped and either repurposed or destroyed after WWII. Very, very unlikely that a crate of TSMGs would be forgotten and only found now, but if it were, I think it would remain Her Majesty’s property.
I don’t believe that full auto firearms are legal in any states outside of a few rare and highly regulated exceptions. Semi-auto versions of assault rifles are legal, sure, but the Tommy is an actual machine gun. The “sub” part of it means it fires pistol ammo rather than rifle ammo, is all.
IANAB/S (and, of course, this may depend upon the exact meaning of “hidden in underground bunkers”), but I’d imagine most courts would recognise a distinction between “abandoned” and “left unattended in a secure building”.
“Honest, officer, they was just lying there… nailed up in a crate, in a locked cupboard, in a sealed bomb-proof bunker, hidden in those trees, there – just past all that barbed wire with the ‘keep out’ signs on it. I mean, anyone could have picked them up.”
I can’t recall which states allow it, but full-auto weapons are legal in some places in the US that haven’t specifically banned them, but the process to acquire one involves a ton of paperwork and a ridiculous amount of money. There’s no Federal Law saying that full-auto weapons are illegal, merely one saying that the sale and purchase of them are rather closely regulated.
Me, I think it just sounds like less trouble to make sure I hit my target within the first few shots instead of trying to spray a month’s pay down range in a couple of minutes.
Yes, we have lots of people with the power to do whatever they want with regards to the gun laws. Does the UK? If some member of the royal family decided he wanted to take an automatic weapon out to some country estate and fire off a few thousand rounds, he really would not be able to do this? If he decided he wanted to add a vintage submachine gun to his giant collection of historical artifacts, he couldn’t do so?
Hmm… tricky. The Royal family do, of course, have a large number of collections of artefacts and artworks, either in their personal possession or in their care, many of which contain items that are, technically speaking, offensive weapons. And if – purely by chance, of course – some of those should turn out not to have been properly disabled, that could probably be seen as an understandable oversight, should it ever come to light.
It’s also true that the law allows for exceptions in the area of handguns and so forth, for the personal protection of those who are recognised as being under particular threat of kidnapping or assassination. And I think we’d agree that the Royal family generally comes under that heading.
Plus most of them are, or have been, members of the armed forces – so they could probably get a bit of leeway on that basis too.
But blasting away with a submachine gun, just for shits and giggles? I dunno.
I dare say they could get away with it, in the same way the US President could get away with spending a weekend clubbing baby seals – there’d almost certainly be a degree of criticism, some of it quite severe.
Everything not returned was covered under an agreed upon price of £1.075 billion. This amount was finally paid off on December 29, 2006, two days before the final payment was due (it was actually the last day of business for the year).
In the case of submachine guns, the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 outlaws their manufacture in the US for civilian market and restricts ownership only to guns that were registered with the ATF before May 1986. So, these particular guns would be illegal in any US state.
Importing them in the first place would also be illegal under 1968 Gun Control Act, as with any fully-automatic weapon or any other that does not have a clear “sporting purpose.”
If you mean found out to have his service revolver in his possession, note that the British gun laws were much less restrictive at the time, and the pistol would have been a personally purchased weapon, as Victorian officers were not issued pistols - they were expected to provide their own uniforms, kit, and sidearms and would frequently keep them after they left the army. (I believe this was the case until shortly before WW1.)
There was a thread (in GD, I believe), about a man who found a gun in his yard in the UK. A crook had dumped the gun there, it seems.
The guy picks up the gun, wraps it up, and carries it to his local police station.
He is subsequently arrested for something like disturbing a crime scene, bearing a weapon without a license, carrying a weapon in a public place, and bringing a weapon into a police station.
So if you do happen upon a bunch of guns in the UK, my recommendation is firstly to LEAVE THEM WHERE THEY ARE AND DON’T TOUCH THEM. Reporting them to the police is probably fine (one hopes), but keep your distance.
They’ve been charged with speeding and with letting their dogs be out of control, and they’re constantly followed by by a troupe of paparazzi. They’d have less chance of getting away with it than the average commoner.
The royals probably have shotgun licences, due to their landowning status as well as all the things mentioned by Wotnot (landowners are occasionally allowed small-gauge shotguns for vermin control), but any automatic machine guns carry a mandatory 5- year minimum sentence (mentioned at the end of this). In the unlikely event that they found a way round that, the outcry would be HUGE.
I didn’t realise you meant the BBC reboot at first. Basically, yeah, he’d be in huge amounts of trouble. Just having the weapon would be at least five years, as stated above, but taking it from the military? He’d be in prison for life even without having used it to kill a person.
