Sale Of Guns In The Uk

[robert551069]

There was a newspaper report this week stating that it is possible to purchase semi -automatic guns in the UK. If this is true, surely they should be outlawed.
Perhaps if we all wrote to our MPs, something would be done to correct this problem and avoid the recent terrible massacre at a school in the USA.

[rojash]

from Wikipedia: "Fully automatic (submachine-guns, etc.) are totally prohibited from private ownership and self-loading (semi-automatic) weapons of calibre larger than .22 rimfire or shotguns are totally banned".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom#Licensing_and_legislation

[robert551069]

Thank you rojash for your prompt and helpful answer. It just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read in the newspapers, even the broadsheets, one of whom reported this.

[Baldric]

Interesting reading here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7056245.stm

[EDDIE51]

That story was a newspaper lie. Such weapons can only be held in the uk if the automatic fire capability had been removed and then only by a person with the highest class of firearms certificate. They CAN NOT hold the weapon at home , it has to be kept and used only at a special shooting range.
If you read the artical it says that a gun ' Based on' the one used in the USA can be sold in the UK. This version is a single shot weapon NOT a fully automatic one but it is based on the US gun. Anyone wanting to buy it would need a Class 1 firearms certificate these are now almost impossible to get apart from people like police firearms officers or armed forces training experts, and they would need to show where it was to be kept and used.

[IggyB]

Self-loading (also known as semi-automatic) or pump-action rifles are permitted in .22 rimfire calibre though a section 1 license would be needed to own one in the UK.

recent item in the sun based on the fact that a gun similar to the one used in the sandyhook school shooting can be bought in the UK legally.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4721772/Sandy-Hook-shooting-weapons-on-sale-legally-in-the-UK.html

Good discussion of current licensing requirements here
http://www.sportingshooter.co.uk/features/ask_the_experts_2_8808/firearms_law_1_1529690

I think on balance our gun control is effective when it comes to legally held weapons (thought it can't ever totally mitigate the risks).

[Peter Pedant]

.....



oo-er I dont think most of the gun crime in the UK is done with licensed weapons

not in Manchester anyway

[EDDIE51]

87 people are shot dead in an average DAY !! in the USA.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/24/87-gun-deaths-a-day-why-the-colorado-shooting-is-tragically-unsurprising.html
It is so 'normal' there that a shooting that only kills 1 or 2 people does not even get into the national papers.
The number people injured must be in the high 100s per day .
Even allowing for the larger population of the USA that is a tragedy and it could be prevented by gun control to our standards.