Non political look at recent events in the U.K

The other Thread has been closed for being political which is fair enough but there are still things to discuss that have nothing to do with politics and every thing to do with shooting, we all need to know what is going on and to find a way to represent ourselves to the home office should it be necessary, so guys don’t point fingers and slag off the government, changes are coming that’s for sure lets try and stay focused so we can ultimately have our say.

Saying that, just to stir things up a bit, I put in for a variation to my licence on the 8th April and I’m still waiting for it to come back!

The firearms licensing departments which ever county it is are grossly under resourced and in the current economic climate will probably get worse as inevitable cuts hit the police force.

what ever new legislation comes out of this disaster that really needs to change. They can not enforce or keep up to date with the current reg’s let alone new ones. This may mean we pay more for our ticket’s?, should we be volunteering to do so? May be that’s one for another thread

Any how

When the Fire arms advisor came to visit me about the said variation he told me that Norfolk (county in England) and Suffolk firearms licensing departments were going to be amalgamated in to one unit and that staff would be lost, this would mean that when a renewal came up they WOULD NOT visit the holder as they do now automatically but only if they had concerns about that individual, other wise it would be a percentage as with most audits.

I could not believe my ears!:yikes:

I asked politely as I could( I do want to keep my licence after all) what on earth they were thinking and the reply was that because there had not been a Hungerford type incident for such a long time the men at the top felt the risk was low.

I just had to point out that there hadn’t been an ‘Incident’ for so long probably because the police had been visiting every individual on as their licence came up for renewal and they were spotting the potential Loon’s.

Then bugger me two weeks later this happens, bet they are having a rethink on that one!

Oh my ... :banghead:

I responded in a separate thread that was started asking about why we don't permit political threads. I'll cross-post the same answer here for everyone's clarification.

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I think this same question has been addressed many times in the past four years and my answer has always been the same, however, I'll repeat it here again for folks that may be new, or have missed it. :)

When I was doing my officer training back on the 60's, we were told there were three things that shouldn't be discussed while drinking in the officer's mess. They were women, religion and politics .. :lol:

The reason was simple. Those discussions always lead to bitter disagreements and acrimony, even amongst friends. To validate this, all you have to do is see the vitriol spewed at and about people on Internet forums, that have a political or religious aspect to them. We even saw it here for a period of time when we temporarily provided a home for the broken Jouster forums. ;)

We're supposed to be sharing our forums to interact with a lot of like minded folks, who share a common love of old milsurps and the terrific collecting hobby surrounding them. Most of our 12,000+ registered members want to come here talk about Enfields, Mausers, M1 Carbines, 1903 Springfields, or whatever genre of collectible firearm they love to converse about.

We really don't want to see a lot of good "electronic" friends who may differ in political or religious views, destroy an otherwise enjoyable experience talking about old guns, by deliberately creating a posting environment which by its nature promotes divisiveness.

There's a huge number of political discourse sites (and forums) on the Internet already (some on gun sites), catering to both left and right wing viewpoints. If anyone really needs a "fix" of watching perfectly sane and normal people deteriorate into name calling and verbal assaults simply over their political views, we'd recommend they join one of those sites and have at it. ;)

Our site isn't the place for this kind of behaviour, or the content that causes it, plus we have no desire to have to install a "Romper Room" such as exists on the new Jouster Forums as a time-out area for mature adults, who when otherwise discussing just gun related material wouldn't even need it. :lol:

Our registration agreement that everyone clicked "yes" on to register here is quite clear ....

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Registration to Military Surplus Collectors Forums is free! This site is designed to encourage the open exchange of information amongst the general military surplus collector community, thereby helping all of our members to better enjoy their chosen hobby. It's not a venue for discussing the politics of firearms ownership or the practices and policies of various governments trying to control them. We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below. If you agree to the terms, please check the 'I agree' checkbox and press the 'Register' button below. If you would like to cancel the registration, click here to return to the forums index.

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This thread wouldn't get through a half dozen posts before it would turn deeply political. Been there, done that dozens of time and even though I agree with what andya1thomas is saying and the obvious political position most of our membership would have on this subject, this site is NOT the venue to get into it.

We'd appreciate everyone respecting our site rules. Thank you .. :cheers:

Regards,
Badger (Doug)