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Can anyone out there give me a definitive answer as to what the implications are of buying a deactivated weapon without a deac certificate? Deactivation was carried out in the 60/70s and no cert issued. I realise this will make it more difficult to sell on later but what are my legal responsibilities?
Happy New Year!
The only thing you need to concern yourselkf with is this............... I know that there will be a hundred others who come oin board, but as one who has been in the courts as a so-called expert witness, it's this. Is the rifle you possess capable of discharging a shot, bullet or other like missile and/or, does it contain any unaltered load bearing parts that are themselves firearms in their own right, capable of bearing the load or pressure of discharge. These parts include the bolt, barrel and body.
For example, many dealers sold on skel;etonised No1's and No4's for years before the law on deacts was formalised. Equally, hundreds were welded up and then sold on as wall hangers. The deact legislation was not retrospective so if it were a deact THEN, it is NOW.
The very BEST piece of advice I could give you, as one who had acted for three or four 'unfortunates' is this iF IT COMES TO PUSH AND SHOVE DO NOT SAY ANYTHING EXCEPT THAT YOU WILL ONLY SPEAK AFTER TAKING ADVICE. And the second bit of advice. DO NOT EVER, EVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BE BROWBEATEN INTO SAYING, DOING OR WRITING ANYTHING Then GET the bloody advice.
Was that simple enough? You do not need a deact cert for a deact weapon. The difference between a pre-deact and a post deact is that with a pre-deact era weapon, the onus of proof is upon you. Afetr that, when there is a missing/lost cert, the onus of proof is upon the prosecutors
Peter
As always, thanks for that reply.
Regards
Chris
Please excuse my ignorance, but what kind of guns in the UK are subject to de-activisation and what, if any, are not.
This is a very alien concept to me.
tom
WiltshireSpud,
For a small sum of money, you can get a local gunsmith to look at it for you and properly deactivate it if it is still "live". PM me if you want the name of a good fellow who works quite near you.
Rob
Thank you Peter for a very clear answer. Translated into German it would be a very good answer for anyone over here with the same problem.
Here a weapon can now only be deactivated by a gunsmith and must afterwards be checked and marked by a governmental agency. Which, with transport to and from the agency by approved means, plus the cost of the "negative proof" on top of the gunsmith's work, makes it so expensive that a "modern-rules" de-act is more expensive than a perfectly usable functioning weapon. The result is that new de-acts are uneconomical for dealers, and have become extremely scarce, and many old rifles are simply scrapped outright, not even being available for parting-out. So "old-rules" de-acts are at a premium! Has the market in the UK been affected in a similar way?
If the firearm has been deactivated prior to the 1988 Firearms (Amendment) Act then it will not have Certificate and CANNOT benefit from the terms of that Act.
What that means in practice is that it will need to take its chance (possibly in court) if challenged.
That means, as Peter rightly says, if it is challenged you MUST get expert advice. Whatever you do I would counsel you to never rely on the expertise of your local police. My experience has been that they will tend to err on the cautious and say: "No Certificate or Proof House Marks under the Act - no gun".
On the technical side the usual problem with pre-1988 deacts is that they often will allow a round to chamber. Under the specification laid down in the rules that apply to the 1988 Act, that is a no-no. People have got around this by showing that even though a specific deact can chamber a round it is incapable of discharging it. e.g an L59.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
Which means that a chamber that can still accept a live round is unacceptable for a de-act. Because someone can cut down the barrel and fire out of the stub.
The problem people with pre '88 deacts farce is actually FINDING someone who's experience, expertise and FORMAL qualifications can match that of the 'experts' from the Home Office. I acted for one person who had a welded-up solid in the 60's MG34 (or it might have been a 42, I can't remember now) on an old 1950 look-a-like Africa Corps motorbike and sidecar. He'd had it unquestioned since then but then, one day, he came up against the '...no certificate, no gun' farce.
It was a farce because they took him on and I was able to say , as the army are want to do, in words that were clearly understood by all in the Crown Court that it was a complete and utter joke because........ They stopped the case in the afternoon and awarded him total costs
So NEVER, EVER, EVER say, write or admit ANYTHING unless you have taken sound advice. And as Beery says, the cops are not the best people to give sound and impartial advice
Only my 2c's worth
Sad isn't it - that people who are law abiding and indeed law respecting should be subjected to this. This applies often to firearms certificates holders too. It's an easy target for the police I suppose. On the other hand you don't see a great deal of action being taken against those gangs who actively own and use illegal firearms - presumably for reasons of being seen to target certain sections of society and fear on their (the authorities') part of provoking social disorder in retaliation.
Not just the police. If you saw the Sun article, claiming that assault rifles are legally available in the UK, last week, Gun Control Network (Or Gill Marshal Andrews and a few of her mates as it is more correctly known.) were claiming that guns leak from legal owners to the illegal pool. We all know that is nonsense (as was the rest of the article) but the public do not. What is a pity is that none of our representative organisations took GCN and the Sun to court for libel on all of their members. GCN would not have been able to justify the remark, in terms of fair comment, because it simply isn't true.Quote:
Originally Posted by PrinzEugen
True enough beerhunter - when I renewed my certificate recently the firearms officer went through every gun, checking it was there and the serial no was correct. No 'leakage' possible there! Trouble is the extremists tend to be the voices heard and people who aren't presented with the correct facts (eg the sun article) believe what they hear.
Any chance of a description of what has been done to deactivate it back then? I recently parted out a Bren Mk3 which had been cut with oxy acetaline, even the chamber had been cut for about 1 1/2" with the torch. I guess this was from the 60's (Possibly rejeted from the L4 programme?) judging by the corrosion. It had also been deactivated proofed in 1986 and from what I could see, the only additional job done was the cutting off the piston with a hacksaw.
A RFD colleague had an old-spec deact Bren come in from someone's estate. It had the firing pin snipped, the barrel pegged, and the barrel spot-welded to the receiver. It took about 5 minutes to re-activate it with a spare barrel and pin.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Brit plumber
(before any UK cops present have an embolism, the RFD had Sect 5 authority and the Bren was just in process of being "properly" de-activated.)
Very sad indeed!Quote:
Originally Posted by PrinzEugen
I do not have the links to hand but if you dig around in the Home Office website you will find the De Act specifications there. Should I find the links I'll post them. I have two 'old style' D Acts with no certs that I have to get rid of. If I take them to the Proof House they will need to be brought up to new spec before I can get certs.
Current (2010) Home Office deactivation specifications:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publica...10?view=Binary
See page 33 for the spec applicable to Lee-Enfields.
I've read elsewhere that the Proof Houses won't re-certify pre-1988 deacts. But that's their interpretation/opinion - it doesn't automatically follow that said deacts are illegal without a certificate. A court of law has the final word.
This wouldnt of been read much in my neck of the woods, and most sun readers cant read (according to Jasper Carrot), so the affect would be minimal, it is a shame this kind of stuff does get printed though, I remember a story about a guy who had around 80 grenades he had collected over the years, all inert, trouble was I think he had a off ticket Luger or similar, strange thing was the story was based around the grenades and not the Luger !!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Beerhunter
Similar was the one about a UK reporter in Europe who bought a Skorpian SMG, it was de-activated, but he went on and on how easy it was to buy, it was the way the story claimed "anyone " could buy one, the seller did say it may not be up to UK secification.
The whole story got my back up, So I sent a letter, reminding him of our stringent laws etc, and anyone could buy a deact etc, I just pointed out the 5 year stretch a Firearms offence carries ...... I did go on further but did not get a reply, maybe it was at the end and my kind way of saying he was talking out of his a**e hole.
Sorry I asked........................Quote:
Originally Posted by shop tom
I'll look elsewhere.
tom
Sorry shop tom, deactivation can include any weapon, from a bolt action rifle to 15 pound field gun, all depends on if the owner has the right certificate etc to own , if he wants to posess a firearm but not use it and does not want to keep it live then de activation is the way to go.Quote:
Originally Posted by shop tom
Sorry Robert (thread 16) but saying that because your old spec deacts dont have (or you have lost the) certificates that they have to be disposed or got rid of is a ludicrous statement. It's like saying that you have to get rid of your car if you have lost the MoT test certificate. Absolute rubbish............ Go to the bottom of the class!
They either ARE or they AREN'T deactivated. The fact that the proof house will not RE-issue you with a cert is neither here nor there.
Couldn't agree more Peter. On top of which, for post 1988, it is the marks made by the Proof House on the firearm that caries the weight of law.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
Even then not necessarily so Beery, but it does change the onus of proof if it's not blatantly obvious. If the mark was obliteated by, say, bead blasting or phosphating and painting as has been the case, the item REMAINS deactivated.
In one case that I was asked to pass an opinion on for XYZ Police, a deact L2A3 Sterling that had been converted (badly if I had to offer an opinion on the workmanship.....) into a still deacted L34 silenced gun had obliterated the mark during the process. But everyone was happy because once the Officer in the case could see two real ones together and establish in his own mind what had happened he could clearly see that it was the same deact but in a different guise. The same happened with a deact SMLE that the same person had converted into a DeLisle. The problem with this one was that the stamped bolt was mismatched in any case and showed the wrong serial number. But was clearly.......... anyway, you get my drift......
Can anyone confirm if the proof mark showing the deact date (and I guess the proof office) stamped on a bolt(in 2 places ?) has to match the deact date etc. on the rest of the rifle? I’ve always assumed that the 2 components have to match for the deact proofing to remain legal (even if the serial numbers don't actually match – given the number of non-matching deacts that are around)
I presume the deact cert take the number stamped on the rifle body as the master number.
I’ve never had to swap deactivated bolts on a deact rifle, but did wonder if this would be an issue if anyone had to.
Presumably it would then require a new recertification by the proof office?
Hello Peter,
Sorry if I gave the impression that I felt I had to get rid of them as I did not have the Certs. I meant to say 'That I WANT to get rid of'. I know that are properly Deactivated and properly marked and so are NOT firearms under either section 1 or section 5 of the various Firearms acts.
Thank you very much. I was beginning to think I was invisible.Quote:
Originally Posted by bigduke6
tom
At least as sad as the above is what these old, beautiful rifles are subjected to. Truly sad that...Quote:
Originally Posted by PrinzEugen
Further to that Shop Tom, words like 'bleedin obvious' don't even enter into the equation here in the UK. If you own a Sherman Firefly tank with a 17 pounder gun, guess what you have to do with the breech block and barrel.....................? Yep............, got it in one! Got a 120mm WOMBAT anti tank gun that fires electrically fired/detonated ammunition with a back blast area of a zillion yards, with ammo last made in 1967 mounted on your Land Rover..................? Yep, got it in one!
Sad, but true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkZf6_jK3Zs
Wow, and I thought that Massachusetts was bad with a 10 round limit on magazines and the assault weapons ban, you can have them but not bayonet lugs (to stop drive-by bayonettings) or flash hider.
I have two "demilled" a Garand and an 03 but the barrel still has some that is not welded at the last 10 inches or so. I'll put up with Obama for now.