UK Law and Replica Guns

[Cobden]

I think brass scopes would be fine - cosmetic alteration is permitted. Altering the barrel is a bit dodgy on a non-firing replica, and on a blank firing or PFC replica would likely see ones wardrobe replaced by one, arrow covered, outfit.

 

[Opas Coat]

Iittle off topic, This reminds me of Shaun of the dead in the Winchester.

 

[BellyTank]

A funny film, in a testing filmic genre.


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[Edward]

Iittle off topic, This reminds me of Shaun of the dead in the Winchester.

Okay, but dogs can look up.

So now I can't take my full-auto all-metal replica sub-machine gun on the plane to London- terrible news.

Heh... if that was the aim of he law, i was somewhat pointless, given that since at least 9/11, airport security won't even allow a transparent waterpistol shaped like a ray gun within half a mile of a plane.... Maybe just as well, though, eh? Remember that fella up in Hackney with the tableleg....

I am a Citizen. I have a concealed carry permit and have my tool (Smith&Wesson .38) with me always. I'll never understand how so many have let so few turn them from Citizens into Subjects.:eusa_doh:

Oh, no. I'm not touching that Second Amendment debate with a bargepole, not round here anyhow! It's a culturally irrelevant debate here in the UK anyhow - there's no actual desire to own a gun for the vast majority of folks. Just seems ironic to me that it's harder to buy some fakes than the real thing, and a toy, in effect, is more likely to catch the eye of the police than the real thing spray painted a bright colour.... [huh]

I think the LeMat will look sweet. Do you think the law might let you add maybe a brass tube as a scope or some other brass doohickeys, steampunk it up a bit more?

If I could find one that would clip onto the barrel, I'd love a laser-sight with a green light on it.... maybe I'll find a pointer that I could adapt with some brass tubing.

Oh, did your reference of accent imply the Met officers might find it disconcerting for a man of your heritage to be inquiring about gun-related stuff in London?

It's really only a few years since I stopped getting followed round shops as the norm over here, makes you careful! lol

 

[carebear]

Since you don't have to worry about recoil you could probably either look for a functional (cheap) laser on an airsoft website (can't imagine a mountable laser would be prohibited) or dress up a regular laser pointer. Pipe clamps are just clamps after all.

We'll need pictures in any event.

 

[Tiller]

Oh, no. I'm not touching that Second Amendment debate with a bargepole, not round here anyhow! It's a culturally irrelevant debate here in the UK anyhow - there's no actual desire to own a gun for the vast majority of folks. Just seems ironic to me that it's harder to buy some fakes than the real thing, and a toy, in effect, is more likely to catch the eye of the police than the real thing spray painted a bright colour.... [huh]

Since politics is against the rules around here (sadly imo) I'll try to make this question as none political as I can. . I'm a big mystery fan, and in both Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, and David Suchet's Poirot most people in the country have firearms. From the working class games keeper, to the upper class hunter, and all points in between, there is usually someone with a gun if the case takes places in the country side. Hell one of Poirot's mysteries is set in a hunting lodge.

So is this more of a period "thing"? Was it common for people to have firearms from the 1880's up to sometime in the 1940's compared to today? Is it country vs city "thing"? Or simply is it just a part of fiction, and the real world even then rarely involved firearms.

Since this forum is dedicated to the Golden Age though perhaps the best way to ask would be.... Was the UK in the Golden Age more "gun owner friendly", then it is today?

 

[BellyTank]

Agricultural and Country sporting shooting- tools of the trade.
A bit of sport and food on the table.
But strictly a country thing and heavily controlled now.
And yes, you could say it was more of a period thing.


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[Story]

So is this more of a period "thing"? Was it common for people to have firearms from the 1880's up to sometime in the 1940's compared to today? Is it country vs city "thing"? Or simply is it just a part of fiction, and the real world even then rarely involved firearms.

Since this forum is dedicated to the Golden Age though perhaps the best way to ask would be.... Was the UK in the Golden Age more "gun owner friendly", then it is today?

"Always carry a firearm east of Aldgate, Watson."

Given the SHEER volume of revolver sales prior to WWI and the numbers in the British National Rifle Association, yes there was substantial urban ownership of firearms.

The 'Red Scares' of the 1920s led to the first widespread restrictions. Somewhere I have a vintage treatise - written by an Englishman - on the 'unintended consequences' of that legislation.

 

[Cobden]

Prior to the 1930's, I think, one could own a revolver without a license, though in the 1920's rifles and shotguns were licensed, on account of the British having a red scare before they became fashionable.

Revolver ownership was very common in the UK prior to WWI (less so after the first world war) amongst the middle and upper classes, to the extent that there was on occaision when the police (who were all unarmed at this point), in the pursuit of some armed thugs who had robbed a shop, simply asked more well heeled passers by if they could borrow there revolvers, most either obliged, or took part in the chase.

However, there was no culture attached to it as such. The firearms culture in the UK being limited to shotguns and shooting whatever fowl happens to be in season, whereas in America, the handgun is more of a cultural artifact, perhaps due to the mythology of the wild west

 

[carebear]

Colin Greenwood is the British policeman and scientist who, in 1972, wrote what remains the definitive study of gun crime in the UK. It's titled "Firearms Control". He has written several follow-up articles and papers since.

For anyone interested in the history of British "gun culture" and laws the place to start is with Joyce Lee Malcolm's "Guns and Violence: the English Experience" from 2002. She's an American scholar, for whatever reason it's an area of scholarship neglected in the UK.

I haven't read his work but apparently Peter Squires is one of the few other actual British scholars to address the issue.


Never have seen anything similar for Belgium.

From what BT and others say I'm pretty sure the historical experience on the Continent is similar to Britain's since the late 19th Century. Shooting and firearms were present, used and had (have) their afficianados, but were never a "big deal" in terms of general culture.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

Why don't you call the local authority's and ask them? they are the ones you will be dealing with if things go south.

Have them print you a copy of the laws and stamp it. Anyone can use Microsoft and make an authentic looking documents.

Exactly - go to the local police precinct (or similar) with a copy of the law printed off the Internet, with said page's URL on it in case they want to look it up. Explain the situation you're going to be in. Ask if a sufficiently well-known or highly-ranked officer would be willing to give you a letter on official stationery that you can carry with you in case things go wrong or you're stopped. Better to do a little planning ahead and laying some groundwork (as lyrics in a song I often quote go "Hope for the best - expect the worst!") than try to explain to an angry officer in the heat of the moment.

Quoting chapter and verse of rules & regulations to an arresting officer seems to make them more angry and more apt to haul you in and lock you up in the cooler for longer than really necessary, if friends' experiences are any gauge. If you can hand them a letter written by their boss...or boss's boss...the kowtowing on their part begins.

 

[Creeping Past]

So is this more of a period "thing"? Was it common for people to have firearms from the 1880's up to sometime in the 1940's compared to today? Is it country vs city "thing"? Or simply is it just a part of fiction, and the real world even then rarely involved firearms.
...

Was the UK in the Golden Age more "gun owner friendly", then it is today?

Yes, and up to relatively recently, too. Growing up near a small English town in the 1970s, I knew several people who's fathers and grandfathers had firearms, including non-deactivated wartime weapons, WW1 and WW2. In the biography of travel writer Norman Lewis, Semi-Invisible Man, it's said that he habitually carried a pistol everywhere, including on airplanes.

People have skewed notions about firearms ownership in the British Isles. It's assumed that guns = countryside, because of the association of the country with sporting activities (although in my view shooting fat pheasants driven towards you is hardly sporting). I'll be picking up a copy of the book by the American woman as soon as I can.

 

[BellyTank]

People have skewed notions about firearms ownership in the British Isles. It's assumed that guns = countryside, because of the association of the country with sporting activities.

This is definitely true-
and to answer to what I neglected to- YES, the UK WAS practically more gun owner friendly but because firearms were not as strictly controlled as today- I don't believe there was any real "public" perception of a right to own arms, nor a need to.

Has such a notion as "Urban Gun Culture" really existed in the UK in the
20thC ? Beyond Gentlemen/Officers/Military types and (other)criminals?

There is definitely a Country Gun Culture and a perceived necessity
for guns in the Country- by those "in the Country".

As in any country today, there is criminal gun culture but this does not involve legally owned firearms, nor law obiding citizens.
It does, however, effect everybody.


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