This is an pertinent to the prior articles (Research & Dialogue About Importing Firearms to the UK, the Update to that article), which raised issues and questions related to the implementation of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 in the UK and the affect of this legislation on prop collectors and dealers. Thanks to Simon Lee of DieHardProps.com for the heads up on this new development.
A new article discusses efforts of the Home Secretary to ban “deactivated” firearms as well as “get them out of circulation”.
This obviously has a significant potential impact on collectors in the UK who collect “real” firearms, even after going through efforts to have them deactivated for legal ownership under current laws.
Here is a link to the full article: LINK
Pledge to outlaw ‘deactivated’ guns
Press Assoc. – Saturday, January 5 09:40 pm
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has promised to outlaw “deactivated” guns, which can easily be reconverted into active firearms for use in crime.
And she said she was looking into changes which would allow witnesses of crime to enjoy protection from an earlier stage – possibly from the moment they first contact police.
Ms Smith’s comments come in the wake of a spate of suspected gang-related crimes over the New Year, including the fatal stabbing of a teenager in Erith, Kent, early on Saturday.
She told the Sunday Telegraph that ministers and police need to do more to show they are on the side of “the majority in communities who know this is wrong and who want to work themselves to make a difference”.
Deactivated guns, which have been modified so that they no longer fire bullets, are not currently illegal and can be bought without a firearms certificate.
Restrictions introduced in 1995 made it more difficult for them to be reactivated, but the Association of Chief Police Officers estimate that some 120,000 weapons from before that date remain in circulation.
They can be restored to use within minutes and some have been implicated in crimes including the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando.
Some 96% of all sub-machine guns recovered by the police had been reactivated, according to a parliamentary report in 2000. Ms Smith said: “I will find a way effectively to ban those guns and get them out of circulation.”
She also signalled plans to extend the scope of the Witness Protection Scheme to protect people as soon as they report a crime to the police. Intimidation of witnesses is regularly a problem in gang-related prosecutions.
Ms Smith said: “People need to know very early on when they go to police with information that they are going to be protected. So I’m working with the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General to see if we can bring forward that assurance much earlier.”
Jason De Bord