This is a follow-up to an article posted a few days ago, “More Potential Restrictions in the UK – Deactivated Firearms May Be Banned“, which referenced an article from the Press Association reporting on the Home Secretary commenting about outlawing deactivated firearms.
Also of interest are previous reports about restrictions in the UK – “Research & Dialogue About Importing Firearms to the UK” and 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 that legislation on prop collectors and dealers.
Stephen Lane of The Prop Store of London has provided some additional information today in regards to these developments, and a request of UK-based original prop hobbyists that have deactivated firearms in their collections:
As I’m sure you can imagine just the proposal of the introduction of such an act has all collectors of deactivated weapons within the UK (not just film related weapons) seriously concerned (I was going to say ‘up in arms’…but….ahem…)
Today I have had a very long conversation with John Batley who is Director of the Gun Trade Association (GTA) : http://guntradeassociation.co.uk/. We are members of this association.
The GTA work very closely with the home office, becoming involved when any new acts or bills regarding guns are proposed / introduced. It was predominantly due to their involvement in the VCR (Violent Crime Reduction Act) that deactivated weapons were taken off the bill last time around.
The current situation – which the GTA expect to be clarified by the end of this week or early next week is as follows:
The original specification for deactivating firearms to a level agreed by all relevant bodies was set in 1988. After only a few years it was considered that the ’88 specification of deactivation was not rigorous enough and left too many opportunities for deactivated guns to become reactivated.
Taking this into consideration a new, more comprehensive standard was introduced in 1995. This reduced the number of moving components that could be left functional within the weapon (which varied from weapon to weapon i.e. a shotgun can still have the pump action movement but a machine guns bolt has to be dead welded) and changed other similar specifications. This ensured that it would be almost impossible to reactivate them.
According to the GTA (and this has not yet been officially confirmed by the Home Office but has already been indicated) the statement made by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, actually relates to the banning of ’88 specification deactivated weapons. i.e all weapons that were deactivated between 1988 and 1995. It is also expected that any owners of ’88 specification weapons will have the opportunity to take their items to an armorers to be worked on, bringing the specification up to the ’95 grade.
It is not anticipated that the Government will try to pass an act that will outlaw the ownership of all deactivated weapons as the GTA estimates they would have compensation claims running in the £100’s of millions of pounds to consider.
The Prop Store of London has offered its services to the GTA in voicing the concerns of our community within the UK and making the Government aware or our sector of the market place. Luckily we have some firm public precedents to call upon – like the Christies James Bond Weapons sale last year. These act as a clear indicator of the significant value (both historically and fiscally) of such items within the UK.
The GTA have asked if we could supply them with some non specific information with regards to the number and total approximate market value of either pre ’88 or post ’95 deactivated weapons.
It would help us immensely if those within this community could email me at [email protected] with any such info. Please note we do not need to know and we are not asking for specifics from collectors we just need to have just an idea of what’s out there. For example – an email from a collector stating that he / she owns two deactivated pistols and one deactivated machine gun all deactivated post 1995 with a total market value of £10,000 is all that we need.
If anybody is unsure then please contact me via email or phone us on 01494 766485 and I’ll happily discuss further.
For clarification – this only applies to collectors within the UK.
We will be keeping a very close eye on this and John at the GTA has promised to keep us informed as matters progress and he wall call upon us for our voice and additional support when required.
Jason De Bord