Pistols: would you give up home storage to get them back?

[Chuck]

No, Nope, Naw.

[Ares590]

If they were legalised would I get one and store it at a club?
Most likely, but it wouldn't be an expensive one. and I wouldn't want to give up home storage of other things, incase I want to go to other ranges to use them.

[Thomas Turner]

I signed the petition - I may regret it, but voted no, it's simple like others have said, whilst I may have reluctantly gone with keeping them at the club in order to keep them in some form at the time of the ban, I wasn't a shooter then, we have to maintain our firearms is one valid argument, but frankly I do not wish to own anything I can't keep at home, were I ever to get rich perhaps a boat, plane, I could live with having to keep elsewhere, and were I rich I would want lots of guns so chances are I would choose where to live based on that.
There is a pain I can see in the eyes of those who lost their handguns due to the law change that I have met since I got into shooting last year, that's why I sign petitions, I feel the need to speak up against the gross injustice done to them at every opportunity more so than I actually want a handgun myself.

[Erika]

Firearms UK have been in touch with me and say they are "unlikely to change the wording", though they deny that they want pistols to be legalised with home storage prohibited.

I'll say this: I saw two drafts of the Firearms UK petition wording, which referred to repealing explicit acts and sections of the law. I asked people I know who are very familiar with those laws for their opinions on the wording, adjusted my own views accordingly and passed on my belief that the proposed wording could cause more trouble for shooting as a whole if it gained traction. It appears I was ignored. Fine; I'm used to this happening, at least until after the event.

Let's not be under any misconceptions, though. The wording of the current "unity campaign" petition to legalise .22 pistols explicitly states that home storage of pistols would be banned and also allows a separate licensing scheme to operate for pistol clubs, over and above the approval and licensing schemes we're already familiar with. Given the current police desire to raise more revenue from shooters, this licensing scheme could so easily turn into an ACPO cash cow which we would have no power to challenge or overturn, bar throwing a six-figure sum at lawyers over a protracted period.

If you're going to call for specific acts and sections of the law to be repealed, you need to be damn sure you understand the effects of what you're asking for. I cannot support this petition, and I'll tell every shooter I know exactly why it's a bad idea to do so.

Gaz please be patient with us, 1/3 of our team has been on holiday including myself during the launch of the campaign, as some of you know we are also a 100% volunteer organisation juggling work, family and everything else to do all we can for shooting.

There was never any intent to implement a club storage solution as part of this petition, and obviously not the campaign as a whole, you more than most should know that in the dialogues I myself have had with you in drafting up the early stages of the petition. Upon your feedback we re-wrote the entire first draft, what we have not fully implemented was your additional suggestions in a separate e-mail regarding amending sections of the earlier acts, and we had reasons for not doing this. Our approach is to build a campaign that as many people as possible will support, including a large number of non-shooters, who may agree with us that changes to specific pieces and "sub-acts" can be workable and produce a positive outcome without lengthy overalls of the entire system, which is in my view very unlikely to happen at this stage.

This is just a step and one of many towards enhancing shooting in the UK and developing a stronger more united community, not a weaker more fractured one which is more vulnerable to attack.

Regarding revisions to the petition, my point and my own personal point in response to you via Twitter, which is hardly the best medium for such discussions, certainly not within a few hours of returning from holiday is that we are unlikely to revise the petition because you personally are unhappy we did not follow all of your suggestions to the letter, that is not a personal criticism of you personally, we appreciate the support you have shown us, which is why I sought your opinion in the first place and have carefully considered what you brought back to us. However, to make this campaign stand out beyond all the others which have gone before and failed we have been working heavily behind the scenes to garner support and official backing from amongst other sectors the established shooting organisations, this hasn't happened by accident and is the result of lengthy review and discussions between our respective organisations to help ensure that this campaign has the broadest appeal as possible and the greatest opportunity for success.

Clearly as should be obvious by the fact that the established shooting press are not known for officially endorsing petitions or campaigns from other organisations content of the campaign and at this stage, importantly the petition has had to be reviewed and vetted for appropriateness and robustness before such organisations are able to give their public and full support. Any and all feedback as been considered and everything you suggested to us is no exception, but all feedback as to be considered together and we are not able to commit to following to the letter every single piece of feedback we receive. Some of your suggestions, which were not fully implemented were discussed internally within Firearms UK and through that we sought out advice from 3rd parties who we trust, the final version of the petition was then drafted from what was discussed and finalized, with to my knowledge the only amendment being a shortening of the petition text to comply with the rules of the e-petition website.

Your concerns, as they were originally will be looked into, but we cannot commit to a change of petition text simply on your say so, or even on my say so. Your concerns will be discussed internally at the earliest opportunity, and if necessary we will seek guidance and may then consider corrective action. Should any corrective action be necessary it should be obvious, but for those less familiar with us then some of you; it will be because of an honest mistake, one made during a very busy period for us, not because of any intent to promote club storage, something which we have never supported.

For those on the fence or now having fears other signing the petition. Firstly if we achieve 50k signatures and do not have a debate in parliament and do not succeed in the return of .22 pistols at this time, that in itself should be seen as a victory. A further united, more active community is only of benefit and will be a stepping stone for larger and more successful campaigns in the future, not just from us at Firearms UK but from any organisation involved in shooting. Petitions which grow in size and are noticed will influence the minds of politicians and others who may otherwise wish to act against you, show them we are a strong community which continues to grow.

Who as more to loose regarding the negative consequences of this petition, which is only a part of the campaign itself? the deterioration of shooting within the UK will impact the established shooting organisations much more than the individual shooter imo.

Would you phone the NRA up and ask them to take on board the advice of your mate from the range, because that's essentially what you are asking of us here, we have entered a period of consultation with those with experience on firearms law whom we trust who have approved the petition, which is why it has been published in its current form. We genuinely care about feedback and the wishes of our supporters, which is why I consulted with Gaz and others during its implementation, in fact the campaign itself was triggered some months ago through Twitter conversation of which Gaz was involved, however we have to draw the line somewhere and when industry experts tell us one thing and an individual tells us another, we, just as any other organisation would will side with those experts.

On a personal note, I initiated the campaign, acting upon requests for a new petition that could be supported by the established shooting organisations, it hasn't happened over night and I have gave many hours of my time and my experience to see that this happens, even taking on certain tasks whilst away on my friends Hen Do, so from some quarters I consider the reception to be quite rude.

Any of you could have created a petition, the shooting community has a whole could have made any that has gone before a success, none of you did, I could have moaned and been negative, but instead I saw an opportunity to benefit UK shooting and did everything I could to see that happen. Already we are seeing things which to my knowledge have not happened before, we are seeing the full support of the established shooting organisations, members of the shooting press have been kept updated and the petition itself has been careful timed to come at a time of supporting comments from both MP's and those within the House of Lords, during the run up to both a European and National election.

All of this has been done be a small group of passionate volunteers, many of whom are yet to even see each other offline due to the distances between our locations, you could support the campaign and not the petition if you are so concerned, or you could even sign the petition and hope the above noted concerns turn out to be unfounded, if they are not there is a real chance there will be a revision anyway, but instead some of you take to forums to rubbish our efforts.

Where you may have regular contact with 1 or 2 shooting organisations, regarding campaigns we may liaise with 20, or even more, we give our time at no cost, and contribute both time and money to support the whole of shooting, irrespective of our own chosen disciplines, we constantly work to promote and defend shooting, when throwing it in our faces, please consider would you really prefer us to stop...

[IsleShoot]

Thanks Erika that's allayed my fears and made me feel a bit sheepish after questioning the wording. I've already signed it anyway but have begun pushing it under other people's noses, even my local MP who purports to support shooters and disagrees with the ban (I'll be looking out for his signature).

Just over 48hrs and 1695 signatures so far...

[ordnance]

No I would hand mine in if they had to be stored at a club.

[JD4570]

What pleases me the most is that the pistols debate has now been reopened. In the past, we have been almost too scared to discuss it for fear of being vilified. It certainly didn't hurt when Nigel Farage said his piece a few weeks ago.

The Canadians fought and fought and got the Liberals' ludicrous Long Gun Registry repealed. They did it by offering their support to the Conservatives on condition that they pledged to repeal that law. We should learn from this example and keep the debate going and going. If the politicians see a trend and, in these politically uncertain times, the hope of a block of votes, they might just come to their senses.

We labour under the delusion in Britain that once something is taken away it can never be won back. But it's that delusion that maintains the status quo. if we don't tell our representatives how we feel, then how will they ever know?

That's my two ha'peth.

[Gaz]

Would you phone the NRA up and ask them to take on board the advice of your mate from the range, because that's essentially what you are asking of us here, we have entered a period of consultation with those with experience on firearms law whom we trust who have approved the petition, which is why it has been published in its current form. We genuinely care about feedback and the wishes of our supporters, which is why I consulted with Gaz and others during its implementation, in fact the campaign itself was triggered some months ago through Twitter conversation of which Gaz was involved, however we have to draw the line somewhere and when industry experts tell us one thing and an individual tells us another, we, just as any other organisation would will side with those experts.

An entirely fair and valid point! Thanks for taking the time to reply, Erika - many others would have just dismissed or ignored the criticism.

Obviously I'm a bit narked that what I warned of came to pass, but I'm also aware that I'm just a bloke with a keyboard and too much time on his hands when it comes to reading the law - I don't do this for a living and my qualifications are in a completely different area of law, much as I like to think the general principles can be applied across the board. Naturally I'd be very curious to see what experts have said about the wording, given that it goes against my understanding. Certainly I'd have expected someone on here to have called me out if I'd got it wrong!

All said and done with the wording, it's still a petition that brings shooters together behind a common cause. And that's A Good Thing.

[Agentfunky]

I've split this off to avoid hijacking the New Petition thread.

I think the wording of the new "legalise pistols" petition could allow the police to impose a (potentially very expensive) new licensing scheme for pistol clubs and pistol storage locations, over and above the existing firearms licensing system. Also, the petition as worded would prohibit storage of pistols at home. See my thinking on the original thread for why.

Is it worth giving up home storage and instead paying for extra licences on top of our FACs if we get .22 pistols back?

I'm not saying this to have a pop at Firearms UK, the guys who came up with the petition, btw. I think they've done a very good thing here, and I think we could probably overcome what's basically a technical slip in the wording if this breaks the 100,000 signatures barrier. The question does interest me, though.

I already have a pistol stored at a club.

For me the next step is to get home storage, and incumbent with that would be freedom of movement in the same way as we have for Section 1, and the ability to shoot competitions.

Multi-gun is gaining slowly in popularity and provides the perfect reason for the return of pistol shooting as a discipline that many people can enjoy.

I can understand a phased re-introduction of calibres starting with .22LR and see it as a sensible request to make.

There is no evidence to back up any need for pistols to be stored at clubs. There is no evidence for them to be prohibited for that matter.

[froggy]

There is no evidence to back up any need for pistols to be stored at club

Other than helping the polititians to make pistol shooting & ownership legal & acceptable to the general voting public. yes, utterly un-necessary but, in my eyes, an un-avoidable step & a very small price to pay.