Brexit, the economy and house prices (Part 3)

BobQ wrote: »

So we have a problem with too many uncontrolled firearms lurking around the UK and EU that have the potential to be used for organised crime across national borders. So there is a need for guns in private ownership to either be properly controlled or permanently deactivated.

Live firing Weapons

Freedom of movement across the EU has resulted in the whole continent being flooded with semi and fully automatic weapons mainly from Eastern Europe and its a shame the EU chose to ignore the blindingly obvious consequences of an Open border policy. But hey lets now shut the gate after the horse has bolted..........Same old story penalise the legal responsible gun owners knowing the naughty bys will continue to stick 2 fingers up at the EU.

You favour "deactivation" to allow them to be field stripped and deactivated. Personally it makes sense to me to make deactivation "irreversible" and if that means welding then I do not see any problem. Cannot education be provided using other means?

Deactivated Weapons

The issue is Bob the UK certification has proved to be successful in that when each gun is deactivated under UK spec its impossible to re activate. The problem arose ,and most remain voters won't like the fact but it is true that other countries carried out token effort deactivation work like the Czech Republic who basically certified guns as deacts having had a metal rod hammered up the barrel. This ,obviously isn't acceptable because its easy to just pull the rod/bar out and hey presto you have a live firing machine gun. This was in no way the fault of the UK but rather than take the Czech Republic etc to task the EU chose to show its muscles and penalise the whole of the EU.

I reiterate the UK method of deactivation works well but allows the guns to dry fire and be field stripped but never re activated. When you block up the barrel, drill a hole in the top of the barrel, grind the firing pin at 45 degrees etc the gun is useless as a live firing firearm.

The question needs to be asked why did the EU choose not to adopt the UK specification when its been proved to work. It smacks of the EU making legislation for the sake of legislation.

Education wise I think much is lost if you can't dry fire or field strip. For instance the Russian DP28 machine gun when dry fired has enormous recoil so school children and adults can see for themselves what it was like to pull the trigger and feel the bolt slam back even without a live bullet. The British sten gun was a very agricutural piece of engineering so field stipping it can show just how basic it was and this was true for many WW2 weapons. Its also worth noting that re-enactors like to be true to the hobby so bushcraft, weapons training,weapons stripping ,marching ,daily duties are carried exactly as they would have been done during WW1 or 2.

My son belongs to a group of around 80 members who do WW2 Russian but there are thousands and thousands of Re-enactors across the UK and mainland Europe. We go to various shows each year including Military Odyssey down in Kent where thousands of re-enactors meet each year. You can see re-enactors doing Japanese Shogun,Saxons,17th & 18th Century British Army, Spanish Catalans who come over and do 18th Century Spanish to French or Polish Re-enactors doing Russian,Free French, American Civil war (Union and Confederates) and German re-enactors coming over to do German WW1.

Is it illegal to 3D print a firearm for educational purposes?

Good question and I have no idea. I think if it is legal it may work for educational purposes but you also need to consider people like to own weapons,clothing,medals etc etc etc that are contemporary to the historic era they re-enact. Its no different in that respect to a collector who has 17th Century English silver, they wouldn't want a 20th century copy .