Scotland: Airgun owners given six months to licence weapons

[CheddarMan]

Interesting how this has never been mentioned by any of the left handed friends in the army, nor any of my hunting friends who use semi automatics. Also the number of rounds fired in a hunting situation is normally 1 - one.



We don't need weapons? Who are "we"?
Hunters and sports shooters have a genuine need for wepons, just like a football player needs a football.

The question about the the man in the market town is like asking why a golfer needs different types of clubs. But I will humor you.

The dude in the market town would need a shot gun for skeet shooting, another for goose hunting, and a third for grouse. The M1 carbine because he is interested in millitary shooting, and the kalashnikov variant because he is into daynamic sports shooting, although an AR-15 variant is the standard here.

Well, in the British Army, for the years we used the FN/SLR we instructed to fire it right handed because the spent cartridges eject to the right and backwards, not all semi-auto or automatic weapons do this, but it was a characteristic of the FN/SLR. Any of of the members on here who served in the time of that weapon will confirm this was an instruction given, although quite a few did shoot left handed (it bloody hurt if you did get a face full of stinging cartridge.

The 'dude' in Hungerford, I know you aren't from the UK, do you know what happened in that scenario? It was in the late 80's we didn't have 'dynamic shooting competitions' he used to take all his rifles to a converted railway tunnel in Devizes and blast away for hours on end, he didn't even use them outside. Google 'Michael Ryan' for more facts.

[FishyFolk]

Well, in the British Army, for the years we used the FN/SLR we instructed to fire it right handed because the spent cartridges eject to the right and backwards, not all semi-auto or automatic weapons do this, but it was a characteristic of the FN/SLR. Any of of the members on here who served in the time of that weapon will confirm this was an instruction given, although quite a few did shoot left handed (it bloody hurt if you did get a face full of stinging cartridge.

The 'dude' in Hungerford, I know you aren't from the UK, do you know what happened in that scenario? It was in the late 80's we didn't have 'dynamic shooting competitions' he used to take all his rifles to a converted railway tunnel in Devizes and blast away for hours on end, he didn't even use them outside. Google 'Michael Ryan' for more facts.

The H&K G3 that the Norwegian army used in my day throws the spent cartridges forward, and so does most semi-automatics I have seen. If not you can also attach a spent casing deflector to guide it away from you. Hurts if hit by a spent casing?...you bet!

No I am not from the UK, I am Norwegian. Norway is on the top 10 list of most guns per citizen in the world. In a typical year we have something like 20-30 murders a year. Half of them with a knife or other sharp insttrument. In 2-3 of them guns are involved, the rest are beaten do death, drowned or poisoned. So I do not see guns as a big problem here. The reason is that we have a firearms culture that basically views firearms ownership as something you do for 3 reasons:

1. Hunting
2. Sports
3. To educate the population in the use of firearms in defence of the nation.

The last one used to be quite important right up to the end of the last cold war. When I started shooting in rifle competitions at age 12 (they won't let you until you are tall enough to handle the rifles), the rifle, a German Mauser, chambered for a 6.5 x 55 round, was given to me as a permanent loan (until age 18, when I was expected to purchase my own rifle), and the ammo was sponsored by the army.
On the first day of my membership, my dad signed a form, and was handed the rifle, and 100 rounds. And I kept it hanging on the wall over my bed...my dad did put the ammo in the attic though :-)
It was alll part of a plan to eduacte the people in the use of firearms in case of invasion. Lessons learned from WW2.

When the Nazis invaded, the Norwegian army did not have to spend time training soldiers how to shoot. They where allready masters of that. And we are still very comptetent in the use of firearms in this country, with rifle shooting being one of our largest sports. But I do not think the armed forces rely much on our ability to hit a target dead centre at 300 meters with iron sights anymore... ;-)

These days hunting and competion shooting is the main reasons people own guns here. I have never heard anyone ever mention weapon ownership as a means of self defence, which is not a legal reason in our laws either. We keep our guns stored in gun safes (legal reuirement, safe must also be bolted to the floor or wall), with vital part and ammo removed and stored separate from the weapon.

If there ever was a requirement to store air rifles the same way, It would not be a problem, people would just throw it in their existing gun safe, with their shot guns, rifles and pistols.

Anyway, there are some 500 000 un-registered shot guns in this country of 5 million people.... last year 1 murder out of 22 was comitted with a shot gun.

[shepherd]

LOVED watching this rune, im so envious of you for having such awesome comps in your country, and its so lovely to see men, women and children in the crowd supporting the sport. and not condemning it simply because it involves guns... as iv said earlier we have a chap called George Digweed in our country. he is our most decorated sportsman of ALL TIME, and not many people know who he is and have never heard of him, this is because he is a clay pigeon shooter and thus not many tv stations will show his achievements as its seen as promoting firearms. its sad.

[FishyFolk]

We are not very good at summer sports here, but in shooting we got a few Olympic champions in various forms of shooting. But we also combine shooting with winter sports, *
lekere here, in the olympic event biathlon...cross country skiing combined with shooting. You do not show up at an event like that with your M1 rifle...you need a a 22LR that is customized and approved for the sport, hence the need for sveral types of firearms for different uses.

[CheddarMan]

The H&K G3 that the Norwegian army used in my day throws the spent cartridges forward, and so does most semi-automatics I have seen. If not you can also attach a spent casing deflector to guide it away from you. Hurts if hit by a spent casing?...you bet!

You don't seem to believe me about where the cases go, watch this clip, a minute or so of the wobbly numpty waffling like a useless fat wannabe, then he gets pulling the trigger. Watch the cases, for some reason when the bloke who invented the rifle was deciding on where to send the cases, he had a brain fart and sent them back and right. Fired left handed they almost perfectly the shooter just above his right cheek. Genius design! Bloody good weapon though.

[FishyFolk]

No I was just telling you how it works on most other autos and semi autos. I.e the casing is thrown to the side and forwards. On the G3, wich was the standard rifle when I was in the forces, it throws the casing sveral meters out and forward.

Looks like the designer of the L1A1 forgot to design in a casing deflector like on this AR 15, the most common weapon in dynamic shooting, that also throws them off to the side and forward.