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| JWL Member Since: 26 Oct 2011 Location: Hereford Posts: 3443   
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Forgive me if this is allready well known in the shooting circles but as a holder of both a FAC and a Shotgun Certificate I was a bit taken aback a couple of weeks ago when I heard on our local radio news that renewals were going to be at least double the cost due to the fact that West Mercia are not covering their costs in running the licensing department. Today I caught another snippet of alterations to granting and renewals and looked up this in our local rag;
Changes to licensing firearms announced 2:52pm Monday 1st July 2013 in News Changes to licensing firearms announced IMPORTANT changes to licensing firearms - affecting people in Herefordshire and surrounding areas - have been announced. The changes, which are effective immediately, are that licence holders will be required to provide medical reports when relevant at the point of application and any fees incurred will need to be met by the licence holder at the point of application. Also, as part of the assessment process an interview may be conducted via telephone with the license applicant, and improved web pages on both force websites now offer the licence applicant detailed advice and the ability to download their licence application from www.westmercia.police.uk/firearmslicensing. A fully integrated Warwickshire and West Mercia Firearms and Explosives Licensing Unit, based in Malvern, will be up and running by September 30 this year. The unit will be responsible for providing a service to 48,000 certificate holders – the largest number of firearms owners in England and Wales from a single Licensing Unit. The main tasks of the unit will be to protect the public from harm by managing the risk to the community of any individual owning a firearm, and to provide a service to certificate holders and new applicants I haven't been using any of my guns for a number of years, I'm not actively involved in agriculture any more and as the sole carer for two boys, one of which has learning difficulties I've let my pastime for shooting slide onto the back burner but now my more able bodied 12 year old is mature enough to enjoy shooting as a sport and hobby and I am quite prepared to introduce him to what shooting responsibly is all about. So in short my guns are in a position to be used again. Over the years I've allready had my holding quota of .22lr ammunition cut from holding a maximum of 800 and allowed to buy 500 at a time, worked well to get the best deals. At the last renewal I was only allowed to by 200 at a time and hold 500 but as I hadn't bought any for a number of years I couldn't make much of an argument to keep that privelidge. I know I could have sold my guns or handed them in years ago but they're not worth a great amount in a monetary sense but worth a lot to me in a sentimental way, my fathers 16 bore hammer gun will never be fired again, it would need some serious restoration and really needs to be reproofed(it would destroy it in its present state!), my 12 bore is a bog standard AYA Yeoman but it was a present to me from my father when I passed a whole load of exams at school. My .22 is only a chinese copy of a BRNO but it was what I bought and what I wanted. I have permission to shoot on a number of farms locally, I've often been asked to join others but have allways declined mainly because of having the boys in tow but times are a changing and there is going to be times when I can take up these offers and also I would like my 12 year old to have similar childhood experiences as me which is why I've kept my FAC untill now. It just seems to me that it's another way to hit the rural way of life in this country, another dig from the "PC" faction that seems to have to dictate their views on everybody, another knock against the very type of Englishman(Scots, Welsh etc) that keep the country we know the way it should be so that all the world can look upon the UK as a Green and Pleasant Land Sorry for the rant but I was brought up by a true countryman and spent a lot of my life around true countrymen, those of the ilk that cared for the countryside and wildlife they lived in and with. |
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2nd Jul 2013 11:27pm |
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| JWL Member Since: 26 Oct 2011 Location: Hereford Posts: 3443
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It is such a sad fact of our lives now with the pre-conceptions of the masses, we all are viewing this topic, drawn together through owning, enthusing and even lusting over "gas guzzling jeeps". Ask people where milk comes from and why there is such a meat known as veal. Many do not even realise as to which orafice a hens egg enters this world. After being involved at many levels for the Pro Hunting lobby when the Michael Foster Bill was first kicked off in the late 1990's I came to realise the depths of the misconceptions of the masses about this country we live in. When I was at agricultural college in the early 1980's it was fact then that 2% of the working population was actively involved in agriculture, not just farmers, that included all the ancillary jobs that went to making British farming work, this figure included feed merchants/manufacturers, food processors, machinery providers/fabricators, dairy workers in fact anybody who was involved in making the land provide the smallest morsel that got on the table in anyones house. The other disturbing fact that of that 2%, 2000 workers were no longer being employed in that sector............per month!
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3rd Jul 2013 12:09am |
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