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Just realised it’s 22 years today that I was ordered to surrender my pistols to the government, or in four days from then, face the prospect of five years in prison...

b******!

Americans often seem incredulous when I recount the tale of how we meekly handed over our legal property when we had the means to say no.
I inevitably feel embarrassed.

Dark Skies wrote:Americans often seem incredulous when I recount the tale of how we meekly handed over our legal property when we had the means to say no.
I inevitably feel embarrassed.

We didn't have the means to say no if we had we would have ended up in Jail.

Alpha1 wrote:

Dark Skies wrote:Americans often seem incredulous when I recount the tale of how we meekly handed over our legal property when we had the means to say no.
I inevitably feel embarrassed.

We didn't have the means to say no if we had we would have ended up in Jail.

The Americans look at me and say things like "but you had guns - defend your rights."
And I have no real answer beyond "Brits won't fight for their rights - they have to have permission."

We all bent over and took it up the arse. Which is what will happen next time too.
It's really hard to explain to Americans who grew up with the 2nd Amendment (derived from our own Bill of Rights) how the government can just take our stuff.

We're law abiding people and as such we (rightly) follow the law. Despite all the bravado you read over this subject, when push comes to shove most Americans (the legal gun owners I mean) have obeyed their own laws too - just look at California or New York etc where some of the gun laws are on the stricter side in comparison to other states. Or how about their national gun laws? Does Hickok45, after concluding that the laws are unconstitutional and stupid, cut the barrel of one his his ARs down below 16" and convert it to full-auto without permission first from the ATF? Of course not.

I have nothing against Americans but what a lot of them don't understand is that the vast majority of the public are not with us here in the UK or indeed most other western countries. We have no real gun culture and at best most people generally don't think about shooting one way or the other. It's a non issue to the vast majority - and sadly it's really easy to gradually lose something most people don't care about...

I remember when I handed my firearms in that the officers that took them were far from professional.
One waved a revolver around the room "Wow. This is Dirty Harry's gun."
Never even bothered to check it was unloaded (obviously it wasn't but they were not to know that). They delved into my bag and were pulling them out like kids with new toys.
It was deeply jarring to have to hand my property over to those clowns.

Mine were "safe" when I handed them in!
I'd done most of the destruction for them!

JammyGuns wrote:We're law abiding people and as such we (rightly) follow the law. Despite all the bravado you read over this subject, when push comes to shove most Americans (the legal gun owners I mean) have obeyed their own laws too - just look at California or New York etc where some of the gun laws are on the stricter side in comparison to other states. Or how about their national gun laws? Does Hickok45, after concluding that the laws are unconstitutional and stupid, cut the barrel of one his his ARs down below 16" and convert it to full-auto without permission first from the ATF? Of course not.

I have nothing against Americans but what a lot of them don't understand is that the vast majority of the public are not with us here in the UK or indeed most other western countries. We have no real gun culture and at best most people generally don't think about shooting one way or the other. It's a non issue to the vast majority - and sadly it's really easy to gradually lose something most people don't care about...

Indeed, and most of it IS bravado, as they're safe in the knowledge that without registration the government has little chance of bringing something in like our bans, and if it did try the majority of people would be against it. The main difference being if one person resists they're David Karesh, but if everyone resists they're George Washington!

Andy632 wrote:Mine were "safe" when I handed them in!
I'd done most of the destruction for them!

same here and I waited until 11o'clock at night to hand them in . The bloke on e front desk hadn't got a clue , they had to scramble their "firearms expert" from his home to collect them from 40 miles away , I waited with a flask of tea and a sandwich , all remaining live rounds were mixed in one tesco bag and the thousands of 9mm berdan cases in another. He was not amused but the again neither was I.

Yup I'd loaded up to my limit with rounds I would not like to have fired (??!!) and bag loads of empty cases. Probably got more for my cases than I got for the guns. My semi rifles went in with the barrels all bent!