Talk:Firearms regulation in the United Kingdom

Suggest consolidate sections on Firearms Crime and Impact of Firearm Legislation

The article could use a bit of polishing. It is rather disjointed at present. One place to start would be to consolidate the information in two separate sections that cover similar topics: Firearms Crime and Impact of Firearm Legislation. Dezastru (talk) 08:11, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of change of crime figures reporting?

In skimming the article, I did not see much discussion of the change in crime figures reporting after 2002 (just one very brief mention), or discussion about the conflicting information available from different sources of reporting (British Crime Survey vs other methods of ascertainment, for instance). Considering how dense the text is with figures from various years, it would seem important to note how different sources of crime stats have produced some uncertainty as to what the actual figures are, and why it might be that the different surveys produce different figures. Dezastru (talk) 08:16, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

This Home Office document details the impact on the figures by the changes to the National Crime Reporting Standard, and a useful set of examples appears at the bottom of page ix to outline the type of incidents that would be henceforth counted as "crimes," which may or would not have been previously. On page xi it states:

"The national picture for total crime demonstrates an overall NCRS impact of 10 per cent on the recorded crime statistics for 2002/03. In other words, the crimes counted in 2002/03 were 10 per cent higher than they would have been under pre-NCRS re c o rding, reflecting a change in recording practice rather than a real increase in crime. This estimate represents the impact on this year’s recorded crime statistics, not the full impact of the NCRS, as this will have affected the data for some forces in earlier years.

• The violence against the person offence grouping demonstrated the largest NCRS impact (23 per cent in 2002/03). Whilst most of the impact occurred in the first quarter of 2002/03, a subsequent rise in the ratio of crimes to incidents in the latter part of the year may indicate that the NCRS impact is not yet complete for this offence type.
• The national picture demonstrates that domestic burglary figures were three per cent higher because of the NCRS effect, with no indication of any continuing effect beyond the second quarter of 2002/03.
• The NCRS effect on robbery is estimated to have been in the region of three per cent, although the comparatively small numbers of robberies mean that small changes in the number of crimes and incidents can result in disproportionately large estimated effects. Once again, there is little evidence of any enduring NCRS effect post 2002/03.
• The national picture for theft shows an NCRS impact of nine per cent. The data suggest that this effect has now levelled off.
• The impact on vehicle theft was estimated using a different method from other offences because most forces were unable to provide incident numbers relating specifically to these types of theft. The result is an adjustment to the change in recorded vehicle thefts from 2001/02 to 2002/03 from minus one per cent to minus nine per cent. Most of this impact occurred in the first two quarters of the year.
• The national picture demonstrates that criminal damage figures were nine per cent higher because of the NCRS effect."

Most firearms crime sub-types show a sharp increase in both 2001/02 and 2002/03, after which the settle down again (with the exception of homicide, since you can't really change the definition of a dead victim). This can best be appreciated by figure 2.4 on page 53 of this report. I think it would possible to do our own version of this chart, but including in it the pre-1999/00 and post-2009/10 data, which are also available. This will kill several birds with one stone, in that it will clearly show the long-term trend, as well as the impact of the NCRS, and non-impact of the VCRA. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure? QuentinUK (talk) 14:56, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Could you be more specific? Nick Cooper (talk) 15:38, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Should we split the article?

The history of The troubles means that gun policy, politics and gun lawlessness has been different in Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK. Also, in the article we have lots of details shootings reported from England and Scotland, but nothing about the lawless shootings in Northern Ireland which makes it all a bit unbalanced in my opinion. Would it not be better to have this UK article as a very short overview explaining the general similarities and differences within the UK nations, but split most of the article off into separate articles on policy in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland? The statistics are often restricted to England and Wales and Scotland has a somewhat different legal framework to that in England and Wales though I'm not sure if the laws in Scotland are the same as in E&W, or how the legal system differences/devolved powers affects policy setting, policing and gun controls.. I presume the devolved government in Northern Ireland publishes its own stats. Thoughts anyone? --80.223.105.147 (talk) 15:04, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

There's certainly something to be said about clearly differentiating out the three legal entities, although until very recently it's been the case that Scottish laws on firearms have been reserved to Westminster, so in practical terms any new English/Welsh legislation had a direct Scottish equivalent. Northern Ireland is clearly a completely separate case, and would benefit from a completely separate page, whereas it might be better to have England & Wales and Scotland on the same page, but with specific sections (e.g. firearms crime) clearly separated. I think one thing we are currently lacking is a section imitation firearms, of which the current "Airsoft and BB Guns" section would be a part. The air weapons section also needs some work, e.g. to cover those air pistols that are realistic replicas of modern handguns, which are nonetheless controlled as air weapons, rather than imitations. Nick Cooper (talk) 17:35, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

False claims of rising gun crime

I have deleted the recent anon IP claim that:

"According to Mail Online News, gun crime has skyrocketed in the last decade despite a weapons ban in effect."

This was sourced to this October 2009 article.

In fact, the number of all firearms-enabled crimes had fallen each and every year in the five years before the publication of the article (i.e. 2004/04 to 2008/09), while crimes not involving air weapons had falled in two out of the previous three years (i.e. 2005/06 to 2008/09). In addition, both measure fell consistently in both of the two years since then (i.e. 2008/09 to 2011/12). The actual figures are (all gun crime/non-air weapons crime):

1997/98 = 12,805 / 4,903
1998/99 = 13,874 / 5,209
1999/00 = 16,946 / 6,843
2000/01 = 17,698 / 7,471
2001/02 = 22,401 / 10,024
2002/03 = 24,070 / 10,248
2003/04 = 24,094 / 10,338
2004/05 = 22,893 / 11,069
2005/06 = 21,526 / 11,088
2006/07 = 18,481 / 9,645
2007/08 = 17,343 / 9,865
2008/09 = 14,241 / 8,200
2009/10 = 12,976 / 8,051
2010/11 = 11,227 / 7,024

Gun crime as a whole is now lower than it was in 1997/98, while crimes not involving air weapons are now lower than they were in 2000/01. Any suggestion that gun crime - by whatever measure - is currently or has been recently rising is completely untrue. Nick Cooper (talk) 15:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I light of the anon IP's reinistatement of their bogus claims, I would further note that taking handguns that could only be held for sporting purposes away from less than 0.1% of the population can clearly have no connection whatsoever with the levels of overall crime across the UK. That would be like claiming that banning Ferraris from public roads would affect the overall number of speeding offences. Nick Cooper (talk) 10:26, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Out Of Date (2000) Table

For best practice I have added an 'out of date' tag to the article (2000!) in support of it's supposition that 'England & Wales' (British?) Gun crime has reduced. Twobells (talk) 15:45, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Firearms description irrespective of ideology

I have properly described the British police firearms irrespective of loaded ideological terminology with a link to both their wiki articles and the manufacturers web pages which describe as such. I have included for factual purposes the fact that they are semi-automatic irrespective of the fact that a 2 minute job by someone who is not an armourer makes them fully automatic. So please for the very last time stop deleting the main weapons that British police now use along with the cites and descriptions and for the record a 'semi-automatic' rifle does not affect its lethality. Twobells (talk) 16:15, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense. Nobody who knows the first thing about firearms would describe as a "sub machine gun" or "assault rifle" a weapon that is semi-automatic only - that sort of flagrant misrepresentation is the stuff of the sensationalist press. If you persist in introducing deliberate factual inaccuracies to this article, I will regard them as vandalism, and treat them accordingly. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:00, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately assault rifles or weapons are the term that's being used even if they are semi automatic. See Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban or the SLR. Pleasetry (talk) 13:32, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

What happens in America has no bearing on the content of this page. The term you refer to is not even remotely in widespread use in the UK, and not the one used by the British authorities to describe the short semi-automatic rifles used by UK police ([1], [2], [3], [4], etc.). "Carbine" is a widely known and recognised term, and is appropriate for this page. Nick Cooper (talk) 20:26, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Police can call them whatever they want. The former label covers their weapons more accurately as they are not all assault rifles neither does semi auto stop it being an assault or battle rifle as the SLR proves. Pleasetry (talk) 13:32, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle is a battle rifle, not an assault rifle (not least because they use a full-powdered rifle cartridge), but then the UK police don't use them, so there is no comparison. UK police use short semi-automatic rifles, i.e. carbines. Any attempt to "sex up" their description is the stuff of sensationalist gutter journalism. Nick Cooper (talk) 14:02, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Note the SLR is still a battle rifle regardless of it being full or semi automatic. UK police use semi automatic assault rifles and other assault weapons.

However as you've mentioned sensationalist gutter journalism there should be a section on the effect that has had on gun politics in the UK. Pleasetry (talk) 17:33, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The FN-FAL is a battle rifle by virtue of it firing a full-powered rifle cartridge, which the semi-automatic carbine versions of the MP5, G36, LMT Defender, etc. do not, so they're not battle rifles. There is no such thing as a "semi automatic assault rifles," because an assault rifle by definition must have at least one full-automatic or burst-fire mode, which again the carbines used by the British police do not have. "Assault weapon" is a term that had no place in UK law or common UK usage.

If you find reliable sources dealing with the media misrepresentation of firearms, then they can be used. Nick Cooper (talk) 22:10, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Other guns use a full power cartridges yet they are not battle rifles. Pleasetry (talk) 16:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

And? Nick Cooper (talk) 23:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

It shows that just because they share the same characteristics doesn't mean they are the same also if you cut the size down it would also be a carbine but still a battle rifle. The police are using assault rifles that have been modded but they're still assault rifles.Pleasetry (talk) 06:25, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

No, to be an assault rifle, the weapon must have certain characteristics, one of which is the ability to fire on full-automatic, which the versions of the G36, LMT Defender, etc. used by UK police do not have. UK police have used the term "carbine" for many years to accurately describe the weapons they use (and, indeed, the semi-auto Sterling used previously), and there is not reason for us to not follow suit here.

You have already breached WP:3RR twice in the last 48 hours trying to impose your POV edit. I would suggest that you stop now before I escalate this matter. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:01, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Please do. Your argument is only based on your pedantic view of what an assault rifle is which differs from their intended use and what everyone else calls them. The Dailymail calls them assault rifles too Pleasetry (talk) 23:48, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The Daily Mail is a sensationalist and scare-mongering tabloid, Wikipedia is not. "Assault weapons" is a controversial and highly disputed American legal term - it has no place herE. Nick Cooper (talk) 08:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I have multiple valid sources while you're parroting the police line. Pleasetry (talk) 21:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

And what exactly is your issue with "the police line"? It's an accurate description of what they use, while "submachine gun" or "assault rifle" is not. Why do you think we should ignore factual inaccuracy, in favour of media sensationalism or misrepresentation? Nick Cooper (talk) 20:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Multiple sources have contradicted your biased position. Pleasetry (talk) 22:30, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Police sources universally use "semi-automatic carbine" (http://www.met.police.uk/sco19/training.htm], [5], [6], [7], etc.); the issue has been clarified in Parliament (e.g. [8]); and even if the media often gets their descriptions wrong, they do occasionally acknowledge such mistakes (e.g. [9]). Why is reflecting this "biased"? Why is it not "biased" for you to mis-represent semi-automatic weapons as fully automatic ones by inaccurately calling them "submachine guns" or "assault rifles"? Why do you want to make it seem like UK police are armed with more powerful/serious/dangerous/whatever weapons than they actually are? On Wikipedia we strive to remove ambiguity, yet you are trying to impose a massive misrepresentation on this page and others. Why is that? Nick Cooper (talk) 09:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Please don't say I'm trying to misrepresent them when the edits clearly show they're semi automatic and this is an issue that's been brought up with other editors. As I've stated on another article, there is disagreement in a few articles on exactly what a carbine as it could mean any sort of short rifle. So as these are assault rifles or sub machine guns that have their selectors stuck to single shot it makes more sense to call them that.Pleasetry (talk) 07:05, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

It's completely false to claim the weapons in question, "have their selectors stuck to single shot." The MP5s have a semi-automatic trigger group fitted, that would need complete replacement or destructive modification to make fully-automatic; as the AR-15 page states apropos the BTP's LMT Defenders:

"Semi-automatic AR-15s for sale to civilians are internally different from the full automatic M16, although nearly identical in external appearance. The hammer and trigger mechanisms are of a different design. The bolt carrier and internal lower receiver of semi-automatic versions are milled differently, so that the firing mechanisms are not interchangeable."

UK police weapons are incapable of fully-automatic fire, so by definition cannot be described as "submachine guns" or "assualt rifles." Why should we pander to the ignorance of the scare-mongering media? Nick Cooper (talk) 09:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

To convert to full auto is a different issue,which I presume you're also mistaken on, but the fact remains that the police weapons aside from the AR-15,which is an assault rifle derivative, are modified assault wewapons and if people read the label then they know what kind of gun to expect. That's excluding the unknown guns that pop up now and again. Pleasetry (talk) 10:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

You are the one who has implying that UK police firearms can be easily converted to fully-automatic; I am saying that it is nowhere as simple as your comments have suggested (i.e. "selectors stuck to single shot..."). The AR-15 may well be a derivitive of an assault rifle, but it is not an assualt rifle in itself (one of my air pistols looks exactly like a Walther P88, but obviously that doesn't make it a semi-automatic pistol). As has already been noted, "assault weapons" is an American legal/political term that is very much disputed in that country, but is little used in th UK. In both contexts, it is far more ambiguous - and therefore inhrently inapprorpiate for Wikipedia - than a simple factual, accurate, and citable description of "semi-automatic carbine." Nick Cooper (talk) 11:51, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

So are Assault rifle or weapons which covers more than the guns you've mentioned so not liking the name or thinking it's too American is a weak reason and it is you who has brought up the issue of converting them to full auto. Pleasetry (talk) 17:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The change of the label air gun to air weapon

The previous discussion has brought to my attention a subtle shift in government reports and mass media calling air guns, air weapons. As airguns aren't really weapons it should really be reported in the airgun section when this started to happen and why. Pleasetry (talk) 00:16, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

The Home Office statistical bulletin Crime in England and Wales 2001/2002: Supplementary Volume from January 2003 refers to "air weapons," and a quick check of the archive for The Times show them using the term as far back as the 1960s and 1970s in a wide variety of contexts (e.g. political reporting, sporting events, hunting, etc.). "Air Guns" seems to be used about twice as often, usually in crime reporting. The BSSC also uses the term, and even on a personal level, I think I'm more likely to refer to the air pistols I own as "air weapons" rather than "air guns."

There simply doesn't appear to be any evidence for the "subtle shift" you claim, but even so we would need to cite a reliable source actually making that claim, otherwise it would be original research.

Incidentally, the last time I checked, the rate for the criminal use of air weapons was actually significantly higher in England & Wales than in Scotland (the proposed legislation is - of course - just the SNP band-standing). Nick Cooper (talk) 09:32, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can tell the change in the name in law happened with the labour government.

I don't know why you would want to call your pistols an air weapon unless you had an illegal one. Pleasetry (talk) 10:28, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a issue calling them "air weapons" because they demonstably do have the potential to be used as such (i.e. offensively), despite being completely legal. Luckily, I have no propensity for shooting anything other than targets or - occasionally - rodents.

As regards the wording of legislation, the likes of the Firearms Act 1968 and the The Firearms (Dangerous Air Weapons) Rules 1969 clearly use the term "air weapons," so the change - if there indeed was one - is not as recent as you suggest. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:41, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 3 February 2013

"Plastic" has been spelt wrong in the section about BB guns. 87.113.154.175 (talk) 23:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

 Done --Redrose64 (talk) 00:10, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 4 February 2013 - UK firearms legislation

My query:

The "Impact of Firearm Legislation" section states early on...

"homicides involving the class of firearms prohibited initially increased in the early years following the legislative change"

I would propose a change to

"Intentional firearm homicides continued to rise even after the change in legislation, before commencing a downward trend from 2003 onwards."

My reasoning:

The text as it stands is statistically speaking true, however, it is being disingenuous in alluding that the increase in incidents was in some way linked to increased gun control. This is a common position from American-influenced gun enthusiasts, who argue regulation increases the number of incidents because it takes the gun out of the hands of the good people and the bad people keep their guns. A more honest representation of the statistics would highlight that gun incidents had been increasing in the UK for half a century or more, and this rise continued to accelerate even after the 1996 law change, before eventually being brought under control in 2003.

Tighter gun control reversed a long trend of increasing gun crime, it's wrong to allow the information to be subtly presented in a way that suggests the opposite is true. There is no solid statistical link between gun control and increased gun violence, this myth is very harmful to right-thinking people everywhere, and only provides an ideological service to fanatics intent on distorting data for the benefit of their own agenda.

As your wiki points out further down, there were changes to data collection that also influenced the statistical upwards growth of gun crime. The attached report details this as well.

For a more up to date and UK-specific set of statistics, see this parliamentary report from 2012

78.86.29.237 (talk) 11:37, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit protected}} template. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)