Terry A de C Foley

Hmm. V.interesting. Over here in UK, when we could buy such items, it was a case of caveat emptor. This is because you first applied to purchase the weapon by type ie pistol, rifle, and were granted authority to purchase a weapon of a particular calibre. This could take between one and 24 weeks, depending on the police authority's views on privatey-owned firearms. With the document, the FAC, in your sticky little hand, you went off to the dealer, looked at the gun and decided to buy the weapon on the spot - there was no taking it away to try - this would put you in the category of being in illegally in possession of a fiream - 1 to 5 years in the pokey. If you ahdn't bought the weapon by the time your FAC came up for renewal, it lasted three years at that time, you lost the right ot purchase, and had to start all over. So, having bought it, you were required to send in your FAC and have the weapon officially entered on it by the issuing authorities, that weapon then being tied forver to that particular certificate. If at a later date you found out that its provenance was dubious, you were quite within your rights to try to sell it back to the dealer, but he was not obliged to buy it. You could also surrender it to the police authorities, if you really wanted to, in return for nothing. Or try to pass it on to another dealer. If you were successful in doing this, that weapon and its serial number was removed from your firearms certificate for ever, the dealer had to notify the firearms certificate issuing authority that he had purchased your pistol, and you were back to square one again - without a gun. Starting up the whole process over again would have had an unsympathetic response from the firearms certificate issuing authorities, who would want to know why you got rid of a gun so quickly, and then wanted another one, apparently identical. This could put you in danger of being classified as a 'dealer', and subject to ever-more stringent checks and outpourings of money, as well as making you take up a professional business when all you wanted to do was get a 'good' gun. As an example of getting the paperwork wrong, a friend of mine bought a relatively inexpensive black powder revolver, took it home only to find that it shot onto a point three feet left of his point of aim, and a very close examination revealed that the cylinder axis pin was off-centre. There was nothing that could be done, simply a manufacturing fault. He took it back the following day, and the dealer simply changed it for another one, and altered the FAC. A home visit by a firearms inspecting officer [and yes they do exist] a few months later revealed this apparent discrepancy and my pal and the dealer were in deep plop, finding themsleves in court on the same day on offences against the firearms act of 1937 etc.... for a. illegal possession of a weapon for which he had no valid certificate, b. and having an illegal entry on his FAC. The dealer got done for a. illegally transacting a firearm

b. making an alteration to an FAC without authority, and c. aiding the illegal possession of a firearm by a person not authorised to hold it. Result? Suspension of FAC for the shooter for a period of not less than 5 years, and seizure of all his other weapons as a result. The dealer was suspended from trading for a period of three years, had his licence to trade revoked and was fined �£5,000 for his pains. This, remember, was for a black powder revolver. Had it been a modern [comparatively, that is], weapon like the Luger, which can REALLY be used to kill folks, unlike the old-fashioned and harmless black powder device, they would probably have faced jail sentences of up to 5 years.

Hmmmmmm.


TF