More pressure in the UK

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DuncaninFrance
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More pressure in the UK

Post by DuncaninFrance » Sun Jan 15, 2017 3:59 am

I am glad I live in France................
The Government considers that, in common with many other licensing regimes, the costs of the
firearms licensing regime should properly be attributed to the organisations benefiting from the
licence, and not the taxpayer. Charging in this way ensures the real economic cost of
safeguarding high risk activities is understood by licence holders.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _FINAL.pdf
Duncan

What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch? -- W.C. Fields
"Many of those who enjoy freedom know little of its price."
You can't fix Stupid, but you can occasionally head it off before it hurts something.
PeterN2
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Re: More pressure in the UK

Post by PeterN2 » Sun Jan 15, 2017 11:52 am

I am the secretary of a small .22 smallbore club. We have around 12 to 15 members at any one time. The subscriptions just about cover the range rent as we rent the range from the local council and meet one evening per week. We are a Home Office approved club which means that people without a Firearms Certificate can use club guns as a probationary member until they are accepted as a full member and can then apply for their own Firearm Certificate and buy their own rifle. We renewed the Home Office approval last year which cost £84 (approx $100 USD) and lasts for six years. The new fee proposed in the document is £900, (approx $1080 USD) more than ten times the current cost. If this fee goes through, we would not be able to afford to renew and would cease to be a Home Office approved club. This means that only Firearm Certificate holders would be able to shoot on our range with .22 rifles. This is just another step in the process to reduce firearms ownership in this country and eventually eliminate it. The general public here do not care about firearms ownership and would probably think it a good idea to restrict it even more.

Meanwhile, the police here recently stopped a known drug dealer in a car who supposedly produced a pistol so they shot him dead as he sat in the car passenger seat. A 9mm loaded pistol was found in the car foot well. All the restrictions on gun ownership here only affect those who submit themselves to the licencing process. Stud Bad boy, as this chap called himself on social media, didn't involve the licencing process to obtain his pistol, so he can have whatever gun he wants through his criminal contacts. Firearms law is a joke in this country as all the rules apply to the law abiding, but the criminals ignore the rules and work outside the law.
Regards
Peter.

http://news.sky.com/story/m62-police-sh ... y-10718403
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... vigil.html
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Niner
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Re: More pressure in the UK

Post by Niner » Sun Jan 15, 2017 12:32 pm

According to that link Duncan posted, it is stated the "taxpayer" subsidizes 93% of the license fee costs incurred to produce the license for a shooting club. So what kind of expense does the licensing agency incur in licensing a 12 or 15 member 22 rifle shooting club to merit that kind of fee? Aren't they collecting fees to license every shooter who owns a .22 rifle already?
PeterN2
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Re: More pressure in the UK

Post by PeterN2 » Sun Jan 15, 2017 2:58 pm

The police issue Firearm Certificates for individual people and they collect and keep the fee, currently £88 for a new application and £62 for a renewal. These last five years The fee for the club approval is paid to the Home Office. The police have an input as they visit the club and do checks to make sure the club keeps proper records and is run properly. The person who checked our club out had a check list of questions to go through and get answers and check the club firearms and security. I presume the police compile these into a report and forward to the Home Office with their view as to whether the club meets with the requirements. The police will have a cost to process the application but no more than to check out an individual for a personal firearm certificate. What the Home Office do to justify their fee, I have no idea. All the checks are done locally by the police. All that I can see they do is keep a central record of approved clubs. I can't see that entering a record on a database can cost much. Unless, of course, that they spend all day monitoring what the club members get up to on the internet. They may be reading this soon.
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Peter.
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Re: More pressure in the UK

Post by DuncaninFrance » Wed Jan 25, 2017 6:01 am

I just saw this on another forum.....

A briefing letter from the NRA (UK).


Dear Member

Home Office Approved Club – New Fees Proposals

The Home Office has published a consultation which seeks views on the implementation of new fees for firearms licences that are issued by the Home Office including fees for Approval of shooting clubs.

The proposals are based on setting the level of fees at rates that allow full cost recovery; the view of the NRA is that the rates quoted are wholly disproportionate to the actual work required and are either incorrectly calculated or represent a fundamentally inefficient processes.

The proposed fee changes are as follows:-

Application Type Duration Current Fee Proposed Fee
Club (grant) 6 years £84 £1,050
Club (renewal) 6 years £84 £900
Club Variation (major) £nil £690
Club Variation (medium) £nil £470
Club Variation (minor) £nil £110

Full details of the consultation, fees proposals and impact assessment can be found by following https://www.gov.uk/government/consultat ... nsing-fees

Please note the following:-

(1) The Impact Assessment (page 15) reports a ratio of Home Office (administration) to Police (background checks, interviews, site visits etc.) costs incurred of nearly 6:1. To assert that it costs six times as much to process a two page application form compared to the practical and detailed checks on the ground is astonishing.

(2) The Impact Assessment gives no breakdown of the actual work flow involved in processing a club application; the cost is calculated by estimating a percentage of the total cost of funding the department. This allows no scrutiny of the efficiency or otherwise of the departmental processes and operations.

(3) Variations such as reporting changes in club officers are routine; using the 6:1 ratio per (1) above it surely cannot cost the Home Office £94 to produce a new certificate showing a change of Club name, much less £403 to produce one showing a change of named official to a club officer whose integrity has been checked by the police at a cost of £67, or probably £nil if the officer, as is highly likely, already holds a Firearm Certificate.

(4) In the proposed fees it is suggested that the cost of varying an Approval to take account of new storage location is £470. Since the police, under best-practice full-cost recovery principles already assessed and agreed, can issue an entire Firearm Certificate which must involve background checks on an individual and assessment of security of firearms storage, for £88, what is it that the Home Office are spending the other £382 on?

(5) The NRA has 881 affiliated organisations of which 484 are Home Office Approved Clubs. The Home Office has estimated there are 434 Approved Clubs; this means that the fees proposed will over-recover costs by around 12%. The fact that the Home Office cannot provide an accurate count of the number of Approved Clubs does not reassure us that their systems and records are either efficient or cost-effective.

Furthermore

(1) Rifle clubs are diverse organisations; many shoot full and small bore rifles but only need Home Office Approval for their full bore shooting activities. In total the NRA represents 881 clubs, schools and associations that have a combined membership of 53,000.

(2) Home Office Approval (HOA) is primarily sought by our clubs to provide access for members to club rifles; it is also a condition required by the MoD to book their ranges where much of the full bore shooting is conducted. Membership of a HOA club is the legal requirement to secure the grant of a FAC for target shooting; reducing the number of HOA clubs would significantly reduce the opportunities for many to enjoy full bore shooting.

(3) Access to club rifles is critical for the training of probationary members and allows the instruction of safe handling, marksmanship, range safety etc. They also provide shooting opportunities to those with low incomes including young shooters.

(4) The value to the public purse and benefits to public safety of carefully supervised, properly trained shooters that result from the HOA scheme is obvious. Furthermore clubs are also beacons of volunteering excellence, relying upon unpaid members to serve as officers, administer the considerable paperwork, train new probationary members etc. The existence of a substantial network of small clubs is a contributor to public safety; the close personal contact in a club is one of the best measures to weed out those unsuitable for a FAC at an early stage.

(5) The proposed increases are simply unaffordable for the vast majority of our clubs; they would lose the rifles and the exemption of the need for a personal Firearm Certificate that allow them to train probationers in safe shooting and would deny the opportunity for young shooters and those on low incomes to enjoy our sport. Many of our clubs have a rich heritage reaching back over 100 years; there would be uproar if they were forced to close their doors because of punitive increases in fees. Most clubs operate on a not-for-profit basis. An average HOA club has 41 full bore shooters and 76 total members; I would expect the HOA fee to be largely funded by the full bore shooters.

(6) At the NRA, although we consider the proposal grossly unreasonable, we would not be unduly affected with 8,000 members. A university club, on the other hand, with perhaps 30-40 members, would be significantly hit, particularly with a £470 fee, probably every year, to change the named individual on the Approval to be paid on top of the 6-yearly renewal. It is likely that fullbore shooting would immediately become untenable within universities.

(7) I understand the primary requirements of a HOA Club is to (a) be a properly formed organisation with appropriate constitution (b) have competent and responsible officers (c) have reasonable access to range(s); and (d) provide safe storage for any firearms it holds. Of these (a), (b) and (c) are within the knowledge of the NRA; (d) is readily assessed by the police. We have offered to assist the Home Office in the basic administration of the HOA scheme.

The NRA accepts the principle of the shooting community paying fair fees for services rendered; however we cannot support the current proposals for the reasons above and urge members in general and club officials in particular to respond to the consultation by either Respond online or Email to:firearmsconsultations@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk or by writing to : Firearms Consultation, Home Office Drugs and Firearms Licensing Unit, 5th Floor Fry Building, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.

Yours sincerely



Andrew Mercer
Group Chief Executive & Secretary General
Duncan

What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch? -- W.C. Fields
"Many of those who enjoy freedom know little of its price."
You can't fix Stupid, but you can occasionally head it off before it hurts something.
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Re: More pressure in the UK

Post by PeterN2 » Wed Jan 25, 2017 4:46 pm

I expect the Home Office to ignore any objections to their proposals and do what they want anyway. We will not get any support from Prime Minister May as she was all for implementing the EU gun bans and more when she was Home Secretary, so we are stuffed again. I will have my say on their proposals, but not hopeful it will make any difference to the outcome.
Regards
Peter.
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