TargetTalk

Well I watched the video and was shocked but glad in one way that our country with it's over zealous and draconian laws would not even allow a a concealed weapons permit

I'm not against our laws but the process seems somewhat long winded IMO

Thanks for the insights

One thing everything has to know.
THIS COP LOST HIS JOB AND WILL PROBABLY FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES.
Not all police are Nazi Cops......
I know everyone in my area knows, if you have a gun and are stopped,
keep your hands away from the pistol and tell the police officer you have a firearm on your person.

One bit of lightness:
A Tennessee State Trooper stops a fellow for speeding, after approaching the car, the driver says "Officer, I have a pistol permit and am carrying a firearm". Before doing anything else, the Trooper asks the driver what he is carrying. The driver says I have a Glock 40 Caliber on my hip, a 380 on my ankle and a shotgun under the rear seat. The Trooper thinks for a while and says, "What are you afraid of". The driver says "Absolutely Nothing at all"

Its easy in Holland; a carry permit ís possible, but only theoretically, cause in practice, no one can get it..;)
Only government carries here.

And, ofcourse, FA must be stored in gunsafes, ammo seperately.

Finland had rather reasonable firearms laws until quite recently - but things are getting worse, and fast. Actually, the latest changes were last June, and more is to come.

Currently, if you want a handgun, you are in practice (although not technically by the law) required to belong to a gun club and have an appointed club member, "firearms trainer" (there is a certification course by the police that has nothing to do with firearms training, just simple legislation stuff) certify that you have been actively training pistol shooting for at least two years. Note, at this time, you would have done it without a pistol... well, airgun practice is acceptable. The application must include a thorough explanation of how, where and why you want to practice shooting.

For the first handgun, you need a doctor's statement that you are mentally ok for firearms ownership. This is a bit difficult, as the doctors' union is officially opposed to this practice, and you can get those statements only from private practitioners, not the public health care. This is a major cost issue, probably the most expensive part of the whole process. And you are paying for a useless piece of paper, as the doctors won't be able to make any real assessment during one visit about someone they don't previously know.

Then there's an interview, as well as a test with close to 300 questions, intended to point out unstable individuals. Takes about an hour.

Of course, after these your background is checked. Any violent crime and also some others showing disregard of regulations and public safety will prevent you from getting a permit.

At this point, if everything goes smoothly, you'll be granted the license to buy the gun. Then after you have purchased the gun, you'll go to the police with it. They'll inspect it, record the serial number etc. After this, you'll get your "permanent" gun permit, although you'll supposed to prove your active shooting hobby every 5 years or so. I don't know if this is going to be just paperwork from the "firearms trainer" of the club or something else.

Although rather complicated, all this would be kind of understandable if it were required once per applicant. But it's per gun here. The doctor's statement is only required for the first gun and the test is valid for a couple of years, but other parts of the process and all the related costs are per gun. Also, the process is not really predictable, you may be turned down because the gun you are applying for is "not suitable for the sport" or the process may take months for no apparent reason.

Some people have had rather tragicomic experiences with the process. It's been very difficult to get permits for .22 pistols because of two very high-profile multiple homicides with such guns. The bigger calibers were less affected. Go figure.

In fact, the police seems to take things in a rather practical way. They are simply trying to follow the legislation. It's the politicians and media that are jumping around, and unfortunately it seems that the politicians are following the "public opinion" created and actively distributed by the media when creating that legislation.

And it's not just the legislation. Even the Finnish Postal Service has just published their new regulations that prohibit mailing guns and even anything that resembles a gun or a part of a gun. There is no law requiring this, in fact the new rule may be against the law. But they want to offer their effort in making shooters' life difficult.

Mika

Anonymous wrote:Not all police are Nazi Cops......

I was once stopped by highway patrol for speeding, I was doing 77 in a 50 zone. After checking my car was legal and asking me if there was any reason for my exessive speed, he asked where I had been and where I was going. So I told him I'd spent the day competing on the shooting range and was heading home. At this point, his attitude changed, he asked how I got on, quickly checked my licences (both driving and firearm) and sent me on my way with a warning. Afterwards, I wondered if he was a keen shooter himself, as I was certain that I was heading for a speeding ticket up to the point when I mentioned I'd been shooting. It left me with an enhanced opinion of the local police!

If you were speeding, and 27 miles an hour over the limit is speeding to me, then I don't see why your being a competitive shooter should have made much difference to the officer. Maybe he had his monthly quota already.

On the other hand, he really did as much good for his mission -- keeping speeds down and driving safe -- by stopping you, giving you near heart failure, and then sending you on your way warned and chastened as he would have by slapping you with a ticket or worse.

Some cops are human after all.

[/quote]
If people can't be bothered with a few months wait and a few hundred dollars in cost then chances are they aren't going to have the perseverance for target shooting either - or they don't want a gun for target shooting at all - either way its better they don't start.[/quote]

Ergo the old adage - you get the government you deserve.

I had a similar experience. The NC State Trooper was very polite, and when I informed him about my permit, he asked me to remove it from where I had it with two fingers - try doing that with a small 1911. Then his response was, "Cool! a Kimber!" and at that point I figured I was only getting a warning. Bingo!

However, when he took my pistol for "safe keeping", he pulled all the rounds out of the magazine and then locked the slide back. That's was find until he tried to hand me the gun and ammo at the same time and all the stuff fell all over the front of the vehicle. I was rattled, he apologized, and somehow I reloaded the magazine and off I went.

I think he appreciated that I generally keep my carry pistol(s) in Condition 3 mode, meaning a full magazine but no rounds in the chamber. It's a bit safer when you don't have any threats whosoever. In a high threat environment, I might carry differently, but.

j-team wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all police are Nazi Cops......

It's a mistake to judge cops based on your individual experiences on the street. As Ben in Texas has pointed out, these types of interactions can run the gamut between professional/reasonable to vicious as was the case in Canton, OH.

Rather, the way to judge cops in a real perspective is to look at the profession as an institution. If you carefully examine their lobbying practices and the influence law enforcement exerts as a whole, you will quickly realize that cops AS AN INSTITUTION are not friends of gun owners. The law enforcement community has traditionally and very consistently opposed nearly all legislation aimed at preserving the rights of a U.S. citizen to acquire, possess and carry a firearm.

If law enforcement were to have its' way, only cops would have guns. While you may be treated with dignity and respect during a traffic stop, law enforcement AS A GROUP is not a friend of the civilian gun community.

As to notification laws requiring persons legally in possession of weapons to report that during a traffic stop - it is unfortunate that gun owners are forced to make this compromise. If you are doing something legally, you shouldnt have to report it to ANYONE.

Soapbox dismantled, flame suit on.

yana wrote:Its easy in Holland; a carry permit ís possible, but only theoretically, cause in practice, no one can get it..;)
Only government carries here.

The same practice is followed in some jurisdictions in the United States. If you're sufficiently rich and/or famous, though, you can get a permit. Every few years, someone does a story in the press listing all the publicly anti-gun actors and high-profile businessfolks who have obtained permits to carry. It's always a funny read.

Can I reasonably assume that similar exceptions are made for the rich and famous in Holland?

As an aside, I'd like to reiterate a point that has been made but, imo, insufficiently stressed in this thread. Many responders are from the U.S. and know this automatically but people from elsewhere may not realize that U.S. firearms laws vary from state to state. There is a set of federal laws that hold everywhere but individual states can add on whatever level of strictness, weirdness, or common sense they choose. What's perfectly legal in some places is likely seen as bizarre and illegal anti-social behavior in others.

Example?

Some years ago, a controversial community organizer in Houston, Texas, decided to lead a protest outside a location where a former First Lady was about to give a speech. In order to force the police to deal with them politely, the protesters all showed up with rifles slung on their backs. Such is perfectly legal in Texas and they were, indeed, treated with great courtesy by the authorities. It made the evening television news in Houston but the only account I can find online nowadays is here: http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27722

I doubt such behavior could happen in New York, New Jersey, or California.

The contrast between states is truly amazing at times.

law enforcement AS A GROUP is not a friend of the civilian gun community.

I suspect that this statement would be equally true if you dropped the word "gun" from it.

I don't know how things changed from when I was a kid in the 40s and the beat cop really was your friend and protector, but I have the feeling that somewhere along the line something happened. Things are different now.

A note: this does not apply to all cops, and probably not even to most, but it does apply to enough of them that the perception is widespread and general.

peterz wrote:If you were speeding, and 27 miles an hour over the limit is speeding to me,

That was km/h not mph, but you are still right and it would have been a significant fine if I had been ticketed. And, yes the warning did more good than a fine would have. I left there repecting him at what he was trying to enforce, had I been fined I probably would have just been annoyed!

I also want to point out to the non-US members that we are allowed to own guns for any legal purpose. We don't have to be competitors, hunters, or members of a gun club.

sbrmike wrote:I also want to point out to the non-US members that we are allowed to own guns for any legal purpose. We don't have to be competitors, hunters, or members of a gun club.

An important point, which I only mentioned implicitly. In Finland, we are also allowed to own guns for any legal purpose, but the list of legal purposes is very short. It's hunting, sports and gun collecting, and there is a provision for self defence but in practice, there is no way for a normal citizen in normal circumstances to get a permit to carry for defence.

The requirement to belong to a club was very explicitly NOT required until lately. It was viewed as important part of the freedom to assemble or not to assemble. That has changed in practice, although membership is still not required by the law. It was in the proposed law, but was removed before the law passed. But in practice, you are required to prove your active hobby, and if you don't get the paperwork from a club firearms trainer, you'll have hard time getting a permit. Also, in many places there are no shooting ranges that don't require club affiliation, so you can't show how you would actively shoot. And if you don't, you'll lose your permit, as you are required to prove your activity in the sport or hobby. It remains to be seen how this actually works, as the period is five years, but there are rumors that you need to prove it separately for each gun you own! And that you cannot claim one shooting day for more than one gun, so for example, if you participate in a competition where you shoot both standard pistol and centerfire same day, you'll only be able to record that for one of the guns.

I think the worst of all the new regulations are just those rules regarding the "need" for the guns you own. It's ok to check the people owning guns are not criminals and that they are generally mentally stable. But the bureaucracy regarding each gun, proving your range practice etc. is really going to eat us alive. One person isn't much more dangerous with five guns than with two or just one. But many people are openly admitting that more regulation is needed simply to bring down the number of guns, which means that the bureaucracy and cost is there intentionally. It doesn't have anything to do with the potential danger the gun owners pose to the society, it's just about statistics. The danger by gun owners would be more effectively mitigated by more stringent background checking etc, but now most of the everyday bureaucracy is related to the individual guns.

Mika

Oh to live in a country that would allow me to have my 1911 and my Walther GSP. Instead i live in a country where the only handguns are owned by criminals.


maybe one day but i wont hold my breath!!

BenEnglishTX wrote:

timinder wrote:...2) Remember you live in the UK, where the only people with handguns are criminals
3) Choose a different hobby

How broadly is "handgun" defined? Does it include air pistols? Blackpowder? Collectible antiques?

Air pistols under 6ft/lb and not using self contained cartridge systems are ok.

Black powder ok

12" barreled with welded on arm stirrups ok.

Everything else, no-no. Including what is used at the Olympics.

robf wrote:Air pistols under 6ft/lb and not using self contained cartridge systems are ok.

So those pistols that propel a pellet via a .22 short blank are right out, I suppose. (Did I use "right out" correctly? It's tough for a Texan to speak Brit but I'm making an effort here.)

I didn't do a lot of research, but 6ft/lb seems awfully anemic. Is that enough to reliably dispatch a rat, for example? Or is shooting the rat that invades your garbage a no-no?

robf wrote:Black powder ok

If I grew up in a place where I was forced to do all my pistol shooting with one of these



I suppose I could find fulfillment as a target shooter and wouldn't know what fun I was missing with all the other toys and tools I couldn't have. Truthfully, I'm sorta happy I've never been limited in that way.

robf wrote:12" barreled with welded on arm stirrups ok.

I think I've seen pictures of free pistols with long extensions added to the rear but I was under the impression that this was simply to create a firearm of sufficient length that it was no longer, technically, a pistol.

Am I right about that? If so, would it be legal to own, say, a silhouette or long-range type pistol that could wind up between 2 and 3 feet in length? Say, something like this:

robf wrote:Everything else, no-no. Including what is used at the Olympics.

It's wandering a bit too off-topic for this thread, but can anyone point me to a good discussion of how the pistols are going to be handled for the 2012 Games? I've been a "venue coordinator" for a qualifier in the U.S. (decades ago, back when the NRA was still the NGB for UIT shooting in the States) and firearms storage/transport/check-in and -out/etc was terribly overcomplicated, even in my legally-tolerant state of Texas. I'd be fascinated to learn all the mechanics of just how all the logistical and legal hurdles will be cleared this summer.

BenEnglishTX wrote:If I grew up in a place where I was forced to do all my pistol shooting with one of these

What!?, you had to be forced to shoot a Dedinski underhammer pistol!!!
...Oh, the humanity!

Mika are these law changes in Finland another typical Govt knee jerk reaction to what happened in your country in 2007 and after the recent Norway event.

We had similar Govt intervention here after the Port Arthur massacre.

They use these infrequent events as an excuse to tighten up laws ultimately to control the masses IMO.

Do they really think these laws would make a difference to someone mentally disturbed or a criminal intent on committing a crime

Laws are necessary (even physc evaluations, age limits, marital status, work history) but draconian laws and all the checks in the world only hinder legally responsible people from pursuing a hobby and IMO impinge on our freedom.

However no matter what the Govt do and what checks they put in place someone somewhere could still commit crimes of this magnitude even without a gun.

I remember hearing somewhere that in Texas there are 5 million registered gun owners. No one would want to invade Texas

j-team wrote:...Oh, the humanity!

Given your avatar, I had an inkling you might comment. :-)

And no, I haven't been forced. But if I lived where I had no other choice I feel sure it would provide me the means to adequately scratch my target shooting itch.