All UK and European firearm owners are being targeted, with this knee jerk reaction by the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs commission (LIBE), which have now appointed Green MEP Bodil Valero as the rapporteur for the EU gun ban proposal, and published its own draft report with the collaboration of many left-wing members of IMCO as well. The document still asks for a far-reaching ban of Category B7 firearms (all those long guns and handguns that “resemble” a firearm with automatic mechanisms, all semi-automatic guns that can accept a magazine, any semi-auto with a barrel length of less than 17 inches, and any semi-auto with a pistol grip). How can you ban something, just because of the way that it looks? It also includes other disastrous provisions. More specifically, the LIBE committee states that EU Member States should be allowed to enact total bans on all forms of private gun ownership, something that has never even been proposed so far!

Other critical proposals in the LIBE draft report include:

• High taxes on gun and ammunition sales.
• A mandatory three-years expiry on all gun licenses.
• Mandatory marking on ALL gun parts, ALL ammunition and components thereof (that including bullets, brass, and primers)

The above examples are just a couple of examples, because there are numerous other new proposals in the latest revision, which seem to have been added by people that haven’t got a clue when it comes to firearms or the law. No thought has gone into them, let alone how they would be implemented, what they would achieve, what impact they would have, the cost of implementing and enforcing them, and the cost to the economy. It just sounds like people putting their own ideas on paper without actually thinking them through. The latest document looks and feels very amateurish and should be thrown out immediately.

One of the original directives (amongst many others) was to ban semi-automatic rifles, it has now evolved, and includes (but is not limited to):

• All Semi-automatic rifles
• Anything that can accept a removable magazine (which includes pistols)
• A number of larger calibre singe shot hunting rifles (anything larger than .500″)
• A number of muzzle loading and useable antique firearms due to their calibre being greater than .50”
• Home reloading of ammunition
• Any modification to a firearm (this would include triggers,

Their definition of semi automatics to be banned are:

• 7. Semi-automatic firearms with one or more of the following characteristics:
  • a) equipped or capable to be equipped with a firing capacity exceeding six rounds without reloading;
  • b) long firearm with pistol grip;
  • c) [long fire]arm of less than 830 mm in length;
  • d) [long fire]arm with a barrel length of less than 450 mm.

Note the lack of the wording ‘long firearm’ in point a. This covers all semi auto pistols and anything that takes a magazine, because if you can buy a magazine for it that holds more than 6 rounds, it will be illegal, as it falls into the ‘Capable’ clause.

According to the EU Directive here: http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/impact/index_en.htm, It States that:

“Before the European Commission proposes a new initiative, it assesses the need for EU action and the potential economic, social and environmental impacts of alternative policy options in an impact assessment.
Impact assessments are prepared for Commission initiatives expected to have significant economic, social or environmental impacts. These can be:

• Legislative proposals,
• Non-legislative initiatives (eg white papers, action plans, financial programmes, negotiating guidelines for international agreements) that define future policies,
• Implementing and delegated acts.”

No Impact assessment has been carried out for this directive, and it is pretty certain that the impact assessment was purposefully avoided because it would kill the proposal outright.

The European Commission and the national Governments that support the EU gun ban in order to be able to enact further restrictions on law-abiding gun owners without taking political responsibility in front of their citizens, are all too aware that, even should those firearms be confiscated without compensation, the simple handling of the procedure, confiscation, storage, transportation and destruction, all to be overseen and documented, would be economically unbearable because of their high costs. The costs of this alone would run into billions, and this is just to destroy them all.

The EU proposes that no compensation will be given, which completely goes against Article 17 – Right to Property of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which states:

Everyone has the right to own, use, dispose of and bequeath his or her lawfully acquired possessions. No one may be deprived of his or her possessions, except in the public interest and in the cases and under the conditions provided for by law, subject to fair compensation being paid in good time for their loss. The use of property may be regulated by law in so far as is necessary for the general interest.

More information can be found here: http://fra.europa.eu/en/charterpedia/article/17-right-property

If the ban goes ahead, there would be a huge impact and knock on effects in a number of areas that would cost billions of pounds.
This includes (but not limited to):

• Compensation for gun owners
• Cost of disposal for each firearm
• The destruction/downsizing of the firearms industry, which would mean :
  • Numerous businesses going bust or closing down
  • Job losses within industry.
  • These job losses would also result in an increase of pressure on government services and social payments to support to these people
  • The economy would suffer directly with the loss of these businesses due to loss of tax payments etc.
• National, international and World cup events would no longer be hosted for a number of the events that involve the use of these firearms, which would also have a knock on effect to the travel, hotel and tourism industries.
• The Olympic sport of shooting will be decimated and a number of disciplines would be dropped from the Olympics, as there will not be anybody from within Europe that could take part due to the firearms being illegal, and therefore nobody could train to use them etc. etc.
• Farmers, vermin control and rural conservation.

Groups of the Socialists and Democrats at the European Parliament seems to be taking the side of the gun grabbers. Two S&D MEPs in particular − MEP Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann (Germany) and MEP Sergio Cofferati (Italy), have been reported to be approaching all S&D MEP’s one by one, in order to try and persuade them to shoot MEP Vicky Ford’s draft report down, and vote in favour of the Commission’s proposals. This would mean that all of the Commission’s senseless restrictions, including those on replicas and deactivated guns, which had been cast aside by Vicky Ford’s report, would be back at the top again!.

There are a number of things that CAN be done in order to achieve the desired result. But what is the desired result, and why? This directive has absolutely nothing to do with terrorists, and would not prevent any further terrorism or future attacks, it is aimed to simply de-arm the population of Europe, and destroy an industry that contributes billions of pounds/euros towards every country’s economies.

This ban would affect a number of our currently legal firearms, including all of our .22 rim fire semi-automatic guns (which are not classes as particularly dangerous), and are used for both vermin control, and target shooting.

So what do you need to do?

Write to, or email your MEP, and the MEP’s listed below voicing your concerns.

UK MEP’s: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/search.html?country=GB 

Keep up to date on the situtation by joining this group on FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1593212404329331/

Other Links:

EU gun ban: Danger has not yet passed

Latest EU Meeting Here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20160414IPR23130/Committee-on-the-Internal-Market-and-Consumer-Protection

Sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/u/3319283

Working Documents here: http://www.emeeting.europarl.europa.eu/committees/agenda/201604/IMCO/IMCO(2016)0420_1/sitt-2201447

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2015/0269(COD)&l=en#tab-0 

Below is a link to a page that lists all of the EU MEP’s that are involved in the Firearm ban. Please contact them all by email and voice your concerns.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/imco/members.html?action=7 

Here are their emails if you want to send them all at once. Just copy and past them into your To field: