Silencers in the UK....

[Rob Pincus]

A gLast year I met a group of guys at the STC from the UK. They are disenfranchised members of the Welsh Pistol Team. THey cam eover, borrowed guns, and shot the match. They did the same thing this year and they brought a bunch of UK Gun mags for those of us who were interested in looking through them.

I hadn;t really had a chance to read them until this weekedn, and I was struck by a few things, but most interesting was the apparent legality of silencers in the UK. They have big full color magazine ads for them and everything. in "Sport Shooting" and "Target Sports" no less.

I was also intrigued by the amount of Camoflage in these mags. People shooting at target matches, outfitted in berets and Military Camo. The kind of things that American Gun mags would likely "shy away" from , so as not to present the "wrong impression" about gun owners.

Also, they seem to mix Ariguns in as legitiamte guns in the UK, which our magazines seldom do. Reviews on Air guns and reports about Air gun matches were mixed right in with the reports on "Real" guns.

It may be that the only legal Silencers are for Airguns, the coverage and advertising was so intermingled that I couldn't tell.. does anyone have any more info??

 

[Ossi]

Silencers are legal in many (possibly all) European countries. You cannot harm anyone with a silencer without a gun. To own a gun (or guns) a permit is needed in Europe. Only Britain has prohibited handguns, private gun ownership is allowed in all other European union countries. In Britain they prohibited just handguns. Nothing was now done to long guns used in hunting (autos and pumps have been prohibited earlier). Hunting in Britain is a hobby of the rich and noble, and even a Labour government did not touch those gun rights. Ossi

 

[Destructo6]

I read an article claiming that up to 70% of guns sold in Sweden (or one of those nordic countries) was sold with a suppressor. Pretty cool for not pissing off the neighbors.