Now I've never bought a gun before, and considering the swings and roundabouts it took to get the licence, I imagined the same kind of thing to buy a firearm. I got tooled up with licence and many forms of identification and stuff, and set off.
I asked the baseball cap bedecked guy behind the counter what was involved in buying a shotgun. His response was, "cash and a licence". He then loaded a blank round in a small revolver and shot his pal with it.
Once my ears had stopped ringing I had a look through the selection of second hand, cheap weapons and bought a single barrel 12 gauge and fifty rounds of pigeon shot.
At sixty quid including a cleaning kit, it's perfect for a bit of practice before I consider buying anything decent.
The most surprising thing about the shop was the two semi auto machine guns on display on the back shelf and the assortment of handguns available.
I was under the impression all kinds of handguns had been banned and I never thought machine guns were ever legal. Either my understanding of the facts is off other them guns just weren't what they seemed. It's possible the handguns were air weapons but the machine guns certainly weren't.
They also had a huge stock of very nice looking air rifles. One customer was trying one out. No they didn't have a proper target range with a backstop. He was firing at a pair of stepladders with a cushion sellotaped to the top.
Having never set foot in a gun shop before, my impressions of what I might find were way off the mark, I"ll tell ya!
Anyway, I got what I went for. Does anyone have any good recipies for rabbit?
On another theme, I went to the pub with Mrs Bucko for a few games of pool last night. There was a local boob in there called Malcolm. He's a proper care in the community type, but he's harmless and friendly.
He saw us when we walked in and said, "Heelloo Buuckoo, Heellooo, Mrs Buuckoo." Imagine the voice? No? Well I tried.
He then said, "Some women will put a ferret up your trousers, no problem, I'll tell you the truth".
I don't know where that came from but, "I'll tell you the truth" is something of a catchphrase for Malcolm.
That's why I can never take him seriously. Me and Mrs Bucko used to play for a local pool team. I remember one match. It was 4 games each and the decider was on. Everyone in the pool room was deadly silent and concentrating on the game. One chap was just lining up an important shot when Malcolm walked through on his way to the toilet. He said, quite loudly,
"It's been fifty five years now and I've never shit myself once, I'll tell you the truth".
Everybody erupted in uncontrollable laughter.
17 Comments:
There are some long barreled pistols about which fall under rifle legislation but I have never used them.
After some of the crap I've read tonight yours came as a blast. Thanks mate!
Ergh don't bother, tasteless meat is rabbit. Congrats on getting your license though
About the handguns, if I recall almost all types were banned after Dunblane but a small number of exceptions were made. A very small number. Starting pistols, obviously, and also guns for humane destruction of animals. But also certain types of antiques, which I thought basically meant muzzle loaders until I had a play on a .45 single-action revolver 6-7 years back. I'm not sure if it was a genuine antique or a modern reproduction and I can't remember what it was but I'm guessing something like the Colt 45s you see in old cowboy films, and though you had to put percussion caps on a little stud behind each cartridge it was a cartridge loaded gun. It also kicked like buggery and produced enough smoke to draw complaints from ASH. Nonetheless it was a very real and still legal .45 revolver, which makes the banning of small bore target pistols for Olympic shooters even more dribblingly ridiculous.
As for the semi-autos, they certainly were not all banned. Again I've fired a small bore semi-auto in the UK in relatively recent years (that I do remember - it was a Ruger) and obviously you've seen that semi-auto shotties are still legal. What were banned after the Hungerford shootings were semi-auto centre-fire rifles and semi-auto shotguns with a magazine capacity of more than two cartridges. That leaves things such as .22 rimfires like the Ruger and your shottie, which I'd guess is up to three shots only if you load two in the mag and put another in the chamber (a no-no for all sorts of reasons), still legit.
On this subject it's interesting how different countries deal with psychos going off it on shooting sprees. Post-Hungerford the UK allowed semi-auto shotguns to remain if they were basically restricted to the same capacity as their double-barreled kin, and since some find them more comfortable recoil-wise and they don't really shoot any faster than a double-barrel that makes sense. Here in Australia your shottie is a Category C gun and much harder to get approval for than any double-barrel, which are all Category A. But if you meet certain criteria you can still get a Cat H licence for certain handguns (<9mm <10 rounds and barrels have to be longer than a certain length). The irony that escapes the gun banners in both countries is that criminals treat these laws, just as they do all laws, as being optional as far as they're concerned.
The pistols were not muzzle loaders but they could have been air guns maybe. Some of them do look like the real thing.
My mate used a muzzle loader once on a shooting range and the recoil was that bad, the gun flew out of his hand and gave him a black eye.
Do blank firers not shoot live ammo aswel? I thought they could do both
Anyway, after the zombie holocaust, even pigeons will taste good.
As for the world of responsible gun owners, I was always one of us. Never been a banner, even though I havent owned a lot of the stuff I approve of others having, if they want.
I'm not sure about the handguns now but that one he fired a blank with seemed to be the real thing. It was a very small revolver, the kind of gun women should have in thier handbags.
As for the machine guns, they were a style I've not seen before. I've looked on Google images but king find anything similar. Imagine an SA80 in black but with the magazine in front of the trigger. The magazine was banana shaped rather then straight.
It is interesting to see how different countries deal with psychos. Trouble is, in the usual response, they dont deal with the psychos, they deal with the general public instead. Like you say, banning guns from the public doesn't stop the criminals using them, they never cared about the law anyway. All it means is they have easier targets to go for because they can no longer defend themselves.
Sounds from that like it might be an Israeli gun called a Galil, and if so I'm sure it'll be be a deactivated one. Unless maybe it's be modified so that it has to be cocked again after every shot like the cadet version of the SA80.
Noooo! You haven't been cooking it properly!
http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/599535
Lovely!
There used to be a hunting forum run by a bunch of madmen (mostly Middle Eastern and expats with more money that sense) who'd had their own custom-built double rifles built in absolutely crazy calibres.
They often posted videos where they'd hand one of these dinosaur-killers to some poor unsuspecting chump visiting their gun club and invite him to test fire it.
I think the goal was to see if they could capture a double somersault - they never did (quite) but one chap WAS blown backwards into the door of the range...
Think this, but BIGGER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cXnleexcM0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YWqkX8ZLDI&feature=related
:)
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