« Another carnival of cordite | Main | American Prospect on Alito »
British move to regulate reloading tools
Yorkshire Today reports that the British are passing legislation to restrict reloading tools and components:
"During Bieber's trial, Mr Justice Moses said it was "completely barmy" that the killer had legally bought a Dillon RL550 bullet press and re-loader from a Hertfordshire gunshop that he had used to manufacture thousands of bullets in a home-made weapons factory in a Leeds lock-up.
PC Broadhurst's mother Cindy Eaton – backed by the Police Federation and PC Broadhurst's MP, Batley and Spen's Mike Wood – launched a high-profile campaign in the Yorkshire Post for a ban on the unrestricted sale of bullet-pressing kits and primers – the essential mini-detonators which set off the propellant in a round.
Following Bieber's conviction, the MP called directly on the Prime Minister to change the law.
His pleas are set to come to fruition today, as MPs give their final approval to the Violent Crime Reduction Bill, which will make buying components subject to the same restrictions as buying firearms.
Clause 28 of the Bill will make it an offence to sell primers to anyone without a firearm licence and Clause 29 will ban cartridge and bullet presses."
Hmm.. (1) the killer in the case managed to get the gun despite the existing laws; (2) with regards the "slippery slope"... aren't the British ever going to get to the bottom?
· non-US
2 Comments | Leave a comment
As a Brit I can only agree that we continue to work hard at finding new/old ways of maiming each other. Apparently knife wounds are also on the increase!
I am also equaly wary of the 'nanny' state.
But, accepting that we are at least as dangerous as the Americans, our lower death rate is probably due almost entirely to a lack of means rather than intent!!
So perhaps the government has a point!
This is actually less silly, in my view, than the Brits' seeming intent to ban everything that could be used as a weapon, including "long pointed" kitchen knives. At least a ban on primers, however silly and ineffective, doesn't openly contemplate a return to the Stone Age (if not before). (Go read the linked article. It really is hysterically funny, though unintentionally so. Look at the caption under the photo of the guy with stitches. Isn't the breathlessness just priceless? I learned that when I was five, but the BBC announces it like the Theory of Relativity!) Sticks and stones can't be far behind.