Airguns and teen 'targets'

Well Mr Chaytor, we already have plenty of controls on airguns. Far from needing more, what we need is proper enforcement of the existing ones.

Since it is already illegal for a person under seventeen to possess or use an air pistol unsupervised, or for a person under fourteen to have unsupervised possession of an air rifle, the proposed age limit of sixteen will, while raising the age limit for air rifles, lower the limit for air pistols. Though I would be interested to see any evidence that shows that fourteen year olds using air rifles pose any more of a problem than sixteen year olds.

As for raising, to eighteen, the age for owning (since an age of sixteen for unsupervised use has already been mentioned, I presume the "owning" actually means "buying") a lethal gun, I wonder why an eighteen year old is considered more responsible than a seventeen year old (the current age for buying air guns).

If a seventeen-year-old is not considered "responsible", why then is that same seventeen-year-old considered responsible enough to own and drive a motor car?

A clear standard already exists, "for measuring how lethal airguns are". Under the Firearms Act, an air rifle with a muzzle energy exceeding 12 Foot Pounds and an air pistol with a muzzle energy exceeding 6 Foot Pounds is classed as "Specially Dangerous" and requires a Firearm Certificate to possess it. As an indication of what these figures represent, 12 Foot Pounds is less than the energy in a half brick, thrown by a reasonably healthy adult.

The final proposal, while not actually a change in the law, is in fact a good idea. Better education (on any subject, not merely airguns) is to be welcomed, as is tougher enforcement of existing laws.

At least the Government are prepared to admit that firearms laws are not being properly enforced. The laws on airguns are already adequate. The failure is not in the laws themselves, but in their enforcement, or, more to the point, lack of it!

Mr T.R. Miles

Teak Street,

Bury