The Effect of Firearms Legislation Upon Historical Reenactment Power Point Notes

8/8/2019 The Effect of Firearms Legislation Upon Historical Reenactment Power Point Notes

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Within this presentation I will cover:

* My research questions

•

A background to the topic•A summary of the proposed legislation

•The extent of firearms offending in general and with specific focus upon deactivated

weapons

•The methods used in conducting the research

•My findigns relating to the demographics of re-enactors and their weapons, along with

their views on the proposed legislation

•Finally I will conclude with a review of the presentation and a discussion of how the

research could be improved.

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In conducting this piece of research, I intended to investigate two key areas.

Firstly, what effect has the Violent Crime Reduction Act had upon re-enactors inrelation to the use of Imitation firearms?

Secondly, what effect could the proposed controls on deactivated firearms have

upon re-enactment?

I have an interest in both of these areas because I myself am a WW2 re-enactor

and these pieces of legislation would affect me in certain ways and therefore I

decided to find out what other re-enactors thought of them.

In terms of the wider debate of Criminological ideas, gun crime is becoming a

more increasingly focused upon area of crime by the media and politicians, and

thus the topic, while related to a small community in the United Kingdom, also

has wider meaning in relation to legitimate firearms ownership.

However, for the purposes of this presentation I will be focusing purely upon

Deactivated Firearms.

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Within this presentation there are several different subjects which will be referred to.

Firstly, the scope of the project relates to the effect of firearms legislation upon historical re-enactment,specifically the World War Two period. Historical re-enactment as a pastime can generally be broken

down into three different types of event.Living History – a portrayal of everyday events during the period for a public audience, for example a trainstation operating under Blitz conditions as can be seen in the first image.

Battle re-enactment – a carefully planned recreation of large scale battles for a public audience, usuallybased upon specific battles such as D-Day beach.

Tactical Battle – unlike the previous two, tactical battles are generally a private affair where re-enactorspractice authentic tactics and strategies rather than a preplanned show

Deactivated weapons are real firearms which have been adapted in compliance with British law to nolonger be able to fire a projectile. There are three different standards of deactivated weapon at present:

* Pre-1989 which are uncertified and of varying standards of deactivation

* Following the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, a single standard of deactivation was introduced which

is referred to as pre-1995 standard which left the guns in a state closer to their original state, for exampleallowing the firearm to be field stripped as seen in the photograph of the Luger

* Post-1995 where a more rigorous method of deactivation has been applied in order to increase thedifficulty of reactivating the weapon, where most if not all the moving parts are welded together, andtherefore no longer allowing field stripping

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In 2009 the Home Office published a consultation paper titled Controls on

Deactivated firearms. The aim of the paper was to identify a possible method of

control to regulate the ownership and sale of deactivated weapons. Thedocument laid out several different controls which are detailed on the slide,

however for this presentation I will be focusing upon:

* Making deactivated standards a mandatory requirement, whereby all guns

must be deactivated to one new standard which complies with EU legislation

which requires all future deactivations to be irreversible

* Require all pre-1995 guns to be updated to post-1995 standard

* Firearms Certification system, whereby people convicted of serious criminal

offences are banned from owning deactivated firearms in addition to the current

ban on live and air weapons

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In recorded crime statistics, Firearms offences include incidents where “a weapon has

been fired, used as a blunt instrument or used in a threatening manner”.

Just over 8000 offences were recorded by the Police in 2008/9, which amounts to less

than 0.4% of all recorded crime. Focusing on purely violent crime, firearms use only

accounted for 1% of all violent crime. Additionally over half of all firearms offences were

centered around 3 major urban locations. These figures show that while firearms

offences are a serious issue, they are generally rare for most of the United Kingdom.

To provide some background to the history of firearms offending (excluding air

weapons), the slide shows the figures for various years related to firearms legislation or

police recorded crime standards changes.

From these it can be seen that there was an increase in offending between the mid-90s

and mid-2000s, however the trend has been reversed in recent years with figures for

2008/9 having fallen 26% from the peak.

However it is important to note that changes to police recording standards in 1998 and

2002 mean comparisons of crime levels that overlap those date are difficult, but the

figures still demonstrate an upwards trend which has been reversed in recent years.

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In terms of the extent of deactivated weapons ownership and misuses, there are

currently 180,000 certified deactivated weapons with a further 8000 new deactivations

yearly. The Home Office also estimates that there are around 200,000 pre-1989deactivations which not required to be certified and thus would be harder to regulate.

Unfortunately there is little systematic data or research focusing specifically on

deactivated weapons, however there are estimates available from various firearms

related organisations.

In 60% of firearms incidents and 86% of pistol incidents the firearm is never discharged

so without recovering the weapon it is not possible to tell whether the weapon was live,

deactivated or fake.

Recorded figures show a very low rate of offending with deactivated firearms, with less

than 5 offences in every year since 200/45. However, since these are police recordedcrime figures, the previous point regarding the weapon not being discharged applies and

the true level could be much higher.

The Association of Chief Police Officers estimate that 10% of firearms incidents involve

deactivated weapons.

More recently, National Ballistics Intelligence Service analysis has suggested that

reactivated weapons are in fact becoming more common than real firearms, however

no figures are provided to back this statement up.

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In order to research the questions laid out at the beginning of the presentation, I

decided to utilise two different methods.

Firstly, in order to identify the general views of the re-enactment community inrelation to firearms legislation I decided to use a questionnaire, which will be

detailed further in a moment.

Following the questionnaire process I will be conducting interviews with several

different stakeholders in the process including re-enactors, police officers and

Home Office staff. However, this process has not been conducted yet so for now I

will focus upon the questionnaires.

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In designing the questionnaire I generated five substantive areas which I wanted

to focus upon, and thus broke the questionnaire down into these areas.

For this presentation I will focus upon the following topics.

Firstly, in order to provide a background to the community, I wanted to discover

the demographics of the community and what types of firearm are routinely

used. These questions are part of the quantitative study.

Secondly, focusing upon the proposed controls on deactivated weapons,

respondents asked to assess whether each control mentioned earlier wouldaffect them directly and given the choice to provide further explanation for their

response. These were both partly quantitative and partly qualitative.

The questionnaire was conducted online with adverts for the survey distributed

amongst re-enactors and re-enactment websites.

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A total of 33 respondents completed the questionnaire.

Focusing on the demographics of respondents first.In terms of ages, we have a wide range of responses from 18 to 60, however just overhalf of respondents are over 40 and are above the age range most commonly associatedwith criminality.

Moving to gender, every respondent except one has been male. This could be due to thefocus on firearms and the fact females were rarely armed in WW2 so would notcommonly be represented in modern day re-enactment either.

Two thirds of respondents have military, police or other firearms related organisations,which would suggest that the majority of respondents should have some knowledge of firearms legislation and regulation.

The respondents also demonstrate a range of experience in the hobby, with themajority of respondents quite recently becoming involved, but several also have over 15years experience in the hobby, including one who has 30 years.

Moving onto the first substantive area of the questionnaire,

91% of respondents indicated that their primary impression is a military based one andthus likely to involve firearm use.

85% of respondents own at least one firearm themselves, however at some eventsweapons are available for hire so it is not strictly necessary to own a weapon yourself.

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Respondents were asked what type of firearms they owned, with the ability to

choose multiple categories. The key findings of this question are:

61% own at least one automatic pistol40% own a revolver

57% own a Bolt-action rifle

46% own a Sub-machine gun

The most commonly used firearm in criminal activity would be the

pistol/revolver due to concealability (43% of offences in 2006/7) and a similarly a

high ownership rate is shown in re-enactment, however there are also a high

number of larger weapons owned as well.

Respondents were then asked what the nature of the firearms were. With 39% of

respondents owning a pre-1995 deactivated weapons and 46% owning a post-

1995 deactivated. These figures show a slight preference for more recent

deactivations which can be linked to the higher cost of pre-1995. Overall from

this, we can see that any new legislation on pre-1995 deactivated weapons will

affect just under two-fifths of the respondents, while just under half would be

affected by legislation on post-1995 respondents.

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Moving onto the proposed controls on deactivated firearms. Respondents were asked whether they felt eachproposal would affect them and given the opportunity to explain why they felt this way.

I will be focusing on the most opposed, the most costly and the most favoured, however the two other controls aredemonstrated on the slide.

The most favoured proposal was making all future deactivated weapons conform to one standard, which mostrespondents felt would not affect themselves directly. While more respondents felt this would not impact uponthemselves, concerns were raised about the current UK standard being too strict and not equal between differenttypes of weapon, so if the future standard was even more strict then the weapons would be less attractive comparedto replicas.

The most costly proposal would be updating existing pre-1995 weapons to the more stringent 1995 standard, withhalf of respondents feeling it would have an impact. Issues were raised over the cost of updating these weapons,which would more than likely be laid at the foot of the owners themselves, resulting in a bill to update pre-1995weapons which in turn would reduce their value on the market. Pre-1995 weapons often sell for much higher pricesthan post-1995, for example an old spec M1 Garand can cost over £1000, while new spec can be found for under£500. Figures estimated by the Home Office suggests cost of updating these weapons to be upto £63.8 million.

Finally, the most opposed proposal was to introduce a firearms certificate style system, with over half of respondentsfeeling it would affect them.

The vast majority of respondents felt that a firearms certificate system would essentially be a new tax with littleactual benefit given the weapons are unable to fire unlike air and live weapons.However, a couple of respondents felt the proposal would be beneficial in both reducing criminal access to theweapons but also provide a positive reputation for the community by showing that only certified reenactors haveaccess to the weapons.

Overall, from these it can be seen that the proposals that will have the most impact upon reenactors finances, or thatwould restrict new members access to firearms tend to have higher rates of opposition, the latter of which was alsoassociated with the imitation firearms laws also studied.

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Gun crime in the United Kingdom makes up less than 0.5% of all crime, with

deactivated weapon misuse generally below 5 recorded incidents a year.

However, the Home Office believes this figure is below the true level of offending.

The Government has proposed legislation which can affect re-enactment in

relation to deactivated weapons and this proposed legislation was the focus of

part of my study.

From the research conducted so far;

* In terms of the breakdown of the community, the majority of respondents

were above the age generally associated with criminal activity,

* The majority also had previous military or police service.

* Most respondents had problems with the proposals which affected them

financially or placed additional steps in the way of new members

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Given the topic, there is a possibility that only reenactors who are interested infirearms legislation would complete the survey. I know at least two peoplepersonally who when given the survey assumed that I wanted them to pass itonto others they knew rather than complete it themselves since they feel theydo not know much about firearms legislation since they do not use firearmsthemselves.

At present, the number of responses is pretty low, probably in part due to theprevious point, but also there are inherent difficulties in attempting to research arelatively small community like the WW2 re-enactment one compared toresearching the entire historical re-enactment community or another area of study.

Given more time and funding, the research could be improved by conducting

structured interviews with reenactors at events rather than attempting toconvince them to complete a survey online. Alot of events in the community areseen as social events where reenactors can get together and share their love forthe hobby, so in-person interviews would be a more social method of datacollection and thus likely to provide greater depth and knowledge.

Additionally, one of the respondents raised the point that Irish reenactors arealready required to purchase from registered firearms dealers and required toregister for certification through the police, and thus a comparison between theactual affect on irish re-enactment vs the perceived affect on british re-enactment would be an interesting area to investigate given more time andfunding.

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The Effect of Firearms Legislation Upon Historical Reenactment Power Point Notes

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