In the land formerly known as Great Britain, the Crown has has granted royal assent to the Offensive Weapons Bill as passed by Parliament. This new law bans the sale and possession of lever release action and manually actuated release system weapons.
The LRA guns are essentially semi-autos with a bolt catch that must be disengaged each time the rifle is fired. Pull the trigger, the rifle fires and the bolt locks back. The shooter then releases the bolt with by depressing a lever on the receiver before pulling the trigger again.
MARS guns are semi-automatic rifles that have been modified in a way that forces you to pull the trigger twice in order to fire it. The action is locked back when a round is fired. The shooter then pulls the trigger once to close the bolt and then a second time to fire the rifle.
These mechanical work-arounds kept these rifles from being considered semi-automatics under UK law. Actual semi-autos have been banned in the Land of Hope and Glory since 1988.
For a good illustration of how these rifles work, check out these two videos from Pete Moore of Shooting Sports Magazine. Here’s the LRA rifle:
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And the MARS gun:
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Now both designs are officially verboten.
The UK Government in their official press release states that following:
These new laws will give police extra powers to seize dangerous weapons and ensure knives are less likely to make their way onto the streets in the first place. The Act will also see the introduction of Knife Crime Prevention Orders – a power the police called for. As well as tough law enforcement, it’s hugely important we continue our work to steer young people away from a life of crime in the first place.
The Act includes a number of other measures to tackle serious violence, including:
- a ban on the possession, manufacture and sale of rapid firing rifles and bump stocks, which increase a rifle’s rate of fire. The ban on the manufacture and sale of these weapons has now come into force with immediate effect
A statement from the National Rifle Association UK (no relation to the US organization) makes clear what the new law means for British shooters.
Courtesy National Rifle Association
The Act introduces new prohibitions under the Firearms Act 1968 on certain rapid-firing rifles, including lever release and MARS rifles.
Prohibited “rapid firing rifles” are those with a chamber from which empty cartridge cases are extracted using (i) energy from propellant gas, or (ii) energy imparted to a spring or other energy storage device by propellant gas,
other than a rifle which is chambered for .22 rim-fire cartridges.
The prohibitions come into force with effect from today, 16 May 2019, to the extent that they prohibit the manufacture, sale, transfer or acquisition of such weapons. The prohibition on possession will come into force at a later date, following the completion of the surrender and compensation arrangements.
Compensation and surrender arrangements
Sections 56 to 59 of the 2019 Act set out the surrender and compensation arrangements which must be followed before the prohibition on the possession of the above weapons can come into force. The arrangements are subject to secondary legislation before they can come into force. The Home Office will publish details on the arrangements for applying for compensation in due course, to include who can apply for compensation, how they can apply, timescales for applications, what information owners need to supply to evidence ownership, and surrender arrangements.
Yes, the Crown went after bump fire stocks too. Firearms-UK released a blurb on their Facebook page and they aren’t happy with this new law.
My friends in Switzerland are dealing with their own issues because of EU despotism and we here in Florida and the US as a whole are facing our own never-ending assault on the Second Amendment. Now my friends in the UK are having their rights further crushed by the onslaught of Big Brother. What little bit of joy they still had in their police state of an island has been further eroded.
Across the globe, the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex continues its push, stripping people of any viable means of self defense. It’s grim to see what the UK has become.
