Firearms renewal medical form.

[BenBhoy 4,706]

11 hours ago, Meece said:

This forum is one of the main shooting forums in this country

I wasn't at all worried until I read this!! 

[ianm 2,594]

9 hours ago, Meece said:

Thank you for the kind offer but seeing as I have just renewed it will be nearly another five years to the next renewal and even so I'm more than able to finance myself although I wouldn't want to be associated with this 2 bob org.  goodness only knows what the situation will be by that time.  with an impending lead ban over the horizon and the probable demise of game shooting due to the efforts of Kwis and his like of scum,/ and basic / general economics of game shooting, I can see that virtually no one will be into shooting.  What with the increase of costs and the total disinterest of the vast majority of the young pulling themselves away from their phone screens the amount of shooters may diminish to a very small hardcore of diehards.  Only the other evening there was a program about eskimo hunters on the east of Greenland.  A forty year old hunter recons that he will be the last of the hunters there.  He has two sons and neither of them are interested in hunting and when one of them had to kill a seal for food the boy cried.  Times are changing rapidly.  I am booked in June for a days informal drive clay simulated driven game.  I've been before and all of the guns there were of the opinion that this was the future but like my rifle club shooting there are no youngsters coming along.  A. there is no interest and B. its all to expensive.  Seeing as jobs and  wages for the young are a bit on the thin side due to the pandemic ect, I don't see a bright future for shooting or any country sport especially when the orgs don't bother. Personally I don't give a toss about basic. it just frustrates me that they profess to be doing so much yet there is nothing but capitulation from them on all fronts.  The only thing that they seem to be active in is hyping themselves up to sell any old tat and insurance at vastly inflated prices to a willing audience of people who want to be seen with all the gear and the car sticker.

If you have just renewed why didn't you take a stand ?

Why didn't you refuse to supply a tick box medical certificate?

Could it be perhaps because you want someone else to do it? Anyone just not you?

If you are not prepared to do it yourself or take the shooting organisation you ARE in to task, then you need to wind your neck in! 

[Meece 1,958]

9 hours ago, ianm said:

If you have just renewed why didn't you take a stand ?

Why didn't you refuse to supply a tick box medical certificate?

Could it be perhaps because you want someone else to do it? Anyone just not you?

If you are not prepared to do it yourself or take the shooting organisation you ARE in to task, then you need to wind your neck in! 

At the present and the previous few months covid has virtually shut down all lines of communication with Kent police.  They don't reply to emails you can't communicate  by phone it is almost though  not imposible to contact the foe.  The one that I  have only works part time and when my cert hadn't  arrived on the last day of an 8 week overrun extension I  managed eventually to get through to him.  Even he couldn't get through to the department on the private to them numbers.  He had to leave msgs.   The department had to do an immediate cert issue.  When I eventually got this cert  it was written all wrong and had to go back for a rewrite.  there is no point in an individual trying to overturn the system because you can't do anything.  If it didn't happen I  would have to lodge all my stuff with rfds and God knows when it would be sorted out.  Basic shouldn't have to need an individual to go to court.  Everyone is in the same boat so they should be active in sorting this institutional mess out.  But plod is using covid as an excuse to cut costs and get the numbers of cert holders down. As far as their concerned shooting is an unessessary hobby which is draining their budget.

[The one 8,483]

£20 and a weeks wait but my doctor only works mon , tues and Wednesday takes her holidays off saving the world . Cant grumble heard some guys paying £150

[terryd 8,499]

I think lots use these now 

FAQs Archive - MedCert

WWW.MEDCERT.CO.UK

---

Find answers to frequently asked questions about our service

  they contact the doc for you 

[kenj 131]

I finally collected my completed medical form from my surgery this afternoon. It took over a month for the Dr to write No eight times, sign and stamp it. Good value for £45? Posted it off. Let's see how long TVP now take.

Edited March 9, 2021 by kenj

[Dervburner 2,549]

24 minutes ago, kenj said:

I finally collected my completed my completed medical form from my surgery this afternoon. It took over a month for the Dr to write No eight times, sign and stamp it. Good value for £45? Posted it off. Let's see how long TVP now take.

Seems I got a relatively fair deal, £15:00 and did it straight away. Still not a bad earner for them though. If there needs to be a small fee, then the home office should set that fee, although they won’t because this doctors form is nothing to do with the home office. It’s all messed up. The whole process should follow a protocol from the home office. Same across the country, not another postcode lottery. But that’s just my opinion, I might be wrong.

[Deker 3,478]

Had my early renewal Christmas time, the medical cost me £50, (I need to change doctors looking at some of the cheaper charges here).

It took nearly 4 weeks to get the completed paperwork back to me! 

[goldfinger 135]

I told my local doctors after chasing them up a few times that if they didn't respond to the FAO in a week  I would be in danger of braking the law and would have my guns confiscated from me, next day they asked me for come down and pay £15 they had sorted it.                           

[Alsone 789]

On 02/03/2021 at 13:48, Dervburner said:

I agree Ian, the problem is what happened to a friend of mine. His doctor refused to fill in the form and the police refused to process his application without it. When he told the police they advised him to change his doctor. When he ran out of time and was faced with putting his guns into storage with rfd, he had to go to another doctor. His application then got processed. The police follow guidelines which aren’t mandatory and that’s the problem. Guidelines are nothing more than a suggestion and aren’t legally binding and aren’t enforceable by law. 

 

 

This is what I've been saying to The Shooting organisations for years. Whilst ever there is guidelines, the Police are free to do whatever they want because they're only guidlines (except to the extent that a Court may have modified compliance through a test case). 

For this reason, Firearms Guidance needs to be enacted as Law and it needs penalties for those enforcing it if they depart from the rules or make up their own requirements. You cannot have a fair law where there are no penalties for one side breaching it. It needs to be fair and equal to both sides. There needs to be a huge fine or worse for Police Forces departing from the Law. Whilst ever it's guidance, we'll have chaos as each region can simply decide to do whatever they like and given the costs implications of a firearms challenge, something again that needs to be looked at, chances are no-one can afford to challenge it again denying access to justice. In my opinion, costs should be fixed at £100 for a Plaintiff in these cases, with the Police unable to recover costs beyond that, and Legal Aid should be available to cover a Firearms Solictor / Barrister for the Plaintiff provided the case has a reasonable prospect of succeeding, the latter being used to weed out spurious claims.

There are issues with antis being allowed to join licensing teams as well. I believe anyone involved in licensing should be an active sporting shooter and not a member of any anti gun or gun  control group so as to ensure fairness in processing the applcications. There is unfortunately allegedly a history in some firearms departments of those against gun ownership joining the department and then seeking to use their position to deny ownership.

I've also said for a long time breaches of firearms licensing regulations shouldn't carry jail terms but warnings and revocations for the  most serious. What's more effective for a breach of safe keeping? Fining someone £100 or giving them a warning that continued failures could lead to a loss of certificate? Most shooters value their certificate far more than a small fine. Less stick more incentive with a friendlier system that's beneficial to both sides. A system of mulitple warnings followed by revocation for a failure to heed those warnings on the same subject would be far more effective in modifying behaviour and far less draconian. Same can be said of jail time for illegal possession. Absolutely needed for illegally held street weapons, but why are we criminalising a cert holder who finds himself in that situation because maybe their cert runs out and they didn't receive the renewal notice, or simply forgot,  or because the Police are slow to process due to a back log? We shouldn't be punishing legitimate licensed holders with the same punishment as criminals. Licensing should carry warnings or at most a small fine in the worst instances, with a revocation for the worst possible scenario not jail time because someone forgot their cert ran out and didn't get a renewal notice or they forgot to secure their weapon after cleaning it or they left a round in their pocket accidentally.

Much reform is needed but no organisation seems to have the balls to stand up to the Government and challenege any of this.

Edited March 9, 2021 by Alsone

[Alsone 789]

On 02/03/2021 at 13:26, ianm said:

I contacted BASC when this first came about and i asked what they intended doing about it. The answer i got was "we are trying to get an applicant to come to us complaining about it so that we can challenge it in court". However guess what? nobody is willing to challenge it, they have all to date, done what you have done ie: paid up and let plod off the hook.    

Well that's a joke Ian considering they've now done away with licensing insurance. Who is going to go to the BASC with a case if the BASC are no longer covering licensing costs? Maybe you asked prior to this change to their insurance. The BASC need someone prepared to lose £20K which means only the wealthiest. 

Edited March 9, 2021 by Alsone