Gun Law

[hughnique]

During a recent conversation with a friend, a tale was told of a person somewhat local to me who evidently is a member of a gun club, again as this story is somewhat 3rd hand, I don't know if it is a gun club, as such, or the local chasse. So someone visits said "gun club" members house, and during the visit, he asks the visitor if he wants to see his guns, subsequently taking him in to another room where a triple gun locker is revealed, and opened up. The visitor is then treated to a plethora of all sorts of assault rifles, handguns and the like. Evidently, as the person is a member of this "gun club" he is legally allowed to purchase and keep all of this armory with impunity. As said as it is a 3rd hand account I am dubious as to the validity of it all, but if it is allowed, surely a couple of shotguns, not all this high powered killing machines.

[Lori]

Where did this take place? France ??

What you described is VERY common in the USA. When I was growing up, my father had a few gun lockers with all kinds of guns in them. However, I don't believe he ever offered to show them to visitors.

He taught me how to shoot a handgun at the gun range when I was 16 years old. That was a long time ago. I think this type of thing is FAR more commonplace now than it was back then (in the USA).

BTW, I do not and have never owned any guns.

[niemeyjt]

Well, when I worked in Paris, albeit in 1996, a colleague asked me if I could bring some .303 ammunition from the UK for his WW2-era British Rifle he owned as he was finding it impossible to obtain in France.

So your example would not appear to be unique.

[Wilbro]

A lot of stuff from both world wars is hanging about, mainly as souvenirs I suspect. An immobilier friend of ours has found all sorts of weaponry in lofts and barns particularly after the death of the last remaining elderly person in a household. Not surprising given the amount of armaments dropped by air to the Resistance in the war years.

[Headers]

Guns are categorised in France. The rules are being tightened. Registration of all guns (very slowly) is in progress starting with hunters and inheritors who don’t hold a licence. Some unregistered guns will inevitably disappear into attics just in case. After all the French have been invaded twice and have learned how to wrap and bury arms to hide them from invaders.

[Quiksilver]

I think it's a boys' toys thing. My hunting friends have a tendency to collect guns like women are reputed to collect handbags If and when one of them becomes useless, it's rarely repaired, just replaced. The gun, that is.
Then you need to take into account all the guns given as presents.
I don't really see what the problem is, as long as the owner holds a licence and the arms are secured.

[L Austin France]

We'd only been in possession of it for a few days when, along with close neighbours, we had to vacate our house for a few hours after I found 3 grenades in the loft & the army were called in to dispose of them.

[Hotrodder]

Where did this take place? France ??

What you described is VERY common in the USA. When I was growing up, my father had a few gun lockers with all kinds of guns in them. However, I don't believe he ever offered to show them to visitors.

He taught me how to shoot a handgun at the gun range when I was 16 years old. That was a long time ago. I think this type of thing is FAR more commonplace now than it was back then (in the USA).

BTW, I do not and have never owned any guns.

When I grew up in the states we never had any guns in the house. I assume it was because parents lived through the Blitz and saw enough of war and its tools.

Well, when I worked in Paris, albeit in 1996, a colleague asked me if I could bring some .303 ammunition from the UK for his WW2-era British Rifle he owned as he was finding it impossible to obtain in France.
So your example would not appear to be unique.

At a party not long before I left for Europe, a friend dug out an old Mauser rifle that his father had brought back after the war. And said he had some bullets for it but had never fired it because it was unlicensed. Then inevitably someone dared him to do so. So fuelled by alcohol, etc. he promptly opened the door of the apartment and fired it out the door. My Dog was it loud! You never saw ten people leg it from a party so fast. By the time I was pulling out of the car park two cop cars were pulling up outside reception and there was a chopper in the sky overhead. That was my third and last encounter with firearms while living there.

[hughnique]

I don't really see what the problem is, as long as the owner holds a licence and the arms are secured.

The problem is that this individual is a rather nasty piece of c--p, and I presume he is somewhat insane, and ginger Just strikes me as bizarre that these sorts of weapons are freely available, when you look at recent developments, not only in the good old gun toting USA, with schoolyard shootings and nutters going on the rampage, mind you if I had a firearm at the moment I would definitely shoot that bloody bat.

[Quiksilver]

You can't! They're protected. But guns aren't 'freely available' in France. As Headers says, the laws on owning firearms are being considerably tightened up. It's a bit unlikely that anyone known as clinically insane would be granted a permit for anything other than a pot of bubble-making solution