As Paris and Brussels reel, London’s Met Police say: Hand over your BB guns

The Metropolitan Police have launched a two week gun surrender, urging members of the public to hand in lawfully owned ” imitation weapons, BB guns and air weapons”.

Coming on the heels of the EU gun ban proposals, the recent attack on Paris and the seemingly thwarted attack on Brussels, demanding that innocent people hand over lawfully owned toys is a pathetic response.

The Met insists that people handing over firearms (or, indeed, children’s plastic toys, which if coloured black or grey now fall under the classification ‘realistic imitation firearm’) “may not face prosecution for illegal possession and can remain anonymous”, though immediately continues its statement by saying “some weapons [will be] forensically checked for evidence”.


The term ‘surrender’ is used in order to allow police to mount prosecutions against people who hand in firearms or toys. Previously such initiatives were labelled ‘amnesties’, which UK Shooting News understands implied immunity from prosecution.

Detective Superintendent Stephen Clayman of the Trident and Area Crime Command said, in a canned press release: “We are asking Londoners to hand in firearms and imitation weapons to avoid them falling into the wrong hands. In an inappropriate setting, imitation weapons will cause fear and panic, and could lead to a police response involving the deployment of armed police officers, with potentially tragic results.”

https://ukshootingnews.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/as-paris-and-brussels-reel-londons-met-police-say-hand-over-your-bb-guns/