law on Harpoon Guns

[podge]

Right then chaps it’s time to get the collective thoughts on a subject that I hope someone may know something about.
As some of you may know I’m a firearms dealer and being such am regularly asked about how I see the law on different aspects of the different parts of the Firearms Act in the UK.
So yesterday I had a phone call from my local police firearms licensing department asking about a Harpoon Gun and what section of the Act if any I thought it might come under.
Well said I, is it a smooth bore, rifled barrel, does it use compressed air or an explosive charge?? Etc. or is it just to big to be classed as a firearm and so it must be classed as prohibited within the Firearms Laws of the UK.
The outcome of the call was that we didn’t have a clue what to class it as, so people what do you think?
Should somebody be permitted to have a full size Harpoon Gun sat in there back garden or should it be classed as prohibited and therefore illegal.
Anybody know anything about any Law that might apply to this sort of thing?

 

[KWM]

This has come up a few times. The information I have been given in the past, most of which I must admit has been third hand, is that speargun are exempt from the act.

I have also seen this come up on DB before so it is worth doing a search someone actually put up the part of the act which caused the exemption.

Of course possession of one on the bus going to work is still going to get you in a lot of trouble.

Kev

Actually had the firearms officer come to my house yesterday and I didint even bother to inform her of my large collection of spearguns.

 

[Mr. X]

Do you mean one of those post-mounted canons for spearing Whales? If it uses an explosive charge, I would say it is a fire arm. Otherwise not.

In many peoples minds & words, spear & harpoon are the same thing, so please be careful not that you don't inadvertantly suggest the banning of spear guns.

This culture of trying to ban everything "just in case" is pretty friggin awful. Let poor old "dun roamin'" Capt. Ahab keep his antique harpoon gun in his rockery if he wants to. These rules clearly don't stop terrorism, as terrorists don't follow the rules, they just encroach ever more on our personal freedoms (perhaps the government should have instead thought more carefully about letting very dangerous people into the country in the first place).

BTW do you need any sort of licence for a Hilti gun? Artillary canon? You don't need one to buy butane, even the huge containers -- the ones several times larger than the ones used by Glasgow/London bombers.

 

[podge]

Chaps I don’t mean a speargun as believe it or not I do know what one of those looks like.
I mean a Proper Full Size Harpoon Gun as used on a whaling ship.

Mr X, Hilti Gun, No. But artillery cannon Yes and you need a licence for the Black Powder that goes in it.

 

[SurfnSpear]

Podge, I'd say exempt. There has got to be a legal standing for ornamental purposes, antique collection, etc. etc. I think the justification of exempt would have to be that it is not likely to be an 'accessible' 'portable' or 'concealable' offensive weapon with the capability for prolific destruction (ie. 22 pounder field artillery!):martial

 

[settingsteel]

Should somebody be permitted to have a full size Harpoon Gun sat in there back garden

Absolutely, with the stipulation they be little old ladies, over age 80, and of course must wear WWII helmets when operatingrofl

 

[fearthespear]

Shrug?...just to be helpful Podge!

 

[podge]

Thanks Brett I was sort of thinking along those lines myself.
Ben your input was most useful.
Tone I couldn’t agree with you more.rofl

 

[alexrom1207]

Several comments:
First, I am American. So the idea of being prohibited from having firearms is something that is quite foreign to me. Here you can have any damn thing you want. A friend of mine's father used to have the precursor to the Barret Sniper Rifle (50 caliber anti-material rifle) which the US gave to soldiers in Afghanistan to use against terrorists. Hey if there's one thing Americans do well, it's overdoing things. But more to the point, I was under the impression that all firearms (explosive charge or compressed air) were banned in England. Does the rest of the U.K. not have this same restriction? I had always assumed they did.

Next point. I assume that a harpoon gun will shoot a fairly large projectile, with a rather substantial weight. As such, the gun itself would have to be rather substantial (far out of the concealable, portable, to-be-used-in-crime type of weapon). Additionally, if the projectile weighs enough (as I assume a harpoon would) it would make sense that the gun would have to be mounted. I can't imagine someone firing a 10 pound harpoon at any workable velocity without the recoil being enough to knock him through a wall.

Also. Without a bored barrel (are they bored?) and with a projectile that naturally has a lot of drag, what is the effective range of one of these guns? Obviously if you pack enough charge in it it will go far, but at a certain point that much charge makes the gun impossible to use for anything but deck mounted operation. So I guess to narrow the question down. Is there any combination of charge/size that would make this gun feasible to carry around as a weapon and still have the range to shoot someone without being so powerful as to really kick the crap out of the person firing it?

Lastly, and this is just my idea, what about a minimum size requirement (kind of thinking backwards) but in this case a larger gun is much less dangerous than a small one because its uses are seriously limited. With a length requirement of the projectile you may be able to find a workable solution that would not interfere with spearguns (as our spears are usually long enough to make a speargun a lousy weapon for carrying around and committing crimes). And an additional requirement could be that under a certain length (the spear that is) the gun cannot be capable of shooting over a certain number of meters per second. This limit would prevent someone from making a portable, concealable, weapon with any type of range. This restriction would still not cover spearguns as the guns that are small enough to fall into this category don't approach anything near these velocities.

I understand that the harpoon gun is different from a speargun (although a compelling case can be made for classifying a pneumatic gun as a harpoon gun) I only mention these restrictions not covering spearguns as a way of preventing some future lawmaker deciding to merely....now let me get this bureaucratic bullshit right..."applying already existing standards to a new class of dangerous weapons....yada yada yada yada.... to protect our children.....God save the Queen." Or something like that. I'm not sure if politicians in the U.K. talk like that but I know they do in America (just swap out "God save the Queen" with "nine-eleven."

 

[Spiderman]

Could it be classed as an industrial machine?
In this case it might be exempt from firearms legislation but you would be obliged to send any employees on a 3 day health and safety course to teach them which is the sharp end.

 

[glowworm]

If it's deactivated it's not a problem.If it can still be fired then someone needs there head testing:blackeye

 

[Spaniard]

I've got one in the attic which i'm having mounted on my car bonnet; I will rig a line to the trigger and through the drivers window so I can catch me one of the wascally wabbits!

P.S. If anyone sensible reads this please disregard it

 

[podge]

This has nothing to do with spearguns at all.
I'm talking about one of these-

Not one of these-

And yes i think that Glowworm has it about right with the welded up and made beyond use bit as i still can't find any actual law that reflects a Harpoon Gun and the ownership of it.

 

[Spaniard]

Can't imagine there is too much to worry the Cops as I guess the UK stopped whaling some time ago (when?) and how the hell anyone managed to get one of those things off a boat and into their house is beyond me....You can't fit one into a gun cabinet either but thieves would make a bit of noise nicking that from your house!

 

[podge]

Spaniard you p**s head you :friday:friday
I thing he/she wants it for there garden, Christ knows why bloody ugly thing if you ask me, but ours is not to reason why baby.

 

[Spaniard]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh....They must have a pond with some f*****g great Koi Carp in it!

 

[podge]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh....They must have a pond with some f*****g great Koi Carp in it!

roflroflroflrofl
That or next door has an over amorous Rottweiler

 

[abusingelves]

Lads, only one thing to do with that harpoon gun......

mount it on the back of one of those pimped out Toyota Hilux that Jeremy Clarkson took to the pole, and hunt deer/cows/Buffalo with it!!!!!:blackeye

 

[podge]

To be honest chaps if I had my way I melt the thing down and sell it for scrap, but as with all things it’s each to there own.

 

[settingsteel]

just saw the pic...i think that would look badas mounted on a mini cooper:blackeye, with a little old lady red scarf, and helmet straddled to the roof:martial.