Pea shooters illegal

Like so much of our legislation, EPP regs were a 'knee jerk something must be done' reaction to acid in the face acts of unspeakable violence. The, perhaps unintended consequences, of such hasty actions is the unavailability of basic chemicals for private use and the risk of making otherwise law abiding individuals into criminals. Immediately after The Archers I will be turning my self in to my local nick (subject to it being open naturally).

Guy

Back in the mid 50's we used to buy dried peas from the seed merchants and take them to the Saturday flicks.The manager finally told us that they were banned as repeated firing at the film was damaging the screen.The Saturday morning flicks were 6d .

Frank

But a pea-shooter doesn't meet the definition of a blow-pipe until a court says it does. If prosecuted for possession of a pea-shooter, it's an obvious defence to point out the law probably did not intend toys to be classified as offensive weapons. The intent in this example is ambiguous. Happens a lot, and when it does a court listens to the prosecution and defence arguments and decides which has merit. Much British law is Case Law - what the words actually mean is tested in court and what the court decides becomes the precedent. Maybe a pea-shooter is a blow-pipe, maybe not.

Generally the courts are in no hurry to make toys and domestic appliances illegal. So far as I know, no-one has ever been arrested for owning a pea-shooter, and consequently whether or not a pea-shooter is a blowpipe with the meaning of the act is still undecided. Your position in law is much more dangerous if caught with a full-size blowpipe and ammunition, doubly so if it's been fired at someone, triply if it caused injury. The defence cannot claim it's a toy.

It's a shame, but ill-disposed persons can and do abuse useful workshop chemicals. EPP controls are forced on us in order to protect the majority. Why should the public risk a face full of Drain Cleaner just to save a few model engineers the bother of registering to buy the chemical and then being obliged to store it safely? Controls rarely stop legitimate purchases, but they make it more difficult for anonymous malcontents to get away with murder. The cost is many things I'd like to try, like Nitriding, Blueing, mirror making and early photography all become more trouble than they're worth. Which, on balance, I agree is better than the alternative.

How do you feel about men being free to train as airline pilots so they could hijack airliners and crash them into the World Trade Centre? No checks on pilot students back then, there are now...

Dave

My brother and I bought dried peas by the pound from the grocer. After a while we were faced with an ultimatum from Mum - bake the peas in the oven before firing them, or lose our peashooters. She was fed up with weeding pea seedlings out of her flower beds!

George B.

It's interesting to note that a pea shooter is easily distinguished as the mouthpiece always has a small cross moulded into it, to stop children inhaling the pea and choking to death, as used to happen in the good old days.

Neil

Of course this stops them being used as a multi-shot repeater weapon as per Dennis the Menace with a whole mouthful of peas...

What about my RPG?

Bear..

I hope you store your RPG in a tin box just like the other explosives we keep come 5th Nov each year. Your shot gun however, should you feel the need of such, MUST be kept in a tin box with a tiny pad lock on it, for extra safety you understand.

Guy

No problem provided you put some blue tape across the front sight. They're a bit sharp and you wouldn't want to inflict a nasty cut...

SOD,

The problem is that a pea shooter could be used to fire a poison dart. If you exclude toys what about toy blowpipes intended to fire plastic darts that will equally well fire harmful ones? I agree totally on the orginal public or actual use ban, but this law appears purely to make it easier to proscecute. And prohibition laws generally don't affect criminals getting hold of items. Banning guns has not reduced gun crime. And the EPP regulations are not just registration, it requires background checks, significant paperwork and fees. Criminals just steal a car battery and pour the acid out.
There also seems to be an issue where normally law abiding citizens appear to be more likely to be proscecuted and have harsher penalties levied than persistent long term wrongdoers who have no assets, plenty of time to sit around fighting any charge and probably a much better idea of the law, what to say or not to say.

Robert G8RPI.

Just to take this to daft extreme.

Nerf guns.

Soft foam darts.. add

Tungsten Tig electrodes

and for extra sauce lanthanided electrodes ............

This may surprise you Dave. Shocking waste of resources and court time.

**LINK**

Guy

I presume you are being facetious about storage of shotguns, because present requirements are a cabinet of specified thickness of steel and two, not one, but two seven lever locks and the whole being very firmly attached to the building structure.
Dave W

No need to do anything daft with the darts, It's easy to make a nerf gun (that fires standard foam darts) which is an "air rifle" or even a section 5 firearm.

I own a nerf gun which would need a license if I lived in Scotland.

Elastic bands will be illegal next    

Edited By roy entwistle on 13/12/2020 09:43:12

Sturgeon and whales caught in UK waters must be offered to the Queen by law. It's crazy that police are wasting their time enforcing this when yoofs are mugging oaps. This country has gone to hell in a handcart.

For those hoping to get £15 for three.... As set out in the guidance, compensation will not be paid for any claim that totals less than £30.

I think these laws are either quick vote grabbers (probably not in this case) or practice from some new junior minister /civil servant to introduce a bill and watch it get amended. Getting some practice in might be OK but using up court time to rule on pea-shooters is wasteful.

The samurai sword law was similar - not allowed to sell curved blades over a certain length. An amendment said that any hand-made blade was exempt which is a rather large loop hole. If you don't want any hand finishing, then you can always make a straight one and call it a ninja sword.

Not at all. An obnoxious individual found not guilty by the system he so despises. Checks and balances in action! I wouldn't have minded if it had gone the other way and he'd been fined. His website suggests he has an agenda, and that clip is full of bad advice.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think for one second the law is anything but an ass. Contact best avoided in my opinion. It's an imperfect system. But, for the reasons demonstrated by the youtube link, there's a big gap between untested law implying a pea-shooter is an offensive weapon and actually getting a conviction.

Dave

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The Tufnol blowpipe sowed the seed for the 20mm conduit and compressed air powered blowpipe, the ammunition was to be short pieces of cable, this proved to be difficult to fire as the rubber sleeving did not slide down the tube very freely, French chalk was tried as was swarfega but neither worked as hoped for, a change of ammunition to a 5/8” bolt shank, this fired very well but the ricochet when it hit the next vice on the bench was very fortunate that it hit no one, after an elevation adjustment the next shot left a significant crater in a brick wall, we decided to quit while we were ahead with that experiment.

Mike