Oh here we go again.......

It looks like the Scottish Parliament will be given powers to ban air weapons, because they have had a spate of air weapon injuries and deaths up there.... You only have to ask if the banning of hand guns after Dunblane had any effect on the circulation of illegal weapons ? or a decrease in gun related crime .....well did it ?... no it didn't... there isn't a day that goes by where you don't hear about some shooting somewhere in the country....

When are the politicians going to learn that banning something doesn't make it go away, you only have to look at drugs, they are banned.... are they off the streets ? do we have any less drug addicts ?... are there any less drug dealers ?..... of course not... but I guess if some document exists somewhere whereby the government has said "Thou shalt not !!" somebody else will exist where they say "Up yours !!"

But getting back to firearms, and just to fill you in on some of the legalities of air weapons.... not airsoft, paintball or BB guns, I mean something designed to fire a projectile usually made of lead or some similar type of material at no higher muzzle velocity than 12ft/lbs .... because make no mistake about it air weapons are firearms, they are not a toy, and certainly shouldn't be used by children unless under supervision, and any air weapon that fires a projectile at a higher muzzle velocity than 12ft/lbs requires a firearms certificate and a lockable gun cabinet.

Air weapons can and do kill in the wrong hands, some people simply do not realise how fast a pellet of say .22 calibre leaves the barrel of an air rifle.... and to put things into perspective what exactly does 12ft/lb mean ?

in answer to the first question .22 pellets can leave an air rifle barrel at between 650 feet per second and 800 feet per second (some faster some slower)... but it is very dependant on how heavy the pellet is, a .177 calibre pellet can reach speeds of over 1000 feet per second... so what is 650 feet per second ? well that's around 443 miles per hour and 1000 feet per second is 681 miles per hour....

12 ft/lb means it's muzzle velocity in feet per second times the projectile weight in pounds and air rifle pellets are weighed in grains average being 12 - 16 grains

basically it means that most legal air rifles @ 12ft/lbs can easily penetrate a human skull at ranges of up to 30 yards....

So yes air weapons can be lethal, but the same could be said for any bit of machinery in the wrong hands, a car for instance ? a bread knife ? cricket bat ?

It's all down to who is in control of them and what they are using them for.... banning an inanimate object doesn't stop the person who wants to use the object to injure/kill/maim somebody, nor does it reduce the circulation of them... since 1996 (Dunblane) and the political knee jerk reaction to it...... gun crime has increased by four fold not decreased..... go figure