Meeting of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection&nbsp;in the EP in Brussels. Vote on Control of the acquisition and possession of weapons and statement by Vicky FORD (ECR, UK)

Brussels

Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

statement

meeting

vote

FORD, Vicky (ECR, UK)

firearms directive (T)

Control of the acquisition and possession of weapons: extracts from the vote and statement by Vicky FORD (ECR, UK)

Arrival in the meeting room of Vicky FORD (ECR, UK), Chair of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection and Rapporteur on the Firearms Directive

FORD announcing the vote, atmoshpere in the meeting room, announcement of the result (4 shots).

Panel showing the results of the vote: 25 in favour, 9 against, 2 abstentions.

SOUNDBITE (English), Vicky FORD (ECR, UK), Rapporteur, So I'm extremely pleased that we've just voted on the changes to the Firearms directive, and, during a long negotiation we have managed to come up with an amended proposal that defends the interests of legal owners of firearms, but also closes some loop holes, especially on poorly the de-activated firearms. So, in particular, we've had a common firearms law system since the 1990's, the Commission proposed many changes, the original Commission proposal would have been enormously difficult for hunters, for shooters, for collectors, even for museums and would have been very, very difficult legally.

SOUNDBITE (English), Vicky FORD (ECR, UK), Rapporteur, So we have completely rewritten this to come up with what should be a much more workable proposal, but at the same point we've also closed the loop hole regarding so-called salute firearms and these were very poorly de-activated and sold without permission, and they were used very sadly in the Charlie Hebdo attack, and other caches of these so-called solute firearms have been found elsewhere, including in the UK. So, closing that loop holes was important for security reasons, but also having a balanced proposal that works.

SOUNDBITE (English), Vicky FORD (ECR, UK), Rapporteur, I want to make it clear that that change on de-activation only applies to the so-called salute and acoustic firearms, these are ones that are converted from live firers into "blank firers", and they will now stay in their original category. A totally de-activated firearm that can no longer be used and cannot be re-converted, you will not need to have a license for, but you in the future, will need to notify the authorities. This was a complicated negotiation, but that was the exact issue, was the salute acoustic firearms that were too easy to get hold of, and then too easy to turn back to fire live ammunition.

SOUNDBITE (English), Vicky FORD (ECR, UK), Rapporteur, There is some detail, that is causing a bit of confusion at the moment, so maybe I can take you through. The Commission original proposal wanted to ban anything that resembled a semi-automatic firearm. That would have been incredibly difficult legally, you know what is a toy, what do re-enactors use, etc. So instead after much negotiation there is a limitation for civilian use, but normal civilian use, on semi-automatic certified firearms when they have a high capacity magazine inserted into them or build as part of them. There is special permission that that can still be used by existing holders, by collectors, by target shooters, and it's at the Member State discretion whether or not they want to give this permission, but they can definitely give those permissions. So, if you've got on of those at the moment, if you're target shooter, you need to get your permission from your Member State to continue using it.

SOUNDBITE(English), Vicky FORD (ECR, UK), Rapporteur, Regarding magazines, there is no ban per se on magazines, but if you don't have that special users license, you have just an ordinary license, and you are found in possession of a high capacity magazine, your license can be taken away from you. There is nothing to say you can't get it back, once you rectify the situation, you are not "breaking the law" as it were, but you will lose your license until that is rectified. That was a position that the Parliament, you know initially we would rather not have had that, because there are a lot these magazines out there, we felt it very important are that we should not criminalize people just for this, but as part of the wider negotiation we agreed it because it was extremely important to a lot of the national governments concerns. So it was a really big point for them.

SOUNDBITE(English), Vicky FORD (ECR, UK), Rapporteur, Going forward, in the future, if you want to buy a high capacity magazine you need to have the special license for those category A weapons. This doesn't apply to historic items or military re-enactors because they don't need a license in the first place because they are not using a firearm, they are using a de-activated firearm which is treated separately.