Danger Not From The BB Guns But From Scotland’s Disarmament

By Major Van HarlDanger Not From The BB Guns But From Scotland’s Disarmament

Wisconsin –-(Ammoland.com)- Rogue air weapons in Scotland!

Sounds like groups of terrorist have hijacked a fleet of drone aircraft, armed them with Hellfire missiles and then attacked, at will, poor unarmed villages in Scotland.

Given the fact that Police Scotland is unarmed and employ their concept of fighting back crime with only expandable batons and pepper spray, I can see why these perceived beset Scottish cops, would want to take away ownership of BB guns from the average citizen of that country.

The problem is, what we call a BB gun or pellet gun in the US; Police Scotland has labeled an air weapon.

Once is it a weapon in Scotland it must be removed from the public or controlled with such draconian laws that render it not cost effective to own.

Regulate anything with enough paper work, and then throw in heavy taxes and licensing fees and you can kill some of the strongest desires to own almost anything—especially rogue air weapons.

When I was ten years old I lived in the small Scottish village of Innellan, down the river Clyde from the big city of Glasgow. One of my twelve year old friends walked into a store with a couple of pound notes and bought a single shot pellet pistol. Completely legal and we had a lot of fun shooting the pellet gun. Even though we did nothing wrong we always felt the need to hide the pellet gun from the offended eyes of the locals who lived in our village. We were Americans and Americans kids grew up with BB guns in their hands. Not so the Scottish folks.

Of course this was not just any pellet gun, but a pellet pistol and handguns scared the haggis out of Scots.

In the 1960s you could buy what we called pop-guns. They were an air driven toy that looked and worked like a BB gun, but did not fire any projectiles. It made a loud popping sound as the compressed air exited when you pulled the trigger. The Scots did not have this toy in their inventory and the sights and sounds of us “Yank” kids playing with our pop–guns really upset them. Upset to the point that they had the local police sent round to find out what we were up to. That is right, send in the unarmed policeman to find out what harm or danger these foreigners with toy “guns” might be trying to inflict on a peaceful village.

Even though we did nothing wrong and every adult who got involved in the “pop-gun” incident admitted there was no harm and no foul, the toy pop-guns were quietly removed and stored away until we returned to the US. The poor Scots were so sensitive and so traumatized and our parents wanted us all to be good little “ambassadors” in a country that after all we were only guests in. So the pop-guns went away.

Now the Scottish government wants to take away all BB guns from their own people.

The average Scottish citizen who already owns a pellet gun might ask the following question and be shocked by the answer.

“What would happen if I had an air rifle or pistol but did not have an air gun certificate when the law comes into force on the 1st January 2017?”

If you were found to be in possession of an air rifle or air pistol without a certificate then you could face imprisonment for up to two years, or a fine, or both. https://basc.org.uk/basc-scotland/airguns-in-scotland/airgun-licensing-in-scotland-frequently-asked-questions).

Two years in prison for owning a BB gun. A two year sentence in the US implies you have been convicted of a felony and you lose many of your “rights” because you are now that dangerous ex-con who may offend yet again. Of course the convicted Scot can drive into England and buy a BB gun legally without any paper work. So why are the English so liberal in the ownership of air weapons but not Scotland?

The answer is – it is all about control. First it was about the English controlling the newly and finally (for good) conquered country of Scotland in 1746 after the Battle of Culloden. There was a one hour long battle, where they took the British army that was made up of approximately seventy percent Scottish clansmen, and destroyed forever the army of that fool Bonnie Prince Charley.

Getting Scots to go to war with other Scots has long been the tactic of the English and it eventually always works.

Now the English own Scotland and they must garrison and control the country with armed troops. This costs money. To make it easier you disarm the entire nation and again forever take away their ability to rise up and resist. Once the devil highlanders are without weapons you turn the occupation duties over to the local military / law enforcement.

Unarmed Scots guarding unarmed Scots, it has worked great for the English for over 270 years now. It has worked so well the Scots do not even see the problem.

There are approximately 17,000 cops in Police Scotland. On any given day in that country there are about 275 officers who are qualified to carry a firearm. This does not mean there are 275 armed cops on duty at any time. What this means is with the exception of about 300 police officers, 17,000 cops are not trained and do not have any firearms at hand to fall back to, in time of serious crisis. There are no weapons lockers filled with firearms the ready, for the police to arm up with.

I have met 20 year, seasoned Scottish cops who have never fired a firearm in either their professional capacity or as a private citizen and are proud of that record.

Good lord what if you had some descendant of a highland clan who had been watching too many Brave Heart movies and tried to commit a dangerous vandalism crime, like shooting out a street light with a pellet gun? How would, the unarmed Police Scotland constables responded and disarm this brigand?

It is best to disarm a nation in advance, then you do not have to deal with whatever mischief they might get up to with a BB gun, or as the Scots say, air weapon.

Great Britain has voted to leave the EU and Scotland does not want that. Scotland voted two years ago to leave Great Britain and that was defeated. Scotland will have another vote and Scotland will try even harder to leave Great Britain. Should they succeed they will discover just how unprepared they are to defend themselves. You cannot be a nanny-state if you kick nanny down the stairs.

They have no army. There was no chance of the English ever letting them build one. They have a completely unarmed police force, so good luck with stopping violent crime and terrorists with pepper spray. Now they want to take away the BB guns.

If you keep placing enough corn inside of a fenced in area and leave the gate open eventually the wild hogs will come in to eat. After that, all you do is close the gate and you own the hogs. Scotland wants the gates to be open, but they fail to understand there is no free corn on the outside of that fence. Without weapons you cannot even defend the food you already have inside the fenced in area.

Without the military of Great Britain, Scotland is like Lithuania, but just happens to have a large moat around it for some protection.

Instead of taking away the pellet guns from their citizens, Scotland needs to be considering their own version of a 2nd amendment. The right to keep and bear arms needs to be the direction of Scotland, but sadly this will never happen. When the asylum is guarded by the inmates and everyone is happy with that arrangement there will be no change.

As the Germans were considering using Jewish Kapo (trustee inmates) to guard, control and force their fellow Jews into gas chambers it was asked if in fact they could get one group of Jews to brutally control another group of Jews. German officers who had been posted in England on embassy duty advised that the English had been doing it for 200 years with Scotland. Police Scotland constables are not Kapo and I am in no way implying that at all. They are well trained, good cops, who cannot or more likely are not allowed to see the forest full of danger, for the trees full of politics.

What Scotland is, is an unarmed nation with an unarmed police force and no army, and yet they want to go it alone. Should this happen they will be ripe for the picking. Remember the Chi-Coms, and their “power comes out of the barrel of a gun” idea.

A highland charge with rusty broadswords will not get the job done any better against AK 47 rifles in the hands of invaders, than it did against the English at Culloden.

28 June 2016 / Major Van Harl USAF Ret. / [email protected]

About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.:Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret., a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School.  A retired Colorado Ranger and currently is an Auxiliary Police Officer with the Cudahy PD in Milwaukee County, WI.  His efforts now are directed at church campus safely and security training.  He believes “evil hates organization.”  [email protected]