SCOTLAND will be awash with thousands of illegal firearms from next week, police warned last night.
New rules which come into force in May will class high-powered air guns as firearms requiring a certificate. Owners have been warned they face a jail sentence of up to 10 years if they fail to register the weapons.
Suppliers estimate that as many
as 8,000 of the guns are currently in use in Scotland, but as yet only a handful of owners have come forward to acquire a licence or surrender their weapons.
The air guns affected by the change use a gas cartridge to fire pellets at up to twice the velocity of traditional lever-action air weapons. The main concern, however, is the ease with which the guns can be converted to fire bullets.
The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (Acpos) warned that those who fail to register the weapons within the next week, even through ignorance of the new rules, face up to 10 years in jail.
Ian Gordon, the Acpos firearms spokesman, said thousands of Scots who did not realise they needed to register their weapons were risking imprisonment.
"There are thousands of these weapons in Scotland and police are going to have to enforce the law when it comes into place," he said. "These air weapons are used for a wide range of purposes and they have also been used for criminal purposes, which is why the restrictions are coming in.
"I don’t personally think people who carry these weapons are potential criminals, but I am very concerned that they are going to end up in trouble through complacency or ignorance."
Gordon, who is also Deputy Chief Constable of Tayside Police, warned that anyone with gas-cartridge weapons urgently needed to obtain a £50 firearm certificate from police or surrender their weapon. Applicants need to provide proof of identity but do not need to give a reason for wanting one of weapons.
Only 20 people out of an estimated 700 firearm owners in his own force district had so far done this, he said.
But the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, the UK’s biggest shooting organisation, complained that the new rules would turn thousands of ordinary people into criminals overnight.
Mike Eveleigh, senior firearms officer, said the changes had received little publicity.
"The Home Office has failed to make people aware of this. BASC represents 120,000 members and we received one poster, one sticker and one leaflet for publicity purposes," he said.
"As people discover they face a minimum five-year jail term for possession, it is likely many guns will either be dumped or sold on the black market. It could result in a massive surge in their availability to criminals."
Ownership of air rifles and air guns is widespread across Scotland. Complaints have been raised about increasing numbers of youngsters with access to the high-powered rifles.
Two years ago, a spate of air rifle attacks in Edinburgh prompted an amnesty by police and calls for a complete ban on their supply. A 17-year-old pupil from Fettes College was suspended after shooting a classmate in the playground with a pellet gun, while in another incident
in 2002, a 15-year-old girl was shot in the head in a random air gun attack as she walked down a busy Leith street.
Home Secretary David Blunkett announced the new restrictions last year following a series of incidents where the weapons were used to damage property and terrorise communities.
The move also raised the minimum age for buying or using the weapons unsupervised from 14 to 17.
