Joey
Not impossible , most of the really keen shooters I know now actually have more firearms now than they did before the new gun laws , to own a firearm you must have a genuine reason for owning a firearm , self protection is not a reason under law but hunting with written permission from a land owner [ owning land over about 50 acres ] or being a member of a recognized club like SSAA is all the reason you need for owning a firearm , if you don't already have a license you need to Join the SSAA then do a firearms Safety course , I used to be qualified to run the courses several years ago but then the government decided that they wanted a Level 3 instructors ticket , of course when I did the courses to become a qualified firearms instructor [ I was already a qualified IPSC range officer and also qualified range officer for long arms and other pistol events ] there was no such thing as a level three course , but what they did was take the same course I did then give it a new designation , and make every one do it again , so I dropped out
Any way after you do the course you need to apply for your license that will take any where from a month to two months to go through , then you apply for a permit to acquire and purchase your firearm , the permit will take about a month to come through , you need a certain amount of secure storage , bolts must be removed and ammo stored separately , semi-auto long arms are banned as are pump action shotguns , strangely lever action shotguns are fine as are pump action rifles , you need to apply for a permit to acquire for every firearm and if you wish to own more than 35 long arms you will need a different license and have additional security , the license costs as does the permits to acquire
Firearms firing .50 BMG are also banned as are hand grenades , surface to air missiles and RPG's and such like , never had any of these so it doesn't effect me to any great extent
All in all it's been a pain in the arse as I used to buy and sell guns all the time and the new laws have slowed me down one hell of a lot
Hand guns are strictly licensed and you need to be a member of a approved pistol club and have proof of regular attendances , I also think that they have banned the smaller size handguns like J frames and larger calibres like .45 , I don't see iron sights well any more so got out of pistol shooting , up till then I shot pistol at least twice a week
I keep telling Mick that he could get back into it if he really wanted but I think he has probably enough hobbies to keep him busy for a while
David