EU France makes push to collect heirloom weapons across country

BRUNOY, France (AP) — The pistol the elderly French woman inherited from her grandfather had once belonged to a German soldier, killed in a war fought on France’s soil in the last century.

Now the woman has turned the heirloom over to police for fear that her grandchildren would stumble upon it.

French authorities want others to follow the unnamed woman’s example by turning in millions of old firearms, remnants of the two World Wars and long-abandoned hunting excursions.

The country has launched a weeklong nationwide campaign ending Dec. 2 to collect old, unregistered weapons that are tucked away in attics and storerooms across the country that saw much of the twentieth century’s fiercest fighting.

“We believe there are about 5 or 6 million weapons that are being kept in an irregular manner by our fellow citizens,” said Jean-Simon Merandat, Head of the Interior Ministry’s Central Service for Arms and Explosives. “Eighty to ninety percent of these weapons are in their possession due to an inheritance.”

Despite many such historical items seeming harmless, authorities promoting the campaign warn that appearances are deceptive. The old weapons can still be deadly and can be used to perpetuate domestic violence, or even fall into the hands of criminal networks.
https://apnews.com/hub/obituaries
The good news is French authorities deem their campaign so far to have been “a real success,” claiming to have rounded up 1.6 million munitions pieces, and 65,000 firearms. There will be no legal consequences if weapons are handed over willingly, authorities said.

The overwhelming majority of unregistered weapons that will be collected will be destroyed. But a prized few whose metal barrels tell remarkable stories will be saved and preserved by the state.

“We expect those with historic or cultural value to be spared destruction and brought to one or several museums,” Merandat added.

Anyone wishing to hold on to their weapon and join the ranks of France’s 5 million legal gun owners can do so if they seek to obtain a legal permit. With a population of 67 million people, France has proportionally far fewer guns than countries such as the United States.

A public outcry over a spike in the number of murders of women by their partners has also prompted authorities to push ahead with the gun collection drive.

https://apnews.com/article/trending-news-europe-france-342f30940b4368536a2c8d05dc546128 (Archivw)

 

[God's drunkest driver]

Yet another yurop moment. You guys are fucked!

 

[Shiversblood]

You would have to be a really weak person to voluntarily give away your heirloom nazi pistol to the government. Imagine a woman giving away her gun voluntarily and then she gets raped the next day. It’s just insanity.

 

[Falcos_Commisar]

Shit like that is why I don't buy the boards blackpilled doomerism regarding Globohomo power. These are not the the actions of a power structure that feels entirely secure.

Agreed, most kiwis have no idea how weak an ineffectual 90% of Europe actually is.

inb4 asking for it:

The ivory ban has a tiny amount of sanity in it. If all ivory is illegal, then you can't show it off and say you used the one weird trick to buy it legally. Ivory is relatively cheap, it's not the Epsteins of the world who create most of the demand. If you can't invite the in-laws to your house, because what if their teenage daughter is secretly an ecoterrorist troon and snitches on you -- people will choose to not buy it anymore. Will it save the elephants? lmao no. The supposed demand reduction is negligible next to the fluctuations of the price of ivory (driven up by market bans - and high prices encourage poaching). Even worse, they took existing ivory off the market, and that created a shortage that would be otherwise covered by private trades.

BUT if it was a conspicuous consumable, it could've worked. Like, say, fur bans work, and now fur animals die of habitat mismanagement, poisonous microplastics, and covid cullings. Or the way smoking is socially discouraged, and people die to meth and reefer madness.

(But for real, there's probably a historical example that worked well enough that everyone forgot.)

Now the French gun ban is completely indefensible. Antique guns aren't fungible. I can't point at a Milan I bought from Cuckraine for $2000 and say, "c'est l'arquebus de mon arrière grand-père, le fought in le grand war".

It's sad, really. I like France, I love their language autism, I named my bike Geneviève. Le sigh.

A shame, the French were actually quite inventive in terms of arms from the 1850s till the 1950s.

First smokeless powder rifle with the Lebel, the Chassepot was a better Prussian needle gun, they actually went hard with semi auto rifles in WW1 and were THIS close to introducing a semi auto for general issue in 1940, interesting SMGs and other things as well.

 

[make_it_so]

Tinfoil hat in me says that France is planning to do some Dutch-level economic and political suppression of its rural population at behest of Brussels and wants to make sure they're unarmed.

 

[Gog & Magog]

“We believe there are about 5 or 6 million weapons that are being kept in an irregular manner by our fellow citizens,” said Jean-Simon Merandat, Head of the Interior Ministry’s Central Service for Arms and Explosives...
The good news is French authorities deem their campaign so far to have been “a real success,” claiming to have rounded up 1.6 million munitions pieces, and 65,000 firearms...
What is a munition piece? And only 65,000 guns collected mere days before this ended? Not impressive. More importantly, are there any French kiwis here willing to part with their family heirloom? I don't know how customs work in France, but I'd love to hold an old French rifle in my hands.

 

[Snekposter]

First smokeless powder rifle with the Lebel, the Chassepot was a better Prussian needle gun, they actually went hard with semi auto rifles in WW1 and were THIS close to introducing a semi auto for general issue in 1940, interesting SMGs and other things as well.

I'm afraid 1865-1900 was America's heyday, my man. The American invention of the unitary metallic cartridge meant that even during the Civil War we were the only nation equipped with repeating firearms, a trend which continued until even after the Frano-Prussian War. The Chassepot was arguably obsolete the day it left the armories thanks to its use of paper cartridges with the trapdoor Springfields and Remington Rolling Blocks already loading and firing metallic cartridges, France not adopting a metallic cartridge until 1874 with the Gras, when the USA had already been using trapdoors in limited quantities since 1866 with the Model 1873 version finally being issued in large quantities, and firing the superlative .45-70 round which is still in use even today as a smokeless round. Remington was making bank selling rolling block licenses to lesser-developed third parties all throughout the world at that time, only finally getting displaced as the arm of choice for those militaries by the Mauser rifle.

You should go look up the Remington-Lee, Remington-Keene, and even the Winchester Hotchkiss rifles. Just because the US Army and Congress have been perpetually special needs regarding procurement and requisitions doesn't mean the rest of the USA are as dumb as they are.

Christ, even the Lee-Enfield had all of its important innovations (box magazine, bolt design) come from America. One John Cantius Garand was just following in the footsteps of one James Paris Lee when it came to heading down South to make things that go bang.

 

[El Gordo Ramsay Sex Dwarf]

Such a sacrilege for historical items. And yet they do nothing about the hundreds of pre-WW1 artillery shell cases in a public park/wood in the middle of Metz. (a couple of which somehow wandered into my luggage)

 

[Ser Prize]

I'm afraid 1865-1900 was America's heyday, my man. The American invention of the unitary metallic cartridge meant that even during the Civil War we were the only nation equipped with repeating firearms, a trend which continued until even after the Frano-Prussian War. The Chassepot was arguably obsolete the day it left the armories thanks to its use of paper cartridges with the trapdoor Springfields and Remington Rolling Blocks already loading and firing metallic cartridges, France not adopting a metallic cartridge until 1874 with the Gras, when the USA had already been using trapdoors in limited quantities since 1866 with the Model 1873 version finally being issued in large quantities, and firing the superlative .45-70 round which is still in use even today as a smokeless round. Remington was making bank selling rolling block licenses to lesser-developed third parties all throughout the world at that time, only finally getting displaced as the arm of choice for those militaries by the Mauser rifle.

You should go look up the Remington-Lee, Remington-Keene, and even the Winchester Hotchkiss rifles. Just because the US Army and Congress have been perpetually special needs regarding procurement and requisitions doesn't mean the rest of the USA are as dumb as they are.

Christ, even the Lee-Enfield had all of its important innovations (box magazine, bolt design) come from America. One John Cantius Garand was just following in the footsteps of one James Paris Lee when it came to heading down South to make things that go bang.

Wasn't one of the best gunsmiths a fucking US mormon?

 

[Snekposter]

Wasn't one of the best gunsmiths a fucking US mormon?

What the fuck do you mean "One of"? Before Gun Jesus, there was Gun Moses. John Moses Browning, that is. If Gun Jesus brought the Word, and the original Moses brought down the Commandments, Gun Moses gave unto us evidence of divine creation.

Any more implications that he wasn't the best and I'm gonna start Grahamposting about how we can't expect God to do all the work of killing your candy ass, okay?

 

[Duke Nukem]

No, everyone who is gullible enough to hand over their heirloom firearms are never going to see those heirlooms ever again. They will be destroyed, melted down for metal, who fucking knows, but none of them are going to ever see a museum despite the history some may have attached to them.

This is reminding me too of that time the city of L.A. decided that ivory (in general) was unlawful, so anyone who ever owned ivory was essentially being forced to let the powers that be come in, collect all the ivory art and other pieces that they could find, only to make it a big event where everyone could watch priceless heirlooms like that be destroyed for the sake of "being an environmentalist". Yes, this included museums and fine art collectors being forced to hand over ivory. Naturally, people like this and even some regular citizens were pretty upset about this whole topic and situation, because only retards will seriously sit here and think: "You know what will curb poaching and illegal animal trades? Desecrating the already dead animals even further so nobody can enjoy them! Fuck you if you think otherwise! It's totally not being a wasteful piece of shit!"

Again, wouldn't be shocked if the French government essentially does the same thing, only instead of ivory, it's vintage guns.

There's some irony in the routine bonfires of seized ivory that anti-poaching initiatives do, in burning mountains of tusks you just end up encouraging the poachers to poach even more than they already did. And it raises the value of remaining ivory.

Sure the illegal wildlife trade is appalling but destroying existing examples of ivory art won't get it to stop.