IMPRESSED RIFLES

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23373, 5 July 1941, Page 5

IMPRESSED RIFLES

Sir, —May I point out some peculiar aspects of the order for Impressment of rifles. All patriotic owners of .303 rifles were willing to hand in their arms without complaint, believing that a shortage of weapons was preventing the arming of the Home Guard. It now transpires that the order applied only to private owners; arms dealers were and are exempted. These dealers throughout the Dominion have a larger number of rifles on their shelves which are almost without exception standard military ,303’s, with military, sights, magazines,, safety catches, etc. The order to private owners included obsolete or non-standard arms, such as Martini, single shots, with no safety catches, Winchester lever action hammer models, also with no safety catches, and even .30 cal. Winchester or Krags, which are classed as .303’s, but which, as they

are of a smaller bore than .303, develop dangerously high breech pressures if used with .303 cartridges. So we have the spectacle of the Home Guard armed with obsolete and dangerous weapons, which do not conform with usual commands at drill, while standard arms lie idle on dealers’. shelves. This further burdenstne private person, who wishes to shoot deer, and by the shle of skins turns an honest penny, as well as adds tojne exports of the Dominion, and, further, makes profits by the dealers impos- ' Inquiry from the Police Department elicits, the information that if one were now to buy a .303 weapon Trom the uncommandeered stocks of the dealers one would immediately have _ to hand it :in, under the order of impressment. This makes it seem tnat the Home' Guard still is short of rifles, but, if that is so* why not impress the dealers’rifles? . Perhaps the powers fear ?n out erv of "confiscation from an organised body of businessmen (contracted with unorganised citizens) and would sooner private persons footed the bill Against this, the police say that it is unlikely that a permit to buy a '.303 would be.issued.. . Perhaps there is an objection to pn vate ? persons' owning firearms.but f order.—-Yours, etc., 7 M.M. ‘ July 4, 1941., . •