EU LOOPHOLE LETS ISIS KEEP ITS GUNS

Fiona Hamilton crime editor Sean O'Neill chief reporter
The Times Tuesday 29th March 2016 (page6)

EU loophole let's ISIS keep its guns

A Europe wide crackdown on illegal firearms after a surge of terrorist activity by Islamic State has failed to include the type of weapons used by the Islamic State cell that terrorised France and Belgium. British firearms experts discovered the glaring omission in the EU directive to impose strict new standards on deactivated weapons. They alerted Brussels to the fact that the new regulations did not apply to so called "acoustic weapons", which are sold to film makers as movie props and classified as blank firing rather than deactivated firearms.

Yet these are exactly the class of weapons obtained by ISIS terrorists. They can be converted to fire live rounds and were used in the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015.

Ballistics experts believe the AK-47s used in the Paris attacks in November were also converted acoustic weapons. They suspect it will be confirmed that converted acoustic weapons have been recovered in Brussels this week.

The failure to include the weapons in the gun control laws will intensify the debate over membership of the EU. Many of the automatic weapons used in the wave of terror attacks originated in Eastern Europe with firearms traders in Western Slovakia coming under particular scrutiny.

 Sources say thousands of weapons are in criminal hands across Europe. Attempts have been made to smuggle consignments of the weapons into Britain.
Under pressure from this country the EU commission is now urgently trying to close the loophole and amend the directive which now comes into force on April 8. THE EU PARLIAMENT HOWEVER IS NOT DUE TO DEBATE THE AMENDMENT UNTIL SEPTEMBER.

Britain is anxious to see the EU bolster the new firearms regulations with tougher sentencing regimes for gun offences. A police source said there is a mandatory 5 years sentence in the UK for illegal possession of firearms and that has helped derive down gun crime.

In a lot of EU countries sentencing is far too lenient. The EU commission confirmed that its firearms directive did not include blank firing "acoustic weapons" our "alarm weapons" success as flare guns or starter pistols, some of which can be adapted to fire live rounds.A spokesman said the amendment bringing the excluded weapons into the new directive was tabled five days after the gun attacks in Paris.

The rules will include a ban on ownership by collectors of guns such as Kalashnikovs because of the danger they might be stolen and reactivated. The EU is also trying to enforce better exchange of information between  member states including sharing details of refusal of firearms licences.

Brussels bomber at large page 28