Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer and all others.....Sweden Disaster

Had a similar event happen in 2018 when I flew into Zambia in 2018.

A VIP (never found who) landed at the same time. The whole situation was high stress, and horribly unorganized. Going through immigration and customs was interesting to say the least.

1. Would not let our outfitter in, so I was dealing with getting my rifles and ammo through myself.
2. Customs did not have any of my pre filed paperwork, so I provided the copies I had made. They needed their copy, so I said go ahead. Ah, but I had to pay for the copies. Get the rifles cleared.
3. Left the ammo tax to bring it into the country. No customs staff knew what the heck was going on. I told them the amount I needed to pay. No clue. Outfitter finally sneaks in. I explain everything. We wait for about 15 minutes and the outfitter finally says, let's go. We take off and have a great hunt.

4. On the flight out, you guessed it. Big deal was made that I did not pay the ammo tax. Outfitter immediately pulls the supervisor aside. They try to separate my wife and I. I refuse, and they take us in to another room. Outfitter comes in and says let's go. The supervisor personally walks my wife and I through security. Outfitter would not say how much it cost to solve that situation. Africa being Africa and all.

I used to fly with my full size letherman supertool on my belt, LOL. after 911 I always thought umm why don't we just essentially close down travel that enters from the middle east or of people from middle east citizenship? All we had to do is just do extreme vetting on those people before letting them in the country. the cockpit doors on the planes should have always been secured anyways. oh yeah remember it was george W that did all this to us. in hindsight a pretty pathetic president.

Deer Lake CA (Newfoundland) - leaving! "there's a loose round in your bag" - OK, they make me tear the bag apart. I showed them my box of .300 Savage with all the rounds in it (since Air Canada had lost my rifle on the way up I ended up shooting my moose with a borrowed .30-06). Nope, run it through again. Still there. Finally under the little flap at the bottom of my day pack I find a .257 Roberts round. It had to have been 5 years since I'd carried that rifle deer hunting. In the meantime that pack had been a carry on to England, Germany, Turkey and Canada (on the way in 5 days before!) and numerous US airports.

A few years ago my wife and I were flying out of Toronto to go "down east" to vist our eldest son and wife in New Brunswick. I was wearing my camo hunting jacket and at the checkout had to remove it to let it go through the machine. Sure enough, there was an empty cartridge case that showed up - a .458 Win. Well, they couldn't find it in the jacket with its multi pockets within pockets. So I tried, and felt it but couldn't find what pocket it was in! So, along comes a big tall man, grabs my coat and rips the case out! I told him to keep it as a souveniir. . . we all had a laugh, and were on our way. To this day, I don't know how the case ended up where it did, and can't find any harm to the jacket! Yeah, I shoot a lot of .458 Win.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

I owned & operated a Courier business for a number of years. I had many experiences with TSA. Much of their training is OJT. I could tell some interesting stories, but you guy might "hurt yourselves laughing".

In the years 1990-91, my family and I lived near London. In my English home preparing for a visit back to the USA, I was backing my duffel when I noticed a container in a side pocket. Turned out to be a 5-pack of 12-ga buckshot. That pack had been in the duffel for several years. There is no telling how many times that bag with the buckshot had made transatlantic flights without ever being a problem.

Late that evening I drove over the Thames and threw the package out the window into the river.

Times have changed.

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love & a sound mind."
2 Timothy 1:7

I traveled to Argentina fly fishing the spring after 9-11. I had a fly box in my carry on bag that had small dry flies, mostly size 16 and 18. TSA freaked out to the point that you would have thought I was carrying a whale harpoon. Idiots.

Around 2000 I was flying back to the U.S. from Namibia via London. Transferring planes at Gatwick and having just taken my seat on the jumbo jet, a rather large British officer in full armor jerked my butt off the plane and took me to a room to inspect my checked baggage (which included my declared FN 30-06 bolt gun). Unlocking my luggage, he pulled out the fired cartridge case I'd intentionally put in the luggage as a souvenir of the big Kudu I'd shot with it. Apparently an extreme violation of something (a single fired case, locked in luggage, stowed in the belly of the plane)! Miraculously I didn't miss my flight.

This would have also been 2 years after 9/11. My 8th grade son was going on a school sponsored trip to Washington DC for 3 days. We dropped him off early one April morning to get on the charter bus and realized he didn't pack a jacket. It's warm enough here in April to rarely need one, but I knew he would very likely need one in DC. I had an old fleece jacket behind the seat of my pickup that I grabbed and gave to him.

When he got home, he apologized for having to throw a shotgun choke tube in the trash. He had found it in my pocket and when approaching a metal detector to get inside of a museum he wisely trashed it.

Last summer my wife and I were seeing the sights in Boston. I chose to carry a small sub 3" cheap pocketknife just in case I ran into a similar situation. When we tried to board the USS Constitution I walked into a room with a metal detector. There was no trash can and a one-way line with no good way to back out. Sure enough I set off the detector. When I pulled the knife out and gave it to the Sailor there working security he opened the blade, gave it a quick look, closed the blade and gave it back to me. "That's not a knife, just keep it in your pocket and enjoy your visit" he said.

I was flying in and out of Charlotte NC on a fairly regular basis for a while. This was a set of business trips that had been unplanned and I didn't have luggage for it, so I repurposed my old range bag for the extra clothing. Every time I got in line to go home, I'd get yanked out and have my luggage swabbed.

I finally got to know the TSA dude that was doing the checks. He said that my boarding pass was being tagged by the TSA for spot checks. WT?

Then it hit me. I'd been carrying gobs of ammo, spent brass, pistols, etc. in that bag for years carrying it to the range. I mentioned it to the TSA dude. He chuckled and said I should probably find new luggage. I did before the next trip out and I never got tagged again.

No, the only "regulation" for a citizen had to buy a firearm in France was to have a hunting license or a shooting sport license, depending depending on the type, function and magazine capacity of the weapon. (But there is no "right to bear arms.")

From the research I've done since, apparently that hasn't changed much, despite the Paris incident--which happened shortly after our hunt. Instead the biggest problem in France is a major increase in the number of illegal arms, which are apparently smuggled across one part of their border.

A year or two after 9-11 we traveled to Fairbanks, while there my wife picked up 3 books of gopher matches at one of the restaurants there. No problem at Fairbanks but when we tried to board our connecting flight in Seattle a TSA guy stopped her and asked what she was doing with them; she said she collected them and he told she could keep one and we got on.

I've always suspected his lighter had gone empty and he needed a light for his next smoke break.

I'll share my story. 2-3 years ago we were flying from Knoxville to Wyoming heading to Yellowstone and Tetons. I have 3-4 daypack size backpacks that I use hiking and woods bumming. I loaded one of them as a carry on and carefully packed all the forbidden items in my suitcase as checked baggage.

Arrived at the airport, checked my suitcase, headed for security. Put all my items on the conveyor, headed through the scanner. Scanner didn't alert but saw a congregation of TSA agents around a backpack. My backpack. Given I checked the pack before the trip was curious what the confab was about. Was summoned by a stern looking, crewcut TSA agent and lead back into a side room. He proceeded to produce 10 loaded, 357 shells that were tucked in a hidden zippered pocket. I thought I was headed to jail, terrorist camp, the Gulag, somewhere.

Dude says "We found these 9 shells in your backpack". I looked at his hand and said there's 10 shells. He repeated over the top of his glasses "I found these 9 shells in your backpack". Then he cracked a smile and said "There is obviously only 9 because if there are 10 I need to do alot of paperwork and detain you till I'm done". I said I apparently I can't count and yes sir there is only 9 shells. We both chuckled, he put them in an envelope, and said "have a good trip." I was 'detained' about 5 mins.

One of the reasons I like living in TN - they get 2nd amendment and don't assume everyone with a gun or bullets is a terrorist. Concealed carry here is really interesting. I know more women that carry down here then men I knew when I lived in PA. Best not to be a jackass down here, nicest people on the planet- until you start being stupid. Then you'll have an issue.

Yes. Long gone are the days when I flew from Seattle to Dulles with three rifles as carry on. The nice stewardess put them in the crew coat closet.

The ticket agent at the Spokane Airport had me remove all of my ammo from the box and load it into my magazines….at the ticket counter. I stood there and loaded 5 17-round pistol magazines. I told the people waiting in line that “you can never be too careful!”.

Here's a summary of how firearms laws work in France. I found this description on Reddit and it was posted about a year ago. It's definitely much more complicated than what we deal with in the US.



French Gun Law 101 (How to get an AR-15 in France, 2023)
Hello everyone !

I thought some of you would be interested in how other country are ruling the AR-15 (and other weapons). In that case my country : France

So we will focus on the way to get an AR-15, but with some detail on the side laws.

I'll be the more straightforward as I can and add some info later in annexes and comment if needed.

Italic is optionnal, just little commentary along the way

BOLD is for major informations

There is around 5.4 millions registered weapons in France

989 000 Registered Hunter

240 000 Sport Shooters

Categories

Weapons in France are listed in one of the 4 main types :

Type A Illegal for civilians Automatic, Explosives,Pistols with mags greater than 21 rounds, Rifles with mag greater than 30 rounds
Type B Authorization needed Semi automatic weapons (pistols or rifles) or weapons using "military rounds"
Type C Declaration needed "Hunting" rifles, Lever action rifles, bolt action that do not use "military" ammo
Type D Legal to buy Black powder weapons not using metalic cartridges, taser, pepper spray, knife, air guns
Military rounds are : 7,62 × 39 / 5,56 × 45 (.223) / 5,45 × 39 / 12,7 × 99 / 14,5 × 114

And also nearly all pistol rounds, 9 x 19 / .38 /.357 / .45 ACP...

The categories are a little more complex than that as there is Sub-categories but you get the point
Like you can have a semi-auto shotgun in 3+1 bullet in the chamber and be in the type C.

Who can get what ?

So basically :

You can't get an A (some civilians can but only for very specific sports or for jobs)

To get a B you need a sport shooting licence

To get a C you need a hunting licence or a sport shooting licence

To get a D you need to be above 18 (but you need a valid reason to carry it on you)

AR15 is in B so now that the introduction is done, let's get to it !

1 : Being a Sport shooter
To be a sport shooter you need to register to a shooting range / club approved by the FFTIR ( French Federation of Shooter)

r/ar15 - French Gun Law 101 (How to get an AR-15 in France, 2023)
There you need to pay to be a member, the price depend of the range, mine is about 150€ a year. Some are more expensive, the cheapest I know is 120, the more expensive is 390.

The rent of guns there is usually an extra to pay yearly or each time you ask for one. You cannot keep the gun out of the range.

Once done you will need to learn to shoot, usually you start with 4.5 lead diabolo at 10 meters, then .22LR at 25 meters for pistols and 50 meters for carbine.

r/ar15 - French Gun Law 101 (How to get an AR-15 in France, 2023)
Not all stand have a wide variety of guns, sometimes they can only give you access to air gun (especially smaller ranges). Bigger and more expensive one can have a wide variety of rifles and handguns

Only when you prove that you can stay in target and know the security and parts of the weapon ( MCQ to complete + test at the range) you will get your sport shooting licence.

At this point you can already buy a Type C, so a hunting rifle, including K98, M1903, Winchester M1866 or double barrel shotgun

2 : Asking for the green sheet
So you want a Type B weapon ?

Well this is where the fun begins, you have your licence, nice, so you know your guns basics, know you need to ask the president of the shooting club for the green sheet.

r/ar15 - The Green Sheet
The Green Sheet
It's a favorable opinion where he say that you come regularly the the club, that you know how to handle and store a firearm.

So of course if he do not see you for 5 month and then you ask that you will not get it. The presidents are taking their own responsability so they do not give them to anyone.

Many choose to still apply the old law wich was : 3 shooting session with someone checking your attitude and result on target with 2 month minimum between each session.

That way they can say peacefully that you come regularly and know how to shoot properly.

3 : Asking for the autorizations
Now that you have the Green Sheet wich is usable for 1 year to use for a demand, you need to complete some paperwork

You need to provide the following documents :

ID

Proof of living adress

Proof that you own a safe

Medical certificate

Proof that you were born (don't ask me why)

You shooting licence

The Green Sheet

The document where you ask for the type of weapon

It's the cerfa n°12644, that is where the sub categories comes in :

B1 Handguns not in the other categories
B2a Center fire semi auto rifles with 3 to 11 capacity
B2a bis Center fire semi auto rifles with 3 to 31 capacity
B2b Center fire manual rifles with 11 to 31 capacity
B2c Type C guns but smaller than 22.6 inches rifled
B2d Type C guns but smaller than 22.6 inches smoothbore
B2e Semi auto weapon that looks like an automatic weapon (funny one ey ?)
B2f Smoothbore and rifled pump action but not in 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36 and 410 and less than 5 cartridges
B3 Airsoft or paintball above 20 Joules
B4 Weapons using military rounds
B5 Weapons element ( upper receiver / BCG)
Military rounds are : 7,62 × 39 / 5,56 × 45 (.223) / 5,45 × 39 / 12,7 × 99 / 14,5 × 114

So an AR15 is in B4, and if you want a upper it's a B5

In the document you need to specify how much of each sub categories you ask for

For the first demand you can only ask 6, the next one you can ask for up to 12

12 B type weapon is the maximum, you cannot have more at your name

C type weapon to not have a maximum, but after 20 the police will ask you to come explain them why you need that much, and every 10 more after that.

Once you have all the documents correclty completed you send it to the Préfecture

I guess it's like your gouvernor's office ?

And then you wait for the autorization to arrive, between a two weeks and 6 months (I got mine in 6 days hihihi)

No response is to be considered a refusal.

Reasons of refusal ?

Having commited a crime (murder, rape, smuggling drugs, torture ...)

Being on the national file of people who do not have the right to buy guns ( FINIADA )

Having a behavior that make people think you can be dangerous ...

Being on the FINIADA is easy, doing airsoft or tactical drills can put you on it, going to cqb training in an other country of the Brutalitty Matches for example.

4 : Using the autorizations
Wow you got your autorization ? Congratulation !

Now you have 6 month to use them and buy the guns you want, after that they are expired and you need to do all other again.

Once completed when you bought the gun, they are valid for 5 years, so you will need to ask again every 5 years to keep your weapons

4.1 : Buying ammo
Ammo also have categories ...

But it's easier I promise !

B type ammo The military ones + pistol rounds, remember ? Limited to 1000 at the same time, 2000 max during a year
C type ammo All the others, 22LR, 308, 300BLK, 8x57JS, 30-06 ... Limited to 1000 at the same time
Military rounds still are : 7,62 × 39 / 5,56 × 45 (.223) / 5,45 × 39 / 12,7 × 99 / 14,5 × 114

You need to bring your autorization to the armorer for B type ammo buying, to keep track of how much you did buy. For C type, your licence is enough

But what happens if you use your 2000 ammo ? Well there is no limit on Components, so go buy some brass, powder and a press and reload at home, only a 2kg of powder stock limit and that's it !

4.2 : Buying magazines
Pretty easy, proof that you have a weapon using this magazine (the autorization).

Then you can buy up to 10 mags per weapon.

Technically only the 10 round magazines are OK, putting a 20 ou 30 rounder in the AR outside of a shooting range is an offense.

4.3 : Storage and transport
Type B must be stored in a safe, ammo in a safe, but not the same safe.

There is no such thing as home defence here, if you use a gun on someone that broke into your home, you will need to prove that your life was at risk, and that you had the time to get the gun from the safe, but not the time to call the cops and lock yourself out of danger.

Considering the safe and all, that is a little hard to imagine.

For the transport, in case of control you need your autorization on you, the gun but be in a case, with a device preventing it to be used (either BCG removed or a trigger lock). Ammo stored someplace else, but not in the guncase

The magazines are to be loaded only at the range.

5 : Optics / Suppressor...
Optics : You can buy what you want, but not night vision optics, well you can but it need to be hand held, if you glue it to an helmet or a gun it's illegal

Laser : There is a power limit, 1mW, above it's illegal

Suppressor : It was illegal until 2018, now any hunter or sport shooter can buy anything

6 : Oddity
Just a small compilation of silly things :

.300 BLK is considered a hunting round, like the .308, but the .223 is not.

I can buy 20 K98 with 1000 round with only a shooting licence after a single month but need to wait around 6 month for a 22LR pistol

Weapons that "look like an automatic weapon" is in a higher categorie

The cop that control you are the one to decide if the reason you have a weapon on you is valid or not

Putting a 20 round magazine at home is an offense that can get them take all my guns

So that is basically it, if you have more question like ranges availability, distances, the disciplines we do and [bleep] like that feel free to ask.

I may add some infos later if needed.

Have a nice day !

You are what's called a "repeat offender".

[😂😂

Aces, Let me assure you that TSA agents are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. I had a husband-wife team in one of my houses for 18 years. They were constantly aggravating me about the pool that they were obligated to take care of. One day last year, they cornered me out in the backyard and tried to double team me. I let them talk for a while. (I was quietly steaming about that and had been considering selling the house for several months because prices had gotten so incredibly ridiculous).

They went on and on about the pool and how they had not been able to swim in it for a while. I told them "You have lived in this house for 18 years. It has been your responsibility since Day One to care for this pool. I have given you $48,000 in rent credits over those 18 years because you pay your rent on time. That's enough to put both your kids and both of you through college if you watched your pennies. I will be sending you a notice to vacate in a couple of days, as I am selling the house. You will have 60 days to find yourself another place to live. Good bye". They found another house west of there for $1000/mo more. Never spoke to them again and kept their deposit to revitalize the pool.

Some people do not recognize a gift horse when it's licking all over their face. I was totally tired of their b.s. and sold the house for 5 times what I paid for it + $40k.

Final note:

I got letters from TSA every year asking about them. I always gave them glittering reviews. These inquiries covered everything from alcoholism to pedophilia. 😇

This is the reason I have separate bags "with guns and ammo" and "without guns and ammo".

Have heard too many of these types and horror stories.