R-Mail launch a UK-wide public consultation to ban guns and their parts from post

[leaky5]

Anyone else had their email returned as undeliverable, mail box full?

Alan.

Just had this back from them

Dear Mr xxx

Thank you for taking the time to respond to our consultation. Royal Mail will review all responses before a final decision is made.

Yours sincerely

Martin Anderson

[rogb]

email sent to RM and Ofcom

[kevmar]

I am out of the office in a meeting today (Monday 20th August) returning around 3pm. I will reply to your message as soon as I can. If this matter is urgent please try me on 07435 769054.

________________________________
************************************************** ********************
This email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the addressee only. If you are not the named recipient, you must not use, disclose, reproduce, copy or distribute the contents of this communication. If you have received this in error, please contact the sender and then delete this email from your system.

ROYAL MAIL GROUP LIMITED registered in England and Wales at 100 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0HQ with the registered company number 04138203

POST OFFICE LIMITED registered in England and Wales at 148 OLD STREET, LONDON EC1V 9HQ with the registered company number 02154540

[Coney]

Email sent again, see what happens this time

Alan.

[leaky5]

I am out of the office in a meeting today (Monday 20th August) returning around 3pm. I will reply to your message as soon as I can. If this matter is urgent please try me on 07435 769054.

________________________________
************************************************** ********************
This email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the addressee only. If you are not the named recipient, you must not use, disclose, reproduce, copy or distribute the contents of this communication. If you have received this in error, please contact the sender and then delete this email from your system.

ROYAL MAIL GROUP LIMITED registered in England and Wales at 100 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0HQ with the registered company number 04138203

POST OFFICE LIMITED registered in England and Wales at 148 OLD STREET, LONDON EC1V 9HQ with the registered company number 02154540

I had that automatic reply earlier today and then the reply above around 18:00

[David BASC]

Dear All,

If anyone gets a 'mailbox full' message, or other underliverable message please let me know

David

[rogb]

Thank you for your e-mail; this has been passed to the relevant policy official, Sean O’Hara, in Ofcom.

As you may be aware from reading the consultation, Ofcom does not approve the Schemes Royal Mail proposes although we do have the power under Section 89A of the Act to direct Royal Mail to modify its Schemes.

Finally, you have taken the correct action in contacting Royal Mail. Whilst the consultation sets out the ‘timescales and next steps’, you can copy us into any other correspondence sent to Royal Mail, if you feel this is something Ofcom should be made aware of. If you would like to do this, please email sean.o’hara@ofcom.org.uk.

[w-v-m]

It’s Marriott

I hope Royal Mail takes more notice of the content of related comments, than it does to who sent the them!

Wayne Marriott


From: Martin Anderson
Sent: 20 August 2012 17:48
To: Wayne Marriott
Subject: RE: public consultation to ban guns and their parts from post

Dear Mr Marriot



Thank you for taking the time to respond to our consultation. Royal Mail will review all responses before a final decision is made.



Yours sincerely



Martin Anderson






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Wayne Marriott [mailto:w-v-m@hotmail.com]
Sent: 19 August 2012 06:59
To: Martin Anderson
Subject: Fw: public consultation to ban guns and their parts from post







From: Wayne Marriott

Sent: 18 August 2012 17:49

To: zoe.allchorn@royalmail.com

Subject: public consultation to ban guns and their parts from post



Zoe/Martin



I would like to register my objections to this proposal.



If it goes through, it would cause me and several thousand

shooters, considerable problems for moving airguns and their

constituent parts, to and from each other, to dealers and repairers.



sincerely



Wayne Marriott

[fat man]

Dear All,

If anyone gets a 'mailbox full' message, or other underliverable message please let me know

David

Just had mine sent back with mail box full.

[Jerry Cornelius]

Completely ridiculous.

Whatever you think about the s.1/2 point (and if BASC think its wrong that's enough for me) I don't believe for a moment that they really think there is a legal problem with low powered airguns , or parts like triggers and magazines (presumably that's stock makers shafted too)

So, when they ignore the consultation and make the changes, what's the next move?

Edit: worth reading this bit:

36. Please provide a completed cover sheet with the response that you wish us to consider. This cover sheet can be found in Annex D. We will normally publish responses, in full, on our website. If you would like your response or parts of your response to remain confidential please indicate this on the cover sheet.

Just in case they decide all responses without the cover sheet are invalid, I wouldn't put it past them

Anyway,my effort:

Dear Ms Allchorn
Consultation on proposal to prohibit firearms, air weapons and guns form sporting use

I am writing to oppose these proposals in their entirety for the following reasons:

The reason given for the change is not valid. You are obliged only to take “reasonable precautions” for safe custody, not to guarantee it.

In practice that obligation is less onerous than the obligation that applies to all postal packets which you carry regardless of their contents. Condition E1 of your licence states that “E 1 Unless Ofcom otherwise consents,a regulated postal operator shall at all times comply with the Mail Integrity Code. The Mail Integrity Code needs to be read in full, but it is enough to highlight the “Mail Integrity Objective” of “minimising the exposure of Code Postal Packets to the risk of loss, theft, damage and/or interference;” and your obligation under para 6 of the code: “regulated postal operators must establish, maintain and adhere to such other policies and procedures as may reasonably be necessary to facilitate achievement of the Mail Integrity Objectives, in particular in relation to the security of relevant premises, and the use of vehicles and equipment in the collection, conveyance or delivery of Code Postal Packets.”. You are therefore already required, as a condition of your licence to operate, to adhere to policies and procedures as are necessary to minimise the risk of loss and theft for every item in your system. The obligation to take “reasonable precuations” in respect of firearms adds nothing.

Even if that were wrong, your reasoning cannot apply to low powered air rifles and air pistols, nor to unregulated components of any firearm such as triggers, magazines etc. S.14 of the 1988 Act clearly does not apply to such items as there is no requirement to hold a firearms certificate in respect of them in the first place.

The effect of your proposal will be to cause great harm to businesses which sell shooting supplies by post, very possibly putting some out of businerss entirely, and to cause and great inconvenience to many law abiding sporting shooters who rely on the postal service for spare parts, to buy or sell second hand air rifles or pistols, and so on.

I therefore urge you to withdraw this proposal.

Yours sincerely

BTW, I had it suggested to me that this is to enable their "out" service (you know, if you are out, they will leave your parcel with your neighbour.) I guess they feel a bit nervous about that if the parcel may contain a firearm. If so, and leaving aside the fact that it is very very naughty for the consultation not to mention it, what to do?

[Garvin]

Here is my effort:

The Royal Mail, as the designated universal service provider, is currently the only national carrier which explicitly accepts sporting firearms – and in particular air-powered rifles and pistols – sent by members of the general public. Other carriers, including Parcelforce, will only carry firearms on behalf of business account holders.

I believe that the Royal Mail’s proposals, if adopted, would affect detrimentally tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of people who engage in the lawful activity of shooting, repairing and collecting sporting firearms. Many of them live in the countryside and in more remote parts of Britain and so are dependent on Royal Mail services.

I believe that the Royal Mail’s contention at paragraph 15 of the consultation that it is “increasingly concerned” it is “operating in a way that is inconsistent with firearms legislation when we carry guns for sporting use” is at best questionable. At worst it is the pretext for a cynical attempt to whittle down an important part of its universal service obligation.

I further believe that Royal Mail’s contention that compliance with Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 Section 14(1) – requiring the safe custody of firearms in transit – would necessitate costly extra safeguards within the postal pipeline is false and misleading.

I note with surprise that Royal Mail has supplied no evidence to support its claim that its current security arrangements are inadequate to guarantee the safe carriage of firearms. The 1988 Act specifies only that “reasonable precautions” are taken for the safe custody of firearms and ammunition.

I also note that when Royal Mail applied, in September 2004, to the previous postal regulator, Postcomm, for approval of a direction to prohibit the carriage of firearms within the postal pipeline, it made no mention of the issue of safe custody.

In the current consultation document, Royal Mail refers to the 2004 application and says: “Even at and before this time we were concerned that we were operating in a manner that was inconsistent with the carriers’ responsibilities set out in [the 1988 Act]”. This is scarcely credible, since any such concern would obviously have been voiced in support of the application. I invite Royal Mail to validate its claim to have harboured this concern in 2004.

If Royal Mail was indeed concerned at that point that carriage of sporting firearms under its existing arrangements constituted a breach of the 1988 Act’s conditions, why did it take a further eight years before the company sought to rectify the situation?

A possible explanation is that the ‘light touch’ regulatory regime overseen by Ofcom, decided in March 2012, presented Royal Mail with a fresh opportunity to indulge its long-standing desire to ban the carriage of firearms. No doubt the company was confident that under this scheme – which allows non-price terms for universal services to be changed without prior approval – the prohibition would proceed without regulatory hindrance.

In its 2004 application to Postcomm, Royal Mail made just three arguments for prohibition. They were: alleged disruption caused by the carriage of firearms; that prohibition would assist the police in controlling firearms; and that the anonymity of the sender makes Royal Mail services vulnerable to criminals seeking to transport illegal firearms.

I note that Postcomm, in dismissing the application in its June 2005 decision document, concluded that: “Royal Mail’s arguments do not stand up to close scrutiny and there is little evidence provided to prove that there is just cause to approve the application.” It added: “Prohibiting the carriage of (legal) firearms in the post would cause unnecessary hardship for many persons and businesses…”.

At paragraph 24 of its current application, Royal Mail states that: “We expect the impact on customers to be minimal. Parcelforce Worldwide will continue to offer a service for Registered Firearms Dealers. Other customers are already prevented from using our postal network by legislation that requires many transactions to take place face to face...”

It adds that “the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 states that the sale of Airguns by Registered Firearms Dealers must take place face to face”. Yet Royal Mail neglects to acknowledge that private sales of airguns and component parts do not fall within the terms of the 2006 Act.

It is estimated that more than five million airguns are legally owned by adults in the UK and there is a vibrant market in the sale and purchase of airguns by private individuals. UK-based websites such as Gunstar.co.uk, Airgunbbs.co.uk and various other airgun-specific sites provide ample proof of the existence of this market.

Many airgun users are disabled sportsmen and women, who can compete against able-bodied shooters on equal terms. Thousands of airgunners are members of shooting clubs, or involved in valuable pest control work. Others are collectors who buy and sell airguns and related parts on a non-commercial basis as part of their hobby.

All of the above categories of law-abiding airgun owner will be gravely disadvantaged if the only legitimate means of sending airguns and component parts to all areas of the UK is denied to them.

Ofcom has a duty to secure the provision of the universal postal service. It has pledged to “consider the needs of all users of the universal service” when devising its regulatory scheme. On this occasion I believe Ofcom should use its statutory powers to intervene to prevent Royal Mail from shirking its responsibilities as the designated universal service provider.

[Mr Meteor]

I received an automated response from Ms Allchorn's address (on 18th Aug) saying she was on leave until 25th August! I then forwarded the message to Mr Anderson and received the same as other people, Ie. "Thank you for taking the time to respond to our consultation. Royal Mail will review all responses before a final decision is made." - rxd. 20th Aug.

I have not had a reply from contact@ofcom.org.uk and so will be sending to sean.o’hara@ofcom.org.uk

Just had mine sent back with mail box full.

A good sign, don't you think? - they must by now be getting the message that their comment in Section 24, Page 7 stating, "We expect the impact on customers to be minimal" is not true.
However, I think it is important that everyone keeps sending their emails, re-sending if rejected as the "mail box" will have to be emptied at some point.
Many thanks to BASC for drawing this to my attention.
ATB, Adrian.

PS. Some first rate emails/ letters have been sent, and no mistake.

[Ziplobb]

I am approaching our local MP about this today
his wife is a clay shooter

There are even deeper ramifications for Isle of Wight residents as the cost of courier services is very often excessive - RM for many small items remains the cheapest way of getting stuff over.

As some of you know I work in the only gunshop left on the IOW and again this will mean we can't send spares out or receive a set of firing pins for a Beretta via the post for example - its barmy

[doggone]

email sent to zoe allchorn.

[18 Wheeler]

Could the OP edit Post #1 to include the relevant information, not everyone will read the entire thread.


Where to send your responses:

zoe.allchorn@royalmail.com and martin.anderson@royalmail.com (formatted to include the cover sheet~ See below)

Responses should also be copied to sean.ohara@ofcom.org.uk

BASC's View and position can be found HERE.

Royal Mail Proposal (Link to proposal pdf)




Whilst JC's post (#40) points out that responses to Royal Mail should include the cover sheet, just in case they decide to ignore those not in the requested format.

36. Please provide a completed cover sheet with the response that you wish us to consider. This cover sheet can be found in Annex D. We will normally publish responses, in full, on our website. If you would like your response or parts of your response to remain confidential please indicate this on the cover sheet.