How to get Lisence of .022 Air Rifle purchased before Arms Act 2016

[PRANJIT 3]

Dear Members,
I have recently registered myself in this forum, although I have been reading the contents regularly. My question is I purchased a 0.22 Commander Air Pistol in 2011 and a SDB 0.22 Air Rifle back in 2014. I have lost the reciept of both .Now 2016 arms act has said that one needs to have a lisence to have 0.22 air rifle. I have approached the gun dealer how to obtain the license since I have purchased the weapons before 2016 but he told me that there has been no notification for 0.22 air rifle purchased before 2016. Dear members please suggest me how do I get the license. I don't want to get into trouble. I belong to Guwahati, Assam

Pranjit Tamuli, Guwahati, Assam

[timmy]

By retrospective, you mean, what happens to those who currently own .22 airguns and/ or .177 airguns which are over the new 15 ft/lbs limit?

Their possession would now be illegal, unless the owner has a proper license with said airgun(s) endorsed on it.

Penalties would be to the tune of 7 years in jail and a hefty fine, the same as for possessing any other illegal firearm.

[4X4]

You can go and handover and surrender both weapons to the Police Station in your area. Kindly carry a printout of the Arms Act to show to the authorities. Tell them you are surrendering the weapon as you do not have a license for the weapons as required by law.

Now to fulfill your passion for the shooting hobby you can purchase a legal sub 15 ft/lbs .177 air rifle from authorised Gun dealers or Kiehberg , they will issue an invoice for the purchase , also you can buy the pellets from them.

I request senior forum members to further guide you on the same , incase if I am wrong.

[sourabhsangale]

Actual notification never came from licensing authority for the weapons purchased before 2016 so it would be better to ask the license authority about that but i am sure they will not be able to answer the question .

[PRANJIT 3]

My dealer said that thousands of air guns he had sold prior to 2016 . He said no notification has come so far.

[mundaire]

Actual notification never came from licensing authority for the weapons purchased before 2016 so it would be better to ask the license authority about that but i am sure they will not be able to answer the question .

That's not true, the Arms Rules 2016 were notified via the official Government of India Gazette, as is the usual practice. The Government is not liable to do any more than that while enacting new rules/ laws.

It is incumbent on all affected parties to make themselves aware of the law and how it affects them, Thus, pleading ignorance, or that "no one told me", will be less than useless, if and when one is to be prosecuted.

As of today, any air gun/ air pistol/ air rifle, with calibre exceeding .177 requires an arms license.

Whether this rule makes any sense or not is immaterial.

Cheers!