No licence or registration is required to own a crossbow in the United Kingdom. Under the Crossbows Act 1987, crossbows cannot be bought or sold in England, Wales or Scotland by or to those under 18. Possession is also prohibited by those under 18 years old except under adult supervision.
Crossbows are legal in the UK and no licence or registration is required to own them, because they are not legally classed as firearms.
People can be prosecuted for using crossbows for illegal hunting, or for attacking people, under separate laws.
Well I think it’s time to licence and make registration mandatory for these weapons. Quite why anyone actually needs a crossbow anyway, is debatable. Poor cat.
I very much hope that whoever did this is caught!
It’s a similar situation with air guns, you don’t need a license of any kind.
I’m a bit hazy on the legal side of things but I think that using an air gun in a public place is trespass with a firearm.
Pretty serious stuff!
There should be a ban on even selling them or manufacturing or importing for that matter. The silly piddly fines the courts give won’t stop them. it needs a jail sentence of say minimum of 10 years and a £20,000 fine as well.
Do not buy that, they could make do with the type used in medieval times. They are designed to be fired from a distance, faster. The average modern crossbows delivers slightly more kinetic energy than the average modern compound bow
Both crossbows and airguns are silent unlike a shotgun for example, there’s no report.
Not so long ago an old friend of mine was having some serious issues regarding antisocial behaviour with neighbors.
To cut a long story short he heard his cat making some distressing sounds in his garden.
The poor creature had to have a pellet removed by a vet.
The cat was found a new home by The RSPCA I think.
It just wasn’t safe to keep it all thing considered
Last I heard, Priti Patel had ordered the Home Office to review the laws relating to Crossbows at the end of December 2021.
I have not heard anything since.
The downside of bringing in licensing laws is that those who already own crossbows and are the type of person who would use it to shoot at people or domestic pets are not likely to register their crossbow and apply for a licence.
I am not sure how often crossbows are used in a criminal way but the Government would have to weigh up how effective a licensing system would be.
Maybe that is why the Government have not moved to license crossbows before - neither have England and Wales gone down the route of licensing air rifles, like Scotland have,
Maybe they could look at how effective the Scottish Air Gun licensing laws have been.
When that was brought in a few years ago, it was hailed as a success because around 20,000 air guns were handed in under the initial amnesty and they have issued air gun certificates to about 30,000 people - but that is only 50,000 accounted for, out of how many?
The trouble is, the police had no idea of how many air guns were out there - they estimated there was about 500,000 air guns in circulation when the new laws were brought in - so if only a tenth of those are accounted for, that probably leaves many thousands of air guns in the hands of people who do not have a certificate for them.
The year after the licensing laws were introduced, it was reported that crime involving air guns had increased by 36%.
I haven’t seen any more recent figures for this last year.
Yes, there is laws relating to age restrictions on air guns in England and people who are found to be breaking those laws can be prosecuted but there is no register of who owns air weapons so they can be monitored.
Owners do not have to hold an Air Weapon Certificate in England, as they do in Scotland,
I’m not sure what point you are not buying. I was just saying that some people like their crossbows for sport. And some use them for nefarious purposes like killing cats. Whether they should so is another matter.
