[Rainbow Six]

OK, looking at this purely from a T2k point of view (I have absolutely no interest in getting into a debate / discussion about UK gun laws) it is a subject that I have tried to account for when working on my Alternative SGUK, particularly for the larger marauder groups.…I have no idea of any sort of statistics as to gun ownership (Edit - thanks simonmark6 for detailing that), however it is unquestionable that private gun ownership is much more restricted / controlled in the UK than it is in some other countries, although the situation in T2K (V1 or V2) might slightly different than it is in real life…a bit of history…in my opinion (others may differ) the policy on private ownership of weapons was heavily influenced by two events – the August 1987 Hungerford shootings, which led to the 1988 Firearms Amendment Act, which banned the ownership of semi automatic and pump action weapons and the March 1996 Dunblane shootings, which led to the 1997 Firearms Amendment Act. It was this Act and its subsequent Amendment that effectively outlawed the private possession of handguns ( said I had no interest in getting into a discussion but as part of the context of the history, the Dunblane shootings took place in a school in Scotland and created a shockwave that went through the country. I still have vivid memories of that day (I lived about twenty miles away from Dunblane) - a person whose name I can still remember without looking it up (I wont repeat it here) went into a primary (elementary) school and shot dead sixteen children and a teacher (whose name I can also remember).

You’ll see from the dates that the 1988 Act would have undoubtedly been in place in the T2K timeline but the 1997 Act is much more debatable – would the shootings have still taken place? Maybe. The War would have started by 1997 so would the Government reaction have been the same? Unknown. Even if it had been, I think the dates are such that there may have been more handguns present in private ownership than there were / are IRL.

In general though, even if you don’t have the 1997 Act in place, options for arming the general populace are going to be much, much more limited than they are in other countries. Civilian weapons would be available in small numbers – I haven’t been for some years but well after the turn of the Millenium I used to go clay pigeon shooting at a place that had several dozen (at least) double barrelled shotguns and ammunition to go with them…enough to arm a decent force…there is a gunshop close to where I live, another close to my parents house – my father buys lead shot from that one to use as nose weight for model aircraft…so I think there would be some civilian weapons…just not significant quantities (certainly not in single locations) and not military type (assault rifles, etc). There will also be weapons that are already in criminal hands as there is in real life.

There may also be a number of military and police issue firearms that might fall into the wrong hands for a number of reasons – troops turning marauder is probably the most obvious (and would probably be the most potent type of marauder group), but there could also be corrupt suppy types selling them, weapons being “lost” in the general chaos and confusion following the nuclear exchanges. In some circumstances it wouldn’t take much to make a marauder group a significant local power…finding an abandoned truck that has twenty SA80’s and several thousand rounds of ammo would probably be more than enough in some cases. You’d probably also see much more armed police as well, whilst there may have been an expansion of the Home Service Force which may have seen the issuance of more military weapons at a more local level (the HSF was essentially a form of Home Guard which was limited in size and eventually phased out totally at the end of the Cold War). Obviously both the police and the military may be overrun by the mobs in some places, losing their weapons in the process. In some areas you could possibly add small numbers of US weapons to the mix sourced from the USAF bases in England (although I think it’s highly unlikely you are going to find groups armed with large numbers of M16’s and M60’s).

A trope I’ve used in my own Alternative Survivor’s Guide to the UK has been French DGSE agents supplying weapons to marauders and separatist groups to try and keep the UK destabilised on the basis that the longer the UK remains in chaos the greater the chance France has to emerge from the War as the dominant power in Europe. After the nuclear exchanges I could see impromptu militia forces being raised…if they wanted to the Government could probably arm them with weapons taken from storage…L1A1’s, maybe even Lee Enfields (the way Milgov issued M16EZ’s to groups in the US). I’ve also used the idea of HMG unwittingly arming a marauder group after being duped into thinking they were a legitimate group.

I do think though that guns will be the exception for many groups. What you are likely to see is the rank and file armed with melee weapons, knives, sometimes taped to a broom handle, baseball bats, improvised weapons such as cricket bats, pool cues, and some firearms, probably carried by the leaders – maybe a couple of handguns, shotguns, and if they’re lucky one or two military or police issue weapons…an L1A1, a Sterling SMG or an MP5 SMG (MP5’s were, and in many cases still are, standard issue to most police firearms units). Expect ammunition to be in short supply. The larger, more organised groups, e.g. the one that did manage to find the truck with 20 SA80’s in the back, will have the potential to be significant local players as I mentioned above, whilst larger groups, if they can arm themselves sufficiently, can become regional powers.