Amendments to the Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例) proposed by the National Police Agency (NPA) have sparked a furor among airsoft and re-enactment hobbyists, with thousands of people signing a petition against the changes.
According to the draft amendments published on July 25, the agency aims to restrict imitation guns with a structure or firing mechanism that could be converted into an improvised firearm.
Should the bill pass, manufacturers would be required to obtain a permit to sell imitation guns. Currently they are required only to register their businesses with the government.
Photo: Screen grab from the National Development Council’s Public Policy Network Participation Platform Web site
Under the bill, the penalties for the possession or modification of an improvised firearm would be increased and the police powers to search would be broadened.
A petition opposing the law on the National Development Council’s Public Policy Network Participation Platform had gathered 4,500 signatures as of press time last night.
The government is required to issue a response after two months if a public petition gathers 5,000 or more signatures and the petition’s deadline is 48 days from now, sources said, adding that some businesses are leaning on lawmakers to oppose the act.
An owner of a shop related to the sector surnamed Wu (吳) yesterday said that he fears the rules could jeopardize Taiwan’s imitation gun industry, which commands a leading position in the global market.
In its present form, the law defines resemblance to a functioning firearm in technical terms, such as possessing a mechanism for striking the primer of a cartridge, a specificity lacking in the proposed bill, he said.
“The bill is too vague and places the makers of harmless toy guns at risk,” he added.
The unnecessary abstract and vague language of the bill could leave police with too much freedom of interpretation, a hobbyist surnamed Chen (陳) said, adding that there should be more checks and balances regarding police powers.
The NPA did not give the public sufficient time to deliberate on the bill, as it is supposed to allow for a consultation period of 20 days and 60 days if it affects trade, a source said, adding that emergencies are the only legal exception to the rule.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater