Air rifles? slingshot?

[Randell]

What are the laws about owning an air rifle. I would like to get on for pest control ie. pigeons. I seem to be having an ever increasing pigeon population. I have ask the local neighbours not to shoot them with their slingshots because they are very bad shots and have damaged the ventilation louver  on my gable  under my soffit. I presume that they need a special licence  as I see the locals with their home made one using them very surreptitiously   and the size of the ball bearing they shoot are musket ball sized  and would be of no help. I would guess I will have to sharpen my own very rusty skilly with a slingshot. That way when I damage something there is only yours truly to blame. But if any one has any ideas on this I would welcome any and all suggestion on the matter. 

[Isan Farang]

For an Airgun you will need a licence, and to obtain one your chances are zero if its to kill birds in a housing estate. To use an Airgun without a licence may be possible if you have no neighbours around you and live in a remote area.

 

If you are reported using an Airgun in a housing estate to kill birds even with a licence you will have big problems.

[wolfmuc]

I think Isan Farang is right. - No idea of your slingshot skills, but pigeons are very agile.
Even if they seem familiar they might fly away too early.
At our place I try to scare them away. Clap hands, sing, turn the radio on, machine noise. 

Everything helps. But it must be loud. And surprising.
And if it's too loud for me I use headphones...

(May be your family and your neighbours will think you've gone crazy. Mai pen rai.)
Good luck.

[Randell]

Thank You both for your input. I don't know about loud noises scaring them away at the volume that music is often played in my village the bass is strong enough at time  to vibrate the tea in your cup. And it isn't a housing estate just a small country village. The only problems I would have with the neighbors is on how to share up the birds as they are prized to the soup pot. But I certainly don't want to buck the system.  And my searches online don't come up with the actual rifles all the impedimenta but not guns that that seem to be that. Its back to slingshot skill improvement time. But that all said even  some thing like my old  Crossman bb gun from my childhood would help scare them away. I am sure not enough power to kill but could ruffle a few feathers enough so that they might find some where else  to use as there roost

[sceadugenga]

They sell some sort of pellet guns at the market at MaeSai, mainly with plastic ammunition.

Maybe they would sting enough without causing real damage to deter them from returning.

[My Thai Life]

If you're living anywhere near other people I'd recommend against any kind of, for want of a better word, projectiles, including catapults. Could be harmful to health, wealth and your legal standing.

 

What I've found works is plastic/rubber snakes from a toy shop, even plastic dinosaurs! Don't laugh, it really works, though some species of bird seem to catch on more quickly than others, and some never seem to catch on at all.

 

Also you could try hanging some kind of shiny stringy stuff from your eaves, like coloured tape from a haberdasher's or ribbon. I've never know this to fail.

 

Talking of guns. I was taking a coffee at the back of the farmhouse a while back, and a guy comes strolling through the trees with a rifle under his arm, a long old style type of gun I've never seen before. Naturally I was a bit taken aback. Turns out a leopard had wandered down from the hills the day before and this guy was a park-ranger with a sleeping dart in his rifle!

 

Nice quiet lfe!

[jvs]

5 hours ago, Randell said:

Thank You both for your input. I don't know about loud noises scaring them away at the volume that music is often played in my village the bass is strong enough at time  to vibrate the tea in your cup. And it isn't a housing estate just a small country village. The only problems I would have with the neighbors is on how to share up the birds as they are prized to the soup pot. But I certainly don't want to buck the system.  And my searches online don't come up with the actual rifles all the impedimenta but not guns that that seem to be that. Its back to slingshot skill improvement time. But that all said even  some thing like my old  Crossman bb gun from my childhood would help scare them away. I am sure not enough power to kill but could ruffle a few feathers enough so that they might find some where else  to use as there roost

If you are looking for something to chase them away try a laser pen.

Close to dark when they are looking for a place to sleep it is easy to scare the feathers off of them,they hate it!!!

[My Thai Life]

18 hours ago, My Thai Life said:

If you're living anywhere near other people I'd recommend against any kind of, for want of a better word, projectiles, including catapults. Could be harmful to health, wealth and your legal standing.

There are other practical issues as well of course.

 

For example, who would want to be stationed outside their house with a gun, catapult, peashooter, or any other projectile device, or even a laser pen, waiting for unwanted guest birds? Surely there are better things to do with one's time?

 

I started putting the cat in the loft at night a couple of weeks ago.. First day he was in a hissyfit, but now he demands it. Lives on the roofs most of the time now.

 

[Randell]

Thank you all for your contributions. Seeing as no one has where one can buy a actual "pellet rifle" or the legalities there of. And all the online offering only offer "airsoft" toys. Which might do the job of harassing the unwanted birds but that is not what I wanted to do. I have better uses for my time than harassing the birds. Which would only be an hourly solution. So it seems that on Lazada there were some pellet rifles on offer but to the one each of them say out of stock which is telling in itself . That and they were 5 or 6 times the price of the equivalent in Canada. So I will try and resort to some obstructive netting and or rubber snakes, owls what have you as deterrent.

[Vacuum]

The only thing that helps with getting rid of pigeons, is stop feeding them. There's probably some neighbour who give them left over rice. Investigate who it is and have a word with the person. Shooting the birds won't help.

[impulse]

6 hours ago, Randell said:

Thank you all for your contributions. Seeing as no one has where one can buy a actual "pellet rifle" or the legalities there of. And all the online offering only offer "airsoft" toys. Which might do the job of harassing the unwanted birds but that is not what I wanted to do. I have better uses for my time than harassing the birds. Which would only be an hourly solution. So it seems that on Lazada there were some pellet rifles on offer but to the one each of them say out of stock which is telling in itself . That and they were 5 or 6 times the price of the equivalent in Canada. So I will try and resort to some obstructive netting and or rubber snakes, owls what have you as deterrent.

 

Sorry, but the topic has been beaten to death over a dozen times, with definitive answers to your questions. 

 

You'll get a lot more info using the search function than you will get asking the few people who actually seem to know to answer the question for the 15th time.

 

The short answer is that using metal projectiles in an airgun put the gun into the category of a firearm with all the requirements that go along with that.  Plastic pellets in an airgun are (generally) okay as long as you don't use it to abuse animals or people.  Your neighbors may rat you out if they think you're abusing the pigeons, or rats, or geckos, or the other critters people have wanted to get rid of.   It's their definition that counts, not ours.

 

FYI, I bought 2 Stevens brand air rifles in Chinatown, in the wide open, not realizing how illegal they are.  I should have known something was amiss when the vendor turned the boxes inside out before I left the kiosk, with plain cardboard boxes.  He also told me to take a taxi home and not the MRT.  They were multi-pump air rifles, one in 4.5mm (.177) and the other in 5.5mm (.22).  I used them with lead pellets to practice my 15 meter shooting (longest straight shot I had in my apartment), into reams of paper.  They would penetrate 500 sheets easy.  When I did the research and found out how illegal they are, I got rid of them both.

 

Edited September 2, 2018 by impulse

[kevvy]

CharlieH

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Posted November 20, 2012

I have bought one recently, no problem, no licence, NOT allowed to carry in public because they resemble the real thing too much.

Fine for shooting the hard plastic BB pellets. I use for pest control too, even shot a snake at 2 meters and stopped it dead, literally.

I have the pneumatic, aerosol can fill type. Does a great job but range about 10 meters.

Believe the correct term here is "air-soft" guns.