THOUSANDS of law-abiding airgun users in York and North and East Yorkshire could face jail under a tough new firearms law that gun enthusiasts claim has been introduced without warning.

More than 2,000 people in North Yorkshire and potentially hundreds more in East Yorkshire own airguns that are fitted with individual, self-contained gas cartridges, according to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC).

The firearms section of last year's Antisocial Behaviour Act states that owners of the cartridge guns must get a firearms certificate, or hand their weapon over to the police.

But the Secretary of York Jubilee Air Rifle & Pistol Club has claimed that many of the weapons are historical replicas and are kept only as decorations.

The penalty for not meeting the April 30 deadline to apply for a certificate, which costs £50, could be as much as five years in prison.

Owners have the option of handing their weapon to the police, without compensation, if they do not want to get a certificate.

Gun users have accused the Home Office of not giving the law change enough publicity - meaning cartridge gun holders are running out of time to get a certificate.

The Home Office says it tightened the law up as the cartridge guns can easily be illegally converted to fire live ammunition.

The gun club secretary, who asked not to be named because of security concerns, said: "There is a severe danger that these changes will go unnoticed by many law-abiding citizens who may unwittingly be committing an offence which could result in a five-year prison sentence."

Mike Eveleigh, the BASC's senior firearms officer, said many people with historical collections have ornamental weapons worth thousands of pounds.

"They are now obliged to hand them in or apply for a firearms certificate which they don't need," Mr Eveleigh said.

North Yorkshire Police spokesman Tony Lidgate recognised that the change had been "little heralded."

The law change is designed to stop the weapons falling into criminal hands and being converted to fire live rounds.

A Home Office spokesman said: "These weapons are vulnerable to conversion (to fire live rounds.) It is our responsibility to make them less readily available to criminals."

Updated: 09:28 Saturday, February 28, 2004