The Shanghai firearms license

In the International Settlement no one but the officers of the treaty powers, diplomats and consuls, the Council's own officers and the Volunteer Corps on duty might carry any firearm other than a sporting gun without a license from the Municipal Council (Bye-law 37), on pain of a fine of three hundred dollars or three months. The Deputy Commissioner of the Crime Branch issued the licenses through the Arms Licensing Section. The applicant came in person with the weapon and proof of its origin, two photographs and four rounds for testing; the weapon was stamped with an S.M.P. number prefixed by the letter Y near the trigger guard, and the holder passed a test in handling it at the Training Depot. Three kinds of license: a red identification card to carry the weapon, a white paper certificate to keep it at home without carrying it, a blue card for bodyguards and escorts.

The Guide of 1938 is read; the card is not, so its words and layout are ours, and the office says so above it. For the investigators who land at Shanghai with a pistol in the trunk.

Bearer makes an investigator's papers for Call of Cthulhu and any 1920s or 1930s tabletop campaign: the passport a consul would have filled in, with the visas and frontier stamps a campaign leaves in it, and the permits, certificates and tickets of the period, to print or to share.

An example

Open this example in the office

The paper

A reconstruction

This paper is a reconstruction. The Shanghai Municipal Police Guide of 1938, read, says who licensed firearms in the International Settlement (the Deputy Commissioner, Crime Branch, through the Arms Licensing Section, under Bye-law 37), the three kinds of licence and their colours (a red card to carry, a white certificate to keep at home, a blue card for bodyguards and escorts), the photographs and the S.M.P. number stamped on the weapon; the card itself has not been found, and its words and layout are ours.

The same paper elsewhere

• Firearm licences by country

Still to be confirmed

• the whole card, and the term of a year. What would settle it: a Shanghai Municipal Police firearms license of 1920 to 1939.
• the guide read is of 1938; the three colours are taken to hold through the period. What would settle it: an earlier edition of the guide or of the Arms and Ammunition Orders.

Sources

• Shanghai Municipal Police, Shanghai Municipal Police Guide and Regulations, 1938 (Widdowson): Arms Licensing Section; Firearms Licenses, no person … shall under any pretext carry or convey within such limits any firearms other than those used solely for sporting purposes … without a license or permit first obtained from the Municipal Council; fine not exceeding $300 or three months (Bye-law 37); licenses issued by the Deputy Commissioner (Crime Branch) through the Arms Licensing Section; three kinds: to carry the weapon (a red coloured identification card), to keep it in the residence but not carry it (a white paper certificate), bodyguards and escorts (blue coloured identification cards); application in person with the weapon and proof of its origin, two photographs and four rounds for testing; registered weapons stamped with an S.M.P. number prefixed by the letter Y near the trigger guard; a test in handling the weapon at the Training Depot (read directly)

Open the passport office · MGS Toolbox