Gun politics in the United Kingdom

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Gun politics in the United Kingdom, much like gun politics in Australia, places its main considerations on how best to ensure public safety and how deaths involving firearms can most effectively be prevented. Unlike in the United States, there is practically no modern organised "right to keep and bear arms" lobby remaining in the United Kingdom, and little debate between pro-gun control and pro-gun ownership advocates. These two situations create what is believed to be some of the strictest gun legislation in the world. However, since power to legislate on firearms was reserved under the Scotland Act 1998 that re-established a Scottish Parliament, this has led to tensions between Westminster and Holyrood with the SNP Government wanting to do more.

Licensing and legislation

All firearms in the United Kingdom must be licensed on either a firearm certificate (FAC) or a shotgun certificate.

Shotguns are defined in UK law as smoothbore firearms with barrels not shorter than 24" and a bore not larger than 2" in diameter, no revolving cylinder, and either no magazine or a non-detachable magazine that is not capable of holding more than two cartridges. This effectively gives a maximum three round overall capacity, while shotguns with a capacity exceeding 2+1 rounds are subject to a firearm certificate. Shotguns thus defined are subject to a slightly less rigorous certification process.

A firearm certificate differs from a shotgun certificate in that justification must be provided to the police for each firearm; these firearms are individually listed on the certificate by type, calibre, and serial number. A shotgun certificate similarly lists type, calibre and serial number, but permits ownership of as many shotguns as can be safely accommodated. To gain permission for a new firearm, a "variation" must be sought, for which a fee is payable, unless the variation is made at the time of renewal, or unless it constitutes a one-for-one replacement of an existing firearm which is to be disposed of. The certificate also sets out, by calibre, the maximum quantities of ammunition which may be bought/possessed at any one time, and is used to record the purchasing of ammunition (except, optionally, where ammunition is both bought, and used immediately, on a range).

To obtain a firearm certificate, the police must be convinced that a person has "good reason" to own each gun, and that they can be trusted with it "without danger to the public safety or to the peace". Under Home Office guidelines, gun licenses are only issued if a person has legitimate sporting or work-related reasons for owning a gun. Since 1946, self-defence has not been considered a valid reason to own a gun. The current licensing procedure involves: positive verification of identity, two referees of verifiably good character who have known the applicant for at least two years (and who may themselves be interviewed and/or investigated as part of the certification), approval of the application by the applicant's own family doctor, an inspection of the premises and cabinet where guns will be kept and a face-to-face interview by a Firearms Enquiry Officer (FEO) also known as a Firearms Liaison Officer (FLO). A thorough background check of the applicant is then made by Special Branch on behalf of the firearms licensing department. Only when all these stages have been satisfactorily completed will a license be issued.

Any person who has spent more than three years in prison is automatically banned for life from obtaining a gun licence.

Any person holding a gun licence must comply with strict conditions regarding such things as safe storage. These storage arrangements are checked by the police before a license is first granted, and on every renewal of the licence. A local police force may impose additional conditions on ownership, over and above those set out by law. Failure to comply with any of these conditions can mean forfeiture of the gun licence and surrender of any firearms to the police.

The penalty for possession of a prohibited firearm without a certificate is currently a mandatory minimum five year prison sentence and an uncapped fine.

In addition, the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 increased restrictions on the use, ownership, sale and manufacture of both airguns and imitation firearms.

History of gun control in the United Kingdom

With the decline of Archery as mandatory there were growing concerns in the sixteenth century over the use of guns and crossbows. Four acts were imposed to restrict their use. As English subjects, Protestants had a conditional right to possess arms according to the Bill of Rights.

That the subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions, and as allowed by Law.

The rights of English subjects, and, after 1707, British subjects, to possess arms was recognised under English Common Law. Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, were highly influential and were used as a reference and text book for English Common Law. In his Commentaries, Blackstone described the right to arms.

The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute I W. & M. st.2. c.2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.

Formerly, this same British common law applied to the UK and Australia, as well as until 1791 to the Colonies in North America that became the United States. The right to keep and bear arms had originated in England during the reign of Henry II with the 1181 Assize of Arms, and developed as part of Common Law. These rights no longer exist in the UK, since the UK's doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty allows the repeal of previous laws with no enshrined exceptions such as contained within a codified constitution.

Modern restrictions on gun ownership began in 1903, with the Pistols Act. This required a person to obtain a gun licence before they could buy a firearm with a barrel shorter than 9 inches. The gun licence had been introduced as a revenue measure in 1870; the law required a person to obtain a licence if he wanted to carry a gun outside his home, whether for hunting, self-defence, or other reasons, but not to buy one. The licences cost 10 shillings, which is about £31 in 2005 money, lasted one year, and could be bought over the counter at post-offices.

A registration system gun law - the Firearms Act - was first introduced to Great Britain in 1920, spurred on partly due to fears of a surge in crime that might have resulted from the large number of guns available following World War I and in part due to fears of working class unrest in this period. The law did not initially affect smoothbore weapons, which were available for purchase without any form of paperwork.

Fully automatic weapons were almost completely banned from private ownership by the 1937 Firearms Act, which took its inspiration from the US 1934 National Firearms Act. Such weapons are nowadays only available to certain special collectors, museums and prop companies. The 1937 Act also consolidated changes to the 1920 Act that controlled shotguns with barrels shorter than 20". This length was later raised by the 1968 Firearms act to 24".

The first control of long-barrelled shotguns began in 1968 with the Criminal Justice and Firearms Act. This required a person to obtain a "Shotgun Certificate" to own any shotgun. The Act did not require the registration of shotguns, only licensing. This act was accompanied by an Amnesty when many older weapons were handed into the police. This has remained a feature of British Policing that following an incident a brief amnesty is declared.

Changes in public attitudes in the 1970s and 1980s changed the basis on which firearms were perceived and understood in British society. Increasingly graphic portrayals of firearms involved in gratuitous acts of violence in the mass media gave rise to concern of the emergence of an aggressive "gun culture". A steady rise in violent gun crime in general also became an issue of concern.

Hungerford massacre

In 1987, 27 year old Michael Ryan, armed with a semi-automatic AK-47, a Beretta handgun and an M1 carbine, dressed up in combat fatigues and proceeded around the town of Hungerford killing 16 people, wounding 15 and shooting himself, in what became known as the Hungerford massacre.

In the aftermath, the Conservative government passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988. This confined semiautomatic and pump-action centrefire rifles; military weapons firing explosive ammunition; short shotguns that had magazines; and both elevated pump-action and self-loading rifles to the Prohibited category. Registration and secure storage of weapons held on shotgun certificates became required, and shotguns with more than a 2+1 capacity came to need a Firearms certificate. The law also introduced new restrictions on shotguns, although rifles in .22 rimfire and semi-automatic pistols were unaffected.

Dunblane massacre

Eight years after the Hungerford massacre, the Dunblane Massacre was the second time in less than a decade that unarmed civilians had been killed in Britain by a legally licensed gun owner. On March 13 1996 Thomas Hamilton, aged 43, a disgruntled former scout leader who had been ousted by The Scout Association five years previously, shot dead sixteen young children and their teacher, Gweneth Mayor, in Dunblane Primary School's gymnasium with his licensed weapons and ammunition. He then shot himself. There is a memorial to the seventeen victims in the local cemetery and a cenotaph in the cathedral. The funds raised in the aftermath of the tragedy have been used to build a new community centre for the town.

Following the incident, the government passed the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 which means that as of 1997 handguns have been almost completely banned for private ownership, although the official inquiry, known as the Cullen Inquiry, did not go so far as to recommend such action. Exceptions to the ban include muzzle-loading "blackpowder" guns, pistols produced before 1917, pistols of historical interest (such as pistols used in notable crimes, rare prototypes, unusual serial numbers and so on), starting pistols, pistols that are of particular aesthetic interest (such as engraved or jewelled guns) and shot pistols for pest control. Under certain circumstances, individuals may be issued a PPW (Personal Protection Weapon) Licence. Even Britain's Olympic shooters fall under this ban; shooters can only train in Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, Isle of Man, or abroad.

A measure of the extent of legal firearms ownership in Great Britain (post-Dunblane legislation did not extend to Northern Ireland) is that the handgun bans affected an estimated 57,000 people - 0.1% of the population, or 1 in every 960 persons. At the time, the renewal cycle for FACs was five years, meaning that it would take six years for the full reduction of valid certificates to be seen for both large calibre or .22 handguns bans (i.e. because certificates would remain in force, even if the holder had disposed of all their weapons). On 31 December 1996, prior to the large calibre handgun ban, there were 133,600 FACs on issue in England and Wales; by 31 December 1997 it had fallen to 131,900. The following year, after the .22 handgun ban, the number stood at 131,900. On 31 December 2001, five years after the large calibre ban, the number had fallen to 119,600 and 117,700 the following year. This represents a net drop of 24,200 certificates. Comparable figures for Scotland show a net drop of 5,841 from 32,053 to 26,212 certificates, making a GB total net drop of 30,041. However, while the number of certificates in England and Wales rose each year after 2002 to stand at 126,400 at 31 March 2005 (due to a change in reporting period), those in Scotland remained relatively static, standing at 26,538 at 31 December 2005.

Homicide and firearms crime

The rise in UK gun crime is a long term trend that is apparently unaffected by the state of UK firearms legislation. Before the 1997 ban, handguns were only held by 0.1% of the population, and while the number of crimes involving firearms in England and Wales increased from 13,874 in 1998/99 to 24,070 in 2002/03, they remained relatively static at 24,094 in 2003/04, and declined slightly to 21,521 in 2005/06.

Since 1998, the number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales increased by 110%, from 2,378 in 1998/99 to 5,001 in 2005/06. In 2005/06, 87% of such injuries were defined as "slight," whatever a "slight" gun injury is supposed to be. Between 1998/99 and 2005/06, there have been only two fatal shootings of police officers in England and Wales but over the same period, there were 107 non-fatal shootings of police officers - an average of 9.7 per year.

Other results of British "gun control" measures include:

• After England initiated a ban on handguns, a 1998 study by the US Department of Justice found that there were 40% more muggings in England, and burglary rates were almost 100% higher than in the United States. And, counter-intuitively, the rate of crimes using handguns is on the rise. In 1999-2000, crimes using handguns were at a seven-year high. Apparently, criminals were easily able to access guns, but law enforcement officers and law-abiding citizens were not allowed.
• From 1998 through 2008, firearm-related crime and death rates increased an average of 89% in all police areas in England and Wales. One part of the country has seen the problem increase almost seven fold, with the Lancashire district seeing a 598% increase.
• From mid-2008 to mid-2009, the city of London saw a 20% increase in gun crimes and a 20% increase in rapes

The 2012 Olympics

Following the awarding of the 2012 Olympic Games to London, the government announced that special dispensation would be granted to allow the various shooting events to go ahead, as had been the case previously for the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

See also

• National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom

References

Relevant acts of Parliament

The following information is released under Crown Copyright by the Office of Public Sector Information.

• Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 (c. 45)
• Statutory Instrument 1989 No. 853 (C.23) - The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 (Commencement No. 2) Order 1989
• Statutory Instrument 1989 No. 854 - The Firearms Rules 1989
• Statutory Instrument 1989 No. 889 (S.90) - The Firearms (Scotland) Rules 1989
• Firearms (Amendment) Act 1992 (c. 31)
• Statutory Instrument 1992 No. 2823 - The Firearms Acts (Amendment) Regulations 1992
• Firearms (Amendment) Act 1994
• Statutory Instrument 1994 No. 2615 - The Firearms (Variation of Fees) Order 1994
• Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997
• Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997
• Statutory Instrument 2002 No. 127 - The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 (Firearms Consultative Committee) Order 2002
• Firearms (Northern Ireland) Order 2004 No. 7
• Draft Statutory Instrument 2005 No. (N.I.) - The Firearms (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

External links

• London Metropolitan Police firearms page - more detail
• British Association for Shooting and Conservation
• Gun Control Network