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BASC response to Firearms Licensing Guidance Consultation


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1 hour ago, panoma1 said:

Add to this PC plod interviewing your possibly alcoholic, criminal, drug dealing, ex con neighbour and asking him/her whether you are a suitable person to own guns,  is a great contribution to public safety innit? Who the **** thought that one up? :no:

I expect the idea is that your neighbour says "oh I don't like guns so no I don't think they should have one!" 

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4 minutes ago, bluesj said:

I expect the idea is that your neighbour says "oh I don't like guns so no I don't think they should have one!" 

Or the neighbour of questionable character thinking,  "I now know where I (or my 'mates' down the pub!) can get my hands on guns"

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My long standing neighbours, one next door and one across the street happen to be my referees and they cannot charge and know my character better than my doctor but only my doctor (up to now) knows what medication I may be on if any.

Which is more important?

Or are both necessary?

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3 minutes ago, Good shot? said:

My long standing neighbours, one next door and one across the street happen to be my referees and they cannot charge and know my character better than my doctor but only my doctor (up to now) knows what medication I may be on if any.

Which is more important?

Or are both necessary?

its not about your referees its about speaking to your neighbours, in your situation that's not a problem but for some that may not be the case. I know that the people that lived next to me would have had a fit if they knew I had guns in the house, they went off the deep end when I offered them some lamb!

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20 hours ago, McSpredder said:

Is the whole document (rather than just the data about rifles) available to view?

It is, I just extracted the stats for rifles as it was for a thread on the stalking directory and it was easier to differentiate stats for rifles only.  I will try to find the link to the official document.

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Principal weapon Total Fired   Not fired
Fatal injury Serious injury2 Slight injury Causing
 property
 damage only
No injury
 or property damage
Total fired   Used as blunt instrument Used as a threat Total not fired
  Number of offences
Long-barrelled shotguns 384 6 50 21 56 45 178   9 197 206
Sawn-off shotguns 273 4 48 19 31 32 134   7 132 139

McSpredder - open the excel document for full stats breakdown

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/offencesinvolvingtheuseofweaponsdatatables

Edited by Mickeydredd
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On 18/08/2019 at 00:43, McSpredder said:

Mickeydredd,  many thanks for that link.   I have only had a very quick glance at the data so far, but will study it in due course.  

No probs.  It would be very interesting to know the split of legally-held/illegally held, but that detail is not provided.

In total, for rifles and all shotguns, there were 12 deaths in that year - most i'd imagine would have been illegally held - so that's about one month's worth of knife fatalities in London alone!

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1 hour ago, Mickeydredd said:

No probs.  It would be very interesting to know the split of legally-held/illegally held, but that detail is not provided.

In total, for rifles and all shotguns, there were 12 deaths in that year - most i'd imagine would have been illegally held - so that's about one month's worth of knife fatalities in London alone!

Lets hope these stats are made available (let them know we have them!) and driven home to the home office and anyone else involved, when an evaluation of the "benefit" to public safety, these proposals are supposed to enhance!

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28 minutes ago, panoma1 said:

Lets hope these stats are made available (let them know we have them!) and driven home to the home office and anyone else involved, when an evaluation of the "benefit" to public safety, these proposals are supposed to enhance!

The new proposals can have no risk-based approach angle whatsoever.  One would image this should be the main criteria.

I'm doing a little digging to see if any legally/illegally held breakdown is available

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The drafting of BASC's response by BASC's firearms team is nearing completion and I have re-read all the comments in this thread and cross checked and I am fairly sure all the concerns raised about what is in the draft guidance and impact assessment have been covered in BASC's draft response. I am hoping that we can be a position to publish the response next week.

As per my update last week most people believe that the proposed statutory guidance will not only fail to address fundamental problems with firearms licensing; the proposed statutory guidance will make things even worse.

Some police forces will continue to cherry pick what they wish to follow in the guidance and ignore what they dont wish to follow.
 
As some have pointed out one of the fundamental problems is the wording in the Firearms Act and this has to be tackled – if any set of rules or statutory guidance is to have teeth then the police must be legally required to follow it. 
 
But even then that does not address so many other fundamental issues with medical involvement in firearms licensing and all the issues raised by Law Commission and HMIC in 2015.
 
So where do we go from here?

A rhetorical question for discussion - would you support a campaign for a fundamental review of firearms law for a new consolidated Firearms Act as the outcome; and for firearms licensing to be taken away from the police and administered by a dedicated body designed solely for that purpose?

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1 hour ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

The drafting of BASC's response by BASC's firearms team is nearing completion and I have re-read all the comments in this thread and cross checked and I am fairly sure all the concerns raised about what is in the draft guidance and impact assessment have been covered in BASC's draft response. I am hoping that we can be a position to publish the response next week.

As per my update last week most people believe that the proposed statutory guidance will not only fail to address fundamental problems with firearms licensing; the proposed statutory guidance will make things even worse.

Some police forces will continue to cherry pick what they wish to follow in the guidance and ignore what they dont wish to follow.
 
As some have pointed out one of the fundamental problems is the wording in the Firearms Act and this has to be tackled – if any set of rules or statutory guidance is to have teeth then the police must be legally required to follow it. 
 
But even then that does not address so many other fundamental issues with medical involvement in firearms licensing and all the issues raised by Law Commission and HMIC in 2015.
 
So where do we go from here?

A rhetorical question for discussion - would you support a campaign for a fundamental review of firearms law for a new consolidated Firearms Act as the outcome; and for firearms licensing to be taken away from the police and administered by a dedicated body designed solely for that purpose?

I can't imagine the police willingly relinquishing firearms licensing! It is an income stream, and part of the chief officer of police's empire! I would support a review of current firearms law, leading to a new consolidated Firearms Act, providing it was carried out with the genuine intention of making it cost effective, fair, proportionate, not unneccesarily prescriptive, contain a service level agreement and as far as practicable ensure the safety of the general public, and I would support the responsibility for firearm licensing taken away from the police and being administered by an independent dedicated body with devolved legal authority to do so.

Until all party's know what their legal rights, powers and responsibilities are! The licensing shambles will continue! If the current proposals are implemented it will still be dependant on "guidance" which will remain open to police interpretation, I also fear if firearms licencing administration remains "in house" with the police, there will be no improvement in the appallingly poor service currently suffered by gun owners and certificate holders.

Edited by panoma1
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On 20/08/2019 at 11:29, Mickeydredd said:

The new proposals can have no risk-based approach angle whatsoever.  One would image this should be the main criteria.

I'm doing a little digging to see if any legally/illegally held breakdown is available

I have had a response from the Crime and Police Stats Unit to say that no information on legally/illegally held is held.  Pity.

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1 hour ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

The drafting of BASC's response by BASC's firearms team is nearing completion and I have re-read all the comments in this thread and cross checked and I am fairly sure all the concerns raised about what is in the draft guidance and impact assessment have been covered in BASC's draft response. I am hoping that we can be a position to publish the response next week.

As per my update last week most people believe that the proposed statutory guidance will not only fail to address fundamental problems with firearms licensing; the proposed statutory guidance will make things even worse.

Some police forces will continue to cherry pick what they wish to follow in the guidance and ignore what they dont wish to follow.
 
As some have pointed out one of the fundamental problems is the wording in the Firearms Act and this has to be tackled – if any set of rules or statutory guidance is to have teeth then the police must be legally required to follow it. 
 
But even then that does not address so many other fundamental issues with medical involvement in firearms licensing and all the issues raised by Law Commission and HMIC in 2015.
 
So where do we go from here?

A rhetorical question for discussion - would you support a campaign for a fundamental review of firearms law for a new consolidated Firearms Act as the outcome; and for firearms licensing to be taken away from the police and administered by a dedicated body designed solely for that purpose?

Yes. Modernised and consolidated Act supported by a  streamlined process of management by an independent body or government agency.  

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On ‎21‎/‎08‎/‎2019 at 21:51, Gordon R said:

If an outside body is brought in, there will be a profit margin. Would the campaign be for a cheaper alternative than the Police?

In each of my last two SGC renewals, the total visit took about an hour, the FEO spent 5 minutes checking the cabinet and serial numbers, and then went right through the whole application form, repeating the questions to which I had already provided information (typed, so no handwriting interpretation problems), and writing down my responses longhand in a little notebook.    When I had already completed the form and signed that the information was true, why did they need to write it down again?   Perfectly pleasant folk, I have no complaints at all about the people involved, and I can only assume they were following procedures imposed from above, but it did seem an extremely inefficient use of staff time.  

What a contrast from my recent passport renewal.   Filled in a form online, ticked the box confirming that the information I had provided was true, pressed a button, the whole application was done and dusted in under 5 minutes, and the new passport dropped though my letterbox a few days later.

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Thanks again to all for the feedback on the consultation both in this thread and by PM, email and telephone conversations. BASC's response has been finalised by the firearms team and should be ready to submit and be published on BASC website on Monday. I will start a new thread in this forum when it is published with a summary of key points and I hope that this will encourage anyone in this forum who has yet to respond to the consultation to do so. The consultation closes on 17 Sept.

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BASC's response was submitted today. The Home Office proposals could lead to the most significant change to firearms licensing in 20 years. Tomorrow afternoon we will publish our response with a summary of key issues and I hope that this will encourage anyone in this forum who has yet to respond to the consultation to do so. The consultation closes at 11.45pm on 17 Sept.

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