New guide promotes firearms safety and mental health awareness

[Conor O'Gorman]

The National Police Chiefs’ Council has launched a new guide to support firearms certificate holders experiencing poor mental health. BASC supports the initiative, emphasising the importance of mental health awareness within the shooting sector and encouraging open discussions without fear of losing firearms certificates.

Click the following link to download the leaflet:

https://basc.org.uk/download/385528/?tmstv=1738673445 

A BASC overview is here:

https://basc.org.uk/new-guide-promotes-firearms-safety-and-mental-health-awareness/ 

This follows a similar initiative that has been running for several years in Scotland.

https://www.scotland.police.uk/about-us/what-we-do/firearms-and-explosives-licensing/firearms-licensing-mental-health-awareness-and-support/ 

 

[HantsRob]

Conor, I think in theory it's great. But, the spirit of that must be upheld by the local licencing teams. 
PS have stated:

Once the police have considered all the circumstances and concluded their assessment, they may decide to:

• Return the guns to the certificate holder, if appropriate to do so
• Come to an arrangement where the guns are stored remotely
• Apply conditions to a firearms certificate
• Suggest that the certificate holder surrenders their certificates and then reapply when their health has improved
• Revoke the certificates, if appropriate, and if necessary to ensure public safety.

The only 2 comments I have are;

whether they ever consider being a "transport service", as in take them to a local dealer for storage if the person with ill mental health agrees to pay for storage, with conditions on the dealer and certificate holder that they can only store or sell. This reduces police storage, damage, and future issues. 

whether anecdotally they can show demonstrable cases where they haven't seized guns (I really don't like "temporarily take control" as it is not that, it is a seizure. Point above would be taking control temporarily, whilst allowing the certificate holder "control" to sell if they wish). I wonder what is their tipping point, as the Police point of view of public safety may differ to a doctors opinion, and I wonder if there's ever been a conflict where a doctor has said it's manageable and the police have just used the "what if" clause to ignore that advice.

 

This is not bashing, more musing. I think this is a great step forward for "it's ok to talk about it", and we should avoid situations where we feel we can't report ill mental health. I don't care who drives this initiative, it is a great one if the spirit of it is followed. Thankyou for promoting mental health as an issue that we can work together for the greater good.

Final thought is that I would hate my guns being "temporarily taken control" of, however it will always feel like punishment. Bridging that gap with temporary conditions and dealer storage would really build bridges to a better future IMO.