Firearms regulation in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, gun ownership is considered a privilege, not a right,[1] and access by the general public to firearms is subject to strict control measures.[8] Pistol shooting for sporting purposes was effectively banned in 1997, although a temporary exemption was made for competitors to bring Section 5 firearms into the UK for the 2002 Commonwealth Games.[11] With Glasgow winning the right to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games, this arrangement was extended beyond the Olympics, with a small number of UK ranges licensed for Section 5 shooting.[15] Specific models of blank-firing starting pistol that are "readily convertible" to fire live ammunition may also be either banned or require a firearm certificate.The Bruni Olympic .380 BBM blank-firing revolver was banned in 2010 on evidence that it was being illegally converted to fire live ammunition.[16][17] In October 2024, the National Crime Agency declared that Turkish-manufactured side/top venting blank-firing pistol replicas by companies such as BLOW, CEONIC, EKOL, and Retay, which were previously sold legally in the United Kingdom are officially classed as Section 5 firearms.The decision was made following several police seizures of lethally-modified blank pistols and at least 4 murders being committed using similar weapons in the past 2 years.[18] Single-, double-, or triple-barrelled shotguns, or those with a lever-action, bolt-action, pump-action, or semi-automatic action and fixed magazine capacity of no more than 2 cartridges are permitted on a shotgun certificate as long as they meet the criteria of having a minimum barrel length of 24 inches (61 cm), overall length of 40 inches (100 cm), and a non-detachable magazine (if present).Under Home Office guidelines, firearm certificates are only issued if a person has legitimate sporting, collecting, or work-related reasons for ownership.[43] As of 31 March 2024, there were: In 2006, Glasgow politician Tommy Sheridan of the political party Solidarity launched a consultation to restrict possession of air guns, highlighting recent cases including the death of toddler Andrew Morton, but the Scottish Parliament did not have the power to ban airguns at the time so any measures would have needed to be formally approved by the government of the United Kingdom.[46] Around this time, the media gave some exposure to growing public desire to have air guns banned or regulated, particularly from the parents of a child that died after being struck in the head by a pellet in Easterhouse,[47] a suburb of east Glasgow.The Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice foreword in the consultation paper (titled Proposals for Licensing Air Weapons in Scotland[51]) stated that the Scottish government "[does] not intend to ban air weapons outright, but [does] not think that it is appropriate in our modern Scotland that there can be up to half a million unregistered, uncontrolled and often forgotten firearms in circulation".It stated an aim to "ensure that only those people with a legitimate reason for owning and using an airgun should have access to them in the future, and that they are properly licensed and accounted for".[citation needed] Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom where personal protection is accepted as a legitimate reason to obtain and own a firearm.The concept of legislating the use and ownership of weapons goes back at least as far as 1285 (13 Edward I) when the teaching or practice of fencing with a buckler was banned in the City of London.[61] The first legislation to specifically mention firearms was 6 Henry VIII c. 13 (1514) that prohibited the use of hand guns by anyone who did not own land with an income of at least forty marks per year.There was an exception if you lived on a ship, or within seven miles of the sea, or, "upon any of the English Marches foranenst Scotland," when you were allowed to use a gun or crossbow to defend your home or the town.[63][64] In 1534, as a result of dissent within Wales to King Henry VIII proclaiming himself head of the Church of England, it was made illegal for any Welsh man or anyone in Wales to take a weapon of any sort, "any bill, longebowe, crosbowe, handgon, swerde, staffe, daggare, halberde, morespike, speare, or any other maner of weapon," to any public assembly, fair, market, church, or meeting, or within two miles of any court (26 Henry VIII c.There is no mention of whether or not these men had to be registered, but anyone living in Wales was excused finding a hagbutt, and had to replace each weapon with a longbow and sheaf of arrows.[70] The 1662 Act 14 Cha 2 c. 3, entitled An Act for ordering the Forces in the several Counties of this Kingdom, passed shortly after the Restoration, enabled and authorized, by warrant, local government personnel to search for and seize all arms in the custody or possession of any person or persons whom the government judged dangerous to the peace of the kingdom.[74] 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.The first British firearm controls were introduced as part of the Vagrancy Act 1824, which was set up in a reaction against the large number of people roaming the country with weapons brought back from the Napoleonic wars.It allowed the police to arrest "any person with any gun, pistol, hanger [a light sword], cutlass, bludgeon or other offensive weapon ... with intent to commit a felonious act".Local chief constables decided who could obtain a certificate and had the power to exclude anyone of "intemperate habits" or "unsound mind", or anyone considered "for any reason unfitted to be trusted with firearms".A series of classified Home Office directives defined for the benefit of chief constables what constituted good reason to grant a certificate.2) Act 1997, defining "short firearms" as Section 5 prohibited weapons, which effectively banned private possession of handguns almost completely in Great Britain.MARS and Lever release firearms were moved to s5 due to a perception that they represented a "loophole" around the prohibition on semi-automatic rifles and could "fire rapidly".The tragedy led to improvements in inter-departmental sharing of police intelligence and deeper background checks of firearm certificate applicants.An investigation into the events that transpired during this incident quickly revealed that Davison had previously lost his shotgun certificate after admitting to assaulting two youths at a park.[110] Provision of appropriate role training had originally been recommended by the Cullen Inquiry into the 1996 Dunblane massacre, but had not been implemented by Police or the Home Office.