Conor O’Gorman reviews the latest firearms licensing data and the use of BASC’s Fighting Fund to challenge unfair revocations and refusals.
The latest Home Office firearms licensing statistics for England and Wales (April 2023 to March 2024) show a significant rise in revocations and refusals by dozens of police forces.
The data, taken off the National Firearms Licensing Management System, shows that 507 firearm certificates were revoked (21% annual increase), whilst 1,559 shotgun certificates were also revoked (a 34% annual increase).
Some 414 people were refused a new grant application for a firearm certificate (a 6% annual increase) and 1,072 people were refused a shotgun certificate (also a 6% annual increase).
Why are annual revocations and refusals numbers going up?
In the aftermath of the Keyham shootings, police forces have become even more risk adverse in decision making, and new statutory guidance has widened the scope of checks police can make.
We do not want unsuitable people having access to firearms, but firearms licensing departments are increasingly depriving perfectly safe people of their certificates due to a zero-risk tolerance approach and abrogating responsibility for decision making to a judge.
Guardians
Forces need to be held to account and that is where BASC comes in.
In addition to fielding thousands of phone calls and email queries on all matters relating to firearms licensing, BASC’s firearms team and legal advisers also help dozens of people annually
with what we consider to be unfair decision making.
Through its network of regional and country teams BASC works hard to maintain positive working relationships with firearms licensing departments across the UK and as a result can resolve many cases amicably.
However, sometimes BASC needs to bring in the lawyers, and to go to court, and below are three recent case studies that have given police forces across the land food for thought.
Last year, the firearms team was contacted by a Young Shot member aged nine who had been refused a shotgun certificate on the grounds of his age alone. The Firearms Act has no minimum age for the grant of a shotgun certificate and any applicant must be judged according to the statutory test, irrespective of age. In this case, the youngster came from a shooting family, was a member of a clay shooting club and had regular lessons. The youngster was interviewed by the director of firearms and a relevant regional director and both concluded the refusal was unjust.
With the support of its Fighting Find, BASC agreed to support an appeal to the Crown Court. Initially, the chief officer refused to accede to requests for a negotiated settlement. However, after protracted correspondence from BASC and its legal advisors the certificate was eventually granted.
Turning to revocations, we have had to go to court to resolve two cases so far this year, one of them in Cheshire, the other in Kent.
In the Cheshire case, while I am unable to divulge the details, the circumstances surrounding this revocation were a clear injustice based on an ill-considered and risk-averse decision by Cheshire Constabulary and we supported the member with his appeal which he won.
In the other case, BASC member Chris Sharp won an appeal against the revocation of his firearm and shotgun certificates by Kent Police.
The appeal was upheld as the judge and magistrate panel were of the view that Mr Sharp was clearly the victim of an unprovoked assault, not the instigator, was not a threat to public safety, and was not of “intemperate habits”.
In the final written judgement, it was concluded that “we do not find any evidence which supports the findings of the Chief Constable”.
Cost control
These cases incurred significant legal costs but thanks to the Fighting Fund the members did not suffer any financial loss. Indeed, for the two revocation cases the judge awarded some of the costs back to us—which the police had to pay—a rather rare event and indicative of just how ill-advised the revocations were.
Turning back to the Home Office data, is the recent increase in revocations and refusals just a temporary spike in numbers? It’s hard to know until we see next year’s figures.
However, to put things in perspective, the total number of shotgun and firearm certificates revoked in England and Wales were both circa 0.3% of the total number of respective certificates on issue as of March 31 2024 (495,798 shotgun certificates and 147,364 firearm certificates).
A much bigger concern is the ongoing drop in shotgun certificate holders in England and Wales which is mainly due to people not renewing their certificate. Last year alone, renewals were down 19,850 from the previous year and since the 2020 Covid pandemic shotgun certificate holders have dropped by 71,000.
We have not seen drops of that scale in Scotland and Northern Ireland and the key driver is likely more people giving up due to a combination of backlogs in renewals and the introduction of GP verification and fees.
That is why it is so important that we continue to push for improvements in firearms licensing nationally, as well as holding individual police forces to account for decision making.
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