Time to take action

Bill Harriman reflects on the most important consultation on gun ownership for three decades and urges us all to respond

- Bill Harriman

On 12 August 2021, a very troubled young man shot five people dead and then killed himself with a licensed shotgun at Keyham, near Plymouth. After the inquest into these deaths in March this year, calls for changes to firearms licensing law were made by the coroner and the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the IOPC. The main thrust of their recommendations was that shotguns should be licensed in the same way as sporting rifles.

On 29 June, the Home Office policing minister, Chris Philp MP, made a written statement to the Commons responding to these recommendations. In his statement, the minister said: “Public safety is our priority, but the measures to manage the risk to public safety must be proportionate and balanced with the fact that the vast majority of licensed firearms holders are law-abiding and cause no concern.”

This is an amazing statement, coming as it does from a Government minister: I have never heard the like in 32 years. It is an endorsement of firearms ownership by responsible people and an acknowledgment that the firearms licensing process is all about targeted risk management rather than blanket restrictions.

The minister went on to say: “It is for this reason that the Government has decided not to proceed with the recommendations made to align shotgun and firearms legislation and the concern from the coroner that there appears to be a legislative presumption in the Firearms Act 1968 in favour of granting a firearms certificate. Shotguns are already subject to significant controls on their use….”