All is not yet lost

Our licensing system means that it is easy to check provenance of a firearm but a new database will be even better, says Diggory Hadoke

Should you find a Purdey under the bed when an aged relation shuffles off this mortal coil, there will be a few procedures to follow before you can safely consign it to your gun cabinet as its official new owner.

The appearance of an unlicensed shotgun is not uncommon and the police take a sensible view of this reality. They want unlawfully held guns to be ‘in the system’ so they make it easy to legitimise them. You simply have to contact your local police firearms unit and explain the situation, tell them you have a certificate and that you found the gun.

The police will then make sure it was not stolen by checking the National Firearms Licensing Management System. This relatively new facility is not perfect but, in theory, it will eventually contain all legally held firearms in the country and make it easy to check their passage of ownership.

Any system is only as good as the data inputter and it is not at all unusual to find information stored is out of date or incorrect. This might be because someone has not got round to updating the system with information from a letter or a form, or has incorrectly noted a serial number or bore size.

Lost record

The incorporation of a national system has not been smooth. In 2013 South Yorkshire Police were criticised for losing the records pertaining to 9,000 licence holders and their firearms. The data was simply not being put into the system.