Knife seller licensing plan ‘doomed to failure’

BASC and the Gun Trade Association (GTA) have jointly condemned Home Office proposals to introduce a licensing system for sellers and importers of knives and bladed articles, warning the plans would burden legitimate traders while doing nothing to curb knife crime.
Under the proposals, private sellers, cutlery dealers, gun trade wholesalers and retailers would be required to apply to police for a licence costing up to £466 for a three-year period.
BASC’s director of firearms, Bill Harriman, said the plans ignored the “obvious uncontrollable ease of access to kitchen knives in every home in the country”, adding that Government needed to address the root causes of why some young people resort to bladed weapons rather than regulate those who sell them lawfully.
GTA chief executive Stephen Jolly added: “The imposition of further costs on registered firearms dealers and other retailers already struggling with a heavy tax and regulatory burden is deeply undesirable. It is unlikely that private sellers and smaller traders would consider the cost of a license to be justified.”
He also warned that police services already struggling with firearms licensing backlogs were ill-equipped to absorb an additional knife-licensing function. “Adding a further licensing burden for knives to already overstretched police services for firearms is unrealistic and doomed to failure,” he said.
Both organisations have called on the Home Office to conduct a thorough review of the evidential basis for the proposals before proceeding.