UK Government coming for the nation’s shotguns

The British Government has announced that it will launch a consultation later this year to determine whether to apply stricter licensing controls to shotguns.
In the recent government response to its firearms consultation from 2023, it committed to gathering further data from the public to determine whether or not to apply the same licensing controls that are currently in place for firearms to shotguns.
Currently, licences for firearms are more tightly controlled than shotgun licences due to the higher potential risk that firearms are deemed to pose to public safety.
To obtain a firearms certificate currently, a greater number of references are required than for a shotgun certificate, and applicants must also justify the need for each firearm.
Tim Bonner, Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance, said: “On top of the big hike in licence fees that the government has already announced, this is clearly a policy that would reduce gun ownership by making it restrictive, expensive, andbureaucratic, which is why it has the support of anti-gun activists.
“The fact that this significant and unjustified burden on legitimate gun owners would have a huge impact on a sector that contributes £3.3 billion to the economy and supports tens of thousands of jobs—many of them in the most marginal areas of the countryside—is apparently irrelevant.
“However much ministers deny it, many people will see this as part of a wider anti-rural agenda.”
The Government also announced that it has granted police automatic powers of entry into the homes of firearms certificate holders, which BASC has called an “unnecessary erosion of civil liberties.”
The police already have powers of entry to prevent crime if life is in danger. They can also get a warrant from a magistrate, and they can revoke a person’s shotgun or firearms licence.
BASC’s Director of Firearms, Bill Harriman, said: “This is a deeply concerning move that fundamentally undermines the principles of fairness and due process. The government is handing the police sweeping powers to enter the homes of certificate holders when the ability to do so to protect public safety is already enshrined in law.
“This is potentially a serious infringement on the human rights of firearms users. In addition, by removing the safeguard of judicial oversight, a law-abiding section of society has been placed firmly into the category of second-class citizens.”