Publications

Publications

Many of these documents require Adobe Reader to read.  If you do not already have it, you can download it from the Adobe website.


Home Office Guidance to Police (PDF, 995Kb)

Current guidance to the police on the enforcement of the Firearms Act – you really should download this if you are a certificate holder in Great Britain.


Home Office Guidance on firearm issues (link to Home Office)

This is a link to the Home Office website, various things mentioned in the guidance above are explained in more detail.


Cybershooters Campaign Literature (PDF)

A short file with details of our views on what should be done to allow guns for self-defence in Great Britain (note, this was written in 1998 and is a bit stale but the arguments are still valid).


Measures to Regulate Firearms (PDF, 58Kb)

The infamous 1998 UN report outlining provisions for global regulation of private ownership of firearms.  Especially onerous are pages 5 and 6 of the report.


UN Protocol on small arms A/RES/55/255 (PDF, 163Kb)

This is the text of the “Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime”.  This will almost certainly be international in the near future – read carefully. (Updated 26/06/01) 


UN Small Arms Conference 2001 Report (PDF, 247Kb)

This contains the “plan of action” the UN wants every country to adopt in relation to small arms. 


Report of the European Commission on the operation of the European Firearms Directive (PDF, 136Kb)

This is a 2000 report summarising responses from EU member states on the operation of the European Firearms Directive, 91/477/EEC, better known to shooters in the form of the European Firearms Pass and Article 7 authorities.  There are some interesting bits and pieces in this report, paragraph 45 among them. 


Report of Committee on Control of Firearms (scanned from original) (PDF, 3Mb)

Report in text format (PDF, 64kb)

Where it all started – the 1918 report which led to the Firearms Act 1920 and firearms legislation throughout much of the British Empire.  Here you can read how the firearm certification system came to be.  Note the hand-written crossings out and “Confidential” on the cover – this was a classified document until 1968!   Also especially noteworthy are the reasons given for the inclusion of rifles in the licensing system.

Crown copyright is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.  This material must not be copied, distributed, published or sold without the permission of the Controller of HMSO.


Use of Licensed Firearms in Homicide (PDF, 281Kb)

Another classic – although definitely biased with lots of “ifs” and “buts”, this Home Office report indicates that in the period 1992-94 in England & Wales 92.5% of handgun-related homicides and 86-89% of firearm-related homicides were committed with illegally possessed firearms!  These are the only detailed and supported statistics which exist that separate out legal and illegally possessed gun use in crime in this country.


Breakdown of legal firearms used in crime (PDF, 86Kb)

This is a more detailed breakdown of the figures presented in the report above, and actually show that the Home Office is wrong – two of the crimes supposedly committed with handguns were actually with rifles.  Of the four remaining “crimes”, one was an accident and another was a suicide.  So in fact in the period 1992-94, only two murders were committed with legally possessed handguns in England & Wales!

A Parliamentary question elicited more information.


Application for the grant, renewal or variation of a firearm/shotgun certificate (PDF, 370Kb)

The current form 201. These forms are used throughout Great Britain.


Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997

The law that scapegoated 57,000 innocent people for the actions of one madman – read the detail of the law that banned handguns, expanding ammunition and mail order sales of firearms and ammunition in Great Britain.  Should be read in conjunction with the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 that repealed the exemptions for small-calibre pistols kept at licensed pistol clubs – effectively making anyone in possession of an air pistol with a muzzle energy of more than 6 ft/lb a criminal, liable to ten years in prison if caught!


Firearms Rules 1998

Firearms (Amendment) Rules 2014

Regulations made under the Firearms Acts 1968 – 1997 relating to the possession of firearms and forms of certificates and permits.  Note the 2014 Rules update the forms.


Study to Support an Impact Assessment on Options for Combatting Illicit Firearms Trafficking in the European Union (PDF)

Now tell me, how often do you get to link to something with a title like that???  Anyway, this is a study into illegal firearms trafficking across the EU, published in 2014.  Mooted when the European Firearms Directive was updated in 2008.


Study to support an Impact Assessment on a possible initiative related to improving rules on deactivation, destruction and marking procedures of firearms in the EU, as well as on alarm weapons and replicas (PDF)

The EU commissioned Ernst & Young to do a study into the use of deactivated firearms and blank firers in 2014, also in order to figure out whether the European Firearms Directive needed fiddling with.  To cut a long story short, this study seems to think there should be a common EU standard for deactivated firearms and blank firers.


“And lastly, to vindicate these rights, when actually violated or attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next, to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and, lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence.” – Sir William Blackstone, from ‘Commentaries on the Laws of England’, 1783