Gun Ownership
Last edited 2023-04-26
Guns in the United Kingdom can be a sensitive subject. After events such as the Dunblane massacre and Hungerford massacre (committed with legal firearms), gun laws became much stricter and they have continued to become stricter over the years. Currently, the process to get a gun in the UK means you have to meet various criteria and will take a lot of time.
In this, I may use the word firearm and shotgun interchangeably but defined by current licensing law, a 2 + 1 shotgun is not a firearm.
I generally dislike having photos of me with guns but I have decided to allow some to publish so here is me with a pistol in Istanbul and a shotgun in London.
Frequency of Shootings
Shootings don’t happen very often but of course still do happen. A recent one I heard of was at a church in London leaving a child in critical condition. A lot of regulations around guns has meant it is too difficult for most criminals to acquire firearms for malicious intent. A lot of the shootings that do occur are with guns from previous wars that criminals have found. Attempting to import illegal firearms is expensive and usually doesn’t bode well for them. A lot of people in Britain can live their whole life here without ever hearing a gun shot.
However, criminals can just use other tools like a knife and you hear about stabbings all the time. The laws around carrying knives is very tight but criminals don’t follow the law and knives are easy to acquire so they use them. Printing your own firearms isn’t very popular yet either but with more development in that space over the coming years, criminals will consider it as a viable option and illegal gun ownership will be as popular as illegal knife carrying so shootings will happen much more often. I’m concerned how the government will respond to that.
The Process
You must be seen as not a threat to public safety by the police who act as the licensing authority and you must show you need it for work, sport or leisure regularly. For the leisure / sport option, you should be a member of a shooting club already as a full member which can take months to become. Police background check is done for this too.
You must be interviewed by the police which shouldn’t be too bad. They can come inside your home to see if where you intend to store your firearms is safe and it must be stored in a safe way such as a police approved gun locker or a gun room. If you have many guns in your home, they may make you increase security such as setting up a home security system. There is a criminal background check and you must get references from friends (not direct family) that you have known for a long amount of time that have good reputation. Your GP will need to fill out a document and if you have any history that may be concerning, it doesn’t mean you will be denied but it does mean you will need to explain it in your interview. A lot of these things aren’t too bad but the whole process takes a lot of time.
Purchasing a gun and having it stored an approved place like your club can help make the process a little faster.
What Guns Can You Own?
You can own low powered air weapons without a license in England and Whales. Deactivated firearms don’t require a license either. Some guns made specially to only fire blanks are easy to get.
You can own pistols in Northern Ireland but mainland Britain has strict laws around pistols. If they are long barrelled and have a brace for it to be considered a firearm under section 1, then it is okay. Either semi-auto .22 or any calibre single-shot. Parts of section 7 allow for people like collectors to get other pistols that may not fall under section 1 but it is still very difficult. Muzzle-loader pistols are allowed with some limits.
Shotguns go under section 2 as long as they cannot store more than 2 + 1. Shotguns with a greater capacity go under section 1. Acquiring a section 1 is more difficult.
Rifles can be in any calibre but cannot be semi-auto or pump action unless they fire in .22 in which case it can be.
There are a few other rules too like that you cannot hold past an agreed amount of ammunition for rifles unlike for shotguns and that shotguns are at least 24 inches and rifles have an overall length of 24 inches with the barrel at least 12 inches. You can’t just get things such as armor piercing .50 cal rounds either. Guns that aren’t semi-auto but are something close to it (rapid fire firearms) that aren’t in .22 do not go under section 1 anymore. An example is where one pull of the trigger fires, second pull of the trigger chambers another round and the third fires again.
All other guns are under section 5 which doesn’t mean they are banned but you need a very good reason to get those guns and the process with the police will be much more tough. For almost all citizens, you cannot get these. This includes everything from short shotguns to machine pistols.
Attachments like a silencer are not difficult to get and no magazine capacity restrictions.
Here are some examples of what guns we can own here. Benelli 12 gauge M2 Speed, M&P15-22, UZI .22, Sauer .308, Accuracy International AX50.
Transportation
It’s common sense. If you have purchased a gun for shooting at a range, you can only carry to your shooting club for example and then back to where you store your gun. Don’t have your gun loaded in transport, keep it secure in your vehicle, have it in a case. Some public transport may not permit carrying of guns so check. It is not okay to carry it openly. You will cause a panic or at least discomfort so do not do that. The law says to transport in a way where it can’t be ready to shoot in a short period of time.
self-defense?
Purchase and carrying of a gun for self-defense is not legal. If you do this, it is considered an offensive weapon. The way the law is written means anything at all can be considered an offensive weapon from your keys to a charging cable as long as they can prove intent.
I disagree with laws like these because no matter how much the government wants to pretend, crime occurs and when you don’t have the ability to do something about it, you can lose your life, liberty and property. Laws like these are put it in place in good faith but I see them as putting more people at risk. “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away”.
The United States
I understand why the second ammendment was put in place but both sides on the gun debate seem to be unreasonable.
The right wants far looser laws though a majority still support things such as the background check. When any sort of gun regulation is brought up, they scream tyranny. Something they can’t understand is even though the people have a right to bear arms, this right is not unlimited. If it was, you should expect a convicted felon that was only just released to be able to legally purchase and carry a PKM wherever they want to. If you consider arms to mean any sort of weapon instead of guns, then this can mean a citizen being able to fly a UAV and wear a bomb vest where they want to.
The chance of being shot in the US isn’t very likely but mass shootings occur a lot and they don’t seem to want any more gun regulations to come in to address this. It’s terrible that school children need to worry about being shot at school. In the UK, you never think about that as a student. You may still be concerned about being stabbed but not of a mass killing. School shootings happen in other parts of the world but the americans get it far too often. The right’s solution is to arm teachers and have armed security guards. This somewhat addresses the problem but not entirely. The person that was looking to shoot up a school should have been stopped before they even held the gun. A good way to do that would be some more restrictive gun regulations.
The left want to in all meaning remove the second amendment. They are just doing it bit by bit. Many people hunt, use for sport or work and they get a harder time because of new laws restricting them further. A topic the left love to ignore is that guns are used for self-defense more often than criminal purposes.
Taking away so many guns from good people in a country like the US doesn’t make a place safer. A lot of criminals can still purchase guns illegally there. Guns are all over the US so these gun laws just make more people helpless against people that wish to cause harm. In their eyes, guns are the cause of crime but it goes so much deeper than that and a lot of them blissfully ignore this.
It’s funny how the US has a right to bear arms yet some of the restrictions put in states like New York and California are stricter than the laws in Britain despite it being a privilege instead of a right for us. Magazine capacity restrictions is a good example. Maximum of 10 in California. The UK doesn’t have a limit.
Here is a video of Mark Robinson’s speech. archive.org backup. Context is his response to the Greensboro City Council’s plan to ban gun show use of the city owned Coliseum.
“[…] they wrote it for everybody and I am everybody and the law abiding citizens of this city are everybody and we want our rights and we want to keep our rights and by God we’re going to keep them. Come hell or high water.” - Mark Robinson
Conclusion
Overall, I think most of the laws are reasonable in the UK but in some parts, they go too far. It isn’t as bad as some countries gun laws like Japan so I shouldn’t complain too much.
They suggested not allowing .50 cal in section 1 anymore but that part of the bill was struck down. There are new suggestions coming down to get rid of section 2 and put all shotguns under section 1. The law is always changing so make sure to keep up to date.