Written evidence submitted by the National
Farmers Union
1. The NFU represents over 55,000 farm businesses
in England and Wales, involving an estimated 155,000 farmers and
partners in the business. In addition the NFU has over 55,000
countryside members interested in farming and the countryside.
Our members regularly use firearms for pest control, and many
may also use them for recreational purposes such as game shooting,
wildfowling and clay target shooting.
2. The NFU welcomes the committee's decision
to launch an inquiry into firearms control. As a responsible industry
which accounts for a significant degree of legitimate firearm
ownership and use in the UK, and in light of public concern regarding
gun crime, particularly following the recent, tragic shooting
incidents in Cumbria and Northumberland, the NFU believes that
it is right and proper that the effectiveness of firearm controls
is debated openly and fully.
3. It is the NFU's firm view that current firearms
controls provide adequate and proportional safeguards against
the supply and use of such weapons for criminal or subversive
purposes. We also believe they are effective in ensuring licence-holders
are responsible individuals, who are able to handle firearms safely,
so limiting the risk of accidents that can occur as a result of
firearms use. We believe that any attempts to further tighten
firearms controls will only serve to hamper the lawful and often
necessary use of firearms by farmers, for instance as a highly
effective method of pest control, while having little effect on
tackling gun violence.
4. The committee has set out the areas it will
be focusing on in particular, and it is not our intention to address
all of them in full. There are a number of organisations better
placed to advise the committee on the evidence and arguments around,
for instance, the risk of offenders accessing firearms or information
sharing between medical professionals and the police. We also
do not go into great detail on the current requirements which
applicants must meet under the licensing regime, save to say we
believe that both the shotgun and firearm licensing systems provide
a substantial safeguard in ensuring only appropriate and responsible
individuals qualify for firearm ownership. Instead, our submission
seeks to emphasise the following points: that farmers require
practical access to firearms in managing their businesses; that
current legislation strikes a tough but fair balance between restricting
access to firearms while allowing law-abiding and responsible
citizens to use them, whether for commercial or recreational purposes;
and that we can discern no credible argument that a further tightening
of what is already one of the strictest gun control regimes in
the world will materially improve public safety.
5. In the sections below we address some of the
areas for discussion identified by the committee in more detail,
and in support of the general principles outlined above.
QUESTION 1
6. The extent to which legally-held guns are
used in criminal activity and the relationship between gun control
and gun crime, including the impact of the Firearms (Amendment)
Acts 1997
6.1 The British Shooting Sports Council
(BSSC) and the British Association for Shooting & Conservation
(BASC) have highlighted that there are no reliable statistics
on the extent to which legally held guns are used in armed crime.
Indeed, there seems little evidence of any causal relationship
between gun crime and levels of legal ownership of firearms. Home
Office figures do not show an obvious correlation between the
two, and indeed have shown that a fall in gun crime in any given
year can be accompanied by a rise in legal ownership, and vice
versa.
6.2 Home Office figures in fact show that gun
crime is primarily committed using weapons other than those covered
by the firearms licensing regime—shotguns or rifles (whether
held legally or otherwise). In 2008-09 handguns, which are almost
entirely banned under the Firearms (Amendments) Acts, and therefore
fall outside the firearms licensing regime, were accountable for
over a half of non-airgun firearm crimes, while shotguns accounted
for just 8% and rifles 1%[12].
6.3 Farmers are among the most experienced users
of guns, having often grown up in close proximity to their use
by family members, and there is a strong culture of instilling
in young members of farming families and communities an appreciation
of the importance of handling guns safely and responsibly. Farmers
are more aware than most of the lethal capabilities of firearms,
and are concerned not only that they themselves use them safely,
but that they do not let them fall into the wrong hands where
they might cause harm to others. This attitude is supported by
current firearms legislation—farmers are well aware of their
obligations to keep their firearms securely, and risk losing their
licences if they do not.
QUESTION 2
7. Whether or not the current laws governing
firearms licensing are fit for purpose, including progress on
implementing the Committee's recommendations set out in its Second
Report of the 1999-2000 session
7.1 Protection of public safety is the key principle
behind the firearms licensing regime. In achieving this overarching
goal, the notion of proportionality must be respected in accommodating
the legitimate ownership and use of firearms. From a farming perspective,
the NFU believes that the current system effectively protects
public safety without preventing farmers from using shotguns and
rifles responsibly when they need or wish to do so. The police
can withhold granting a licence in the absence of a good reason
for possessing a gun or if the applicant is likely to be a danger
to the public safety or to the peace. This is an assessment we
believe the police carry out well, and which ensures firearms
are not available as a matter of course to anybody that wants
one. Furthermore, Section 1 firearms, most commonly rifles, are
subject to even more stringent controls, and licence holders must
show the purpose for which they possess a particular calibre of
rifle.
7.2 Farmers primarily use firearms for pest control,
whether shotguns, for instance under a general licence for controlling
pigeons which destroy crops, or rifles for controlling larger
pests, such as foxes which threaten poultry and disturb livestock.
It should be remembered that landowners are in fact obliged by
law to control rabbits on their land, under the Pest Act 1954,
and firearms are a particularly suitable method of rabbit control.
There are other methods of controlling pests, which farmers use
in concert with firearms, but their effectiveness would be severely
hampered without adequate access to guns and ammunition. As a
pest control tool, they are often the most efficient, time-effective
and flexible method at a farmer's disposal.
7.3 It is important to note that to be this effective,
farmers must be able to access both guns and ammunition quickly
and at all times of day and night. This allows them to fit in
pest control activity with other farming activities that do not
necessarily follow strict timetables. For example an arable farmer
may have to stop spray applications suddenly due to a change in
the weather or a machinery fault, allowing a window of opportunity
to undertake pest control. It also allows them to deal with problems
as soon as they arise, for instance the sudden presence of a fox,
or at night-time when certain pests can be controlled more effectively.
The current regime, once an applicant has met the strict requirements
to be granted a licence, allows this level of flexibility. It
should also be borne in mind that different types or calibre of
firearms are required depending on the quarry. It is important,
therefore, that the current regime allows owners to possess a
range of firearms. The current regime of course extends to licensees
beyond farmers, but this in itself can also be a benefit to farms
which often require external and non-professional (although experienced)
assistance in pest control. This is particularly important on
larger commercial farms or farms in remote areas, where farmers
themselves may be too busy or too far away to control pests themselves.
It should also be noted that many farmers have diversified
into offering recreational shooting as a commercial concern, or
benefit from commercial arrangements with neighbouring shoots
in providing land or other amenities. In particular, less favoured
areas where profitable farming is marginal often provide some
of the more challenging and sought-after game shooting environments,
allowing farmers to supplement their farming income by letting
shoot days to paying guests. The value of shooting to the UK has
been estimated by PACEC in 2006 at £1.6 billion[13].
While we do not have a specific breakdown of the proportion of
this applicable to farms and farmer-owners of shoots, there is
a clear link between farming and commercial shooting, much of
which takes place on farmland. Further to this, the best and therefore
potentially most profitable shoots tend to be those run along
high standards of conservational practice. Farming is already
proud of the achievements being made in habitat and wildlife management,
through voluntary schemes such as the Campaign for the Farmed
Environment; conservational activity relating to shooting supports
farming's role in protecting and enhancing our natural environment.
7.4 Turning to the main rationale for gun control,
public safety, gun crime is generally on the decrease in the UK.
Home Office figures show that the number of recorded offences
in which firearms were used has been falling steadily since the
beginning of the last decade. While much of this is due to a reduction
in offences involving airguns, the number of offences involving
shotguns and rifles has remained relatively stable, and more importantly,
comparatively low. Unfortunately, tragic incidents such as the
murders recently committed by Derrick Bird in Cumbria and Raoul
Moat in Northumberland understandably garner a good deal of media
coverage, and therefore public interest. The consequence is that
they mask the wider improvements in gun crime figures and perhaps
falsely create an impression that measures currently used to tackle
gun crime, of which the licensing regime is a part, are not working
and therefore in need of amendment. Of equal concern, they increase
the perception that there is a significant level of risk to the
public posed by such incidents.
7.5 It is worth reflecting on one particular
suggestion that has been made in the aftermath of these events—that
licensees should be required to keep their ammunition separate
from their firearms, for instance with the local police station.
We believe such a measure would be impractical, unworkable and
disproportionate. Police forces would suffer from the increase
in workload and farmers would lose the vital ability to access
firearms and ammunition at short notice when dealing with pests.
It is also unlikely that Mr Bird would have been prevented from
acting as he did had such regulation been in place, given the
relative pre-meditation involved in his actions. Perhaps most
importantly, such a system could only work if police forces also
accurately monitored how much ammunition was used on each occasion,
a completely impractical requirement.
In truth, and without detracting from the terrible
consequences of their actions, these violent outbursts are remarkably
rare, and the risk posed to the public of similar incidents in
the future remains very small. We do not believe that measures
to restrict possession of firearms further would necessarily prevent
the occurrence of such exceptional and irrational events.
QUESTION 5
8. The danger presented by, and legislation regulating,
airguns.
8.1 There are strict rules in place applying
to owning an air rifle or pistol. These include a power limit
of 12ft/lb, and a restriction from buying an airgun or airgun
ammunition unless 18 years of age. Airguns are considered firearms
for the purposes of criminal law, and their misuse can lead to
severe penalties including imprisonment. As mentioned above, the
reduction in numbers of crimes involving airguns has fallen significantly
in recent years.
8.2 The ability for farmers to use airguns is
vital. There are areas on a typical farm, for instance around
buildings, where it is not practical or safe to use a shotgun
for vermin control. In particular, rats in and around farm buildings
are often controlled by using airguns, as part of a broader pest
control strategy.
8.3 Many of the arguments made above apply to
farmers' use of airguns. With airgun related crime falling, and
with the use of airguns in pest control of proven value to farmers,
we do not believe there is any need to amend the current legislation
relating to this type of firearm.
9. Summary
9.1 While we welcome public debate around firearms
control, and accept that an issue as sensitive as this must receive
periodical and open scrutiny as to its effectiveness, it is not
clear to us that there currently exists any rationale for tightening
gun controls. Serious gun crime primarily involves illegally held
hand guns and so would remain largely unaffected by any change
in the licensing regime—shotguns and rifles are identified
in less than 10% of firearm crime.
9.2 Accidents involving legally held guns are
thankfully few and far between, and emotive incidents such as
those in Cumbria and Northumberland are, while immensely tragic,
extremely rare—particularly when held up in the light of
similar incidents elsewhere in the world. It is not clear what
proportional measures could have been taken to effectively prevent
either incident, whether relating to gun control or unrelated
preventative action. What is clear is that some of the measures
suggested in their aftermath, such as keeping ammunition at a
separate location, would almost certainly have failed to prevent
the tragedies, while seriously hampering a farmer's ability to
carry out effective pest control, not to mention that it would
be incredibly difficult to police.
9.3 In the absence of credible or persuasive
arguments for changing current firearms controls in the UK, we
do not believe such change need be considered for its own sake.
Farmers are responsible and conscientious users of firearms, well
versed in handling and securing shotguns and rifles safely and
effectively, who happily co-operate with police firearms officers
and who closely observe the obligations of their licences. Any
impediment to farmers' ability to use firearms quickly and flexibly
would have serious detrimental consequences for their businesses.
19 August 2010
12 Home Office Statistical Bulletin: Homicides, Firearm
Offences and Intimate Violence, 2008-09 Back
13
PACEC, The Economic and Environmental Impact of Sporting Shooting,
2006 Back
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