Memorandum submitted by the Gun Control
Network
SUMMARY
1. The Gun Control Network argues, and produces
evidence, that gun control works. The UK's strict gun laws ensure
that gun crime remains comparatively rare in this country. Recent
legislative changes have contributed to the current trend of falling
gun crime. Nevertheless further measures must still be taken to
reduce the risk of guns getting into the "wrong hands".
2. A significant proportion of gun offences
are committed with legally-held guns, both those that require
a licence eg shotguns and those that do not eg imitation weapons
and most airguns. Any government which is serious about reducing
gun crime further cannot ignore their contribution to the problem.
3. Gun ownership is a privilege and not
a right and the prime purpose of legislation should be about minimising
the risk to others. The licensing procedure should be such that
the onus must be on the gun owner to demonstrate his/her ongoing
suitability and need for a particular gun. The bar should be raised
to ensure that only those who meet the strictest criteria are
permitted to own guns that can kill, injure or threaten.
4. We make a number of recommendations to
deal with weaknesses in current licensing procedures. These include:
— the adoption of a single rigorous system
that includes firearms, shotguns and airguns with a much shorter
renewal period and more input into the process from family, ex-partners
and professionals who might be aware of reasons why a person is
not suitable;
— the cost of this more rigorous system
to be borne by gun owners;
— more openness about gun ownership making
it possible for relevant professionals and members of the public
to know who has a licence and for what purpose; and
— a new "hot line" for recording
concerns about a gun owner and a stringent and consistent policy
over revocations in response to such concerns.
GUN CONTROL
NETWORK
1. The Gun Control Network (GCN) was set
up in 1996 after the Dunblane massacre and campaigns for tighter
gun legislation. Our active membership includes a number of families
who have personal experience of the harm caused by guns. We do
not represent any special interest and are solely concerned with
protecting the public from the misuse of guns. We routinely monitor
gun incidents occurring throughout Great Britain and compare the
level and type of gun crime reported by the media with that recorded
in official statistics.
EVIDENCE
Gun Control Works
2. It is our firm view that gun control
works and that society is best protected from the misuse of guns
when ownership and use are tightly regulated.
3. The UK has strict gun laws and gun crime
is relatively rare. Comparisons between industrialised countries
show that there is a correlation between the levels of gun ownership
and gun violence. This country has one of the lowest rates of
gun death with annual gun homicides in England and Wales at 0.10
per 100,000 population compared, for example, with 0.69 in Canada,
0.93 in Switzerland and 3.52 in the USA (Gun Violence: The
Global Crisis (IANSA, 2007) (data compiled from WHO)). The
graph below shows the correlation between Intentional Firearms
Deaths and the Presence of Guns in the Home.
Source: Global Firearm
Deaths (Toronto: Small Arms/Firearms Education and Research
Network, 2005), www.ryerson.ca/SAFER-Net/issues/global firearmdeaths.html;
also United Nations (UN), The Eighth International Crime Victims
Survey, 2000.
4. The experience in the UK shows (a) tough
gun laws play a significant role in maintaining low levels of
gun crime, but (b) more should be done to reduce the risks posed
by gun ownership.
5. The impact of recent tighter legislation
has been reflected in sustained downward trends in the overall
number of firearm offences and most categories of gun crime over
the last few years. Total offences fell by 41% in the six years
to 2008-09 (unless otherwise indicated all figures quoted are
for England and Wales). In 2008-09 and 2009-10 the number involving
fatal injury was at its lowest (39) for at least 20 years and
injuries were down by over a half since 2004-05.
6. Recorded handgun crime has fallen by
33% during the last seven years. Whilst there have been mass shootings
involving handguns in countries where they can be legally owned
no such outrage involving a handgun has taken place in Great Britain
since the 1997 legislation which banned them from private ownership.
Police forces report that fewer handguns and ammunition are available
to criminals. Earlier this year the National Ballistics Intelligence
Service (NABIS) reported that rival gangs were sharing weapons
because of a scarcity of guns on the streets.
7. GCN believes the impact of the 1997 handgun
ban may be greater than is indicated by the official figures.
Imitation guns proliferated in the years following the handgun
ban, but unless a gun is fired or recovered it will not be known
whether an offence has been committed with a live-firing weapon
or an imitation. In the majority of incidents a handgun is used
as a threat but not fired. We understand that unless a weapon
is specifically identified as an imitation the police will record
it as a handgun on the basis of its appearance, and so it is likely
that the number of handgun offences is being inflated by the inclusion
of many committed with imitation guns.
8. More recent legislation placed restrictions
on the sale of airguns and banned the manufacture, import and
sale of realistic imitation weapons. Official figures show falls
in offences committed with imitation guns (down 55% in five years)
and air weapons (down 57% in six years) suggesting that the legislation
has had an impact.
9. Despite the overall downward trend in
gun crime there is no room for complacency, and inadequacies in
the current legislation or its implementation have been highlighted
by a number of recent incidents, including the shootings in Cumbria
committed by the owner of a licensed shotgun and rifle.
Legal Guns and Gun Crime
10. Claims that all gun crime is committed
with illegal weapons are entirely misleading. Some of the most
devastating crimes, such as those in Cumbria, Dunblane and Hungerford,
involved legally-held guns. In addition, at least half of all
firearm offences are committed with imitation guns and air weapons,
the majority of which can be owned without a licence (in 2008-09
they accounted for 53% of officially recorded offences). Any government
which is serious about reducing gun crime further cannot ignore
the contribution to the problem made by legally-held guns.
11. There can be no dispute that some licensed
gun owners use their guns to commit crimes. Nearly all the mass
shootings that have taken place in industrialised countries in
the last thirty years have been committed with legally-owned guns.
This was true at Hungerford in August 1987, Dunblane in March
1996 and Cumbria in June 2010, and in some of the deadliest shootings
elsewhere including, since 2002, in Zug (Switzerland), Nanterre
(France), Chieri (Italy), Tuusula and Kauhajoki (Finland) and
Erfurt and Winnenden (Germany), as well as the majority of spree
shootings in the USA.
12. Many of the fatal domestic shootings
in Great Britain are committed with legally-held weapons. Between
January 2009 and March 2010 fourteen people (about a quarter of
all shooting homicide victims) died in apparent domestic shootings,
at least five of which involved a legally-owned shotgun (information
on the legal status of weapons is not always available). Nearly
all of the victims were women, and in many cases the perpetrator
took his own life. There were further incidents in which women
were fortunate to survive being shot by a family member or ex-partner
armed with a shotgun. Legally-owned guns are used to threaten
partners and ex-partners, and given the nature of such incidents
it is likely that many incidents go unreported by frightened victims.
13. Each year a number of others die from
self-inflicted gunshot wounds, usually involving a legally-held
shotgun. We are aware of at least 17 such fatalities in 2010 including
four young men with access to shotguns in their own home.
14. Legally-owned guns provide a source
of weapons for criminal activity. Last year the Metropolitan Police
warned that criminals were using shotguns because of "the
lower cost of ammunition, the ease of use and the absence of viable
alternatives [such as handguns]" and that there had been
an increase in the number of shotguns stolen in London. The most
recent Home Office figures showed a more than doubling of the
number of shotguns misappropriated throughout England and Wales
last year. Wider shotgun ownership increases the risk of more
guns being stolen, especially if owners are not frequently checked
and reminded of their obligation to store guns securely.
15. Airguns and imitation guns (which include
BB and airsoft weapons), which do not require registration, are
used in a wide variety of gun offences. They are responsible for
a large proportion of injuries caused when a gun is fired (64%
of the total in 2008-09).
16. Inadequacies in the control and monitoring
of imitation guns and air weapons have resulted in certain types
of weapon being converted for use in violent crime. The Brocock
air cartridge pistol and more recently the Olympic Starting Pistol
were eventually banned but only after many of them had been converted
into live-firing weapons in illegal gun factories.
17. Despite recent restrictions on sales,
airguns may be purchased without background checks and so can
easily be obtained by those banned from owning firearms or others
who would be deemed unsuitable for gun ownership. There are many
reports of airguns being used to threaten partners and ex-partners.
Without registration it is easy for them to fall into the hands
of children and young people, often as a result of inadequate
storage. Air weapons are treated differently from other firearms,
both in legislation and official statistics, implying they are
not dangerous. Yet there is plenty of evidence that they are lethal.
There have been a number of fatalities, especially among children
and teenagers (three during 2009), and they were responsible for
a fifth of all serious gun injuries in 2008-09. Airguns are frequently
used in attacks on pets and wildlife. In 2008 the RSPCA dealt
with 759 animals affected by the improper use of airguns, a figure
likely to be a gross underestimate of the number actually attacked.
18. Imitation guns are widely used in armed
robberies and create fear and alarm when seen on the street. Most
guns recovered in police raids (Metropolitan Police, 78% of weapons
seized) or after armed responses (Avon and Somerset Police, 90%)
are imitations or air weapons. (Hampshire Police estimate that
one hour of policing a firearms incident costs the equivalent
of 27 hours of local beat policing.)
19. Whilst the Violent Crime Reduction Act
prohibits the sale of realistic imitation firearms there are no
such restrictions on the sale of air pistols, many of which resemble
real handguns. Indeed on internet sites they are often described
as looking like the "real thing". We are told by the
Home Office that they cannot be treated as imitations because
they are actual firearms. However, there is no distinction between
the ways in which air pistols and other imitation weapons are
being used in crime, and GCN believes that no such distinction
should be made in law. This view is backed by written legal opinion
obtained by GCN which is available to the committee.
GUN LICENSING
The Principle
20. In the UK, gun ownership is regarded
as a privilege and not a right. Guns are licensed because they
are lethal weapons and because, as we have demonstrated above,
society is safer if there are fewer of them. It is generally acknowledged
that there are some people who should be allowed to own and use
guns for specific purposes eg pest control, shooting designated
wild birds and animals for pleasure, clay pigeon shooting and
target shooting in a gun club.
21. The prime purpose of legislation should
be about minimising the risk to others. It is said that the purpose
of licensing guns is to prevent guns getting into the "wrong
hands", but perhaps a better way to approach the issue would
be to ask the question "who are the right people to
own guns in our society?" We need to raise the bar to ensure
that only those who meet the strictest criteria are permitted
to own a gun that is capable of killing. The onus should always
be on the applicant to demonstrate his/her ongoing suitability
and need for a gun.
Weaknesses in current licensing procedures
22. Shotguns, rifles and airguns are all
treated differently for no good reason. All three can, and do,
kill and injure.
23. Violent offenders, drug and alcohol
abusers, people with mental health problems and people with a
history of domestic violence frequently own licensed guns and
misuse them to devastating effect. Licensing officers may investigate
these matters but are not mandated to do so.
24. Licences do not always identify the
purpose for which a gun is to be used. Even where a purpose is
identified, the licence is often not revoked where the gun is
no longer being used for that purpose. This latter category is
of particular relevance in the case of the Cumbrian killer whose
legal guns were apparently not being used for anything on a regular
basis.
25. Renewals are required every five years.
A great deal can change in the course of five years and too often
licences are renewed "on the nod" to people without
knowing if they have become unsuitable in some way.
26. There is no connection between the cost
of a licence and the cost of administering that licence.
27. There is a culture of secrecy surrounding
gun ownership. There are many people who consider an individual's
ownership of guns to be a risk to themselves or their families,
or to the general public—neighbours, ex-spouses and partners,
parents of visiting children, doctors, paramedics and care workers.
It is appropriate that these people should be able to find out
if someone has a gun and for there to be a hot line to record
concerns. Whilst criminals appear to know who has guns others
who may have a legitimate interest in the matter do not. Secrecy
does not serve the public interest in this case. Nonetheless there
is a culture of secrecy which is maintained by gun owners
and the police. Arguments that openness would make it easier for
criminals to steal guns are heavily outweighed by the interests
of public transparency and the increase in safety and security
that that would ensure.
RECOMMENDATIONS
28. GCN recommends the following changes
to the licensing system:
(i) Tightening the licensing procedure into a
single rigorous system that includes firearms, shotguns and, in
due course, airguns. The onus should always be on the applicant
to demonstrate suitability and a specific need or purpose for
the weapon. Any opportunities for the spontaneous purchase of
a gun, including air weapons, should be eliminated.
(ii) A licence for every gun, renewed annually
with two referees required for each application. Referees to be
asked to confirm that the applicant has a need for a gun and is
a suitable person to have one. Referees to be contacted for renewals
as well as initial applications.
(iii) Increased licence fee to cover the cost
of a more rigorous licensing system.
(iv) Lifting the secrecy about gun ownership,
making it possible for certain professionals and members of the
public to find out who has a licence and for what purpose.
(v) National "Hot line" for those who
wish to record their concerns about a gun owner. A dedicated well
advertised and promoted free phone line for those having concerns
about their own or another's safety, or the behaviour or state
of mind of a gun owner. Where appropriate this should prompt a
licence review.
(vi) Refusal or revocation of a licence where
there is evidence of domestic violence, drug or alcohol abuse,
when a gun is not being used for the designated purpose, when
a relevant misdemeanour has been committed, eg shooting of wildlife,
threatening behaviour, negligent storage or when an applicant
has a significant criminal conviction. Clear guidance is necessary
to avoid inconsistent court decisions.
(vii) Mandatory notification to GPs when a patient
becomes a legal gun owner. The GP will then put a marker on the
file and decide when and if to notify police of mental health
problems.
(viii) Mandatory private and discrete notification
to former (two years) and present partners of new and repeat applicants.
Any concerns should begin a secondary review of the application
and, where appropriate, the refusal or revocation of the licence
and removal of guns. This happens in Canada and Australia and
there is evidence that gun-related domestic violence has decreased
as the legal frameworks on gun licensing and domestic violence
become harmonised.
26 August 2010
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