Firearms: Guidance to the police 2002

[JonathanL 4]

Thought that I'd post a link to this document. It's full of very, very useful information which everyone should access to.

 

Any chance of this being made a sticky?

 

J.

 

Firearms: Guidance to the police 2002

[RicW 67]

Jon - I have quoted this document lo these many times in the past. The trouble is the fuzz don't read it. It is "advisory" and under our weird legal system your actual local FEO is not obliged to pay a blind bit of attention.

The real classic is that according to the Home Office you should NOT be given a variation to use a rimfire for "The purpose of" shooting fox. Yet some people get fox on their .22lr, and others struggle to get .243. I am opposed to centralisation of government but this really is one area where a common approach would be welcome. Dream on.

 

Ric

[halamrose 24]

Funny coincidence I was reading it today. I thought there is also an ACPO document but cant find it, is there such a thing or is it my imagination?

Cheers,

Halam

[Mr_Logic 5]

It is a useful document, but please bear in mind that it is a guidance document only; it is not a legal document, it does not form part of statute, so what it says is not binding in any way.

[JonathanL 4]

It is a useful document, but please bear in mind that it is a guidance document only; it is not a legal document, it does not form part of statute, so what it says is not binding in any way.

 

You are correct that it isn't a legal document in its self. The use of the word "guidance" in the title is slightly misleading as it's really a combination of both and parts of it are unquestionably legal in nature. For instance, lots of it is simply a statement of what the law says; the sections which relate, for instance, to the parts of the Firearms Act which say who the police cannot grant a certificate to because they are prohibited persons certainly carry the weight of law as it's just a statement of fact. If you are barred by the Act then you are barred and there is no argument to that.

 

The bits that are more open to question are the bits that talk about what calibres should or should not be used for various things; how much ammo you should be allowed to possess; the security arrangements and so on and so forth. As above, some of this may carry the weight of law if there is case-law on the matter but they may not. As we did at great length the other week on another thread, the situation regarding the exemption in sec.58(2) for antique firearms is a case in point. The HO has extensive "guidance" on which antiques shiould benefit from the exemption and which shouldn't. This though seems to have no basis in law what-so-ever and the HO doesn't tell you on what legal basis its guidance is based.

 

This is where the issue gets tricky. The guidance document is supposed to be guidance on what the law actually is, not what the HO would like it to be.

 

J.

[JonathanL 4]

Funny coincidence I was reading it today. I thought there is also an ACPO document but cant find it, is there such a thing or is it my imagination?

Cheers,

Halam

 

There is an ACPO document too. Personally though, I fail to see what it has to do with anything. ACPO is really just a police union (sort of) and have no business at all issuing guidance on how the police should administer the law. For all its failings, at least he HO document is published by a department of government and the government can be voted out every few years.

 

J.

[JonathanL 4]

Jon - I have quoted this document lo these many times in the past. The trouble is the fuzz don't read it. It is "advisory" and under our weird legal system your actual local FEO is not obliged to pay a blind bit of attention.

The real classic is that according to the Home Office you should NOT be given a variation to use a rimfire for "The purpose of" shooting fox. Yet some people get fox on their .22lr, and others struggle to get .243. I am opposed to centralisation of government but this really is one area where a common approach would be welcome. Dream on.

 

Ric

 

There needs to be a single licensing agency for firearms covering the whole country, not 40 odd.

 

The other issue here is that, really, it's no business of the police to be doing it. There is nothing else that the police are responsible for licensing or giving people authorisation to do and there is no reason that police resources should be tied up with it.

 

DVLA already have systems for registering millions of vehicles and their keepers in place. Given the number of FAC/SGC holders I would make a fair bet that the whole country could be handled by 5 or 6 people in a basement office at the DVLA.

 

J.

[Deker 3,478]

It is still a very useful document of which I have a hard copy...and is referred to as the "Bible"...long overdue for a rewrite though!!!