Thinking About: Whatever Happened to Guns in the UK? 

LONG before the present debate about guns in the US – doomed as most previous attempts to control guns there I think – I have often wondered about gun ownership in the UK (or more specifically in England). Looking at fiction – both based in the time and written at the time – plus movies based in previous periods it was neither unusual, nor commented upon, for protagonists or antagonists to be ‘packing heat’. I had often wondered how Sherlock Holmes and the ever-faithful Dr Watson legally carried their Webley’s into dangerous situations without police comment. Likewise, we are often presented with lone females in Victorian times (both fictional and in historical fact) carrying small guns in a convenient pocket of their hand luggage when out at night or ‘abroad’. So, what happened? 

As is often the case (so it seems), in their earliest days guns were only restricted by price and the earliest guns were – being hand built – very expensive. The first legal restriction came following the assassination of William of Orange in 1584 with a concealed wheellock pistol. Queen Elizabeth I, fearing assassination by Roman Catholics, banned possession of wheellock pistols in England near a royal palace in 1594. [From Wiki] Things changed after the Civil Wars due to the 1662 Act for ordering the Forces in the several Counties of the Kingdom which enabled and authorized by warrant local government personnel to search for and seize all arms in the custody or possession of any person of persons whom the government judged dangerous to the peace of the kingdom. [From Wiki] Later the ‘Right to Bear Arms’ was enshrined in the 1689 Bill of Rights which restated the ancient rights of the people to bear arms by reinstating the right of Protestants to have arms after they had been disarmed by James II. The Bill of Rights text declares that "the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law". This was later codified in 1707 into English Common Law where the rights of British subjects to possess arms was recognised. 

The first British firearm controls were introduced as part of the Vagrancy Act 1824, which was set up in a reaction against the large number of people roaming the country with weapons brought back from the Napoleonic wars. It allowed the police to arrest "any person with any gun, pistol, hanger [a light sword], cutlass, bludgeon or other offensive weapon ... with intent to commit a felonious act". [From Wiki] This trend will be followed by restrictions in ownership following subsequent wars. Interestingly, The Gun Licence Act 1870 was created to raise revenue. It required a person to obtain a licence to carry a gun outside his own property for any reason. A licence was not required to buy a gun. The licences cost 10 shillings (equivalent to about £31 in 2005), lasted one year and could be bought over the counter at Post Offices. [From Wiki] 

The Firearms Act 1920 was partly spurred by fears of a possible surge in crime from the large number of firearms available following World War I and also fears of working-class unrest in this period. "An Act to amend the law relating to firearms and other weapons and ammunition", its main stated aim was to enable the government to control the overseas arms trade and so fulfill its commitment to the 1919 Paris Arms Convention. The ongoing Anglo-Irish War may also have been a factor, as Britain and Ireland were at that time still in union with each other, and the Act also applied to Ireland. It required anyone wanting to purchase or possess a firearm or ammunition to obtain a firearm certificate. The certificate, which lasted for three years, specified not only the firearm but also the amount of ammunition the holder could buy or possess. Local chief constables decided who could obtain a certificate and had the power to exclude anyone of "intemperate habits" or "unsound mind", or anyone considered "for any reason unfitted to be trusted with firearms". Applicants for certificates also had to convince the police that they had a good reason for needing a certificate. The right of individuals to bear arms had previously been, in the words of the 1689 Bill of Rights, "as allowed by law". The 1920 Act made this right conditional upon the Home Secretary and the police. A series of classified Home Office directives defined for the benefit of chief constables what constituted good reason to grant a certificate. They originally included self-defence. [From Wiki] 

The Firearms Act 1937 incorporated various modifications to the 1920 Act based on the recommendations of a 1934 committee chaired by Sir Archibald Bodkin. The resulting legislation raised the minimum age for buying a firearm or airgun from 14 to 17. The same year, the Home Secretary ruled that self-defence was no longer a suitable reason for applying for a firearm certificate and directed police to refuse such applications on the grounds that "firearms cannot be regarded as a suitable means of protection and may be a source of danger" [From Wiki] 

In the aftermath of the Hungerford massacre, Parliament passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988. This confined semi-automatic and pump-action centre-fire rifles, military weapons firing explosive ammunition, short shotguns that had magazines, and elevated both pump-action and self-loading rifles to the Prohibited category. Registration and secure storage of shotguns held on Shotgun Certificates became required, and shotguns with more than a 2+1 capacity came to need a Firearm Certificate. The law also introduced new restrictions on shotguns. Rifles in .22 rimfire and semi-automatic pistols were unaffected. [From Wiki] 

Following the Dunblane massacre, the government passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 and the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, defining "short firearms" as Section 5 Prohibited Weapons, which effectively banned private possession of handguns almost completely in Great Britain. Exceptions to the ban include muzzle-loading guns, pistols of historic interest (such as pistols used in notable crimes, rare prototypes, unusual serial numbers, guns forming part of a collection), guns used for starting sporting events, signal pistols, pistols that are of particular aesthetic interest (such as engraved or jewelled guns) and shot pistols for pest control. Even the UK's Olympic shooters fell under this ban; shooters could only train in Northern Ireland (where the ban did not apply), or outside of the UK, be that in the Crown Dependencies (made up of the Channel Islands and Isle of Man), or in foreign nations (in Switzerland, in practice). 162,000 pistols and 700 tons of ammunition and related equipment were handed in by an estimated 57,000 people. [From Wiki] 

So, there we have it. The reason why the UK has one of the lowest rates of gun homicides in the world. There were 0.05 recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm per 100,000 inhabitants in the five years to 2011 (15 to 38 people per year). Gun homicides accounted for 2.4% of all homicides in the year 2011. Office for National Statistics figures show 7,866 offences in which firearms were involved in the year ending March 2015, 2% up on the previous year and the first increase in 10 years. Of these, 19 were fatalities, 10 fewer than the previous year and the lowest since records began in 1969.