Citation

Pease C, Pease K. Crime Prev. Community Safety 1999; 1(1): 55-65.

Affiliation

University of Sunderland; University of Huddersfield

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group -- Palgrave-Macmillan)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The paper reports analysis of routine firearms statistics, whose importance is judged to have been neglected in the Cullen Inquiry into the disaster at Dunblane. It is shown that revocations and refusals of firearms licences and shotgun certificates rose after the Hungerford tragedy, fell thereafter, and only increased again after Dunblane. There was wide variation in the rate of revocation and refusal by police force area, which clearly stemmed from force practice rather than from the presenting situation. The predictability of regulation practice undertaken declines over time as staff and priorities change. Thus departmental stringency in regulation relative to other police forces will disappear over a period of 3?7 years. While the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 makes major changes in handgun availability, it makes only minor changes to firearms regulation, which remains the major protection against criminal use of the lethal weapons which are still legally held by citizens. Suggestions are made in the paper for making that regulation more stringent and more consistent.