Forged Certificates

[Conor O'Gorman]

Thanks for sharing.
An interesting system.
I can envisage an adaptation of that working well for private sale transactions in our community.

@Conor O'Gorman
Were you aware of the above DVLA system?
I'd support such a system for verification of certificate holders.
I've always been cautious about meeting people, when buying shooting related items.
I've often asked to see a photo of there certificate before I'd pay, or meet them.
Most see the mutual benefit of getting confirmation that both parties are certificate holders.
More recently, I wanted to buy a none listed item, from an individual and an online advert.
Before paying I shared a part copy of my certificate with a seller and asked to see his. However he was most uncomfortable about sharing his with me, and so that was the end of it. The sale fell through.

Whereas, if the equivalent of the DVLA System was available both parties might have been reassured all was ok.

I think it is a great idea, and intend to write to my MP to highlight it.

M

Thanks, I will pass this onto colleagues. This was also brought to my attention:

Digital passports and driving licences among IDs to be stored in new UK government phone app

The UK government will launch two new apps – gov.uk App and gov.uk Wallet – enabling UK citizens to store ID and interact with services from their smartphones.

eandt.theiet.org

 

[Dunwaters]

Why not aurge it the other way, there is no public benefit in the good reason for each gun on a FAC. The saving in Police resources would be significant and applied where they might produce a benefit.

You could equally argue that there’s no need for FAC’s at all.
Best of luck with that.

 

[Mickeydredd]

Any thing can be faked. But should it be doable by a 19 year old in his bedroom?
If he had made a passport on his hewlet packard as well then fair enough.
The police are not fit to govern us, should be a completely seperate body

When she was 16, my stepdaughter and all her pals bought fake driving licences for ID purposes very easily off the internet.

 

[JTO]

Soon after the handgun ban, it was estimated that c2,400 handguns per month were being imported into the UK illegally. When shotguns were idividually registered, it was estimated that c375,000 long magazine shotguns 'went ;under the bed', so why go to the trouble/risk of buying a legally held shooter illegally?

 

[PEA]

Definitely a very sad incident indeed. I think the guy who sold the shotgun must be in a bad place currently.

 

[LE9219]

You can now generate a "check code" for your driving license, you can give the code to someone and its good for 3 weeks, they can just go online, type the code in and check your license is valid, see what types of vehicles you can drive (HGVs, motorbikes, etc) and if you have any endorsements. My employer requires it once a year and my car insurance wanted it too this year.

View or share your driving licence information

Find out what information DVLA holds about your driving licence or create a check code to share your driving record, for example to hire a car

www.gov.uk

it's a pretty simple system, something like that would work well for firearms transactions. If you could generate a one use code, give that to the seller and they can type that code in on the gov website which checked it against the NFLMS to verify that you had a valid certificate with the appropriate open slot

Only catching up with this thread now, what a fantastic system this would be, in light of the tragic incident that happened in luton i think some changes are absolutely needed to the current system, but it needs to be one that works well for both sides. I intend on writing to my mp detailing your idea if you dont mind, i feel it's up to us as a shooting community to give ideas, as no doubt anything the government come up with will be bad at best, hopefully these ideas dont fall on deaf ears

 

[royalewithcheese]

Only catching up with this thread now, what a fantastic system this would be, in light of the tragic incident that happened in luton i think some changes are absolutely needed to the current system, but it needs to be one that works well for both sides. I intend on writing to my mp detailing your idea if you dont mind, i feel it's up to us as a shooting community to give ideas, as no doubt anything the government come up with will be bad at best, hopefully these ideas dont fall on deaf ears

You're more than welcome to, if some improvements can be made which work well for everyone and help stop firearms getting into the hands of criminals, I'm all for it.

 

[PEA]

I suspect it will all go section one now

 

[Basil H]

"Going section one" would not really address this particular - and very unusual - problem.

 

[PEA]

No but that’s what’s being talked about

 

[andyk]

Soon after the handgun ban, it was estimated that c2,400 handguns per month were being imported into the UK illegally. When shotguns were idividually registered, it was estimated that c375,000 long magazine shotguns 'went ;under the bed', so why go to the trouble/risk of buying a legally held shooter illegally?

Perhaps the issue here is the novel situation of these people who want to commit mass murder for its own end and as part of their own suicide.

I’d have thought this route is both unnecessarily complex and also risky for the ‘career’ criminal who doesn’t want to be caught or attract police attention.

For this POS who only needed to evade detection for long enough to commit his offences and kill himself, those considerations are probably not there. Added to that is that this ‘kind’ of individual is less likely to have the sorts of criminal contacts that would allow him to source a black market weapon.

 

[royalewithcheese]

Perhaps the issue here is the novel situation of these people who want to commit mass murder for its own end and as part of their own suicide.

I’d have thought this route is both unnecessarily complex and also risky for the ‘career’ criminal who doesn’t want to be caught or attract police attention.

For this POS who only needed to evade detection for long enough to commit his offences and kill himself, those considerations are probably not there. Added to that is that this ‘kind’ of individual is less likely to have the sorts of criminal contacts that would allow him to source a black market weapon.

Weirdly in this specific case, it's likely that the forged certificate is the only reason the seller is still alive. The killer took a knife with him incase the sale didn't go smoothly so he could kill the seller and take the shotgun anyway.

 

[Yorkie]

"Going section one" would not really address this particular - and very unusual - problem.

Hi Basil.
You are absolutely correct, it would not address the problem, but when has that ever been a consideration with regard to gun control?

We lost large capacity shotguns to section 1 after Hungerford. No shotgun of any description used. I really hope i am mistaken, but i do not trust them an inch.

 

[shakey jake]

Hi Basil.
You are absolutely correct, it would not address the problem, but when has that ever been a consideration with regard to gun control?

We lost large capacity shotguns to section 1 after Hungerford. No shotgun of any description used. I really hope i am mistaken, but i do not trust them an inch.

Luckily we dont have tories now, we have a better chance of being treated fairly

 

[Delivery]

The key thing is that in any interaction between an individual and the police/home office/licensing database etc. the individual should not be allowed to obtain the data relating to a person

So they can not call the police and state the FAC/SGC number and receive the data on a third party because they could guess the SGC/FAC numbers as they are in a guessable format

Otherwise someone could guess the numbers get the home address of a firearms holder and wait till they go to work or whatever and turn over the house

What they could do is (like the drivers license) be given authority to access the data by the third party themselves by providing a valid code and entering that code as well as the SGC/FAC number for example

If they do that successfully and can see it’s a valid certificate then they can get an email or text or something to confirm they did that check

BUT in the meantime
1) legislation would need to change to require that process happens
2) there’s going to be more people trying to get a firearm with a fake license because it’s become more well known about

But that does still fall down where people are not technically savvy or they have no signal

So it would make sense for anyone buying and selling a firearm even though a RFD to check the certificate diligently and even go and buy a ultraviolet light to check the certificate and the home office could use other anti-counterfeit technology such as hologram and more obvious security features on all new SGC/FAC issued it’s even possible to use anti-peel holographic foils that are self adhesive on existing paper printed SGC/FAC

All measures to make it obvious that a certificate is fake would be an improvement as long as they are properly thought through