Article in Daily Mail today

[User00026]

They may make it mandatory, in which case refusing to fill in the details would prejudice your application, as doubtless there will be a "I verify that the above infomation is correct" type of box to check.

So far as the US, filling out the details of your social media accounts is optional on the ESTA form. I've always completed it, as I live in hope that someone in the US Government might want to buy some of my Flickr photos

Ok, so what about the many social media accounts you once signed up for but haven’t used for several years. You can’t recall the user names? What’s the timescale of ‘in use’ that will be applied?

It’s nonsense

 

[User00026]

And are ‘forums’ such as this / SD ‘social
Media’

 

[Mike L]

And are ‘forums’ such as this / SD ‘social
Media’

Yes.

 

[User00026]

Yes.

And if you used to be on say 10 different ones and have no clue what your usernames were as you haven’t used them for years?

My guess is, you say “I was on some different hunting/outdoor forums over the years, can’t recollect for the life of me what my usernames were, or what forums they were at all to be honest…”

At one point I was probably on 20 forums. These days, couldn’t for the life of me recall which

 

[C h r i s]

If you dont know then how will anyone else!

 

[Conor O'Gorman]

Home Office press release (with a quote from British Medical Association):

UK’s strict gun laws strengthened with new medical arrangements

New statutory guidance will tighten up existing laws on gun ownership and mean that medical information must be provided in order to obtain a licence.

www.gov.uk

Government response to the consultation:

Statutory guidance to police on firearms licensing

We are seeking views on draft statutory guidance for the police on firearms licensing, including proposed new arrangements for medical checks for firearms certificates.

www.gov.uk

Statutory guidance:

Firearms licensing: statutory guidance for police

How police chiefs should carry out checks when assessing someone's suitability to own firearms or become a registered firearms dealer.

www.gov.uk

 

[Fadcode]

Wake up and smell the coffee, these checks will be mandatory, no Chief Constable is going to take the risk in not carrying out these checks, it wont cost him nothing, they will just put the fees up to cover the costs. It will end up as a costly affair for the FAC holder, the Medical Fee could be quite expensive, the only hope there is that you wont have to go to your own Doctor, I used to get my HGV Medical for £45, my own GP wanted £120, so I think you will soon see adverts from firms willing to carry out the Medicals for a decent fee. The BASC are demanding that markers are put on your medical records, this being the case, this will force Chief Constables to carry out all the checks, as they won't have an excuse not too. Financial checks?, and other checks, well the more they look the more they find out, and they could use anything to deny you a licence, I think the Police would gladly give up the job of allocating licences, if they could.

 

[Conor O'Gorman]

They didnt this pm or its not obvious

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[Conor O'Gorman]

However it looks still be guidance not primary legislation so chief constable may well continue to as they please.

Indeed. The new statutory guidance states "Chief officers of police in England, Wales and Scotland must have regard to such guidance and be able to justify any departure on a case-by-case basis."

 

[Whitebeard]

Best of luck with that Priti, Police cyber units already have an 18 - 24 month backlog investigating 'real' criminals, throw firearms licensing into the mix and you've yet another recipe for failure, they simply won't cope.

They will prioritise investigations into firearms licensing after all we are a captive audience and easy tsrgets

 

[308tikka]

I think the Police would gladly give up the job of allocating licences, if they could.

I think they should. Free up somepolice to do policing, and it is cheaper to have civil servants. Centrally trained, understand firearms (and the symbiotic relationship to keep an agency alive) without the prejudice of senior officers not wanting to pay for costs therefore come to the conclusion that ‘reducing the number of guns on the streets’ is a priority. If any police officer thinks legally held firearms are ‘on the streets’ then perhaps some other FL personnel need to be given notice of gross misconduct.

Same as land-they arent qualified to determine whats safe to shoot on. Have an agency do it.

I can see mandatory minimum training being involved for shooters however ...

 

[Benelli m2]

Still can't understand what's new hear the forms for the doctors to do has been around for a while now
So from November 1st what is new other than that

 

[bottletopbill]

I feel a agency could cause more problems and be open for abuse on checks and land clearance.

 

[Liveonce]

Wake up and smell the coffee, these checks will be mandatory, no Chief Constable is going to take the risk in not carrying out these checks, it wont cost him nothing, they will just put the fees up to cover the costs. It will end up as a costly affair for the FAC holder, the Medical Fee could be quite expensive, the only hope there is that you wont have to go to your own Doctor, I used to get my HGV Medical for £45, my own GP wanted £120, so I think you will soon see adverts from firms willing to carry out the Medicals for a decent fee. The BASC are demanding that markers are put on your medical records, this being the case, this will force Chief Constables to carry out all the checks, as they won't have an excuse not too. Financial checks?, and other checks, well the more they look the more they find out, and they could use anything to deny you a licence, I think the Police would gladly give up the job of allocating licences, if they could.

Their are already firms advertising to do the GP report, however the issue with that is unless the applicants registered GP engages in the process then it is likely that no marker will be added to your medical records that you own firearms as only your registered GP can add the marker. I assume this is one of the issues BASC still have with the process.
The BMA cannot force GPs to engage in the process.

Then another concern is that firearm owners will not seek GP help if doing so could result in their certificate being revoked.

One certainty is the cost of certificates are going to increase and the increase could be very significant to fund the extra resources the police will demand to complete the extra checks.

 

[Liveonce]

Still can't understand what's new hear the forms for the doctors to do has been around for a while now
So from November 1st what is new other than that

Financial checks, social media checks, associate interviews, basically what ever they want to do.
Firearm owners will now be subject to more checks then any other group of people in society that I can think of or more than any job would require.

 

[finnbear270]

I have just completed eight weeks of clearance checks for access to sensitive sites in UK, I can say it took me many hours of research to finish it, now I face a further period of other people's admin, issues of passes for this and for that, ... Firearm licensing is heading in this same direction in my view, from reading the more recent stuff.

 

[8x57]

Purely out of interest having read through most of the new statutory guidance to police that becomes effective on the first of November, couldn't this guidance have a very negative affect on issuing visitor temporary permits?
I'm thinking that shooters visiting this country may have to jump through far more hoops and provide a great deal more information and certification to their sponsors in order for them to be eligible for a visitors permit, or have I missed something and this has already been fully considered.

 

[Liveonce]

Purely out of interest having read through most of the new statutory guidance to police that becomes effective on the first of November, couldn't this guidance have a very negative affect on issuing visitor temporary permits?
I'm thinking that shooters visiting this country may have to jump through far more hoops and provide a great deal more information and certification to their sponsors in order for them to be eligible for a visitors permit, or have I missed something and this has already been fully considered.

Just tell them to cross the channel in a rubber dingy with their guns not a problem then, also lots of free benefits on offer.

 

[8x57]

Just tell them to cross the channel in a rubber dingy with their guns not a problem then, also lots of free benefits on offer.

You don't know just how close that is to the truth.

Deviating ever so more than slightly from the original subject. Last month I was on a staycation cruise around Britain. One day we were berthed in Dover and the two border agency cutters came into port having picked up dingy cruisers in the channel. I totaled up the number of immigrants on each cutter and the total number was actually greater than the socially distanced audience in the ship's theatre for the first show that evening. This is no lie or exaggeration as I actually counted them.

 

[Alantoo]

Home Office press release (with a quote from British Medical Association):

UK’s strict gun laws strengthened with new medical arrangements

New statutory guidance will tighten up existing laws on gun ownership and mean that medical information must be provided in order to obtain a licence.

www.gov.uk

Government response to the consultation:

Statutory guidance to police on firearms licensing

We are seeking views on draft statutory guidance for the police on firearms licensing, including proposed new arrangements for medical checks for firearms certificates.

www.gov.uk

Statutory guidance:

Firearms licensing: statutory guidance for police

How police chiefs should carry out checks when assessing someone's suitability to own firearms or become a registered firearms dealer.

www.gov.uk

I have only read the medical report document. Curiously it estimates that it will cost the police £41 per officer to familiarise themselves on a one off basis with the legislation. But for some reason they say the average salary of applicants is only £2,622 and so the same amount of time spent familiarising will only cost £16.83 per applicant but is an ongoing cost as it will need repeating on renewal each year?...one year licence duration? And they also reckon the Police read at 240 words per minute but the applicants at 240 words per hour? Sloppy work.

Alan