Taking it away from the police is what Conor at BASC is suggesting, as for your other comments I long time ago concluded that the police will only be happy when no private individual owns a firearm so they don’t care how hard or expensive the application process is.
It might be worth airing the view again that it really doesn't matter who does it, as long as it is done fairly (not consistently, please note: fairly!) and in accordance with the law. The mechanisms of holding the police to account have worked well for me in a minor way in the past, and should work yet if anyone had the clout to give it a proper go. 'Other bodies' who might administer the certification of firearms users would IMO be made deliberately more awkward (if you can imagine it - I can) to hold to account. I think it is reasonable to suggest that changing the adminsitering authority would be unlikely to make things better, and would carry a high risk of making them worse.
The idea that the Police (not individual bobbies necessarily, of course, but the top brass for sure) have the view described seems to be supported by their conduct since at the latest the 1960s. The same can be said of the Home Office. Additionally, both bodies are highly-skilled if not exactly at
managing governments and public opinion, then at least taking advantage of their spasms of anxiety, to advance this agenda. Making the process harder and more expensive for applicants is a well-recognised tactic - and the requirement that applicants both pay unspecified amounts to a third party for 'reports', and have to get these reports themselves from a source known in many cases to be unwilling to provide them, is therefore ideal.
It's unfortunate that this likelihood was not recognised (and almost seems not to have beeneven now) on our side of the 'negotiations'.
That is why we and our organisations need to be very much on our guard when talking to them about anything. Particularly, such discussion should not be mistaken for
negotitation - as the result of that misunderstanding seems both historically and recently to be that more of our freedoms are taken away, but with our apparent agreement - rather than in the face of our assertive, well-argued and unequivocal
opposition.
'What's the difference?' you might ask, 'they'll reduce our freedoms anyway.' Well, maybe - but perhaps better for them to reduce them after we've done our best to oppose them than after a few pleasant chats. And you never know - well-reasoned arguements well-supported in Law and precedent might actually work.
