Guidance

User guide to statistics on firearm and shotgun certificates, England and Wales

Updated 6 July 2023

Applies to England and Wales

This guide provides additional information to support the Statistics on firearm and shotgun certificates in England and Wales. These statistics contain information on the number and type of certificate issued by police forces in England and Wales under the Firearms Act 1968 (as amended).

Details of upcoming publications can be found on the statistics release calendar. The release reports on legally-held firearms and shotguns only. No official estimate of illegally-held firearms and shotguns in England and Wales is available.

1. Uses of the data

These statistics are used by a range of users to monitor trends in the number of firearm and shotgun certificates on issue, weapons covered by certificates and certificate holders in England and Wales. Specific uses of the data are included below.

Informing the general public

Figures on firearm and shotgun certificates and related statistics are used by the media, interest groups and the public for information on, and to scrutinise trends and police force area comparisons.

Statistics on firearm and shotgun certificates are routinely requested via parliamentary questions (PQs) and freedom of information (FOI) requests.

Policy making and monitoring

The figures are used by policy makers and advisors to:

• monitor the number of firearm and shotgun certificates, and related statistics
• monitor the performance and effectiveness of police forces
• monitor the performance and effectiveness of government policy
• inform policy and operational decisions by ministers

The statistics provide a national and regional level picture of firearm and shotgun certificates, giving some insight into policing activities and contribute to decisions on police force funding.

Support third sector activity - lobbying

Lobby groups use firearm and shotgun certificate data, and related statistics to protect the rights and civil liberties of citizens, and to support the use of legally-held guns in the farming community. For example, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) use these statistics to monitor the legal possession of weapons, and to promote and protect sporting shooting in the UK.

2. Glossary

Coterminous certificate
A coterminous certificate allows the certificate holder’s firearm and shotgun certificates to expire on the same day. Only shotgun certificates can have their expiry date changed to expire with a firearm certificate. Combining the certificates reduces fees for the certificate holder and reduces the burden on police firearms licensing teams.

Firearms Act 1968 (‘the 1968 Act’)
It is, with certain statutory exceptions, an offence to possess, purchase, or acquire any firearm, shotgun or ammunition to which section 1 or 2 of the Firearms Act 1968 applies, without holding a certificate. Section 1 of the 1968 Act applies to all firearms except a shotgun, an air gun, or a weapon prohibited under section 5 of the 1968 Act.

Firearm
According to the 1968 Act, a firearm means a lethal barrelled weapon of any description from which any shot, bullet or other missile with a kinetic energy of more than one joule at the muzzle of the weapon can be discharged. It includes any prohibited weapon, any component part of such a weapon and any accessory to such a weapon designed or adapted to diminish the noise or flash caused by the firing of the weapon.

Firearm certificate
The certificate lists the number, type and serial number of each weapon held and any conditions attached (a standard condition is that weapons and ammunition are held in a secure place when not in use).

Handgun
Handgun refers to the length of the firearm. Any firearm which either has a barrel less than 30 cm in length or is less than 60 cm in length overall is generally prohibited. The intention is to prohibit dangerous firearms which are easy to conceal (hide). However, the police may issue a firearm certificate allowing the possession of certain handguns which are of particular historic interest, muzzle-loading pistols or are used for the humane killing of animals.

Lost or stolen firearms and shotguns
Section 34 of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 requires holders of a firearm or shotgun certificate to inform the Chief Officer of Police who granted the certificate within 7 days of the theft, loss, deactivation or destruction of any firearm or shotgun, and or the theft or loss of ammunition relating to the certificate.

Muzzle-loading pistol
The ammunition is loaded via the muzzle of the firearm (the open end of the gun’s barrel). They are not quick to load, and therefore, do not pose the same threat as some other types of guns.

Registered firearms dealer
A dealer is defined in the 1968 Act as a person or a corporate body whose trade or business is to manufacture, sell, transfer, repair, test or ‘prove’ firearms or ammunition to which section 1 of this Act applies, or shotguns. A dealer or corporate bodies trade or business may include the manufacture, sale transfer, repair or test of air weapons. Firearms dealers are not authorised to ‘trade in’ prohibited weapons without the Secretary of State’s authority.

Rifle
A rifle under section 57(1) of the 1968 Act has spiral grooves in the barrel, uses bullets as ammunition and is typically used for target shooting or for the control of vermin.

Shotgun
A smooth-bore gun (not being an air gun) which:

• has a barrel not less than 24 inches in length and does not have any barrel with a bore exceeding 2 inches in diameter
• either has no magazine (cartridge holder) or has a non-detachable magazine incapable of holding more than 2 cartridges
• is not a revolver gun

Other smooth-bore guns may require a firearm certificate. It is, with certain statutory exceptions, an offence for a person to possess, purchase, or acquire any shotgun without holding a shotgun certificate. A shotgun uses cartridges containing shot as ammunition and is typically used for clay pigeon shooting or for the control of vermin.

Shotgun certificate
The certificate includes the description of the shotguns including, if known, the identification number of the guns.

Section 1 shotgun
Contains a magazine holding more than 2 rounds. This is held on a firearm certificate.

Section 2 shotgun
May have a magazine restricted to no more than 2 rounds. This is held on a shotgun certificate.

Sound moderator
An accessory to a lethal barrelled weapon or a prohibited weapon, designed to diminish the noise or flash caused by firing the weapon.

Temporary permit
Chief Officers of Police are authorised by section 7 of the Firearms Act 1968 to issue temporary permits in certain limited circumstances to temporarily enable the possession of firearms or shotguns where it may not be necessary or desirable to issue a certificate or, exceptionally, where a certificate holder’s application for renewal of a firearm and or shotgun certificate cannot be processed before the certificate expires. In addition, a temporary permit may be issued to authorise the temporary possession of firearms, shotguns or ammunition by a relative, executor of a will or receiver or liquidator of a bankrupt’s estate.

Visitors’ permit
The 1968 Act allows the sponsor of a visitor to Great Britain to apply for a permit on their behalf allowing the visitor to possess a firearm, shotgun or ammunition without a firearm or shotgun certificate. A sponsor may be a private individual or the representative of for example, a club, shooting syndicate, country estate or national shooting organisation. Permits cannot exceed 12 months. Visitors’ permits are usually granted to allow the holder to attend organised shoots, such as deer stalking or competitive target shooting events. Group applications may be made for up to 20 people (section 17 of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988).

3. Legislation and regulations

The Home Office Guide on Firearms Licensing Law provides guidance on firearms licensing legislation. It is not a definitive statement of the law, but should be read alongside the Statutory Guidance for Chief Officers of Police.

3.1 Possession of firearms by persons previously convicted of crime

A person sentenced (the penalty imposed by a court of law on someone found guilty of a criminal offence) to a term of imprisonment for 3 years or more cannot possess firearms, shotguns, antique firearms, or ammunition for life.

A person sentenced to a term of imprisonment for 3 months or more but less than 3 years cannot possess firearms, shotguns, antique firearms, or ammunition until 5 years after the date of their release.

A person with a suspended sentence of 3 months or more must not possess firearms, shotguns, antique firearms, or ammunition for a period of five years from the second day after the date on which sentence has been passed. (A suspended sentence is served in the community instead of in prison provided the offender does not commit any further offences and complies with any conditions imposed by the courts).

3.2 Firearm certificates

Firearm certificates are issued for weapons covered by section 1 of the 1968 Act, which includes:

• rifles
• muzzle-loading pistols
• firearms used for the humane killing of animals, flare pistols and vintage pistols held as war trophies or collectors’ items
• section 1 shotguns
• section 1 air rifles, which are air rifles with a muzzle energy greater than 12 foot-pounds

For information on the prohibition of weapons and special exemptions, see the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997.

3.3 Shotgun certificates

Shotgun certificates, covered by section 2 of the 1968 Act, allow the holder to own any number of shotguns. These can include pump-action and self-loading weapons with a magazine (cartridge holder) incapable of holding more than 2 cartridges, but excludes large magazine smooth-bore guns.

3.4 Age of a firearm and or shotgun certificate holder

The 1968 Act places restrictions on the purchase, acquisition, possession and use of firearms by, and the transfer to, young people. The subject of minimum age to possess a firearm or shotgun is complicated. This is explained further in Appendix 4 of the Home Office Guide on Firearms Licensing Law, including exemptions. The table in Appendix 4 is a legal summary on the type of firearms or shotguns that may be held by those aged under 18.

4. Quality and methodology

Data in the Firearm and shotgun certificates in England and Wales statistical release is collected as part of the statutory Annual Data Requirement (ADR) between the Home Office and police forces. The ADR is a list of all mandatory data requests made to police forces in England and Wales under the Home Secretary’s statutory powers.

4.1 Data coverage

The main statistics on firearm and shotgun certificates include:

• certificates on issue - collected once in 1971 and in every year since 1983
• new and renewal applications - collected every year since 1983
• new and renewal coterminous applications - collected every year since year ending March 2018
• the number of firearms and shotguns covered by certificates on issue - collected every year since 1995
• firearm and shotgun certificate revocations - collected every year since 1992
• firearm dealers - collected every year since 1995
• vistors’ firearm and shotgun permits - collected every year since year ending March 1995
• the number of people who hold a firearm and or a shotgun by age and gender - collected every year since year ending March 2016
• firearm and shotgun weapon types held on certificates - collected every year since year ending March 2016
• lost and stolen firearms and shotguns - collected every year since year ending March 2021
• temporary firearm and shotgun permits - included for the first time and are designated as experimental statistics

4.2 Data source

The statistics on firearm and shotgun certificates are taken from the National Firearms Licensing Management System (NFLMS). The NFLMS is used to record the details of people who had applied for, been granted, refused or who had their firearm or shotgun certificate revoked.

NFLMS data is administrative information, input by individual police forces. As the data is taken from a live operational database, numbers may change as information on that system is updated.

Data has been taken from the NFLMS for each year ending 31 March 2008 onwards. Prior to this, data was collected through statistics provided by each force.

The data used to produce the statistics are taken from information supplied by the person applying for a certificate. The person completes a form which includes a question on ‘gender’ which is based on their sense of self. Options are ‘female’ and ‘male’; missing data is reported as ‘unknown’.

4.3 Quality assurance process

These statistics are compiled by statisticians within the Home Office. Statisticians undertake a wide range of quality assurance checks on the data with each England and Wales police force.

These checks follow the QAAD (Quality Assurance of Administrative Data) guidance and include:

• compiling the administrative data to highlight values within the dataset that vary greatly from the others (outliers) and possible errors
• variance checks, such as investigating substantial changes in figures compared with the previous year
• checking that the data makes sense and working with police forces to improve the quality if not
• making sure data quality and checks are explained to users and what effect these have on the statistics

Following checks with police forces, data tables are compared by a second statistician against the checked data. The prepared text is also checked against the tables. Statisticians are responsible for checking that the commentary appropriately describes the trends seen in the data and is not biased.

4.4 Data quality

The data quality for the total numbers of firearm and shotgun certificates is considered to be high. In addition to the checks outlined in the quality assurance process, these data undergo a reconciliation process and are examined closely as part of the performance monitoring of the Home Office.

The statistics on temporary permits are currently labelled as experimental statistics. They are considered to be valuable to users but are under development. A separate data confirmation exercise for these figures was carried out by Home Office statisticians with the support of each England and Wales police force.

Effects of COVID-19

A range of restrictions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic began on 12 March 2020, and the first UK ‘lockdown’ measures were announced on 23 March 2020. Some figures presented for the year ending 31 March 2021 and year ending 31 March 2022 will have been affected by this, and therefore comparisons with these years are likely to reflect temporary changes in firearm and shotgun certificate data due to COVID-19, rather than permanent shifts in trends.

National Statistics status

The National Statistics status means that a set of statistics meets the highest standards of trustworthiness, quality and public value. The firearms and shotgun statistics were labelled as National Statistics in May 2012 following a compliance check by the Office for Statistics Regulation. The statistics last underwent a full assessment against the code of practice in 2012. It is our responsibility to maintain compliance with these standards.

Since the latest review by the Office for Statistics Regulation, we have continued to follow the Code of Practice for Statistics and make improvements.

We have worked with NFLMS users at the National User Group meeting to improve our understanding of how the statistics and recording system are used, so that they remain relevant and suitable for their purpose.

We have also previously worked with Home Office Digital, Data and Technology to improve the NFLMS. Changes made to the recording system will help to reduce human error when entering data and will prevent users from leaving fields empty. These changes will help to increase the quality of published data and will allow a more accurate representation of the people that hold firearm and shotgun certificates in England and Wales.

In 2021, following user feedback, statistics on lost or stolen firearms and shotguns were included in the firearm and shotgun statistical publication. They were classified as experimental statistics for the first 2 years of their publication (year ending March 2021 to year ending March 2022) as the processes around data collection and the quality of the data were developed. The experimental statistics label was removed from the year ending March 2023 statistics to indicate that:

• the statistical methods involved in analysing the data are now well established
• coverage has improved
• feedback indicates that the statistics are useful and credible
• the development phase has ended
• quality limitations are known, and the impact of these are understood

In addition, following user feedback, in 2023 statistics on temporary permits were included in the firearm and shotgun certificates statistical publication for the first time. They were classified as experimental statistics to acknowledge that they are new and that further development of the data extraction and quality assurance process may be required. Statisticians in the Home Office will work with each England and Wales police force to improve the quality of these statistics as the collection continues.

Prior to the introduction of the NFLMS in 2006, the variety of police force data collection systems meant some police forces were unable to prevent double counting of weapons shared between 2 certificate holders. Due to the change from in-force data collection systems to NFLMS during 2006, accurate data relating to the financial year ending 31 March 2007, and numbers of weapons and persons covered by certificates for the following year, are not available.

Following the change to the NFLMS, the main types of errors in the data are thought to relate to recording and classification errors.

Shotgun certificates recorded as coterminous have been investigated as part of the regular, ongoing quality assurance work on the underlying data.

We are aware that due to the method of data entry on the NFLMS, in a small number of cases, weapons may have been incorrectly categorised on certificates. There are now plans to introduce further data validation to the NFLMS to prevent this error from occurring in the future.

In 2023, an additional data quality exercise was conducted. This involved identifying certificates that had been revoked, cancelled or had expired and asking forces to ensure they were updated and accurate on their systems.

4.5 Revisions

It is standard practice across all Home Office statistical releases to include revisions to previous years’ data in the latest release. Corrections and revisions follow the Home Office’s statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

In line with the Home Office revisions and corrections policy, figures for other shotguns were revised upwards for the year ending 31 March 2019 (+3,548). Figures for ‘Shotguns covered by certificates on issue’ and ‘Other shotguns’ for the year ending 31 March 2009 in tables 3, 4 and 14 were revised to reflect this increase in the year ending 31 March 2023 release.

4.6 Rounding

Data is mainly provided unrounded in the data tables to provide detail for users. However, caution should be used when comparing small differences between time periods.

Percentages greater than 1% are presented to the nearest percent. All percentages less than 1% are rounded to the nearest significant figure, for example 0.43% would be presented as 0.4%.

5. Statistics on certificates in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland
Police Scotland publish annual statistics on the number of firearm and shotgun certificates granted, renewed and revoked in Scotland. The figures are considered to be broadly comparable with those for England and Wales, due to the common legislation in the certification process.

Northern Ireland
The Police Service of Northern Ireland lists its statistical outputs on the statistics page of its website, but there are no series that are directly comparable to those for England and Wales.

6. Feedback and enquiries

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of our documents. If you find any problems, or have any feedback, relating to accessibility, or general questions regarding this publication, please email us at PolicingStatistics@homeoffice.gov.uk.

6.1 Media enquiries via Home Office news desk

Telephone: 0300 123 3535