Dr Keith Orford

University of Durham

My contribution to the consultation exercise on the control of firearms is in a personal

capacity.

Preamble
It appears that most major changes in firearms law since 1920 (1937, 1968, 1989, 1997)
have resulted from public outrages. The reassurance of the public had, for obvious
reasons, taken some priority over strict reason and logic in the aftermath of these
occurrences. It is to be welcomed that an unforced look at firearms law is taking place in
an uncharged atmosphere. My comments cover only part of the areas opened for
consultation but are aimed at addressing the logic behind a future Act to ensure that the
aims of such an Act are not easily subverted.

Reasons for people wanting firearms

I would first research the reasons why anyone would want to acquire a firearm. Unless
these reasons are fully understood and acknowledged it is difficult to see how really
effective controls might be designed. This might seem a question with an obvious answer
but I believe that research on this question might produce important benefits when
phrasing any new legislation. Many of the elements are already there but the current Act
as amended does not have the appearance of acknowledging the question.
Current law does consider, at least in theory, at the suitability of the person and their
reason for possession but Chief Constables have sometimes been unwilling to risk court
proceedings when confronted by an aggrieved firearms certificate applicant after
exercising his discretion under the 1968 Act. If the suitability of the person/reason for
possession is to remain in a new Act, I would suggest that an appeals tribunal should be
considered to keep the question of the correct exercise of discretion away from County
Courts.
The spectrum of reasons is wide for possessing firearms, from the criminal, either to
cause injury or death or to intimidate, to the legitimate, including pest control, sport,
collection or study. The point on this spectrum at which the various options in the law
start: prohibition, licensing, registration and laisser faire, must be related to the totality of
the risk to the public in a more logical way. A formal risk assessment matrix could
probably be devised that includes the person, the circumstances, the reason and the
lethality of the firearm.
Classifying Firearms
The current classification of firearms is quite a mess. ‘Section 5’ now contains a
complete mixture from fully-automatic military weapons of considerable firepower at one
end to air weapons that are no more lethal than those which do not require a certificate at
the other. Reasons for placing categories of weapons within this Section have always had
the aim of protecting the public but might have resulted in driving convertible weapons
onto the black market. A more logical system of firearms categories is a necessity.
Some factors to be considered when classifying firearms are:
1. Lethality of the projectile(s);
2. Portability and concealment;
3. Ease of use;
4. Ease of conversion to make more portable, lethal or easy to use;
5. Ease of obtaining ammunition;
6. Public perception of danger and lethality.

1. Lethality
This is in principle a matter of exact science. The key factors here are muzzle energy,
muzzle velocity, nature of projectile and rate of fire. The lethality of a firearm is
measured by the lethality of the ammunition for which it was designed and possibly by
the ammunition for which it could be converted.
Muzzle energy/velocity. In the case of cartridges permitted for hunting deer, the muzzle
velocity and muzzle energy are specified. There are some references to these matters in
the Acts and firearms rules. For example, there are maximum permitted muzzle energies
of air weapons that may be held without a certificate and expanding ammunition is
prohibited except for certain activities such as hunting. In the main, muzzle energies,
muzzle velocities and other factors concerning lethality are not explicit in the current Act
in as much as it classifies firearms, except for rate of fire.
Rate of fire. This is not as straightforward as it seems. A semi-automatic pistol might be
assumed to have a superior rate of fire to a revolver. A pump-action or semi-automatic
shotgun would similarly appear to have greater ‘firepower’ than a double-barreled
shotgun. Both of these assumptions have been shown to be incorrect, by demonstrations
run by skilled shots employed by Smith and Wesson in the USA for the first and by trials
run by The Field many years ago for the second. The purpose for which rate of fire
should be measured and possibly restricted needs to be explicit and it is not obvious that
burst rate should necessarily be the only criterion. If this were the case, a 12 bore shotgun
cartridge loaded with LG shot can contain up to nine projectiles of 9mm caliber, each
with a muzzle velocity slightly higher than that from a 9mm pistol.
2. Portability and concealment
This matter was a key feature in the post-Dunblane debate although it is not obvious that
the relative ease of concealing and carrying handguns was a determining feature of the
crime rather than the fact the Hamilton already had access to them. Shotguns are easy to
make concealable and can be considerably more lethal at close range. Long-barreled
revolvers can be purchased legally, but ten minutes with a hacksaw will make them
portable again. The law at present concentrates on the firearm as it is designed and leaves
the factory and not on how it could easily be converted for criminal use.
3. Ease of use
Long experience in the TA and in private shooting sports has taught me that some
firearms are intrinsically much easier to use than others. Amongst the easiest to use
without training are single or double-barreled shotguns, single-shot weapons such as shot
pistols and revolvers. Semi-automatic weapons are frequently troublesome and require
some practice to be able to use them confidently. Unless a user has had some experience
in shooting them, high caliber handguns are particularly difficult to control. I do not see
this aspect given, even implicitly, any weight in framing legislation.
4. Ease of conversion
Basic assumptions. Criminal suppliers of firearms will take the line of least cost. The
preferred routes to obtaining firearms for sale are likely to be, in order of preference: (a)
illegal importation, (b) stealing, (c) re-activation/conversion and (d) ab initio
manufacture. Given that there is practically speaking no legal market for modern
handguns in the UK, a new Act is unlikely to have any serious affect on (b), and judging
from the increase in criminal use of handguns after the 1997 Act, the preceding legitimate
handgun market was possibly not an important supply. The ab initio manufacturing of
handguns requires considerable expertise and outlay for machinery, probably ruling out
that route until all other easier routes are blocked for criminal supply. This leaves (a) and
(c). The first of these is unlikely to be affected by a new law, unless it greatly increases
the penalties, leaving only one area, reactivation and conversion that the current law does
not deal with properly.
Re-activation. Currently, deactivated weapons have their pressure-bearing components
welded, cut open, blocked or cut off. These components are not necessarily the most
difficult to manufacture, for example suitable steel tubing is available from internet
sources abroad. Some components that require or even exceed the skills of an average
gunsmith to make are not affected by current deactivation rules, for example the
magazines of semi- and fully-automatic weapons and the trigger mechanisms. Magazines
are manufactured using high-power metal presses and their manufacture is not likely in a
back-street workshop. About the only functioning and non pressure-bearing part of the
action of a currently deactivated revolver to be destroyed is the firing pin. The trigger,
sear, pawl etc remain and these items require a skilled craftsman to make. Current
deactivation rules appear to aim to prevent anyone easily reactivating a weapon at home
with simple hand tools but not with a small professional workshop. My submission is that
re-activation might be seen as the one of the easier routes to making firearms for criminal
use if other routes are blocked and current rules do not adequately regulate the possible
supply.
Possible solution. The owners of such weapons might have various reasons to hold them
ranging from the ‘John Wayne’ fantasists at one end to the criminal intent on re-
conversion at the other. As outlined above, the component parts that are currently
affected by deactivation rules are not necessarily those which put off a determined
criminal. One possible way to remove this easy supply of raw materials from them would
be to license the possession of deactivated firearms, in a category of their own. Since
such firearms are not in themselves dangerous, some lighter touch regime could be in
place, the important point being the knowledge by police of their whereabouts and the
periodic accounting for them by the owners. The licensing procedure could be much
simpler than that for current Section 1 or Section 2 weapons in that neither ‘good reason’
nor ‘permission to use’ nor membership of clubs would be necessary and prior approval
for purchase would not be required. The security arrangements could be less onerous and
the cost of licensing could be much lower, all to ensure that the maximum proportion of
currently untraceable deactivated arms are registered.
Conversion. The recent ban on the trading in Brocock air-cartridge weapons illustrates
the kind of mess that the law is in. The design and construction of those particular air
weapons was based on a ‘real’ firearm and used very similar construction and materials,
except for the pressure-bearing parts. This similarity in construction to actual firearms
made the conversion of these revolvers particularly simple. In addition to these weapons,
which are now controlled, there are blank-firers and other non-firing replicas that are
constructed along the lines of firearms, using similar materials and at similar costs. Also,
some of the older air weapons were constructed in a way that makes conversion to
cartridge weapons feasible. Unless these part-made firearms are controlled in some way,
it is to be expected that such weapons will be converted.
In summary, all de-activated weapons, replicas and blank-firers that are constructed on
the lines of and use similar materials to functioning firearms are potential raw material to
criminal armourers. It does not make practical sense to allow these to circulate with
absolutely no control. Full ‘Section 1’ firearms control would not be necessary because
these are only potential hazards to the public but a registration scheme should be able to
be devised. There will be a problem. History shows that registration schemes are seen,
with some justification, as preludes to either full licensing or confiscation. Good
communications would be vital if the compliance rate is to be high.
Finally, it is notable that the easiest firearms conversion of all is the shortening of a
double-barreled shotgun. This would be the weapon of choice of many criminals if the
criterion was the maximum damage that could be inflicted in a confined space and the
raw material, a functioning shotgun, is currently the commonest type of licensed firearm
in circulation and is relatively lightly regulated.
5. Ease of obtaining ammunition
This is referred to in the consultation document and highlights an area which has not been
properly addressed in firearms law. The purchase and possession of live ammunition is
subject to controls but there are no controls on the component parts of ammunition,
except for the possession of expanding bullet heads. Although some skill is needed to
manufacture ammunition that is more danger to the target than the firer, this skill is
relatively easy to acquire and back-street ammunition supply is a distinct possibility at
present. The various parts of ammunition vary in their difficulty of manufacture. In order
of difficulty they are the bullet, the case, the propellant and the primer. The first two of
these could be attempted by anyone with access to a hobby lathe. Propellant is not easy
make but an alternative source is shotgun powder from dismantled cartridges (many
shotgun powders make excellent propellants for handguns). The primer is the area in
which controls would have the greatest effect and it would be relatively easy to have their
purchase and possession regulated in the same way as live ammunition. A problem would
be the possibility of more lightly regulated ammunition being used to create component
parts for other kinds, pointing to the need to control all ammunition to the same degree.
6. Public perception
This is quite a difficult area mainly because of the ignorance of the general public about
firearms, their lethality and availability. As an aside, and judging by the knowledge of a
cross-section of my acquaintances, quite a large proportion of the public might not know
that handguns are currently effectively prohibited. The press and broadcast media are
responsible for almost all of the education about firearms of anyone who has not
experienced National Service or war duties. Obtaining the cooperation of all of the media
in educating the public free of the hysteria that follows a tragedy would be an important
part of the preparation of a new Act.

A proper evaluation of the factors above would probably show that there is no logic in
classifying shotguns in a way that allows them to be more easily purchased, used and
loaned compared for example with a rifle.

In summary,
1. The reasons for possession of firearms must be properly researched and used to
inform the law.
2. Firearms should be carefully classified but not solely by a technical description of
the weapon but by its function, the lethality of its ammunition and its ease of
conversion. More careful classification would avoid the problems of unforeseen
developments, for example the absurdities of long-barreled revolvers (also see 2
above).
3. Deactivated firearms, blank-firers and certain air weapons (in addition to air
cartridge guns) manufactured in the same way as firearms should be registered but
via a light touch.
4. Primers for ammunition should be licensed in the same way as ammunition and
all ammunition without exception should require an explicit licence to purchase
and possess.
5. A formal risk assessment should be made, via a matrix containing details of the
person, the reason, the security arrangements and the firearm before any
certificate is granted or varied.