Shooting community prepares to fight “existential threat”

The Government has confirmed it will consult on merging the shotgun and firearms licensing systems, in what shooting organisations warn could trigger the biggest exodus in decades. 

The proposals would require every shotgun owner to go through the same licensing process as rifle owners, fundamentally changing how half a million shotgun owners access shooting. Confirmation that the consultation will now definitely go ahead follows meetings between the Home Office and shooting organisations in recent days, and ends months of speculation about the Government’s intentions.

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What the changes would mean for shooting

Under current law, shotgun owners require a Section 2 certificate which, once granted, allows them to own any number of shotguns without proving good reason for each one. Moving shotguns to Section 1 would change that fundamentally. 

Shotgun owners would need police approval in the form of a variation for every gun, eliminating on-the-spot purchases. They’d face land tests to prove where they can shoot and have conditions placed on their certificates which cannot be appealed. Justification would be needed to own multiple shotguns of the same calibre. Gun safes would become unwieldy, with hundreds or even thousands of cartridges needing to be accounted for and kept under lock and key. Minors would be severely limited in their use of shotguns, with under-14s effectively excluded from shooting. The tradition of handing down guns to the next generation would end, except where there is justification and police approval to do so.

Christopher Graffius, BASC’s executive director of communications and public affairs, told Shooting Times: “It would be disastrous. Anyone who claims there is a benefit doesn’t know the firearms licensing system.”

Mr Graffius and his colleague Bill Harriman met policing minister Sarah Jones MP on 12 November to set out BASC’s opposition to this “existential threat to shooting”. They told the minister the proposals could see up to a third of people going out of shooting, based on the impact of previous major firearms licensing law changes. 

They also presented findings from a Gun Trade Association (GTA) survey estimating at least a 40% decline in retail business if the proposals are implemented – with the impact on distributors, wholesalers and manufacturers compounding this. “We told the minister: if people are giving up shooting and businesses are closing or losing customers, then that is taking money out of the countryside, and it is damaging the government’s growth agenda,” said Mr Graffius.

The GTA’s chief executive Stephen Jolly told ST his organisation had asked “on a number of occasions” to contribute to the wording of the consultation document but had been rebuffed by the Home Office.

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The Government’s rationale

A Home Office spokesperson told ST: “Shotguns are no less lethal than other firearms and it is right to look at the differences in the controls, and whether it is sensible, in order to address the risks that shotguns and firearms present if misused, to consider greater alignment of the controls.”

However, the GTA notes that crime involving legally held firearms is at historically low levels, while the real challenge lies in areas such as knife crime and illegally held weapons.

Crucially, in BASC’s meeting with the minister, Mr Graffius stressed that merging the systems “would make no difference to public safety, because the test for public safety is the same for both Sections”. While there are several other tests for rifle applications, the fundamental safety assessment remains identical: can this person have a shotgun or rifle and not be a danger to public safety?

Mr Graffius suggests there may be more to the proposals than safety concerns. “I think there’s been pressure from police and officials,” he said. “And this is a test of the minister’s determination to resist that pressure.”

Police licensing departments are already struggling. Official figures released just over a week ago show that every force except two has taken longer to process licences since the fees increased by, on average, 133% in February 2025. Mr Graffius said: “We are paying full cost recovery for a system that’s not performing. And that’s unacceptable”.

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The fight ahead

The consultation on merging Sections 1 and 2 has not yet been published. A Home Office spokesperson told Shooting Times: “The Government intends to issue a new consultation on improving and aligning the controls on shotguns with other firearms. No date has been announced for the start of this consultation.” However, the GTA said the most recent indication it has received suggests publication by the end of the year, with the GTA’s next meeting scheduled with Home Office officials on 28 November.

Both BASC and the GTA, the first organisations in the sector to report on the consultation’s confirmation, have said they will fight the proposals “tooth and nail”. Mr Jolly warned the GTA’s almost more than 400-strong membership: “This change, if implemented, would represent one of the most significant and damaging shifts to the trade, to shooting and countryside industries in decades.”

However, Mr Graffius emphasised that the battle is not lost. “I think there is every chance that we can change this. But that requires action. BASC will be pulling every political lever.” The deciding factor will be the scale of support that can be rallied together. “We need a massive response from the shooting community,” he said. “When the consultation comes out, those who shoot must respond and we will have full instructions on how to do that on our website, accessible to everyone, not just BASC members,” said Mr Graffius.

The campaign against the proposals will extend beyond memberships, with ongoing collaboration expected between the big five representative bodies: BASC, the GTA, the Countryside Alliance and the CPSA. According to Mr Jolly, the Shooting Industry Fund has also expressed its full support for mounting this national campaign coordinating group.

The Home Office added that the consultation follows its February response to the 2023 public consultation on firearms licensing, where it first noted the differences in controls between shotguns and other firearms.