Government delay over firearms control legislation

Shooting groups continue to wait for the Government?s response to the Home Affairs Committee?s report on firearms control ? and may have to wait until after MPs have left for summer recess.

The Committee was tasked last year with examining whether the current laws governing airguns and firearms were fit for purpose after the fatal shooting of 12 people in Cumbria.

Its report was published on 20 December. The Home Office minister at the time, James Brokenshire, said that the Government would respond in detail to the report?s recommendations ?in the next two months?.

Nothing was heard until May of this year, when the Leader of the House, Sir George Young, told the Commons that, ?the Government will be responding in full at the end of May or in early June.?

Now, a Home Office spokesman has told Shooting Times: ?The Government will be responding shortly, but it isn?t limited by whether the House is sitting or not.?

It remains unclear how the Government will respond to the report in which proposals included a change in the law to create a single system for the licensing of Section 1 firearms and shotguns, based upon the current process for granting licences for Section 1 firearms.

The Countryside Alliance?s deputy chief executive Rob Gray told Shooting Times: ?We are concerned about a number of recommendations made, particularly with a view to putting shotguns on Section 1 and penalising young Shots.?

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