Extension S.5 of the Firearms Act 1968 to Prohibit Certain Small Firearms

Part of Clause 1 – in the House of Commons at 8:30 pm on 18 November 1996.

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Photo of Michael Howard Michael Howard The Secretary of State for the Home Department 8:30, 18 November 1996

It is difficult to be precise about proportions and I make no apology for that. Paragraph 9.89 of the Cullen report shows some of the considerable difficulties that arise.

Our second reservation concerns security. As I explained on Second Reading, Lord Cullen envisaged that the frame of the gun—the main part with the trigger mechanism, the butt and the barrel—would remain in the possession of the owner and that the club secretary would keep the part that had been removed—typically, the slide of a semi-automatic or the cylinder of a revolver. That approach has the fundamental flaw that, to put it mildly, it would not be difficult for a gun owner to keep an illicit spare at home. That would enable him to reactivate the gun at any time. It is perfectly true that, in doing so, he would be breaking the law, but he would be unlikely to be discovered until it was too late. We cannot ignore that factor. It is true that we are envisaging illegal behaviour, whereas the main thrust of the Bill is to deal with the problems that have arisen in respect of the legal use of handguns, but we cannot adopt such a rigid approach to that distinction that we can afford to ignore a risk simply because that risk would arise from illicit, illegal activity.