Talk:Firearms regulation in the United Kingdom

Colonial law
"Formerly, this same British common law applied to the UK and Australia, and until 1791 to the colonies in North America that became the United States."

Britain had more colonies in North America than just the Thirteen Colonies, in particular Newfoundland and the Province of Quebec (1763–1791) which became part of Canada. Presumably these laws would have applied there too? Hairy Dude (talk) 13:37, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

"Dunblane was the UK's first and only school shooting"
It states this in the lead but when I checked the school shootings article it listed two others, one in 1967 and one in 1988 so I shall remove this line. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Victoriosissimus (talk • contribs) 00:21, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Does this article need restructuring?
At risk of opening a can of worms, I believe a non-expert would find this article confusing and disjointed. It is largely accurate but extremely jumbled up with substantial duplication and repetition of content. The opening paragraph notes that there has only been one spree shooting since Dunblane. Why is Dunblane the "marker"? Is Hungerford not relevant? Surely it makes more sense to simply state there have been three spree shootings in the UK rather than mentioning two and excluding the third!

The "Legal classification" section makes absolutely no mention of the actual legal classifications (Sections 1, 2, 5, 7, etc) except a reference to Section 1 Shotguns. It lists "Pistols" and "Target Pistols" separately, neither sitting below "Prohibited Firearms". For actual legal classifications you have to go down to "Licensing", which is bit of a wall-of-text.

Furthermore, there are five (five!) sections for further reading - See Also; Notes (which should be "References"); References (which is just 4 books which are relevant, but not actually cited in the article itself) and Legislation which has a subsection "Acts of Parliament" which includes SIs and things which are not Acts! External Links then lists BASC, UKPSA and the Met which also seems inconsistent. If we're linking out to the Met, should it not also include Police Scotland, PSNI and the others 50 territorial forces? If we're linking to BASC, then not also to NRA, NSRA, CPSA? I note that many references link to statements on Police licensing websites which more properly could all simply use one reference to the Home Office Guide to Police on Firearms Licensing.

Probably the most structured part is "Firearms Legislation" which just discusses each Act in order and is quite accessible (albeit incomplete - no PAC17 or OWB19). I would submit that the article needs a restructure and dedupe that clearly lays out the basic law and classifies what goes where, as well as rationalising the references, intra-wiki and external links. However, as there are different ways of doing this (e.g. Sec 1/2/5/7 with discussions of firearms within, or by firearm type with explicit mention of relevant certificates, etc) so am soliciting community feedback before making any major structural changes.

I propose:

"Impact" is supposed to be a summary/overview. It should be removed and the non-duplicative content bundled into the top/introductory section. It should probably be less than half the length it is.

""Legal Classification" and "Licensing" be merged to give a clear and accessible description/guide the legal classification of firearms and where they sit in licensing terms (which are largely conjoined descriptions). This is probably the most tricky section as to Law-first or Firearms-first (are the sub-headers doing to be Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun or Sec 1/2/5/7)? This is presumably why the two sections exist independently, but at the expense of duplication and risk of contradiction.

"Notes" becomes "References" (in common with most articles) and the four books in "References" be cited if relevant to article content or dropped if not. Question: The FA1968 legislation.gov.uk page is cited at least 5 times in the references - to different sections. Is this optimal or should there be a single FA1968 Ref with the relevant Section specified in the article or using RefPage tags?

Citations to Legislation should be included in a "Legislation" Group of references, which could obsolete the External Legislation links

Hemmers (talk) 11:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, it's very confusing in parts. I'll try and make changes here and then when I am able too. Let me know what you think of my progress. Rotation4020 (talk) 19:31, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. I find the article structure of this too confusing, but I'm not feeling bold enough to edit such a controversial article. On your first proposal, I think both "Impact and "Summary" should be bundled into the Lead. JAYFAX (talk) 19:39, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I also agree, there seems to also be numerous gramatical errors/inconsistencies related to ammunition being called "many a firearms round" DannyDouble (talk) 14:20, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Unsourced additions
in case you were confused, this is the place where you can tell us about the reliable sources you used for your content if you're having trouble figuring out in-line citations.&#32;-- Fyrael (talk) 14:16, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Mental health
I work with a man who is on strong medication and has been on the sick for mental health issues and is very much passive aggressive and a good story teller and has issues with a couple of other people and he holds a shot gun license I am worried 2A02:C7C:7059:D200:D993:EF39:70A2:BDAF (talk) 03:02, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

half note to self half request:
Would anyone be opposed to a section on obsolete calibres and exceptions to the law where firearm ownership regulations is more lax or absent? - MountainKemono (talk) 00:34, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Policy Analysis - Summer Session24
— Assignment last updated by Raaid Hussain (talk) 23:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)