Firearm Certificate Statistics, Scotland, 2014-15

3. Annex

Definitions

3.1. Within the definition of the Firearms Act 1968 (as amended), a "firearm" means a lethal barrelled weapon of any description from which any shot, bullet or other missile can be discharged. It includes any prohibited weapon, any component part of such a weapon and any accessory to such a weapon designed or adapted to diminish the noise or flash caused by the firing of the weapon.

It is, with certain statutory exceptions, an offence to possess, purchase, or acquire any firearm or ammunition to which Section 1 of the Firearms Act 1968 applies without holding a Firearm Certificate. Section 1 of the 1968 Act applies to all firearms except a shotgun or an air gun.

3.2. A "shotgun" is defined as a smooth-bore gun (not being an air gun) which:

(i) has a barrel not less than 24 inches in length and does not have any barrel with a bore exceeding two inches in diameter;
(ii) either has no magazine or has a non-detachable magazine incapable of holding more than two cartridges; and
(iii) is not a revolver gun. Other smooth-bore guns may require a Firearm Certificate.

It is, with certain statutory exceptions, an offence for a person to possess, purchase, or acquire any shotgun without holding a Shot Gun Certificate.

Data Quality Statement

3.3. This is the first year that statistics from the SHOGUN system have been used to generate firearm information for the Scottish Government. The quality of the data provided by the new system is an improvement on previous practice and can be considered to produce exact counts of Firearm Certificates, Shot Gun Certificates, and items on these certificates.

3.4. SHOGUN is a live operational system, and so, on any given day, new applications, renewals, variations or cancellations are at different stages of being processed through the system. The total number of firearm and Shot Gun Certificates on issue, as presented within this bulletin and accompanying tables, are accurate as at the date on which data were extracted from the SHOGUN system.

3.5. The implementation of the SHOGUN system has resulted in greater availability of information on:

• the types of people that own firearms and shotguns in Scotland;
• where in Scotland Firearm and Shot Gun Certificates are issued; and
• greater accuracy in the number and types of weapons owned by individuals in Scotland.

For more information about these data, please contact Police Scotland at:
http://www.scotland.police.uk/contact-us/contact-us-form.

3.6. As outlined above, the new system has also highlighted and resolved a small number of data quality issues with the previous data collection:

On merging the data from the eight legacy force systems, it was quickly identified that in the migration from eight legacy force systems into one, SHOGUN had allocated each individual gun a unique 'weapon identifier' (WID) serial number. This exercise showed that, under the legacy force recording system, a large number of duplicate guns were created when weapons were shared. Duplicates also arose if two certificate holders resided in different legacy force areas but shared a weapon, as each force reported a single gun within their own return. This has now been rectified with each unique gun allocated a unique WID.

Duplication of 'items held on a certificate'

• it was found that approximately 12% of firearms on record across the eight legacy Police Forces (around 11,000 weapons) were duplicate firearms owned by two or more certificate holders (i.e. two or more people each hold a Firearm Certificate to permit access to the same weapon).
• it was found that approximately 16% of shotguns on record across the eight legacy Police Forces (around 21,000 weapons) were duplicate shotguns owned by two or more Shot Gun Certificate holders(i.e. two or more people each hold a Shot Gun Certificate to permit access to the same weapon).

European Firearm Passes

• The data on European Firearm Passes were not included as part of the transition to the SHOGUN system, as they were stored differently. Data is only available at this stage on those records that have subsequently been updated (e.g. renewal, or variation), which comprises only a small percentage of all records. Police Scotland anticipate that accurate data on European Firearm Passes will be available in due course.