It's actually quite easy to buy a gun legally in the UK but the process by which you obtain your certificates is very long winded.
Let's start at the beginning. Why do you want a gun and what type of gun do you need? To obtain a firearms certificate you need a good reason to hold each and every gun you apply for. Self defense is not an applicable reason and those two words will result in an immediate rejection of your application, without fail. In fact, if idiots came into the shop demanding the right to buy guns, we gave them the forms, helped them fill it out and told them to put self defence so they would be rejected.
Maybe you want to join a target shooting club, you might have some land to shoot rabbits or other small game. Those are great reasons for justifying your application. You may need to show proof of both if asked, and your certificate will only be granted if you can.
Now you need to ascertain what the correct caliber you need for the type of shooting you will be doing. Ask at your target range what they are certified for. Most small bore ranges are certified for .22lr, some are full bore usually meaning anything up to 303. However, regardless of the range certification, your club will have rules on the maximum caliber they shoot. Ask a club official if in doubt. Also ask club members how much ammunition they have been allowed to buy and possess. These are two very distinct things in firearms law and each police force makes up its own rules as allowed by the law. Buying is exactly that, the maximum amount you can buy at any one time. Possessing is how much ammo you can hold in total. These numbers can be the same or very different. And they can also change according to different calibres. For a .22lr target shooter it would not be unusual to purchase 1000 rounds at any one time and it would also be acceptable to possess 5000 rounds. For a hunter shooting deer with a .243, buying 1000 rounds would be deemed excessive and usually denied. A more acceptable number might be 100 to buy and 250 to possess. Again, this is all down to your particular force and the judgment of your FEO.
If you are hunting small game and/or vermin, pick up a copy of the Home Office publication “Firearms Law: Guidance to the Police” which contains a list of acceptable calibres for each type of quarry.
Next, you need a gun safe, built to British Standards, which will adequately hold the type and number of guns you request on your certificate. This must be securely bolted to a masonry wall inside your house (not an outbuilding) and only you can have access to the keys and/or combination. This must be installed before your interview (more on that a bit later). You will also require a separate ammo safe, again fixed securely to a masonry wall and fit for purpose. The same rules regarding access to keys and/or combinations apply.
Now you’ve done the preparation, you can actually get on with the application [mod note: Mossgate is located in Kent]. You must fill in every section. Return this form to your local police firearms licensing office with 4 passport photographs, countersigned by an authorized person who has known you personally for a minimum of 2 years (details of who can be considered an authorised person can be found on the form) and a cheque or postal order for the sum of £88. If you live relatively close to your local police firearms office, we recommend going in person to hand in your application and pay cash so you get a receipt. Applications do get lost but if you pay cash and get a receipt, they never do!
Now sit back, make a pot of tea and wait.
And wait.
And wait a bit more for luck.
It is not unusual for an application to take months to process. We have had applications in our force area take 3 weeks and others taken 8 months. It is entirely down to the size of your police force area, the number of people applying and the predominant type of ground your area covers. More certificates are granted in rural areas than in cities or large towns, and you are more likely to be granted a larger caliber in the countryside as the licencing officers are more used to it and are often shooters themselves.
Before your application is officially accepted, you will be interviewed [1] by the person who will become your Firearms Enquiry Officer. Your FEO will chat with you about why you want a gun, the reasons you listed on your application and if the calibres you requested are suitable. The FEO will be extremely experienced with all aspects of their job so listen to them. Trust me, FEO's and gun dealers know more about gun laws and licencing than you ever will, so if we make suggestions about what type of gun you should go for for any particular purpose or whether something is suitable or not, we know what we're talking about. You will not “get one over” your FEO so don't even try.
During the interview, your FEO will inspect your cabinet and make sure it is fit for purpose and correctly attached to a masonry wall. If it’s not, application denied until it is.
Once your interview is concluded, the FEO will usually let you know if you have been successful and you can expect your certificate in the post in a few days. With that certificate you can walk into any gun shop and buy the type, action and calibre you have listed on it, and walk out with that weapon 5 minutes later.
Some more notes:
You must specify a type of weapon, ie rifle, long barrel pistol, pistol(black-powder) etc, an action ie bolt action, semi auto and a calibre. This will all be listed on your certificate. You can now walk into any gun shop and buy any weapon matching that description.
Unlike the USA, the words silencer and moderator are interchangeable. If you want one, or require one for hunting, put it on your application. Once its on your certificate, walk into a gunshop and buy one, simple as that. A decent one will cost anything from £35 upwards. Gun dealers in the UK won't give a damn if you ask for a silencer or a moderator. Try doing that in the US or a forum frequented by yanks and you'll get snorts of derision “they’re not silencers, they're sound moderators, damn stupid Brits…”. We don't care. Make sure you list a moderator for each gun you want to fit one to on your application.
If you want more than one of each gun, put it in your application. You might want a dedicated target rifle and another of the same calibre for hunting. Both perfectly acceptable reasons, providing you do both activities. You might want multiple calibres for hunting different game, put them in your application. It’s not unusual for people to put 5 or 6 rifles on their first application. If I think back, I believe I put 8 on mine and they were all granted. Your FEO will chat about each and every gun you want and whether you actually need it or not.
If you get your certificate and you find you need an extra gun or two, you need to apply for a variation. This allows you to make changes to your certificate to add or remove weapons and ammo as appropriate. There is a fee for each variation application of £20, but you may put as much or as little as you need on each variation request.
If you want to sell a gun you hold, you must inform your licensing office in writing (email is often acceptable). When you do, ask for a “one for one”. This will grant you the ability to purchase another of the same type and caliber as the one you sold. Some police forces do this for free, some require a variation.
Some police forces do not require you to state what action you require. Find out if yours does before making your application. If they don't, don't specify one on your application. Your certificate will come back with just the type and calibre and this gives you a much wider choice when it comes to making a purchase.
You can buy a gun from a registered gun dealer, or from anyone with a firearms certificate as long as you have an empty slot for that particular type and calibre on your own certificate. For each and every gun and silencer you buy you need to inform the police you have done so.
It all sounds very long winded, but it boils down to:
Get a cabinet
Fill in a form
pay a fee
Have an interview
Receive certificate
Buy a gun
Now for some stuff the yanks really won't like!
Your FEO has the power and authority to check your guns at any time they please. This is to ensure you don't have anything not listed on your certificate, nor that you have more ammo than allowed. Most will make an appointment with you to make sure you are in but you are not allowed to deny their request.
Any police officer can confiscate your guns if you are in public or shooting on private land, in order to ascertain your right to have them. Many people at rifle clubs incorrectly tell you only armed officers or FEO's can do this, but in reality, anyone with a police warrant card can do it.
Many people will tell you that you have to keep your certificate with you when out shooting. This is not the case. The law only says you need to possess a certificate, not that you need to keep it with you. I recommend making a photocopy of it to carry with you and keep the actual certificate safe at home. This prevents it being lost or damaged, or god forbid stolen. I've had police request mine a few times when out shooting and a photocopy has always been fine. A quick check over the radio to ascertain if it's genuine and I'm on my way.
Applying for a shotgun certificate is a bit different, but the same process applies. The main differences are with a firearm certificate you can only buy one of each weapon listed, on a shotgun certificate you can buy as many as you can safely store. You don't list ammo on a shotgun certificate so you can buy as much or as little as you want. The law does not require you to keep shotgun ammo in a safe, however, your local police force might, so check first. If you want to buy 50 cartridges, you go buy 50 cartridges. If you want to buy 5000, you buy 5000. There is no limit other than practicality when it comes to shotgun ammo.
You still need to inform the police whenever you buy and sell a shotgun, but a shotgun certificate automatically covers all types and calibres, and there is usually no limit to how many you can buy, other than the amount of space in your cabinets. You want to buy 50 shotguns? Fine. You want to buy one every day of the year? Fine too. Just make sure you buy a new cabinet each time you fill one.
Shotguns and firearms are very different things by law, but sometimes a shotgun can become a firearm and will need to be listed on a firearms certificate. A shotgun capable of holding more than 3 rounds is 99.9% likely to be considered a firearm and not a shotgun. Your dealer will clearly advertise whether a shotgun is a section 1 or 2, meaning a shotgun or firearm.
If a shotgun is a firearm, normal firearm ammo rules apply. If a shotgun is a shotgun, normal shotgun ammo rules apply.
Footnotes for "How do I get a gun? [Legal Answer]"
[1] An applicant's interviewing experience:
A police officer droped by to check if the storage arrangements were suitable and that I didn't seem obviously unbalanced. The conversation covered “what sort of shooting do you intend to do and where?” - since I was applying for handguns, I had references from my shooting club that I was a full member in good standing and my conduct on their range was safe and satisfactory. It was a friendly chat; he was interested in my choice of weapons and calibres, but not challenging them (I was asking for four calibres, but intended - and could then afford - maybe two of them).
Let’s go over some of the illegal avenues by which the less law-abiding obtain weapons in the UK. This post is mostly here to show how easy weapons, especially the type used by common criminals, are to obtain or manufacture.
Keep in mind that firearms offenses (including the possession of an illegal firearm, even if never used) are punished very harshly in the UK and will gain you jail time.
If you have any criminal connections, obtaining a pistol is relatively straightforward. Webley revolvers and cap guns converted to fire live ammunition cost about GPB 150 on the street, and are readily available in most major cities.
Pistol-caliber ammunition is readily available as well.
Rifles are harder to come by. They are hard to conceal, so criminals have little demand for them. Figure that the street price for an AK-47 is probably somewhere around GBP 10k, mostly because of the lack of demand.
There are of course people on the internet selling illegal weapons, but getting illegal things of that magnitude by post is at huge risk of discovery, and the chance of being scammed is very high.
Lacking criminal connections, your best bet is to make one. Sticking with the pistol theme, the technology for a semi-automatic (double action) revolver has been around for over a hundred and fifty years. It’s not exactly rocket science.
One common method is to convert a cap gun or replica firearm from somewhere in continental Europe. These are not legally a firearms, at least outside of the UK, so they aren’t regulated or tracked. Smuggling in a few bits of metal should be pretty trivial if you drive or take a train instead of fly. Conversion requires replacing the barrel and cylinder with working equivalents, which can be made with materials and tools readily available at any home-repair store.
If you don’t want to travel, as the frame and associated components can be made readily using simple tools (or a 3D printer if you are so inclined). Only the barrel, cylinder, and hammer need to be made of metal; all the rest can be made from a plastic strong enough to hold the barrel and cylinder correctly in position when fired.
If you have the tools, figure a total cost of about GBP 30 (excluding the European holiday, of course).
Once again, do not do any of these. Highly illegal in the UK.
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How do I get a gun? [Legal answer by a shop owner]
Let's start at the beginning. Why do you want a gun and what type of gun do you need? To obtain a firearms certificate you need a good reason to hold each and every gun you apply for. Self defense is not an applicable reason and those two words will result in an immediate rejection of your application, without fail. In fact, if idiots came into the shop demanding the right to buy guns, we gave them the forms, helped them fill it out and told them to put self defence so they would be rejected.
Maybe you want to join a target shooting club, you might have some land to shoot rabbits or other small game. Those are great reasons for justifying your application. You may need to show proof of both if asked, and your certificate will only be granted if you can.
Now you need to ascertain what the correct caliber you need for the type of shooting you will be doing. Ask at your target range what they are certified for. Most small bore ranges are certified for .22lr, some are full bore usually meaning anything up to 303. However, regardless of the range certification, your club will have rules on the maximum caliber they shoot. Ask a club official if in doubt. Also ask club members how much ammunition they have been allowed to buy and possess. These are two very distinct things in firearms law and each police force makes up its own rules as allowed by the law. Buying is exactly that, the maximum amount you can buy at any one time. Possessing is how much ammo you can hold in total. These numbers can be the same or very different. And they can also change according to different calibres. For a .22lr target shooter it would not be unusual to purchase 1000 rounds at any one time and it would also be acceptable to possess 5000 rounds. For a hunter shooting deer with a .243, buying 1000 rounds would be deemed excessive and usually denied. A more acceptable number might be 100 to buy and 250 to possess. Again, this is all down to your particular force and the judgment of your FEO.
If you are hunting small game and/or vermin, pick up a copy of the Home Office publication “Firearms Law: Guidance to the Police” which contains a list of acceptable calibres for each type of quarry.
Next, you need a gun safe, built to British Standards, which will adequately hold the type and number of guns you request on your certificate. This must be securely bolted to a masonry wall inside your house (not an outbuilding) and only you can have access to the keys and/or combination. This must be installed before your interview (more on that a bit later). You will also require a separate ammo safe, again fixed securely to a masonry wall and fit for purpose. The same rules regarding access to keys and/or combinations apply.
Now you’ve done the preparation, you can actually get on with the application [mod note: Mossgate is located in Kent]. You must fill in every section. Return this form to your local police firearms licensing office with 4 passport photographs, countersigned by an authorized person who has known you personally for a minimum of 2 years (details of who can be considered an authorised person can be found on the form) and a cheque or postal order for the sum of £88. If you live relatively close to your local police firearms office, we recommend going in person to hand in your application and pay cash so you get a receipt. Applications do get lost but if you pay cash and get a receipt, they never do!
Now sit back, make a pot of tea and wait.
And wait.
And wait a bit more for luck.
It is not unusual for an application to take months to process. We have had applications in our force area take 3 weeks and others taken 8 months. It is entirely down to the size of your police force area, the number of people applying and the predominant type of ground your area covers. More certificates are granted in rural areas than in cities or large towns, and you are more likely to be granted a larger caliber in the countryside as the licencing officers are more used to it and are often shooters themselves.
Before your application is officially accepted, you will be interviewed [1] by the person who will become your Firearms Enquiry Officer. Your FEO will chat with you about why you want a gun, the reasons you listed on your application and if the calibres you requested are suitable. The FEO will be extremely experienced with all aspects of their job so listen to them. Trust me, FEO's and gun dealers know more about gun laws and licencing than you ever will, so if we make suggestions about what type of gun you should go for for any particular purpose or whether something is suitable or not, we know what we're talking about. You will not “get one over” your FEO so don't even try.
During the interview, your FEO will inspect your cabinet and make sure it is fit for purpose and correctly attached to a masonry wall. If it’s not, application denied until it is.
Once your interview is concluded, the FEO will usually let you know if you have been successful and you can expect your certificate in the post in a few days. With that certificate you can walk into any gun shop and buy the type, action and calibre you have listed on it, and walk out with that weapon 5 minutes later.
Some more notes:
You must specify a type of weapon, ie rifle, long barrel pistol, pistol(black-powder) etc, an action ie bolt action, semi auto and a calibre. This will all be listed on your certificate. You can now walk into any gun shop and buy any weapon matching that description.
Unlike the USA, the words silencer and moderator are interchangeable. If you want one, or require one for hunting, put it on your application. Once its on your certificate, walk into a gunshop and buy one, simple as that. A decent one will cost anything from £35 upwards. Gun dealers in the UK won't give a damn if you ask for a silencer or a moderator. Try doing that in the US or a forum frequented by yanks and you'll get snorts of derision “they’re not silencers, they're sound moderators, damn stupid Brits…”. We don't care. Make sure you list a moderator for each gun you want to fit one to on your application.
If you want more than one of each gun, put it in your application. You might want a dedicated target rifle and another of the same calibre for hunting. Both perfectly acceptable reasons, providing you do both activities. You might want multiple calibres for hunting different game, put them in your application. It’s not unusual for people to put 5 or 6 rifles on their first application. If I think back, I believe I put 8 on mine and they were all granted. Your FEO will chat about each and every gun you want and whether you actually need it or not.
If you get your certificate and you find you need an extra gun or two, you need to apply for a variation. This allows you to make changes to your certificate to add or remove weapons and ammo as appropriate. There is a fee for each variation application of £20, but you may put as much or as little as you need on each variation request.
If you want to sell a gun you hold, you must inform your licensing office in writing (email is often acceptable). When you do, ask for a “one for one”. This will grant you the ability to purchase another of the same type and caliber as the one you sold. Some police forces do this for free, some require a variation.
Some police forces do not require you to state what action you require. Find out if yours does before making your application. If they don't, don't specify one on your application. Your certificate will come back with just the type and calibre and this gives you a much wider choice when it comes to making a purchase.
You can buy a gun from a registered gun dealer, or from anyone with a firearms certificate as long as you have an empty slot for that particular type and calibre on your own certificate. For each and every gun and silencer you buy you need to inform the police you have done so.
It all sounds very long winded, but it boils down to:
Get a cabinet
Fill in a form
pay a fee
Have an interview
Receive certificate
Buy a gun
Now for some stuff the yanks really won't like!
Your FEO has the power and authority to check your guns at any time they please. This is to ensure you don't have anything not listed on your certificate, nor that you have more ammo than allowed. Most will make an appointment with you to make sure you are in but you are not allowed to deny their request.
Any police officer can confiscate your guns if you are in public or shooting on private land, in order to ascertain your right to have them. Many people at rifle clubs incorrectly tell you only armed officers or FEO's can do this, but in reality, anyone with a police warrant card can do it.
Many people will tell you that you have to keep your certificate with you when out shooting. This is not the case. The law only says you need to possess a certificate, not that you need to keep it with you. I recommend making a photocopy of it to carry with you and keep the actual certificate safe at home. This prevents it being lost or damaged, or god forbid stolen. I've had police request mine a few times when out shooting and a photocopy has always been fine. A quick check over the radio to ascertain if it's genuine and I'm on my way.
Applying for a shotgun certificate is a bit different, but the same process applies. The main differences are with a firearm certificate you can only buy one of each weapon listed, on a shotgun certificate you can buy as many as you can safely store. You don't list ammo on a shotgun certificate so you can buy as much or as little as you want. The law does not require you to keep shotgun ammo in a safe, however, your local police force might, so check first. If you want to buy 50 cartridges, you go buy 50 cartridges. If you want to buy 5000, you buy 5000. There is no limit other than practicality when it comes to shotgun ammo.
You still need to inform the police whenever you buy and sell a shotgun, but a shotgun certificate automatically covers all types and calibres, and there is usually no limit to how many you can buy, other than the amount of space in your cabinets. You want to buy 50 shotguns? Fine. You want to buy one every day of the year? Fine too. Just make sure you buy a new cabinet each time you fill one.
Shotguns and firearms are very different things by law, but sometimes a shotgun can become a firearm and will need to be listed on a firearms certificate. A shotgun capable of holding more than 3 rounds is 99.9% likely to be considered a firearm and not a shotgun. Your dealer will clearly advertise whether a shotgun is a section 1 or 2, meaning a shotgun or firearm.
If a shotgun is a firearm, normal firearm ammo rules apply. If a shotgun is a shotgun, normal shotgun ammo rules apply.
Footnotes
[1] An applicant's interviewing experience:
A police officer droped by to check if the storage arrangements were suitable and that I didn't seem obviously unbalanced. The conversation covered “what sort of shooting do you intend to do and where?” - since I was applying for handguns, I had references from my shooting club that I was a full member in good standing and my conduct on their range was safe and satisfactory. It was a friendly chat; he was interested in my choice of weapons and calibres, but not challenging them (I was asking for four calibres, but intended - and could then afford - maybe two of them).
How do I get a gun? [Illegal answer]
Keep in mind that firearms offenses (including the possession of an illegal firearm, even if never used) are punished very harshly in the UK and will gain you jail time.
If you have any criminal connections, obtaining a pistol is relatively straightforward. Webley revolvers and cap guns converted to fire live ammunition cost about GPB 150 on the street, and are readily available in most major cities.
Pistol-caliber ammunition is readily available as well.
Rifles are harder to come by. They are hard to conceal, so criminals have little demand for them. Figure that the street price for an AK-47 is probably somewhere around GBP 10k, mostly because of the lack of demand.
There are of course people on the internet selling illegal weapons, but getting illegal things of that magnitude by post is at huge risk of discovery, and the chance of being scammed is very high.
Lacking criminal connections, your best bet is to make one. Sticking with the pistol theme, the technology for a semi-automatic (double action) revolver has been around for over a hundred and fifty years. It’s not exactly rocket science.
One common method is to convert a cap gun or replica firearm from somewhere in continental Europe. These are not legally a firearms, at least outside of the UK, so they aren’t regulated or tracked. Smuggling in a few bits of metal should be pretty trivial if you drive or take a train instead of fly. Conversion requires replacing the barrel and cylinder with working equivalents, which can be made with materials and tools readily available at any home-repair store.
If you don’t want to travel, as the frame and associated components can be made readily using simple tools (or a 3D printer if you are so inclined). Only the barrel, cylinder, and hammer need to be made of metal; all the rest can be made from a plastic strong enough to hold the barrel and cylinder correctly in position when fired.
If you have the tools, figure a total cost of about GBP 30 (excluding the European holiday, of course).
Once again, do not do any of these. Highly illegal in the UK.