At first sight the word FELWG looks like the name of a character from Lord of the Rings and as far as shooters are concerned it would be better were that actually the case. Alas, the acronym stands for Firearms and Explosives Licensing Working Group (FELWG). This body is comprised of members of the National Police Chief’s Council; it is their work that largely informs how firearms policy is implemented across the country and it is the publication of minutes of a Council meeting held earlier this year, that has caused many in the shooting community to express concern at the direction things are headed. That meeting revealed that a new policy authored by FELWG, had seen a deliberate targeting of licence holders; this was illustrated in figures revealing that over a 4 month period there were 1254 unannounced visits to the homes of shooters. Those figures showed the following:
In 107 cases “security issues” were discovered
In 63 cases “other issues” were discovered
83 certificate holders received advice
25 received a written warning
62 cases remain under review
28 licences were revoked
This policy has been described by critics of it as a “fishing expedition”, but those with knowledge of police behaviour in this and other sensitive areas will know that it will have been anything but. When police chiefs seek to implement a new strategy, especially one which is imposed against the wishes of a particular interest group (and, indeed, in the case of shooting sports the available evidence of any need) they are always at pains to ensure that in the early days at least, they are able to show a positive outcome. (No one should miss the point that every constabulary in the country retains a PR department). Was that the case here? After all 1254 visits were carried out and on the face of it easily justified the need for them by dint of the numbers of occasions where some further action was required. However there is a strong hint of something massaged about these numbers, precisely because they lack any real qualification. Take, for example those 63 cases where “other issues” were discovered. We can only guess at what these might relate to, but it is reasonable to suppose that they were concerned with evidence of criminality. For example, the use of drugs and the presence of stolen goods are two such, both of which along with others can (and should) lead to the loss of a certificate. What’s the betting then that ahead of this four month sweep, forces cherry picked licence holders who were already of interest to them and that way ensured a better than average strike rate of wrongdoing? Against this background it is not unreasonable to suppose that a goodly number of those 107 cases where security issues were discovered were also among the 63 cases of relating to security issues and that quite possibly they were mostly if not all represented among the 28 instances where licences were revoked.