England and Wales’s firearms licensing system is “not fit for purpose” and should be replaced by a single national authority, the police inspectorate has said, echoing concerns raised by Action on Armed Violence over inconsistencies between police forces.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) said the system amounted to a “postcode lottery”, with applicants and certificate holders subjected to different levels of scrutiny, service and waiting times depending on where they live.
The watchdog is calling for the 38 firearms and explosives licensing units operating across England and Wales to be replaced by a national firearms licensing authority.
AOAV has welcomed the proposal. In December 2025, an AOAV investigation found marked differences in the information collected from firearms applicants by individual police forces, despite licensing being governed by national law.
HMICFRS said unclear legislation, fragmented guidance, poor oversight and inconsistent training were creating risks to public safety. Shootings involving legally held firearms resulted in the murder of at least 39 people in the ten years to March 2025, it said.
His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary Lee Freeman said most of the nearly 500,000 certificate holders used their firearms responsibly, but both they and the public were being failed by an inconsistent system.
“They, and the wider public, deserve a system that is clear, consistent and robust. We found the current system is none of these things,” he said.
HMICFRS found firearms law was spread across more than 30 pieces of legislation and national guidance was fragmented and open to interpretation. Training for licensing staff and senior managers was also inconsistent and sometimes absent.
Those findings closely reflect concerns identified by AOAV last year.
AOAV examined firearms licensing application systems across all 44 police jurisdictions in mainland Britain and found forces were not consistently gathering the same information from prospective gun owners.
Only eight of the 44 forces examined appeared to ask applicants to provide detailed information about firearms they already possessed, including make and serial number. By contrast, the standard Home Office application form requires applicants to provide the type, calibre, make, serial number and purpose of firearms already held.
AOAV warned that the decentralised system could mean different police forces held different levels of information about licensed weapons. It argued that a single centrally controlled application process would help remove such discrepancies.
The new HMICFRS recommendation goes further, proposing that responsibility for firearms licensing itself should be transferred from individual forces to a national body.
Locally based personnel would continue to conduct suitability visits, but licensing decisions, training, risk management, governance and performance oversight would sit within one organisation.
AOAV Executive Director Iain Overton said the recommendation addressed a fundamental weakness in the existing system.
“Britain has some of the strongest firearms laws in the world, but those laws are only as effective as the system applying them,” he said.
“Our investigation found that applicants could be asked for different information simply because they lived in different police areas. When the purpose of firearms licensing is to protect the public, that sort of inconsistency is difficult to justify.”
Concerns about firearms licensing intensified following the 2021 mass shooting in Keyham, Plymouth, in which Jake Davison killed five people with a legally held shotgun before killing himself.
Davison’s shotgun and certificate had previously been seized by Devon and Cornwall Police following an assault, but were later returned to him. The subsequent inquests identified serious failures in training, management, scrutiny and risk assessment.
HMICFRS has made 22 further recommendations, including in-person medical assessments, a standardised competence test, aligning rules for firearms and shotguns, and digital verification of certificates.
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