UK - Major incident, gunshots heard, Plymouth, 12 August 2021
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Plymouth shooting: Community marks 12 months since tragedy
On 12 August 2021, five people were killed and two were injured in the shooting in Keyham.
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Keyham shooting: Killer's father 'urged son to give up licence'
Mark Davison tells a hearing he alerted police over his son's mental health before the killings.
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Plymouth shooting: Gunman 'did not hesitate' before killing himself
Jake Davison killed his mother and then shot dead four others, including a girl, in Plymouth.
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Plymouth shooting inquests: Police encouraged restorative justice
Jake Davison, who killed five people, was given an anger management leaflet after an earlier attack.
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I've been meaning to comment on this case for a while but never seem to have got the chance until now.
I've had shotgun and firearm certificates for well over thirty years. I'm a registered firearms dealer and operate two home office approved shooting clubs.
When I first heard of this it utterly staggered me that this guy had any access to firearms in any capacity, let alone had been granted a shotgun certificate. The responsibility for the deaths he caused stands squarely with the police who not only issued that certificate but gave him it back, along with the firearm, knowing full well that he had a propensity to spontaneous, serious violence.
The attack he carried out on the kid in the skate park was extremely violent and totally and utterly unwarranted. In my force area, Northumbria, there would be less than zero chance of him ever getting it back and, given that he'd been referred to Prevent by his own mother prior to it being granted, would have been exceptionally unlikely to even have it.
Turns out that Jake William Davison was born on August 21, 1998.
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That article is quite click-baity, to be quite honest.
Those applying for a shotgun will now need to show that two individuals who have known them for at least two years can vouch for their suitability. And they must declare all convictions.
You've always had to declare convictions. I've had certificates since at least 1989 and that was always the case.
The referees you give are not there to vouch for the applicant's suitability. They are just there so that the police (who grant the certificate) can ask them questions. Indeed, the forms used to say "you are not vouching for the applicant's future behavior", or something similar.
She said: 'We need a national firearms licence database, we need more regular reviews of those that have firearms.
We have one - it's called The National Firearms Licensing Management System. It records every certificate holder and every firearm.
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So, I've perused the Statutory Instrument creating the new rules.
www.legislation.gov.uk
The SI specifies the exact layout and wording of the application forms. At annexe "A" of the application form which is the part relating to the advice to referees, it says;
As a referee you are not required to guarantee the applicant's good behavior.
and,
...please be assured that the actions of the applicant would not reflect upon you as the referee.
When taken with the rest of the advice in Annexe "A" it is fairly clear that the referee is not "vouching" for the applicant. They are there to support the applicant, and the police in their role as the licensing authority. Basically, they are there to give factual information to the police and not much else.
To be honest, I'm not really sure how increasing the number of referees needed for a shotgun certificate is going to change anything. Most people can most likely round up two people who will be a referee for them and you aren't going to ask someone who thinks you're a total toss-pot to begin with. Although, yes, I suppose if you are a total toss-pot it's harder to find two people as against one.
We must remember, however, that we are discussing this in the context of a guy who violently assaulted people in public (there is CCTV of it), had his certificate revoked (or at least had his guns removed for a time), got possession again and murdered people.
This was the fault of the system than administers the licensing regime - the police - rather than how it was designed to work. I think I've said this before but I can state with absolute 100% certainty that had he behaved like that in my police area there would have been zero chance of him ever getting his guns back and that the cops would have immediately revoked him, something I don't believe happened in this case. I know people who have been revoked over altercations with neighbors and garden hoses!
Neither does it address such things as people forging certificates as has happened recently. The idea that in 2025 firearms transfers are facilitated by a certificate consisting of multiple pieces of A4 paper is ludicrous, quite frankly.
Not only is a ludicrous, it is also a huge security issue; the cert consists of your name, address, date of birth, and contains the details of every firearm you possess, what you are authorised to acquire and likely quantities of ammunition that you hold. Absolute madness!
The lad who killed his mother with a shotgun he purchased with a forged certificate would have, in my opinion, experienced much greater difficulty in acquiring it - even with a good forged cert - if he and the seller were required to pass the gun through a firearms dealer, rather than doing it as a private sale. In fact, I'd suggest that unless he was extremely confident in his forgery skills - not to mention being confident in his skills at blagging to an RFD - he probably wouldn't have got away with it or even attempted it.
So, yes, I think that the one significant thing, and very easy thing, that the new rules could have done, and totally failed to do, was to require all transfers to go through an RFD which would prevent private sales from happening. I've always been very, very anti regulation unless it's necessary but this one thing would have almost certainly have prevented that incident. And, no, that's not me as a firearms dealer trying to make money on transfers; the transfer fee could be set in law and the number of private transfers aren't that great anyway so I'd never get rich off it - tbh, they are a pain in the backside and I (along with most other RFD's) would prefer not to do them.
The Firearms (Amendment) Rules 2025
These Rules make amendments to the Firearms Rules 1998 (S.I. 1998/1941).
The SI specifies the exact layout and wording of the application forms. At annexe "A" of the application form which is the part relating to the advice to referees, it says;
As a referee you are not required to guarantee the applicant's good behavior.
and,
...please be assured that the actions of the applicant would not reflect upon you as the referee.
When taken with the rest of the advice in Annexe "A" it is fairly clear that the referee is not "vouching" for the applicant. They are there to support the applicant, and the police in their role as the licensing authority. Basically, they are there to give factual information to the police and not much else.
To be honest, I'm not really sure how increasing the number of referees needed for a shotgun certificate is going to change anything. Most people can most likely round up two people who will be a referee for them and you aren't going to ask someone who thinks you're a total toss-pot to begin with. Although, yes, I suppose if you are a total toss-pot it's harder to find two people as against one.
We must remember, however, that we are discussing this in the context of a guy who violently assaulted people in public (there is CCTV of it), had his certificate revoked (or at least had his guns removed for a time), got possession again and murdered people.
This was the fault of the system than administers the licensing regime - the police - rather than how it was designed to work. I think I've said this before but I can state with absolute 100% certainty that had he behaved like that in my police area there would have been zero chance of him ever getting his guns back and that the cops would have immediately revoked him, something I don't believe happened in this case. I know people who have been revoked over altercations with neighbors and garden hoses!
Neither does it address such things as people forging certificates as has happened recently. The idea that in 2025 firearms transfers are facilitated by a certificate consisting of multiple pieces of A4 paper is ludicrous, quite frankly.
Not only is a ludicrous, it is also a huge security issue; the cert consists of your name, address, date of birth, and contains the details of every firearm you possess, what you are authorised to acquire and likely quantities of ammunition that you hold. Absolute madness!
The lad who killed his mother with a shotgun he purchased with a forged certificate would have, in my opinion, experienced much greater difficulty in acquiring it - even with a good forged cert - if he and the seller were required to pass the gun through a firearms dealer, rather than doing it as a private sale. In fact, I'd suggest that unless he was extremely confident in his forgery skills - not to mention being confident in his skills at blagging to an RFD - he probably wouldn't have got away with it or even attempted it.
So, yes, I think that the one significant thing, and very easy thing, that the new rules could have done, and totally failed to do, was to require all transfers to go through an RFD which would prevent private sales from happening. I've always been very, very anti regulation unless it's necessary but this one thing would have almost certainly have prevented that incident. And, no, that's not me as a firearms dealer trying to make money on transfers; the transfer fee could be set in law and the number of private transfers aren't that great anyway so I'd never get rich off it - tbh, they are a pain in the backside and I (along with most other RFD's) would prefer not to do them.
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