Selling Weapons in the UK

A little while back I asked the government how to sell weapons to other countries. It was the most chilling thing that I have ever wrote because it showed how to LITERALLY become an arms dealer (it really did shake me to the foundation of my morals).  A little while later I thought about how you could sell weapons in the UK.  You have to remember that there are a lot of people out there with shotgun and firearms licences. So what does it take to sell weapons in the UK

So I fired off another FoI request to the Home Office asking:

1) What are the processes that someone has to go through to sell firearms \ ammo in the UK (legally)

2) How many organisations are licenced to sell firearms \ ammo in the United Kingdom

Then I got the response back.  I shoulyn have been that surprised (Considering how easy it was to find information out about how to sell weapons) to find that most of the information was out there already.

First of all you can find a general overview of the information regarding the seller of firearms from the home office website.  It shows the general statistics on how many people were registered to sell firearms and a few other things to (How many Europeans can own firearms, visitors permits and so on and so forth).

Second, about the selling of firearms. I was given the guide book on how to do this.  A little look through the book showed a number of things.  It showed what you can and cannot sell (firearms that can fire two missiles at the same time, any self-loading or pump-action rifled gun other than one which is chambered for .22 rimfire cartridges, and any firearm which is disguised as another object - Page 17 of the guide book).  

So how do you become a licensed weapons dealer?  It’s up to the Chief Police Officer of your area to decide if you can sell firearms and ammo or not. They have to take a full review of the person that is going to be selling the weapons and they have to be satisfied that they know enough about the topic in order to continue to sell the firearms. They also have to take regular reviews into the firearms dealer (simply to check they they are doing things which are right).  The police are also to take into account the safe of the general public when allowing to sell firearms in an area as well.

So what have we learnt, kids?  It pretty hard actually to become a firearms dealer in the Uk.  You literally have to jump through a number of hoops AND get approval from the police.  The thing that, again surprises is that the FoI WASN'T needed for this. I could have done this without asking the Home Office. The other thing is that the Police Chief has the authority on allowing licensed firearms dealers…  That sounds like another FoI request to me!