The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

My response would be to this request:

Show me where this is required within firearms legislation!

When they say it's just voluntary I would polite say no. I have already had to point my local Licensing Office to the legislation when they got it in their heads that I needed club membership and evidence of good reason for my S.2 Shotgun when I moved from another area. No on all counts especially as I already had a certificate!

The ability to match a brass cartridge to a rifle/pistol is exaggerated already, considering how cheaply made a shot gun cartridge is and how many Shotguns are in circulation I highly doubt they would be any serious forensic benefit! This smells of NABIS and Continuity ACPO.

It is even a greater nonsense considering you don't need a certificate to own Shotgun cartridges.

Yeh this was sent with my licence over a year ago, although I've nothing to hide & see how it helps the police, I do have concerns.
Now as mentioned I have nothing to hide, but let's say I'm shooting at a range & a total stranger picks up one of my spent cases. He/she then commits a firearms offence & places my cartridge at the scene in essence setting me up. Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist as a general rule but you can see how easy it'd be to pass blame for a firearms crime onto someone else.
Next thing, police show up asking for samples & they create a perfect match! Up a very murky creek with no way to paddle comes to mind.
Just my thoughts on the process & as long as it's voluntary I'll give it a miss.

In theory, with a bullet fired from a metallic cartridge you can match the rifling to a particular gun ... in theory! In theory you can match a spent metallic cartridge case to the chamber of a gun ... in theory! In theory you can match the firing pin of a gun and how it hits the primer with a spent cartridge case ... in theory!

The reality contrary to what the Discovery channel and NABIS would have you believe matching a bullet to a gun is a very hit and miss affair and there have been miscarriages of justice. That is with metallic cartridges and rifled guns...

Now lets look at shotguns. They are smooth-bore and fire lots of small soft lead pellets it is virtually impossible to match the pellet to cartridge and shotgun. I suppose in theory if you could match the pellets with cartridges all from the same batch you might be able to match the metallurgy. But cartridges are mass produced in vast numbers and can be owned by people without certificates, somebody going on a clay shooting day could easily pocket some and nobody would be the wiser. Shotgun cartridges are thin plastic or card shells with a very thin brass base, I struggle to see how anybody could hope to match a fired cartridge shell with a particular gun. Certainly not to the satisfaction of a good lawyer. Firing pin strike on the primer? Again a very theoretical process.

This is ill thought out nonsense!

This is the thin end of the wedge.

They 'ask' all their certificate holders to volunteer a sample, and then when 90% willingly do it to remain on good terms with the department the remaining 10% who know this is nonsense are seen as 'problem' certificate holders.

What's next? Finger printing? DNA samples? - if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear etc. etc.

Trouble is the more we sell down the river, the more of a grind it will become to be a certificate holder in years to come. The authorities want to over regulate the system to make it nearly impossible to achieve the criteria.

Doom and gloom. Sounds like a good idea to me?

I can not see what the problem is. Sounds like you are all paranoid to me.

You have to have a ballistic test on handguns here every time it changes hands not on any other firearm. Unless i had to by law i would not be complying, the firearms forensics people in Manchester must be short of things to do.

The problem is Alpha1 Certificate holders are being asked to do something that is of dubious benefit and is not required under current Firearms legislation.

It is the thin end of the wedge, we as Firearms and Shotgun owners are expected to perform our sport to the letter of the law. Any minor infraction is dealt with to an extremely harsh degree. The Police, Continuity ACPO and NABIS have been begging to be able to control and invent firearms legislation without consultation or recourse to elected officials and the general public. If we roll over on this as a community we are effectively saying "Go ahead, do whatever you want we are not bothered"! That is anti democratic and only harms our sport.

If you are asked to do this politely refuse and point them towards the Firearms act.

If not a regulatory requirement, I would politely decline.

Here in NZ, we are not (not yet anyway) required to register sporting rifles and shotguns. However, when the firearms vetting officer comes to check my registered firearms (pistols and Military Style Semi-Autos) every year, they have been instructed to ask if I would like them to record my sporting rifles. It's registration by stealth with no regulatory requirement, and I always decline.