Thwart a thief
The Home Office reported this year that there are almost 1.4 million legally held shotguns and 600,000 other legally held firearms, which are mostly Section 1 rifles, in the UK. Of those, 5,000 have been reported stolen since 2011 — that is 500 thefts a year on average.
Firearms used in crime tend not to be stolen sporting guns. The fashion among criminals is to convert replica pistols to fire live ammunition. Customs officers have seized more than 500 such conversions at the border since 2018.
The police, however, take firearms security very seriously and your licence stipulates the measures you must take to prevent them getting into the wrong hands.
Rare as
