Government of Jersey

Registered firearms (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey on behalf of the States of Jersey Police and published on 13 June 2019.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

The number of firearms and regulated weapons certificates granted per year since 2011 until present day. If possible, can this be broken down by:

(i) Calibre
(ii) Make
(iii) Type
(iv) Serial Number

Can you also advise how many permitted applicants hold criminal convictions? If so, what are the offences?

Response

As of the 10 June 2019, the total number of current valid certificates is recorded as 1,301. It should be noted that a single certificate may detail multiple firearms. To provide a detailed annual breakdown of renewals would require manual research of each certificate. Even estimating that this would take just one minute per certificate, this would take over 20 hours, meaning that the cost of complying with this request would exceed the cost limit, and is therefore exempt from disclosure. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 (the Law) has been applied.

Details of new certificates granted are detailed below:

	Number granted	Number cancelled	Net increase / decrease
2011	68	70	-2
2012	70	94	-24
2013	56	153	-97
2014	50	101	-51
2015	54	34	+20
2016	57	81	-24
2017	39	145	-106
2018	60	133	-73
2019	16	31	-15
Total	470	842	-372

A (i),(ii), (iii)

Please refer to Appendix 1. In many instances, firearms have shared possession, meaning that the same firearm may be recorded more than once, and in some instances, several times.

Appendix 1 - Firearms Certificates

A (iv)

Serial number – The public disclosure of firearm serial numbers raises concern that law enforcement work would likely to be prejudiced as this could allow someone to create false firearm identification. Whilst the public interest in disclosure has been considered, the need to prevent any possibility of firearm falsification, and therefore to prevent, detect or investigate crime is considered to override the public interest. Article 42 (Law Enforcement) of the Law has therefore been applied.

In order to respond to this question, it would be necessary to manually research conviction history of the 1,301 certificate holders. It is estimated that each search would take a minimum of three minutes (local + plus PNC (Police National Computer). This would equate to 65 hours meaning that the cost of complying with this request would exceed the cost limit, is therefore exempt from disclosure and Article 16 of the Law has been applied.

Articles applied

Article 16 A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

Article 42 Law enforcement

Information is qualified exempt information if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice –

(a) the prevention, detection or investigation of crime, whether in Jersey or elsewhere;