A gun surrender campaign began on Monday, November 3 in the Dorset Police force area. It’s for anyone holding an illegally-held firearms weapon to dispose of it safely. Police say that it’s also an opportunity for licence holders to consider surrendering weapons they may no longer have use for. Anyone wishing to surrender a firearm in Dorset can do so by visiting the following police stations between 8am on Monday, November 3 and 11pm on Sunday, November 16, 2014:
Bournemouth – 8am to 6pm, seven days a week
Weymouth – 8am to 4pm Monday-Friday, 9am to 1pm/2pm to 4.30pm Saturday
Sherborne – 10am to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday
Poole – 10am to 3.30pm Monday to Friday
Wareham – 10am to 1pm/2pm to 3.30pm Tuesday to Friday
Ferndown – 10am to 1pm/ 2pm to 3.30pm Wednesday and Thursday.
Those taking part in the campaign will receive an amnesty for possession of the firearm at the point of surrender/handover to a lawful authority. The surrender does not provide immunity from prosecution if the weapon is found to have been used unlawfully. A proportion of the firearms handed in will be destroyed but some may be retained by armourers if they are of significant interest or unusual.
A small number of firearms handed in during the gun surrender will be submitted to The National Ballistics Intelligence Service (NABIS) for examination. Any guns that are proved to be linked to a crime will be kept as evidence and retained for any future court case proceedings. A previous firearms amnesty staged in Dorset in 2003 saw more than 300 firearms handed over to police. This included starting guns, BB guns, air weapons, shotguns, pistols and rifles. A quantity of ammunition was also surrendered. The vast majority of these were not being used for criminal use.
Operational Support Superintendent Nicky Searle, from Dorset Police, said: “We acknowledge that the vast majority of firearms owned in Dorset are legally held and responsibly used.
“However, from time to time members of the public acquire firearms either as a result of inheriting them or, in some cases, as a result of changes to legislation when legally held weapons become illegally held weapons. In order to ensure that firearms do not end up in wider circulation and potentially become available for unlawful or criminal use, Dorset Police is participating in a national firearms surrender campaign. We want to stop guns falling into the wrong hands. Every gun given up is one less that poses a threat or that criminals can potentially get hold of.
“The campaign will allow people to surrender firearms across Dorset during these dates. I would like to remind residents that Dorset is a very safe place to live with very low levels of gun-related crime. Levels of illegally held firearms are low but this is a real opportunity for members of the public to relinquish any weapons that may be outside the law.”
Meanwhile a similar scheme runs in Norfolk and Suffolk from Movember 10 to 21. Richard Kennett, Firearms Licensing Manager for Norfolk and Suffolk Constabularies, said: “Some people may have un-registered, old weapons that they have forgotten about, that they no longer have a use for, or that they don’t know what to do with. Although such weapons aren’t being used for crimes, it’s important that they are handed over to the police to stop them from falling into the wrong hands.
“Fortunately we don’t have a big problem with gun crime in Norfolk and Suffolk, and reducing the amount of illegally owned firearms across the counties will help reduce the threat of gun crime even further,” added Richard.
The gun amnesty comes after changes to legislation which has seen the maximum sentence for owning an illegal gun increasing. It also means that some gun owners who were previously able to hold a firearm may no longer be legally allowed to do so; for example, someone who has been sentenced to a custodial or suspended sentence of more than three months can no longer possess a firearm, including antiques, and these people are amongst those being encouraged to hand over their firearms during the amnesty.
People can surrender their firearms at any police station in Norfolk and Suffolk during the amnesty. They should make sure that their gun is unloaded and covered up, and if possible people are asking to ring police beforehand on 101 to let them know that they will be bringing a gun in.
