The siblings of the Plymouth gunman Jake Davison have criticised the police and the UK government for failing to strengthen the firearms licensing system after an inquest jury concluded he killed himself after shooting dead his mother and four other people.
There is growing pressure on the government to reform the licensing system, with one former Home Office minister describing it as “a thicket” and Labour saying it would carry out a review if it wins the next general election.
The government promised to look at calls to amend the 50-year-old legislation under which it is easier to get a shotgun certificate than one for a rifle, but organisations representing gun owners and the shooting industry have voiced their opposition to such changes.
On Monday a jury concluded that “catastrophic” failures by Devon and Cornwall police meant Davison, 22, was wrongly allowed to have the pump-action shotgun he used to kill his mother, Maxine, 51; three-year-old Sophie Martyn; her father, Lee, 43; Stephen Washington, 59; and Kate Shepherd, 66.
The same panel returned on Tuesday to hear Davison’s brief inquest and was told he had taken anabolic steroids in the hours or days before the shootings in August 2021. After killing the five people, he turned his weapon on himself when an unarmed police officer ran towards him.
Barrister Nick Stanage, representing Davison’s sister and brother, Zoe and Josh, said they wanted real change.
He said: “The protection of the public requires action now, in contrast to the decades of institutional indolence, insouciance and incompetence locally and at the highest levels of government and policing.”
The senior coroner Ian Arrow said he would write to the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and all 43 police forces in England and Wales, highlighting the concerns that have been raised. He added: “There have been lessons learned in previous years, which simply do not appear to have been properly addressed.”
In the House of Commons the former Home Office minister Kit Malthouse said: “Firearms legislation is an accretion of policies over the years and has become a bit of a thicket for us all to navigate, and we should have a look at some kind of review.”
The shadow Home Office minister Sarah Jones highlighted Davison’s interest in “incel” culture and called for more focus on young men who were radicalised online.
She said: “Jake Davison was an incel. The online radicalisation of young men has been overlooked for far too long.” Jones claimed the government’s “watering down” of the online safety bill meant “misogynists and incel gangs will continue to proliferate online”.
The government promised to look at the calls for an overhaul of firearms legislation and is to order a fresh inspection of Devon and Cornwall’s firearms licensing unit.
But there is alarm within the shooting community that rule changes could hit law-abiding shotgun owners and the industry by forcing up the cost of certificates, and some fear it could push firearms ownership underground.
Christopher Graffius, a spokesperson for the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), said: “What happens in these cases is that people ask: ‘What can we possibly do?’ And they pull things out of the air that initially look attractive but actually make very little difference. The point is, all the laws were there to refuse Davison his certificate but the laws weren’t used.”
The families’ call for shotgun rules to be tightened to put them on par with rifles have been backed by the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall police, Will Kerr, and Debbie Tedds, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on firearms licensing.
But Graffius said: “Varying the law is pretty pointless if we can’t be sure the police will actually enforce it. It seems to me the essence here is how we make all firearms departments effective. That breaks down to training and ensuring common standards. That is the key change to keep the public safe. Meddling around with the law will not do it. Whenever there is an outrage like this, people start talking about how to regulate the law-abiding shooting community.”
Charlie Jacoby, a presenter and co-founder of the Fieldsports Channel, said: “No system is perfect but this system is as good as it gets. If you make the rules more draconian you risk driving gun ownership underground, which is what nobody wants. [The system] failed in this case but it doesn’t mean that tightening it will make it better.”
