In a letter to MPs, Home Secretary Theresa May has said that people applying for gun licences could be asked to prove that their current or recent partners have consented to the application.
Although she wrote the letter shortly after the Newtown massacre in December, when 20 children and six adults were shot dead at a school in Connecticut, it was only published yesterday (January 16th).
At the time, the Home Secretary wrote to the Home Affairs Committee, advising MPs that the Government was working with the Association of Chief Police Officers on how to strengthen “guidance on how reports of domestic violence should be treated by police considering firearms applications”.
In her letter, Mrs May said that it was not appropriate for people with a history of domestic violence to own guns and that the proposed extra check might reduce the risk to the victims of domestic violence.
The proposal come after studying the Canadian practice of consulting the partners of firearms applicants. In Canada, spouses or recent ex-spouses must sign gun licence application forms and, if they decline, additional checks are carried out on the applicant.
In 2010 the Home Affairs Committee published a report into firearms control after 12 people were murdered in Cumbria by gunman Derrick Bird, in which the Committee said it was concerned that involving partners and recent ex-partners could actually make them more vulnerable.
Mrs May’s recent statements therefore mark a shift in tone and other proposals aimed at tightening the laws include extending the five-year ban on firearm possession to criminals who receive suspended sentences in place of the current threshold of a sentence of three months.
The Home Secretary also said that the Government is considering ways to tighten medical background checks on firearms licence applicants, which would, as now, include evidence of mental health problems.