You asked
I am contacting you to enquire whether it is possible to have wider access to any and all information you may have regarding firearm and gun ownership for the financial year ending 2016 or 2017 if it is available across the United Kingdom?
I am specifically interested in weapon type owned, and if available, geographic and social economic information of owners. In addition to this, any statistical data surrounding air rifle ownership would also be useful.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
Unfortunately, we do not hold any figures on firearm and gun ownership.
The Home Office publishes data on Firearm certificates in England and Wales;
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/firearm-certificates-in-england-and-wales
Any queries regarding these data should be directed to the Home Office. Their contact email address is: CSU.Statistics@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk.
The only relevant information we publish relates to police recorded firearm offences. You can find the number of ‘Possession of firearms with intent’ and ‘Possession of firearm’ offences recorded by the police in Appendix Table A4, which is published alongside our quarterly publication: Crime in England and Wales.
Alongside our quarterly publication we also publish data on police recorded offences involving firearms. “Offences involving firearms” encompass any notifiable offence recorded by the police where a firearm has been fired, used as a blunt instrument or been used as a threat; you can access these data in Tables F7a and F7b.
Detailed information on firearm offences, for the year ending March 2016 is published in our Focus on Violent Crime and Sexual Offences, England and Wales publication.
We do not hold crime statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland; these are published by the Scottish Government and the Police Service of Northern Ireland respectively.