Support for sport of shooting

That this House, fully supporting the sport of shooting and the private ownership of firearms within the law, notes the importance to public safety of monitoring the medical health of firearms certificate holders during the lifetime of their certificates; further notes that Government policy, as expressed in Home Office guidance on firearms licensing, asks general practitioners to place a marker on the medical notes of certificate holders so that a doctor treating the certificate holder will know that they own firearms and can make police aware if concerns arise; is therefore most concerned at the number of police constabularies which have instituted practices in breach of Home Office guidance by adopting medical verification of certificate applications without providing for markers to be placed on medical notes; considers this a failure to implement Government policy which falls short in protecting public safety; and calls on the Government to ensure that an effective and efficient system of medical involvement in firearms licensing through the placing of markers on certificate holders medical notes is implemented as a matter of urgency.