can you legally own a firearm in the uk
Members of the public may own sporting rifles and shotguns, subject to licensing, but handguns were effectively banned after the Dunblane school massacre in 1996 with the exception of Northern Ireland. Dunblane was the UK's first and only school shooting. There has been one spree killing since Dunblane, the Cumbria shootings in June 2010, which involved a shotgun and a .22 caliber rifle, both legally-held. Prior to Dunblane though, there had only been one mass shooting carried out by a civilian in the entire history of Great Britain, which took place in Hungerford on 19 August 1987.
Firearms policy in the United Kingdom