Persons Holding More Than One Firearm Licence

There are 662 140⁴ individuals holding more than one firearm licence, involving a total of 2 231 822 firearms. The above-mentioned individuals make up 32.7% of the total number of individual firearm licence holders (2 027 411), and the firearms held by these 662 140 individuals constitute 62% of all firearms licenced to individuals. The table below provides details of the quantities of firearms in the possession of all individual licence-holders (as opposed to quantities in the possession of other licensees mentioned in Table 15):

Over 13 000 individuals have more than 10 firearms registered to them. Apart from the purpose of being firearm collectors, reasons such as the following have also served to enable the acquisition of multiple licences:

• Securing of business
• Gift
• Target shooting
• Extermination of pests
• Hunting beasts of prey

Thefts and Negligent Losses of Firearms

A total of 99 409 firearms were reported stolen between 1994 and 1998. More than half of these firearms were stolen during 1997 and 1998 (26 171 and 23 820 respectively). The 1998 figure (23 820) is a 55.9% increase on the figure for 1994 (15 275). The numbers of reported cases involving the above-mentioned firearms increased by 56.4% between 1994 and 1998.⁵

At the same time, there has been a massive increase in the number of firearms reported as lost by their owners. 6 224 cases of negligent loss of firearm involving some 6 400 firearms were reported in 1998, compared to 4 729 cases in 1996, an increase of 31.6% over the two years. This amounts to a total of 112 692 firearms being lost by or stolen from their owners in the five year period 1994-98.

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⁴ CFR figure on 16 December 1999.

⁵ The figure for the number of reported cases of firearm thefts and losses should not be confused with the number of actual firearms stolen as more than one firearm can be involved in a single reported case of theft or loss of firearm.

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