HC Deb 11 May 1882 vol 269 cc454-5
SIR JAMES LAWRENCE

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, having regard to the increased use of revolvers in the public streets, he will consider as to the propriety of directing the attention of magistrates and the police authorities to the provisions of the Act of Parliament, 33 and 34 Vic. c. 57, and especially to Sections 2 and 7 of such Act, by which it is enacted that Every person who shall use or carry a gun, or other firearm, elsewhere than in a dwelling house or curtilage thereof, without having in force a licence duly granted to him under this Act, shall forfeit the sum of ten pounds; and, whether he is aware of the ignorance prevailing as to the scope of the Act, and will take steps for making it generally known that the Act (Gun Licence Act, 1870) extends to all parts of the United Kingdom, including Ireland?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT;

in reply, said, that the Question was really chiefly an Excise matter; but he quite agreed with his hon. Friend that more attention ought to be paid to the prevalence of such a practice. He promised that steps would be taken to see that this was done in Ireland as well as in other parts of the Kingdom.