Ask any stalker what they would change about firearms licensing and the variation process will be near the top of the list. The wait, the cost, the sheer faff of needing official permission to add a simple metal tube to your ticket. Well, as of this week that headache is behind us. Sound moderators have come off ticket, a change the National Gamekeepers' Organisation has long pressed for, and it is one of the most sensible reforms to firearms law in years.
Section 44 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 has come into force, removing moderators and flash suppressors from firearms licensing controls in England, Wales and Scotland. From now on, the moment you hold a valid firearms certificate, you can pop into your gunshop and buy a moderator off the shelf. No waiting, no variation.
This is plain common sense. A moderator is safety kit, an inert metal tube that protects your hearing, keeps disturbance to stock and neighbours down, and helps you place a calm, humane shot. It was never a firearm in any meaningful sense, and treating it as one achieved nothing beyond paperwork. And there was plenty of that. Moderators made up roughly a third of every record on the National Firearms Licensing Management System, a hefty administrative load on already hard-pressed police licensing teams, all for an item with no real history of use in crime. Clearing them out frees up time for the certificate applications that actually matter.
A word of caution, mind, because the controls have changed rather than vanished. The Act creates a new offence covering moderators intended for a Section 1 firearm, that is, your stalking and other centrefire and rimfire rifles. It is now an offence to possess one unless you hold a valid firearms certificate. The moderator no longer needs listing on your ticket, but you must still hold a certificate to have one. The control has simply shifted from the item being recorded to the person being licensed.
For the stalker, the upshot is simple. Less faff, less waiting, and one more bit of needless bureaucracy consigned to history. It has been a long time coming, and the NGO and others who pressed the case deserve real credit for seeing it through to the end.
