The Natural Philosopher wrote:

The legal facts are that he was in possession of a pump action shotgun,
for which he had no license, and which is not in fact licensable in this
country as far as I know.and he used it to kill and wound two trespassers.

To be clear, pump action shotguns are quite legal in GB, so long as you
have a Shotgun Certificate, or a Firearms Certificate.
There are not many around as they are crap - they were superceded many
years ago by the semi-auto shotgun, which does the same thing but
automatically.

Martin was jailed for life for the murder of Fred Barras, with 10 years
to run concurrently for the wounding offence and a further 12 months for
*possession* of an illegal firearm.

The firearm was only 'illegal' as he didnt have a certificate for it, it
wasnt illegal in itself, anyone else with the relevant cert. could keep
it lawfully.

Alan.
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