The au­thor­i­ty to grant Firearm Users’ Li­cences (FULs) must re­main with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, as any at­tempt to shift this statu­to­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty could cre­ate chaos, in­ef­fi­cien­cies and added bu­reau­cra­cy.

This was the warn­ing from Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing re­newed calls to al­ter the cur­rent li­cens­ing frame­work af­ter the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill 2025 was passed in the Low­er House last week.

Gue­var­ro out­lined long­stand­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al and op­er­a­tional chal­lenges af­fect­ing the li­cens­ing process, as well as the sen­si­tive “hu­man re­al­i­ties” that must be con­sid­ered when de­cid­ing whether to place a lethal weapon in some­one’s hands.