Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is stay­ing tight-lipped about who is ap­ply­ing for Firearm Users’ Li­cences (FULs), of­fer­ing no in­sight in­to whether more women have joined the line in re­cent months. He was equal­ly guard­ed when asked about the de­mo­graph­ic break­down of ap­pli­cants be­ing ap­proved.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, Gue­var­ro said he pre­ferred not to dis­close any da­ta on the age, sex or oc­cu­pa­tion­al back­ground of ap­pli­cants. But he in­sist­ed the process re­mains open to all who qual­i­fy un­der the law.

“Whilst I will ex­er­cise cau­tion and not dis­close de­mo­graph­ic da­ta on Firearm User’s Li­cence ap­pli­cants, I can as­sure you that the process re­mains open to all who meet the le­gal re­quire­ments,” he said. “I en­cour­age all qual­i­fied in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing women, to ap­ply if they be­lieve they have le­git­i­mate grounds. The TTPS is com­mit­ted to a sys­tem that up­holds both pub­lic safe­ty and ac­cess to law­ful self-pro­tec­tion.”