Gun Cabinets and the law

The Firearms act 1968 and its subsequent amendments include the guidelines for storage of firearms. The Home office have produced a Firearm security hand book published in 2000. You can read this here

Here is a brief summary of the points affecting gun cabinets

The Firearms Rules 1998 state:

"Firearms and shotguns to which this certificate relates must be stored securely at all times (except in certain circumstances) so as to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, access to the guns by unauthorised persons"

The security of firearms, ammunition and shotguns within a dwelling can in most cases be achieved by the provision of a cabinet designed for this purpose. New cabinets should conform to the requirements of BS7558. The cabinet should be fixed to the structure of the building and suitably located to frustrate or obstruct the points of attack or identification by persons visiting the premises. BS 7558 was introduced in 1992.

As an additional level of security, ammunition and easily removable component parts - such as rifle bolts etc - may be stored separately from the firearms they fit. This could be either by use of a detached storage container fitted elsewhere in the dwelling, or one built into or onto the firearms cabinet.

The guidelines recommend that a cabinet should have the following features:

• It should be made from sheet steel at least 14 swg (2mm) thick. All seams need to be continuously welded, or the seams should be of bend construction.
• All hinges should be fixed inside the cabinet, or hinge bolts or bars should be provided.
• Lock mechanisms should be on the inside of the cabinet. The lock should contain at lease 5 levers to BS3621 standard. Alternatively quality hardened padlocks and staples should be fitted to the cabinet.
• Because of their height, rifle cabinets should have two locks at points one third and two-thirds the height of the cabinet.
• The cabinet may contain, or have attached, a separate lockable container which you can use to store hand guns or firing mechanisms that have been removed from other firearms.

DJS gun cabinets and safes - Pass all British standards

DJS gun cabinets and gun safes have been independently tested to BS 7558(1992). This means that our gun cabinets and safes have undergone extensive testing and simulated break-ins at an independent testing facility. Not all Gun cabinets on sale in the UK market have passed these standards!

In addition to this standard we have designed our cabinets to include advanced security features such as a vault locking system for our higher security Gun Safes.