Firearms Deactivated firearms
Section 38(7) of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 defines a deactivated firearm, for the purposes of that section only, as "an imitation firearm that consists in something which was a firearm, but has been rendered incapable of discharging a shot, bullet, or other missile as no longer to be a firearm".
	Section 8 of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 ("the 1988 Act") provides that a firearm is presumed to have been rendered incapable of discharging any shot, bullet or other missile, and to be no longer a firearm if it bears a mark made by either of the Proof Houses and which has been approved by the Secretary of State for the purpose of denoting that it has been so rendered, and one of the two Proof Houses26 has certified in writing that the work done to deactivate the firearm has been to a standard approved by the Secretary of State.
	In 1989 the Home Office produced a series of deactivation standards. These specify the physical changes that must be made to a firearm in order for it to be considered deactivated within the terms of section 8. These standards were revised in 1995 and in 2010. The more recent standards are more rigorous than those adopted in 1989. The new standards do not invalidate the operation of section 8 of the 1988 Act in respect of firearms deactivated to previous standards.
	There is evidence to suggest that poorly deactivated firearms are being "reactivated" and used in crime. According to NABIS, the proportion of criminal shootings that involve reactivated firearms rose over the three years from 1 March 2012 to 31 March 2015, currently accounting for 5% of such shootings (Law Commission Firearms Symposium, 8 September 2015).
	The potential risk posed by ineffectively deactivated firearms has also been recognised by the European Commission. In a consultation document published in 2013, the European Commission stated:
	"Law enforcement authorities in the EU are concerned that firearm which have been deactivated are being illegally reactivated and sold for criminal purposes, [and that] items such as alarm guns, air weapons and blank-firers are being converted into illegal lethal firearms.27"
	Commission Implementing Regulation 2015/2403 of 15 December 201526 establishes common minimum standards for deactivation of firearms. The Regulation came into force on 8 April 2016.
	This Regulation is given effect by the creation of a new criminal offence (section 128) which will prohibit the transfer of ownership of firearms that purport to be deactivated but do not comply with the deactivation standards specified in the technical specifications document published by the Secretary of State.