Former met chief calls for online checks for gun owners

Lord Stevens, an ex-Metropolitan Police commissioner, has said that applicants for gun licences should face a ‘trawling’ of their online content to understand more about them and their views.

Speaking in the wake of a mass shooting in Plymouth, Lord Stevens pointed to the misogynistic ‘incel’ subculture in social media posts by Jake Davison, who killed five people and injured two others before shooting himself.

Lord Stevens told the Sunday Telegraph: “The gunman was clearly a dangerous man – there is no doubt he was a threat. The videos he made should have been taken into account when he applied for a shotgun licence.

“There needs to be trawling of online content for an in-depth assessment of who these people are and what they think. We need to ensure that guns do not fall into the hands of dangerous people.”

Friends of the victims and politicians have raised questions over Davison’s firearms licence and an investigation has been launched into the return of his gun – which had been taken away following an assault allegation – weeks before the mass shooting on 12 August.