The Home Affairs Ministry will be announcing amendments to the legislation regulating the possession, access to, and use of weapons in the coming year, The Sunday Times reported.

A ministry spokesman told the paper that at the end of an internal process to analyse all existing legislation regulating firearms, the Ministry will start consulting stakeholders.

Police historian Eddie Attard told The Sunday Times that a person can buy a hunting shotgun for ’sport’ as an excuse to have a firearm at home. All one has to do to acquire one is fill out a form at the dealer or police and attend a training course if he/she has a clean police conduct.

The focus of the course is to understand what birds can be shot and when. It is suitably called an Environment Test, rather than a weapons-handling course. A licence is then issued by the police – the whole process takes about a month.

One further condition is membership to a hunting club that provides insurance against a fee, The Sunday Times said.

The current legislation numbers the number of people licensed rather than the number of weapons licensed. There currently are about 570 people owning a Target Shooter A licence which allows up to ten pieces, The Sunday Times said. The number of female applicants is also on the increase.