The consultation opened on 14 October 2017 and closed on 9 December 2017. It was open to responses from across the United Kingdom. We received 10,712 responses. Approximately 60 percent of the responses were on the firearms proposals and 30 percent of the responses dealt with the online knife sales proposal.

Approximately 20 percent of the responses to the consultation were from organisations with the remainder being from individuals. Not all responses provided a response against each proposal, with some only commenting on those that were relevant to them.

Responses from the consultation were taken into consideration during the development of the Offensive Weapons Bill and the government is grateful to all those who responded and provided further input.

The bill was introduced into Parliament on 20 June.