HANDGUNS - THE VIEWS OF SENIOR POLITICIANS

 

Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the Handgun Ban (Oct 1996)

We Must have a Total Ban (from the Daily Record, 17 October 1996)

Labour's GORDON BROWN reveals why he's backing the parents of Dunblane in their demand for a full ban on guns

"PARLIAMENT must now speak for the people — and pass gun control legislation with speed.

I will vote for a complete ban on handguns.

And I believe that there will be a parliamentary majority against the government, to put it in place.

Nothing less than this total ban will now be enough to answer the pleas of grieving Dunblane parents and to do what is right for the country.

There can be no case for a total of 40,000 handguns lying around gun clubs. No matter how tightly regulated they are. This should not be a party political issue.

Yet twice in the past the House of Commons has walked away from its responsibilities.

In 1972, the then Conservative government was warned of the need for handgun controls but the report was suppressed.

Then again, in the wake of Hungerford, eight and a half years ago.

If action had been taken then we might not have had the tragedy of Dunblane.

Legally-held weapons were used in both the Dunblane and Hungerford tragedies.

This time we must not shirk from the tough laws that are necessary.

The government are right to propose a ban on the home ownership of guns; they are right to stop the use of high calibre guns; they are right to propose a ban on gun sales by post; and they are right to tighten up on school security.

But how can it be right for as many as 40,000 handguns to remain in private ownership?

The government's argument yesterday was that they could guarantee public safety through tight regulation of these clubs and that smaller calibre hand­guns can therefore remain legally held in gun clubs.

Yet experts say that these .22 or less calibre guns can be just as lethal as the bigger guns.

If they are bought as smaller guns they can be converted into more dangerous ones.

And they say it will be easy to claim to their gun club that they want to take them out for one purpose - for example a competition - when they really want to take them out for another.

That is why this is a messy compromise that will be difficult to administer and police - and leaves open the chance of another Dunblane.

Yet what was the Home Secretary Michael Howard's response to this yesterday?  Only that if you ban all legal handguns you will drive people to use these guns illegally.

This is a counsel of despair.

Exactly the same sort of excuse that has been used in the past. Dunblane was the evil work of a man who should never have had a gun and of a gun that should never have been in the hands of a civilian.

Allowing 40,000 handguns to remain in Britain is thousands too many. Banning them is the first step to preventing an American-style gun culture ever coming to Britain.

Yesterday the Home Secretary said that there could be new controls by Christmas. If Parliament votes the right way, as I believe it must, handguns could be banned by Christmas.

The Dunblane parents deserve no less."

 

 

Former Home Secretary John Reid on Handgun Ownership (Jan 1997)

 

We are frequently told by the gun enthusiasts that the 1997 Handgun Ban was an unnecessary knee-jerk reaction to a one off shooting incident, the murder of 16 children and their teacher at Dunblane Primary School in March 1996.  Following John Reid's appointment as Home Secretary in 2006 it is worth rereading a speech he made at the time of the handgun debate.  He describes the murder of an innocent member of the public who was also killed by a gun club member with a legally-owned handgun.  This was not about Dunblane, but about the killing of a man in Glasgow over five years earlier.  Almost ten years on his words provide a timely reminder about the risks that would be posed to the general public if there were ever any attempts to relax the handgun ban.

> Read the Speech in Hansard