Now KES this advice that you want publishing? Was it advice about a judicial review of the imposition of medical reports over and beyond the Home Office Guidelines? That BASC decided not to pursue?
Martyn Jones said this KES back twenty-three years ago:
Mr. Martyn Jones (Clwyd, South-West)
Like other hon. Members, I have read the Cullen report. Reading the account of how Hamilton committed his atrocious act, I was moved to tears—as, I am sure, were other hon. Members. I am not ashamed to admit that. They were tears of anger, disbelief, horror and pity for those poor children.
Against whom should the natural human reaction of anger be directed? The anger of the children's parents and others has been directed against the means that Hamilton used to commit the atrocity—the handgun; more specifically, the repeating full-bore weapon. The motive must be anger; otherwise logic would dictate banning all guns, especially shotguns, which are the firearms most often used in crime and murder.
Taken to its logical extreme, however, this natural reaction is unworkable. Some firearms are used as legitimate tools. Many categories of firearm that would be encompassed by such a reaction are plainly harmless to public safety, such as antiques and even the nail guns used in construction work.
This time, unlike the aftermath of the Hungerford tragedy, we had a public inquiry conducted by an erudite judge who had the advantage of having all the information to hand and the time to consider every aspect, including school safety and control of firearms.
Back in 1988, we debated the response to the dreadful events in Hungerford perpetrated by Michael Ryan, who supposedly possessed legally held firearms—but in dubious circumstances. In that debate, I suggested three measures that were not taken up by the Government. First, I asked for controls on the shooting gallery style of club which exercised no control over its members. That at least was implemented about two years later, although I was not given the credit for it—not that that worries me.
My second suggestion was for a statutory examination of a firearm applicant's health and social security records. Thirdly, I suggested a reduction in an applicant's grounds for appeal against a police decision to refuse an application.
Taken together, those measures might—might—have prevented Thomas Hamilton from possessing legal firearms. Of course he could still have tried to obtain one of the estimated 1.5 million illegal firearms in this country. I take no pleasure in saying, "I told you so," but I did.
There followed the even more horrendous incident at Dunblane in March this year; yet, despite an inquiry costing more than £1 million, the Government are entering on the same course of action as they did after Hungerford. At least this time they are tightening up on the ownership of firearms by agreeing to Cullen's 23 well-considered recommendations in that regard, but they should not ignore the 24th, to which I shall come later.
The Firearms Consultative Committee, which was set up in 1988 and of which I recently became a lay member, has recommended at least 38 minor changes to the law; it
235 has also recommended creating a national body to co-ordinate the issuing and monitoring of firearms certification. That idea was turned down flat, while the other proposals were held in abeyance until the time came for primary legislation. We have that opportunity today, but the committee's submissions are still being ignored.
What is needed is not a hasty amendment to the—already much amended—1968 Act but a root-and-branch review of the whole issue; otherwise, we are in grave danger of another equivalent of the
Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, now widely acknowledged as unworkable.
At least this time an in-depth inquiry was held and Lord Cullen recommended 24 worthwhile ways of improving the system—23 of them are rightly being implemented, but why are we not considering setting up a national licensing board that would be party to all the information that the police could obtain, co-ordinating inquiries on a standardised basis? If such a body had existed, it would have taken away the onerous responsibility on the police to check up on the membership of the clubs of which Hamilton claimed to be a member. It seems that there is evidence that those clubs were not appropriate to the sort of firearms which he was granted permission to obtain.
Going back to Lord Cullen's 24 recommendations, in paragraph 9.112 he recommended that firearms should not be kept in one place as workable firearms. The Government suggested that that was not a feasible option. I strongly suggest that it is. Virtually all firearms can be stripped down to their component parts. In the case of self-loading pistols, the slide mechanism could be taken home. It is not possible to obtain a duplicate slide without a firearms certificate endorsement. There is therefore no possibility of circumvention of that rule. The same applies to revolvers; the cylinder could be taken home.
The cause of public safety would be much better served. The sport of full-bore target shooting could continue, but if that is not the Government's wish, the proposal could be applied to .22 pistols. That has many merits, not the least of which is that the tiny minority of shooters who are driven by some kind of American-style macho image would have nothing to posture with at home. Equally, criminals and terrorists would have nothing to steal from target clubs.
The Government again insist on legislating against one type of firearm. They must compensate not only those people who will lose their often valuable firearms, but dealers who will lose their hobby and their livelihood.
If the Government are determined to legislate against one type of firearm, they should go further in the cause of public safety and insist that .22 pistols are disabled in the way that Lord Cullen recommended. Shooters do not want people like Hamilton to have workable firearms. There is one genuine way in which the Bill could prevent a repeat of Dunblane or Hungerford: through the disablement of firearms.[/QUOTE]
