The recent tragic events in Cumbria are a reminder that the knee-jerk gun bans of the past Conservative and Labour governments have had no effect on the potential use of firearms in mass murders.
Before 1967, when anyone could go into a shop and walk out with a shotgun, gun crime was rare and gun massacres were unheard of. Since then, the systematic legislation and confiscation of privately owned firearms has not hampered shootings, which have risen despite the most draconian laws in the western world being implemented.
Banning semi-auto centre-fire rifles was sold as a measure to stop a repeat of the Hungerford massacre.
Banning pistols was sold as a measure to stop a repeat of the Dunblane massacre, almost ten years later.
Fourteen years later a shotgun and a rifle are used to indiscriminately kill 12 and wound 25 people.
Restrictions on the type of gun someone can own does not hamper a gun owner's ability to shoot human targets. These restrictions do however hamper a gun owner's ability to partake in certain sporting disciplines, pursue a harmless interest, and if necessary, defend one's self from an attack.
This year, China has suffered massacres individually on a scale similar to the events in Cumbria. In February, a man used a bus to injure 11 and kill nine people. In March, another deranged nut killed 8 outside a school using a knife. There is no doubt that Thomas Hamilton and Derek Bird would have have found another way to kill a large number of people should there have been laws hampering their access to firearms.
Rare instances of mass shootings aside, the much more common occurrence of firearm related crime has not been hampered by laws banning civilian ownership of certain firearms and has consistently retained it's upward trend.
There is no doubt that these facts will be ignored by the agenda driven media & politics cabal, and instead calls for tighter controls and complete bans will be showcased as a solution.
