topic Re: Dunblane 13th March 1996 in The Round Table

Dunblane 13th March 1996

al**bear — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 06:50:07 GMT

Re: Dunblane 13th March 1996

al**bear — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 06:53:15 GMT

I remember the story came over the Radio and fellow workmates dropped their tools and headed for the Car Park, to race over the Forth to find their Kids. Luckily for them they were all safe.

R.I.P Little ones

Re: Dunblane 13th March 1996

blackburn_stevie — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 11:14:46 GMT

Al ... Your heart has to go out for those poor kids that were shot by this guy, and also to the teachers of course.

But 2 things also come to mind. First of all, he also killed himself so we can never find out just "Why" he did what he did and secondly, all 4 guns were legally owned by him, so just why was a law passed to stop legal ownership of such weapons?. It's the "Legal" bit that I don't understand. Why not make it the law that ALL such guns be banned?

Re: Dunblane 13th March 1996

bankhaunter — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:00:09 GMT

All handguns were banned, including single shot .22 pistols use in the Olympics.

Re: Dunblane 13th March 1996

queenelsa83 — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:10:17 GMT

Oh wow, I never realised it's anniversary was today until now 😞

Re: Dunblane 13th March 1996

blackburn_stevie — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:06:10 GMT

Exactly, BH. So why ddoes the law say that all LEGALhandguns are now banned?

Re: Dunblane 13th March 1996

bankhaunter — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:26:09 GMT

Presumably there were handguns that were already banned, perhaps an Uzi would have always been a banned handgun.

Does seem unnecessary now to use the word 'legal' since once they were all banned they are all illegal unless it's in order to differentiate between working guns and decommssioned, those for which ammunition is no longer available or antique weapons.

Re: Dunblane 13th March 1996

lhasa.two — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:30:38 GMT

I was living abroad at the time this happened but I remember listening to the reports about it on the World Service.

What a nightmare for all concerned.

Andy Murray (I later learned) comes from Dunblane and was apparently at the same school on that day.

That must have left its mark on him and his family.

Presumably legal handguns are all banned to help prevent this type of thing happening again. In other words only the bad guys will have illegal guns and there would be fewer of those about than people with legal guns if they were still legal. Obviously the man wasn't right in the head but presumably he gave no cause to the police to have his licence refused. How on earth do you stop someone from doing something like Dunblane? I'm not sure you can but you can make it more difficult for them by not allowing legal handguns.

Re: Dunblane 13th March 1996

bankhaunter — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 17:20:13 GMT

If everything that had been used to kill someone was banned life would be very difficult, the Sunday joint would have to be carved with a small penknife.

The original ban on handguns after the Cullen enquiry may have been felt to be necessary legislation, the further banning of single shot .22 target pistols, in my view, was just promised as a vote catcher by Tony Blair, they posed little threat to the public.

Re: Dunblane 13th March 1996

lhasa.two — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 23:06:23 GMT

@bankhaunter wrote:
If everything that had been used to kill someone was banned life would be very difficult, the Sunday joint would have to be carved with a small penknife.

I'm sure you're right but we don't live in a handgun culture. Our police - excluding ARUs - are not armed unlike the US or even most other EU countries, so there's no need for them.