My comment to Charlotte Gore after her post on the Cumbria Massacre.
Charlotte, of course this will happen again. Legislation on handguns has made gun deaths rare, but clearly we can go much further – there are 1.3 MILLION weapons of this sort lying around in people’s homes LEGALLY. The question should be ‘why does a taxi driver need to legally own these weapons and keep them in his home?’
The answer to me, seems pretty simple. Either we shrug our shoulders and say as you have ’shit happens’ or we remove the right to own these dangerous weapons and it won’t happen so often.
One in four of us will suffer serious depression and mental illness in our lives. We all get angry at times, a lot of people with no criminal records occasionally get violent. Having these guns in the home is just asking for trouble.
Banning handguns has reduced the risk, restricting ownership of shotguns and rifles and placing more guns in secure army storage would perhaps make these tragedies happen every 20 years instead of 10.
Offering a short amnesty where the government pays more than the market rate for these weapons could remove millions of these guns both legal and illegal off the streets. Even if this amnesty cost a billion pounds it would be worth it.
David Cameron came into this last election promising to loosen regulation of handguns. Thankfully the Tories might not be able to do that now.
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