Britain Proposes Handgun Ban Inquiry Into Scottish Massacre Coincides With Recommendations

Honoring the memory of 16 massacred first-graders and their teacher, the British government on Wednesday proposed some of the world’s toughest gun controls, including a ban on all handguns except .22-caliber target pistols.

The sweeping government initiative immediately was subject to thunderous protest from opponents, parents of the children slain at Dunblane elementary school in Scotland last spring and even some of its own supporters for not going far enough. All demand a total ban on handguns.

Wednesday’s proposal coincided with publication of an inquiry by Lord W. Douglas Cullen, a government-appointed Scottish jurist, into the March 13 Dunblane incident.

Cullen found that, in an action that could not have been predicted, loner Thomas Hamilton walked into the school with four licensed pistols and 743 licensed rounds of ammunition that morning and a crazed determination to kill children. Firing methodically in the school gymnasium, Hamilton shot 105 rounds from a Browning 9 mm pistol in three to four minutes, the Cullen report said.

In Great Britain, population 58 million, most police are unarmed and guns are an aberration. There are fewer gun homicides in Britain every year - 75 in 1994 - than in many mid-sized American cities; 4.7 percent of British households now own guns, compared with 48 percent in America, where the chances of getting shot are 50 times greater.

Uncounted thousands of illegal handguns are in the hands of British criminals, experts estimate. But nationwide, there are only about 40 firearms offenses each day.

Cullen proposed 23 recommendations to drastically tighten rules governing the licensing and use of privately owned handguns. Unlike the United States, the British consider gun ownership a privilege, not a right; self-defense is not considered justification for a license. Deer hunting rifles and more than 1 million legally held shotguns are unaffected by the proposals.

In his 163-page report, Cullen also recommended improved security for schools, children and their teachers and closer monitoring of those working with the young. Hamilton ran a number of sports clubs for boys.

Addressing a packed House of Commons, Michael Howard - who as home secretary is Britain’s police minister - said the government accepts all of Cullen’s proposals and would extend them by banning all but the smallest caliber target pistols, including all those of the rapid-fire type used by Hamilton. “At least 160,000 hand guns, 80 percent of all legally held, will be destroyed. Compensation will be paid,” Howard said.

Target shooting with .22 single-fire pistols has been an Olympic sport since 1896, he noted.

The new controls, for which the government expects parliamentary approval by Christmas, will strengthen licensing and monitoring requirements, forbid gun sales by mail, ban expanding “dumdum” bullets and require that legal .22 pistols be stored only at certified gun clubs. Howard said all clubs would be required to meet stringent standards against theft of stored weapons. Those among Britain’s 2,118 clubs that fail to meet standards must close, he said.

Possession of an illegal handgun, or of a legal .22 outside an approved club, would be punishable by up to 10 years in jail, he said.