{"id":467475,"date":"2026-03-10T08:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467475\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T08:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:57:10","slug":"dunblane-father-says-gun-laws-are-still-too-lax-30-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467475\/","title":{"rendered":"Dunblane father says gun laws are still too lax 30 years on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine years earlier, the law had been tightened<\/a> after a gunman ran amok in the Berkshire town of Hungerford, killing 16 people.<\/p>\n

The 1988 Firearms Amendment Act banned the ownership of semi-automatic and pump-action rifles, weapons which fire explosive ammunition and short shotguns with magazines.<\/p>\n

Licensing, registration and storage of shotguns were also tightened up but handguns remained legal.<\/p>\n

In 1997, under pressure from Dunblane families, Snowdrop campaigners and others, the Conservative Prime Minister John Major agreed to introduce a partial handgun ban in Scotland, England and Wales, with an exemption for .22 calibre weapons which are used in competitive shooting.<\/p>\n

Later that year, following the election of Tony Blair as Labour prime minister, the ban was extended to cover all handguns.<\/a><\/p>\n

For the Tories, Shadow Home Secretary Michael Howard, called it a “draconian” infringement of liberty which was “unnecessary, unfair and expensive”.<\/p>\n

Thirty years on, North and Pearston do not hesitate when asked if the ban which they helped to bring about saved lives.<\/p>\n

“Undoubtedly, yes,” North said, pointing out “the huge difference” with the United States where more people are murdered with guns daily than are shot and killed annually in Britain., external<\/a><\/p>\n

“The legacy,” said Pearston, “is that this is now one of the safest countries in the world for gun crime.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nine years earlier, the law had been tightened after a gunman ran amok in the Berkshire town of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-467475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}