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The only way to destroy the gangster gun culture is to put the gunmen out of circulation for years.
says writer Frederick Forsyth
| | |  What is the answer to gun culture?Do you agree? Join the discussion by calling 0870 010 0444, lines open at 1.30pm. | |
LISTEN - Hear Frederick Forsyth discuss guns
If the bloodbath in Birmingham a few days ago proved anything, it must surely be that the anti-handgun legislation of both the Major and Blair governments has been yet another fiasco...and it looks as if the proposed new legislation may be similarly watered-down.
We were told that restricting the ownership of legally held handguns because of the slaughters carried out by two deranged psychopaths would give us a gun-free country. Exactly the reverse has happened: our criminal underworld is awash with lethal handguns.
Let's recapitulate. First at Hungerford, then at Dunblane, two savage massacres of innocent people (in the second case - and even more piteously - of toddlers) took place.
In each case, the perpetrator was a loner who finally went crazy. In each case the killer ended by blowing out his own brains. And in each case the killer was a member of an established gun club and held his firearms legally.
Impelled by public and media rage, successive governments turned on a community of 99.99 per cent harmless and law-abiding people and held them responsible.
Like the Dangerous Dogs Act and the coming anti-hunting laws, this was one hundred per cent emotion-based legislation. And such law making is always either panic-sourced or bigotry-sourced.
For the huge majority of gun club members, their entire pastime involved punching holes in paper targets at various distances. It's a sport practiced in just about every country in the world and is part of the Olympics. So the clubs were ruined and closed, many shops went into receivership and our Olympic team has to fly regularly to Dinard in France to practise.
Was there no other way? Of course there was.
It would have been simplicity itself to insist that all handguns must be stored in locked armouries, withdrawn for sporting practise and returned afterwards, checked by the club's full-time armourer.
No Hungerford or Dunblane would ever have taken place because the killers would never have been allowed to take their guns home with them. The sport could have continued - pistol and rifle shooting at targets only - and we'd all have been safe.
But no: ignorant and panicky politicians, egged on by a frenzied media, rushed through the legislation confiscating almost every handgun in the country...and expected the underworld to obey it!
The whole point of being a gangster or a criminal is that you do not obey the law. How could any politician honestly think that the underworld would give a stuff?
The police on the beat knew they wouldn't.
The only way to destroy the gangster gun culture is to put the gunmen out of circulation for years. And that doesn't look as if it's going to happen.
As the government reacts hastily to last week's shootings, it's already clear that our judges are going to have the power not to impose the proposed new mandatory five-year minimum sentence for carrying an illegal gun. That's quite ridiculous.
And once again, I fear, the easy, soft, law-abiding target will be hit...not the gangsters.
Do you agree?
Join the discussion by calling 0870 010 0444
lines open at 1.30pm.
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