How the UK rewrote its gun laws – and the challenge it faces now

[LuckyTheDog]

Thomas Hamilton walked into Dunblane Primary School, near Stirling, Scotland on March 13 1996, armed with four legally-owned handguns and over 700 rounds of ammunition. In three to four terrible minutes, he fired 105 shots killing 16 children and their teacher, and wounding 15 more children. His last shot killed himself.

In the 20 years since Dunblane, a great deal has been learned about preventing gun violence. Only the United States, where mass shootings now number in the hundreds, seems reluctant to embrace those lessons, prompting president Barack Obama to wonder why the US could not do more on gun control.

After the Dunblane massacre, handgun control became highly political. Handgun ownership was increasing in the 1990s and sports shooting, the only legitimate reason for owning a handgun, was a fast growing sport. Yet even members of the elite country-sports lobby were troubled by newcomers, keen on “combat style” shooting, entering the sport.

These tensions opened up after Dunblane. The government commissioned Lord Cullen run an inquiry into the incident. He recommended cautious compromises (storing firearms in secure armories or police stations). These were initially rejected as “unworkable” by shooters, but they were ultimately overwhelmed by the strength of public feeling.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/how-the-uk-rewrote-its-gun-laws-and-the-challenge-it-faces-now/

[jimmy the one]

1. Home Office altered crime reporting methods

A Home Office analysis.., between 1992 and 1994, 14% of firearm homicides had been committed with legally held weapons. Even allowing for some slippage of weapons from legal to illegal ownership and stolen firearms, nobody expected that the surrender of legal handguns would hugely impact the rates of gun enabled crime. But few expected the 105 increase in recorded handgun crime which occurred between 1998 and 2003.

Article fails to note that circa 1998, UK Home Office changed its violent crime reporting methods, which tended to inflate its violent crime rate by about 15 - 20%, due to altering the criteria for a violent crime.
For instance, prior to 1998, if a robber robbed 5 people, it was considered in Britain as one violent crime.
Post 1998, the above would be considered as 5 violent crimes, one against each person.
Obviously this would inflate the number of violent crimes per year, as well as the violent crime rate.
But try to explain this to some 2ndA defenders & you're spitting in the wind; who think any uptick or increase in Britain's violent crime rate is a clear example of how parliament has gutted the Briton's right to defend himself, with a handgun.

From 1 April 1998 detailed rules were provided for each offence which contained greater guidance on crime recording. The coverage was also increased to include all indictable and triable-either-way offences, together with some very closely linked summary offences. For example, drug possession was included in the recorded crime figures for the first time in 1998.
Under the new counting rules, a greater emphasis was placed on recording one crime per victim. This was expected to lead to a large increase in the number of fraud and criminal damage crimes recorded by the police.
• Previously, if a credit card was stolen and used in five different shops, only one crime would be recorded. After the revision, five separate crimes would be recorded since there were five separate victims.
• Previously minor criminal damage (valued at £20 or under) was not counted for detection purposes and it is unlikely that they would have been recorded. The revised rules stated that all criminal damage, irrespective of value, should be recorded.
2. Measuring the effect of change The Home Office hoped that each police force in England and Wales would provide two separate counts of recorded crime in 1998/99 under both the old and new rules (referred to as double counting). Eighteen police force areas undertook this preferred Home Office method. The remaining twenty-five police forces undertook an exercise designed by the Home Office to sample a proportion of the offences that forces thought would be most affected by the rule change.

Table 1 shows that the adoption of the new rules had a significant effect on the number of crimes recorded in England and Wales. The number of crimes recorded under the new rules was 14% higher than the number recorded under the old rules. The new rules had different effects on each offence group.