Let us hope Orwell and myself are just plain wrong.

Ten years ago today, parliament passed an act to outlaw private handgun ownership. This act came about due to the ‘Snowdrop’ campaign, which itself was a response to the tragic events at Dunblane, where Thomas Hamilton, (a registered gun owner), ran amok in a primary school, killing 16 children. Initially, the Conservative proposals would have effectively outlawed all private handgun ownership, except .22LR* Single Shot competition pistols, used by Olympic and competitive shooters, but a campaign by the Gun Control Network whipped up the frenzy in the press to such a pitch that Tony Blair’s incoming Labour government extended the ban to include said competitive pistols. Thus, pending a second reading in the Lords, private ownership of a pistol in the UK was set to become outlawed.

There are some ’sacred cows’ that cannot be challenged. At least, not in the MSN. Well, this isn’t the MSN, and thus you may not be surprised to learn that I am about to argue that this move by our government was a completely unjust and morally reprehensible act. It was also a warning of the dangers to come.

Hamilton was a know paedophile. No, not known ‘now’, but know ‘then’. At the time he applied for his licence. At the time he was granted his licence. At the time he brought his guns. At the time he walked into a school and took innocent children’s lives. But he wasn’t the individual who was made to pay, as he had taken his own life. The baying mob, comprised of an unholy alliance of the Daily Mail small minded Conservative troupe, the ‘voice of unthinking’ Sun, The Mirror, the Guardian with their new found sense of Tony Blair power, and ,in particular, the BBC, engaged in a collective act of witch burning.

Due to the restrictive nature of our law, registered gun owners are some of the most law abiding, perfectly civilised, members of society you could hope to meet. Been in trouble before? No chance of a licence. Got no job? Ditto. Can’t find a person of repute to vouch for you? Take up knitting. Had a spot of mental illness? Bye. Pissed off your local bobby? How about golf.

So what happened? Well, those in power fucked up. They allowed a known abuser to pass through systems they had designed to prevent this very thing happening and present himself to the shooting community as a model citizen. After all, this power had been taken by the state ~ we were not in a position to question (although some did, and they were ignored before the event, and after). Suitability to own a firearm had been taken from local communities or groups and had been placed in the not to be questioned hands of government. But they got it wrong. So, to paraphrase the BBC ‘who was to blame?’

Obvious. We were, and didn’t we know it. The Daily mail ran piece after piece, demonising anyone who wanted to take part in shooting as wanna be, child molesting pervert with Rambo delusions (and to an extent, they still do). The Sun went further. Headline after headline. Despite the evidence, we couldn’t be trusted. The GCN sensed blood, and after the initial Tory proposals, ran adverts that pointed out that .22LR guns would still be legal. A .22 bullet killed Kennedy, they said. How can that be safe, they said. Never mind that proposed ’still legal’ pistols were neither rifles (that killed Kennedy, and are ironically still legal), nor did they use ammunition in a form that can be used in such guns, it was a done deal. The innocent must be made to pay for the sins of the guilty, fuck justice. Gun crime will drop, we were told, after all, ‘no guns, no crime’. Unsurprisingly, this proved to be total bollocks. Murder is illegal, and if one is inclined to take another’s life, a few extra years for possessing an illegal gun, on top of a life sentence, make no difference. As they say, only the law abiding comply with gun laws. Murderers do not count as the law abiding.

So, the police came and took our handguns away. Clubs went under. Gunsmith’s lost their livelihoods. All because of the actions of one man, who had passed the states own tests of suitability?

Imagine this. An incompetent / corrupt / poorly trained / whatever driving test examiner gives a driving licence to a youth who clearly cannot drive to a safe standard. The said youth, at some point in the future, then ploughs his car into a bus stop full of children waiting for a school bus. Many are killed. What happened in the aftermath of Dunblane was the equivalent to the government then deciding to ban cars, rather than sack the idiotic test examiner. Why didn’t they do this? Well, who knows. You and I will certainly never know, as the report into the incident was placed under a 100 year rule, so we will all be dead when it is finally released. This was done under the guise that there was a need to protect the names of the children involved. Attempts to have it released with the names blanked out have been resisted. Make of that what you will. The Internet is full of conspiracy theories as to why this is, and they range from the believable, passing through the bizarre, and ending up at the plain bloody stupid. Ultimately, the reasons are irrelevant.

What we did, or perhaps to our detriment failed to, learn was the authoritarian nature of the current political establishment. You are not to be trusted, you should pay for the crimes of others, nanny knows best, logic has no place in decision making. As if to rub it in, the UK Olympic team, who have to train abroad, will have the great pleasure of seeing foreign nationals taking part in the pistol shooting events without hindrance. That’s right, kids, punish your own law abiding citizens, but let’s not let it fuck up a chance for Nu Labour to have a popularity wank fest.

Since this removal of freedoms of the few, the bastards that run this country have clearly got a taste for it. None of you really need reminding how bad things are, and how all the elements of a closed police state are now in place, to be enacted on a whim. The difference is now they are confident enough to bring is restrictions that affect the many, rather than the unpopular few.

Let us all hope that we don’t come to rue the words of one George Orwell, when he said;

“The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer’s cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.”

 

 

*.22LR, or Long Rifle, are more commonly known as ‘rimfire’ cartridges. These fire .22 rounds at a significantly lower muzzle velocity than their ‘centrefre’ equivalents, such as those used to assassinate Kennedy. In pistol shooting, they are used with even less powerful charges for close range ( 10 - 25M) target shooting.