Unit III

T E X T 1

Licence to kill must be revoked

In some countries, like the United States, it is an individual's right to own a gun. But should people have this right? Or should private ownership of guns not be allowed? There is strong debate on this issue in Britain.

Michael North, whose five-year-old daughter Sophie was killed by Thomas Hamilton at Dunblane with a legally owned handgun, calls for a ban on such weapons

...Since that day many of my thoughts have been focused on gun control, on why we as a society allow civilians to own weapons as dangerous as handguns.

I have been told by senior politicians that the United Kingdom already has some of the tightest gun laws in the world. This may be so, but they were clearly not tight enough and there is no room for complacency. At present a firearms certificate can be granted for a handgun to anyone who can show good reason for possessing it, and that need only be the wish to target-shoot. If a shooter persuades the police that he needs different guns for different shooting disciplines then he can have any number of handguns, perhaps as many as 30. It might be expected that with ownership of as dangerous an instrument as a gun the onus would be on the applicant to prove beyond all doubt that he is and will continue to be a fit person to hold a firearms certificate. However, under present legislation the certificate will be granted unless the police can demonstrate that the applicant is not a fit person, something which they appear to find very difficult to prove. Only 1-2 % of firearms certificate applications are refused. Once granted, the certificate allows a person to hold guns for three years before renewal (there were even moves to relax this to five years). During that period the behaviour of the gun holder could change dramatically as a result of domestic problems, drinking or mental illness. At the start of 1995, a police constable involved in the renewal of Hamilton's gun license expressed doubts about his suitability, yet he was still granted a license for another three years. We now know the dreadful consequences of that decision.

Handgun owners claim they have a “right” to shoot and that the vast majority of them are responsible. However if we are to compare rights, the “right” to own a gun comes very low down on a scale in which the right to be safe and protected from lethal weapons and the right to life are paramount. If you cannot be absolutely certain that every person owning a handgun will be safe, then in my view there is only one possible course of action: the banning of the private use of handguns. Handguns are only used for a pastime – target-shooting – but were designed for another purpose, killing, and are the most dangerous of weapons. They are easily concealed: Thomas Hamilton was seen entering Dunblane Primary School but no one would have been able to tell he was carrying guns. Many bullets can be fired rapidly from semi-automatic weapons. Even single loading pistols can be reloaded rapidly:

Thomas Hamilton’s killing spree lasted only three minutes but within that time he fired over 100 rounds of ammunition – including the bullets which killed my daughter.

Vocabulary: complacency: satisfaction with the present situation and an unwilling ness to change; onus: responsibility; paramount: more important than anything else.

T E X T 2