British Panel Votes to Reject Proposed Ban on Handguns

British shooters may keep their guns--for now.

Five months after licensed gun owner Thomas Hamilton shot 32 people--killing 16 children, their teacher and himself in a Scottish elementary school--a parliamentary committee on Tuesday rejected a proposed national ban on handguns.

The committee’s 6-5 vote along party lines triggered furious, widespread debate in a nation still mourning slain children and frightened that disaster could strike again.

“I’m appalled. This is a slur on Victoria and the memories of all the other children,” said Lynn McMaster, 36, whose daughter died at the school. “I’m very angry that our children have lost their lives--and still no one is listening.”

Eileen Harrild, a gym teacher shot four times when Hamilton burst into the Dunblane Primary School on March 13 with four legal handguns, said: “I’m staggered. I don’t understand. What rights did we have that morning?”

With six Conservative members opposing any ban, the committee called for tighter controls on imports of illegal weapons and more stringent licensing for gun owners. The five opposition Labor members of the committee all voted for a ban, instantly putting gun control high on the list of major campaign issues in upcoming elections.

“We see no point in a total ban on the possession of handguns. . . . We do not recommend it,” says a report by the committee.

The report says “panic legislation” in the wake of disaster would carry the seeds of its own failure.

“What would be the point of a total ban on the lawful holding of handguns if there remained easy access to unlawful handguns and easy access--both lawful and unlawful--to powerful rifles or to shotguns?” the report asks.

A committee proposal to require a doctor’s certificate of mental and physical suitability to own handguns was rejected Tuesday by the British Medical Assn., which said, “This suggestion serves no useful purpose to the public and is a waste of doctors’ time.”

Fred Broughton, head of the national Police Federation, called the committee action “desperately disappointing.”

About 70% of Britons surveyed tell pollsters they favor a handgun ban. But registered gun users, almost all members of shooting clubs, defend their sport as safe and law-abiding.

Britain, where most police do not carry sidearms, has one of the lowest rates of gun ownership and homicide by gunshot in the industrialized world, the panel reported.

In Britain, 4.7% of households own guns, compared to 48% in the United States. And a person is 50 times more likely to be shot in the U.S. as in Britain.

The hard-pressed Conservative government of Prime Minister John Major is not bound by the committee decision.