Britain Proposes Sweeping Ban on Firearms

Honoring the memory of 16 massacred first-graders and their teacher, the British government on Wednesday proposed some of the world’s toughest gun controls, including a ban on all handguns except .22-caliber target pistols.

The sweeping government initiative was immediately the object of thunderous protests by opponents, parents of the children slain at Dunblane elementary school in Scotland last spring and even some of its own supporters for not going far enough. All demand a total ban on handguns.

Wednesday’s proposal coincided with the publication of an inquiry by Lord W. Douglas Cullen, a government-appointed Scottish jurist, into the March 13 Dunblane incident.

Cullen found that, in an action that could not have been predicted, loner Thomas Hamilton walked into the school that morning with four licensed pistols, 743 licensed rounds of ammunition and a crazed determination to kill children. Firing methodically in the school gymnasium, Hamilton shot 105 rounds from a Browning 9-millimeter pistol in three to four minutes, the Cullen report said.

The shots killed 16 first-graders and Gwen Mayor, their teacher, and wounded 13 other children and three other teachers. Hamilton then shot himself in the head with a single bullet from a .357 magnum Smith & Wesson revolver. He had left an additional 1,000 rounds of legally held ammunition at home.

The United States, which has a strong cultural presence in Britain in the form of films, television and popular music, figured as largely as ever Wednesday in the British gun debate.

“If we adapt to the American way of life, we have to come to terms with the American way of death, and none of us after Dunblane are prepared to have that,” said Conservative lawmaker David Mellor, who demands an outright ban on handguns and is asking the government to release its legislators to follow their consciences rather than the party line when the proposal comes to a vote.

Alice Mahon, speaking for the opposition Labor Party, which calls for a total ban, observed: “We don’t want to go down the road to a gun culture like America. That’s the way we were going.”

In Britain, population 58 million, most police are unarmed and guns are an aberration. There are fewer gun homicides in Britain every year--75 in 1994--than in many mid-size American cities; 4.7% of British households now own guns, compared with 48% in the United States, where the chances of getting shot are 50 times greater. In Los Angeles County alone, there are an estimated 2 million handguns.

Uncounted thousands of illegal handguns are in the possession of British criminals, experts estimate. But nationwide, there are only about 40 firearm offenses of all sorts each day. A robbery on a London commuter train in which one masked man waved a handgun and another a machete made banner headlines here Wednesday afternoon. There were no injuries.

Cullen made 23 recommendations that would drastically tighten rules governing the licensing and use of privately owned handguns. Unlike in the United States, gun ownership in Britain is considered a privilege, not a right; self-defense is not considered justification for a license. Deer-hunting rifles and more than 1 million legally held shotguns are unaffected by the proposals.

In his 163-page report, Cullen also recommended improved security for schools, children and their teachers and closer monitoring of those working with the young. Hamilton ran a number of sports clubs for young boys.

Addressing a packed House of Commons, Michael Howard--who as home secretary is the nation’s police minister--said the government accepted all of Cullen’s proposals and would extend them by banning all but the smallest caliber target pistols, including all those of the rapid-fire type used by Hamilton.

“At least 160,000 handguns, 80% of all legally held, will be destroyed. Compensation will be paid,” Howard said.

Target shooting with .22 single-fire pistols has been an Olympic sport since 1896, he noted.

The new controls, for which the government expects parliamentary approval by Christmas, would strengthen licensing and monitoring requirements, forbid gun sales by mail, ban expanding “dumdum” bullets and mandate that legal .22 pistols be stored only at certified gun clubs.

Howard said all clubs would be required to meet stringent standards against theft of stored weapons. Those among Britain’s 2,118 clubs that failed to meet the standards would have to close, he said.

Possession of an illegal handgun, or of a legal .22 outside an approved club, would be punishable by up to 10 years in jail, he said.

Wednesday’s action builds on a ban of automatic and semiautomatic rifles; that law was passed after licensed gun enthusiast Michael Ryan went berserk on the main street in the town of Hungerford in 1987. He shot and killed 16 people, including his mother, with an AK-47 assault weapon; he then killed himself.

After the Dunblane massacre, parents of the dead and wounded children collected 750,000 petition signatures urging an absolute handgun ban. They were unhappy with the government proposals Wednesday. A statement issued in the name of the parents denounced a “gun culture perpetuated by a tiny minority,” saying that even under the new restrictions, a tragedy like Dunblane could occur again.

“This is a compromise. Our position is nonnegotiable. The government must go that extra step to a total ban,” said Ann Pearston, who heads the abolitionist Snowdrop Appeal in Dunblane, spearheaded by parents of the slain children.

Noting that the opposition Labor Party supports a ban, Pearston warned of a voter revolt against Conservative legislators who support their party’s compromise.

“Our commitment is total. There is anger that what happened in Dunblane is not sufficient to justify a complete ban,” she said.

In the tumult Wednesday, the country’s sport shooters, including 60,000 gun club members, struggled to make themselves heard.

“Gun enthusiasts have been demonized because of Thomas Hamilton . . . but most shooters are law-abiding, responsible people,” said Ross Armstrong, owner of the Medway Shooting Club in Kent. “People are killed by drunk drivers, but no one demands a ban on cars. Further restrictions suit no one.”

At Britain’s National Rifle Assn. on Wednesday, phones rang constantly.

“All the shooters have been ringing up saying, ‘What are we going to do?’ They are sitting at home or at work with their heads in their hands,” said chief executive Colin Cheshire.

In August, a select parliamentary committee recommended against a total ban. But the tide ran sharply in the other direction Wednesday, with one lawmaker after another rising to challenge the government to take that “extra step” to a total ban.

“The game is up for handguns now. That is the public will,” said Conservative rebel Mellor.

Pearston, speaking in Dunblane for the parents of children mowed down by a madman, observed: “People who wish to shoot should join the army.”

Times staff writer Miles Corwin contributed to this story.