Campaigners were repeatedly told handguns couldn't be banned “because pistol shooting is the fastest growing sport in the UK”
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Campaigners faced death threats and bomb scares as they pushed for a ban on handguns in the wake of the Dunblane massacre, the chairwoman of the Gun Control Network (GCN) has recalled.
On the morning of March 13 1996, Thomas Hamilton entered the Dunblane Primary School gymnasium armed with four legally-owned handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Minutes later 16 pupils and a teacher had been shot dead and 15 others injured, in what remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history.
In the months following the attack, a group of campaigners, lawyers, academics and a parent of one of those killed set up the GCN, to lead calls for stricter gun controls – including a ban on handguns.
The GCN was one of a number of groups calling for change in the wake of the shooting, alongside the Snowdrop Campaign – which was set up by a group of mothers local to Dunblane – and the families of the victims themselves.
GCN chairwoman Gill Marshall-Andrews recalled the “very strong and very violent” resistance the group faced from the pro-gun lobby.
“We were under enormous pressure from the gun lobby, because we were the obvious target for them,” she said.
“They couldn’t really target the Dunblane families. They couldn’t criticise them. They couldn’t attack them because of who they were.
“Mick (North, whose child was among those killed) was involved but the rest of us were not involved in Dunblane. So we were, as it were, legitimate targets.
“We had a lot of death threats. We had a PO Box in Finchley that was regularly closed because of bomb threats.”
Ms Marshall-Andrews said the campaigners were repeatedly told handguns could not be banned “because pistol shooting is the fastest growing sport in the UK”.
She added: “If you think about that, that sums it up in a nutshell, because if handguns had not been banned then, we would be down the American road.”
In September 1996, the Cullen Report recommended tighter restrictions on gun ownership, and in 1997 John Major’s Conservative government introduced a ban on most handguns.
Later that year, Tony Blair’s Labour government introduced legislation widening the ban to include all cartridge ammunition handguns.
Ms Marshall-Andrews said campaigners had been “overjoyed” at the move.
"That was the gold standard. That was amazing. That was something that couldn’t be done,” she added.
Asked why the campaign had been so successful, she said there had been a “tide of public revulsion” against the massacre, and “it seemed to be possible to do something about it”.
This was echoed by Professor Peter Squires, an expert on gun law at the University of Brighton.
“It was just the outright shock and horror of such an appalling incident,” he said.
“To kill five and six-year-old children was just so appalling.
“I think it set in train a whole tidal wave of opposition – you know: ‘Can this kind of thing happen here?’
“It cut through all the knee-jerk reaction that is sometimes a phenomenon in (incidents like this).”
He said the fact the campaign coincided with the run-up to the 1997 election and the start of the incoming Labour government – when Mr Blair was “trying to grab the part of law and order mantle” – also helped bring about change.
The GCN campaign has continued, with Ms Marshall-Andrews saying it helped bring about a ban on imitation firearms in 2006, and, in Scotland in 2015, legislation requiring the registration of air guns.
She said the group’s main focus is now on getting shotguns classified in the same way as rifles under the Firearms Act 1968, saying “it’s time we recognise that shotguns are the primary gun threat”.
Ms Marshall-Andrews and Prof Squires also both warned of the risk of “institutional complacency” around gun regulation, eroding its effectiveness.
They pointed to the massacre at Port Arthur in Australia where people were killed, which happened on April 28 1996, just weeks after Dunblane.
The incident led to the introduction of tougher gun controls in Australia, but another mass shooting took place at Bondi Beach in Sydney last year.
Ms Marshall-Andrews was clear: “Gun laws have got to be kept up to date. They’ve got to reflect current reality. There are new kinds of guns.
“There’s a huge gun lobby that’s ready and waiting to roll back the legislation. You can’t be complacent.”