In the five months since the awful massacre of, schoolchildren at Dunblane, the advocates of firearm's in Britain have regrouped, raised a fighting fund, and launched a campaign of damage limitation to protect their sport. The report by the Tory majority on a committee at Westminster yesterday arguing against panic" legislation to impose a blanket ban on the private holding of handguns has shown the effectiveness of their strategy. And, as in the United States, powerful interests have succeeded in obscuring the very compelling arguments for the utmost stringency in controlling access to lethal weapons.
Such laws do not eliminate gun murder, as this State knows to its cost. But the considerable number of illegally held firearms in the hands of criminals is a separate issue, raising different questions from those prompted by the mass killings at Dunblane and earlier at Hungerford, as well as the numerous instances in the United States and elsewhere. These have the common thread of men (women have not so far been involved) who, without being criminals, are obsessed with guns. Triggered by who knows what terrible urge, obsession turns into an overpowering impulse to kill. The image of the clean cut sportsman pumping bullets into a cardboard target simply for recreation is, misleading because, sublimated or not, violence and death are inseparable from the notion of guns.
It does not follow that all recreational users of firearms are potential mass killers, but it does mean that the point at which the line is drawn between those who can be regarded as responsible gun holders and those who cannot is indeterminate. In hindsight, the perverted interest in firearms of Michael Ryan and Thomas Hamilton the Hungerford and Dunblane killers is clear enough. But there was no accurate way of detecting their depravity beforehand.
Fortunately, the recommendation of the six Tory MPs to resist the overwhelming public demand for strict controls is unlikely to be the last word on the subject in Britain. Mr Major's government has said that it will wait for proposals in the report, by Lord Cullen, on Dunblane. The main effect of any action must be to discourage shooting as a pastime by imposing sensible limitations on the availability of weapons. The lesson is one that is valid here too. One notorious recent multiple murder case in this State might have been averted if shotguns, instead of being held privately, were compulsorily stored in local Garda stations. The restriction on instant access to kill vermin would be amply compensated for by increased public safety.
There is a further consideration linked to the debate in Britain. It is unlikely that any legislation now being contemplated will automatically be applied in Northern Ireland, but the case for doing so is very persuasive. The number of legally held arms in the North is far out of proportion to that in Britain, in terms of population. There is no objective reason why this should be so, and no satisfactory explanation has ever been given. There are historical and cultural reasons, no doubt, but the political implications are undeniable since the existence of this licensed arsenal is one of the arguments used by the IRA for not decommissioning its own weapons. This may well be an opportunity for applying the logic of Dunblane more widely.