After the horrific scenes in Plymouth, the Home Secretary has said that there will be questions to be asked, the first one i would think is why a Crane Operator had a firearms license in the first place.
The facts of what happened are slow to come out but we know that Jake Davison's first victim was his mother before he went on to kill another 4, including a three year old girl and her father, before shooting himself dead with his pump action shotgun.
The UK has some of the strictest firearms laws in the world, which means mass shootings are very rare but they have happened before, the last one 11 years ago but apart from police licenses handed to farmers, clay pigeon shooters and hunters, it is illegal for anyone else to own them.
To gain a license the person must be over 18 and apply to their local police force, who will assess that they do not pose a threat to public safety and have a good reason to own the gun and any previous criminal convictions for any aggressive or anti-social behaviour or even motoring offenses, must be taken into consideration along with two people of good standing to act as referees and medical records scoured for ensure they are medically fit to own a gun but despite all that, Davison was granted a license last year. In 2020, 306 firearms license were granted in the UK and 982 certificates revoked.
It may turn out that he had the license for one of the above or he never had the license for the pump-action shotgun he used but the police are still trying to find a motive and are currently looking at his links to online gun sites and 'incel' groups where he expressed hatred for his mother.
He recently posted that: 'Mass shootings are new phenomena that cannot be directly blamed on guns'.
The facts will come out but our already tight gun laws must be looked at again because obviously they are just not tight enough.
Friday, 13 August 2021
UK Gun Laws Must be Reviewed After Plymouth
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