Despite Rise in Gun Crime in Britain, ABC News Trumpets UK's Handgun Ban

Change font size:  A |  A

World News Sunday continued ABC's gun control crusade, devoting its “A Closer Look” segment to how after the 1996 school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland, Great Britain virtually banned handguns, suggesting it's worth emulating. But though reporter David Wright conceded, in the middle of his story, that “gun crime has risen here” since handguns were outlawed, thus seemingly undermining the premise that making guns illegal lessens crime committed with guns, he hung his story on how “Britain has never again had a school shooting.” But if gun crime is rising, that sounds more like good luck than a result of the ban.

Wright featured two Britons exasperated by the refusal of the U.S. to follow Britain's lead. Gun control activist Ann Pearston contended: “What ordinary people have got to do in the United States, if they really care about what happened at Virginia Tech, is to make the banning of firearms in the United States an election issue.” Mick North, the father of a child killed in the Dunblane incident, fretted: “Nothing happened after Columbine. Nothing happened after Nickel Mines in the Amish community. After a few weeks, nothing will happen after Virginia Tech. Even the death of 32 people may not be enough to build up the necessary momentum.”

For early examples of ABC's crusading post-Virginia Tech, check the April 20 NewsBusters item, “Disappointment at ABC News: 'Politicians and Gun Control: Why Aren’t They Outraged?'” And from April 17, “Nets Blame Virginia's 'Lax' Gun Laws, Gibson and Couric Press Bush on Gun Control.”

Anchor Dan Harris set up the April 22 World News Sunday story:

“With Virginia Tech on everyone's mind, we're going to take A Closer Look tonight at the aftermath of another school massacre, one that changed the lives and changed the law across Great Britain. Eleven years ago, in a small town in Scotland, a man killed 15 elementary students, a crime that Britain vowed would never happen again and since that day has not. ABC's David Wright reports on the lessons of Dunblane.”

David Wright began, from Scotland: “March 13th, 1996, three years before Columbine, this tiny town faced the news every community dreads -- a rampage at an elementary school. Most of the victims, like Sophie North, were just 5 years old.”

Mick North, victim's father: “She would be 16-1/2 now, a young woman causing me no end of problems, no doubt, but problems that I would have loved to have had.”

Wright: “Same age as some of those kids at Virginia Tech.”

North: “Probably just about, yes.”

Wright: “Because of Dunblane, 16 kids will never go to college. The gunman, a former scoutmaster named Thomas Hamilton, killed their teacher, too, before taking his own life. In three minutes time, he fired 105 bullets. Had he arrived at the school during morning assembly as he had planned, the death toll would have been even higher. All of Britain was shocked by Dunblane, even more so because the guns used in the rampage were legally purchased. And as a direct result of what happened here, this country decided to ban virtually all handguns.”

Tony Blair in 1997: “They have done enormous carnage often to wholly innocent civilians, including children. The sooner Britain gets a lead in this, the better. It's the right and civilized things to do.”

Wright: “It helped bring Tony Blair to power. His party made banning handguns a campaign issue.”

Ann Pearston, gun control activist: “We just said after Dunblane that never again was someone going to walk into a school and massacre children.”

Wright: “They never have, not in Britain. Gun crime has risen here during the past decade. But Britain has never again had a school shooting.”

Pearston: “What ordinary people have got to do in the United States, if they really care about what happened at Virginia Tech, is to make the banning of firearms in the United States an election issue.”

North: “Sadly, I won't hold my breath.”

Wright: “Sophie North's father is well aware that the handgun debate is a sacred cow in the U.S., in part because of the Second Amendment.”

North: “Nothing happened after Columbine. Nothing happened after Nickel Mines in the Amish community. After a few weeks, nothing will happen after Virginia Tech. Even the death of 32 people may not be enough to build up the necessary momentum.”

Wright concluded: “Over here, they're watching in horror and sympathy. David Wright, ABC News, Dunblane.”