Reviewing the Firearms Control Debate

The purpose of this short essay is to review the criminological content in the British 'gun control' debate following the Dunblane killings. At first sight it might be thought that any such review would not take very long. The debate, however, which surrounded and summarily overwhelmed first the Home Affairs Committee and later the Cullen Report itself and formed the vital context for the Commons vote on the government's package of gun controls, did have its criminological moments. Yet one of the interesting issues in the whole series of commentaries and interventions following the Dunblane massacre was the relative absence of any dear or consistent criminological contributions and the comparative ease with which those which emerged were pushed aside. This is not the place to review, in detail, the precise statistical analyses employed; the article is more concerned with the parameters within which the debate was largely confined.