News

.... a weekly column from Michael Howard MP

26 April 2007

 

Many words have, quite rightly, been devoted to the appalling tragedy at Virginia Tech University. The scale of the carnage makes the whole event very difficult to comprehend.

Inevitably it brought back for me, as I am sure for many others, the horrors of the tragedy of Dunblane. Them too, it was almost impossible to take in the reality and the implications.

At the heart of these tragedies are the individual human disaster, the pan and suffering of the families, the promising young lives cut short in their first flowering. The fact that the families affected have been the object of such genuine and widespread sympathy may be of some solace to them. I hope it will. But in truth I think their grief will take a long time to diminish.

For politicians these tragedies pose particular challenges. There is always a national and reasonable desire to find out exactly what happened, to see what lessons can be learned.

But the differences that cane become visible when the discussion moves on to what, if any, changes should be made, to what could or should be done can pose acutely difficult choices.

These were decisions that I had to make after Dunblane and they were among the most controversial I had to make in my whole period in Government.

There was a popular outcry for a complete ban on handguns. I came to the conclusions that the best course would be to ban most handguns but to allow those who us .22 pistols, notably in competitive sport, to keep them in certain restricted circumstances. This earned me strident disapproval of many in my own part and, indeed, many of my constituents. The proposals I put forward were passed by both Houses of Parliament. But it was a very uncomfortable time.

After the 1997 Election the new Labour Government changed the law to introduce a complete ban and that has been the law ever since.

No-one is proposing anything similar in Virginia or the rest of the United States.

You will all have your own views on who is right. But we can all be at one in offering our sympathy to the bereaved families of Virginia Tech.