Boris Johnson accused of ‘callous disregard for others’ over articles denouncing gun ban after Dunblane massacre

‘He wrote an article saying the handgun ban was like a nanny confiscating toys and a knee-jerk reaction. That’s the prime minister who said that’, family of 5-year-old girl lost in shooting says

Then a journalist, Mr Johnson called the crackdown a ‘knee-jerk’ response (EPA)

Boris Johnson has been accused of “a callous disregard for others” by the father of a child killed in the 1996 Dunblane massacre, over an article he had written as a journalist calling a move to ban firearms “something-must-be-done-ism” and implying the action was “authoritarian”.

Thomas Hamilton, 43, killed 16 children and their teacher when he opened fire at a school gymnasium while dressed in combat fatigues and armed with four guns.

The outcry at the death of the children inside and outside Westminster led then-opposition leader Tony Blair to call for a complete ban on handguns, which was introduced 18 months later after he entered office.

However, newspaper articles from the time have resurfaced, showing that Mr Johnson pushed back against the regulation and described it as part of a string of “knee-jerk legislation” that had led to “an enormous erosion of individual liberty, swept away, very often, in a tide of public panic”.

“That the Firearms Act did not work is proved most miserably by Dunblane,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph of prior legislation that had introduced laborious measures for attaining gun licences while mandating firearms be kept in steel cabinets.

“There will always be those that say we must do more. We must tighten up again they say, adding that ‘If one child’s life is saved, it will have been worth it’.

“Never mind that this has been the argument of authoritarians down the ages, those who would tap telephones and break down doors in the middle of the night in the name of that single notional child. The central point is that knee-jerk regulation does not work. The Act did not save the lives of those children.”

He added that he found the Conservative Party’s “continual ratcheting of protective legislation” to be “dismaying”.

Mick North, a retired academic who lost his daughter, five-year-old Sophie, on that day in 1996, told The Independent his pain had been compounded by the likes of Mr Johnson who painted the response of grieving families as an overreaction.

“This has been something that has bugged me since 1996,” the 73-year-old, who founded the Gun Control Network, said. “What always struck was just his callous disregard for others. This was a week after my daughter died – just a week – and he was writing columns that were essentially demeaning us.”

In a later Telegraph article published in 1997, as guns were being handed in following the introduction of the ban, the now-prime minister wrote that “nanny is confiscating their toys”, adding: “The owners of all of the 160,000 handguns are penalised for the dementia of a couple of their number, and because no one, in the current climate, dare speak for them.”

Families of those killed at Dunblane have since said they believe they must remain vigilant on gun control – citing a lack of faith in Mr Johnson to maintain the legislation that blocks most people from owning firearms.

Jack Crozier, a sales and marketing executive who lost his sister Emma to the shooting when he was two years old, said: “Changes are insidious when it comes to things like this. They will be small and incremental, and its our job to make sure there’s not one inch given in the wrong direction.

“And if you look at Boris Johnson, the comments he made after Dunblane… He wrote an article saying the handgun ban was like a nanny confiscating toys and a knee-jerk reaction. That’s the prime minister who said that.

“And I want people to be angry about that and understand, with gun control, it doesn’t take much for the dial to swing back. So we need to be constantly vigilant.”

A Downing Street spokesperson said: “The UK has among the most stringent firearms laws in the world to prevent dangerous weapons failing into the hands of criminals. Our top priority will always be keeping the public safe and we are ensuring that our laws and police powers deliver on that commitments.”