When the horrific events at Dunblane unfolded I can remember watching a bit of day time tv (!) and seeing that great philosophical mind Richard Madely getting everyone into a lather about the immediate banning of hand guns - that'll solve it he said and I can particularly remeber him being very rude and arrogant to an olympic hand gun shooter who stated that it would not cut handgun crime at all. Knee jerk legislation was drafted in and here we are in the position of more hand gun crime than ever before.

The guy from Dunblane and the guy from Hungerford should never have been let anywhere near guns - from what I can recall concerns about both of them had been raised with police but no action taken. The best thing to do is to be a lot more stringent about the tests involved in getting a licence, for the record Cleveland Police are very thorough in their checks and you will get a visit off them - which seems wasn't the case in Cumbria, nor I think would you find it very easy to get a licence round here with a criminal record.

You will as a lot of people have posted here never stop someone flipping their lid and going at it with knives, guns etc. But I think a bit of psychological profiling wouldn't hurt when applying for / renewing a licence - the licence applicant would have to bear the costs and the hassle of doing the tests.

With regard to some of the anti shooting comments on here - if you are not a veggie then I suggest you pop down to the local slaughter houses and your "free range" farms to see the treatment of farmed animals. Whilst not a fan of massive organised driven shooting, these people spend a lot of money which in turn keeps that land the way it should be i.e copses / mixed woodland, hedgebacks. If landowners don't get an income this way then they will have to farm the land more intensively, which is worse overall for wildlife in general
Not ideal but the way things work unfortunately