Good News: Britain's Incredibly Lax Gun Controls Are Being Tightened

8/5/25 BBC:

"Emma Ambler has campaigned for stricter laws around gun licensing since her sister, Kelly Fitzgibbons, and her two nieces, Ava and Lexi Needham, were murdered at their West Sussex home in 2020 by Kelly's partner.

The changes include an increase in the number of references needed for shotgun certificate applications."

This the ratchet effect of gun restrictions.   No matter how strict the requirements, at least a few incidents will still happen.  Rather than recognize the inevitability of failures of the existing procedures, the only imaginable solution is more of what has already failed.  

In this case, the guy with the shotgun license had lied about previous convictions and a mental illness history.   Why the already demanding license process missed criminal convictions deserves some answers.   The history of depression would seem hard to catch.  

Ms. Ambler's desire to have prevented this tragedy is not only understandable but perfectly logical.  A recurring problem of firearms licensing throughout Europe is a failure to follow their own rules.  

The mass murder in Dunblane that produced their complete handgun ban involved a person who did not meet the statutory requirements including membership in an approved gun club.  Even the discretion provided to police was clearly abused: they ignored repeated complaints from parents that he had an unhealthy interest in little boys.   While most of the records have been sealed until the end of this century, it appears that he enjoyed close relationships with police officials.

There was a mass murder in the Netherlands a decade or so ago.  The guy with a firearms licensed had been hospitalized after a suicide attempt and was known to police as a pot grower.  A local official was eventually charged with taking a bribe for issuing a firearms license