He told the BBC: “I personally think it was a serious error for the Home Office to queue up in front of Lord Cullen to put to him policy proposals that really are a matter for government to determine.But the Home Office Minister, David Maclean, said the Government was anxious to guard against “knee-jerk” legislation. “We’ve also said quite clearly that if Lord Cullen had any interim recommendations to make on firearms control, we would want to get them speedily and the Government would consider them carefully.”The last gun law review, following the Hungerford massacre by Michael Ryan in 1988 – led to the banning of semi- automatic rifles.Yesterday Lord Cullen confirmed that gun law would be one of the main planks of his investigation, alongside school security and the supervision of adults working with children.In an opening statement, he expressed “deepest sympathy” to all those affected by the events at Dunblane Primary School.None of the parents of the 16 children who died were at yesterday’s preliminary hearing. However, the Government says it already has some of the tightest gun laws in the world, and warns of the impact on employment and income from both shooting sports and leisure pursued by the 175,000 people with firearm certificates.”Criminals do not generally licence their guns. GPs do not want to be placed in a position of making a “judgement” on a patient they hardly know and written tests are regarded as a meaningless assessment.But two international studies confirm that countries with lax gun laws have far higher gun related killings – for example fatal shootings in the US are 50 times higher than in the United Kingdom. An absolute ban would make it impossible for guns to be held legally, and the number held illegally might well be expected to increase.

In its evidence to the inquiry into the massacre, the Government indicates it is impossible to legislate for a mad gunman going on the rampage as Thomas Hamilton did in Dunblane last month and as Martin Bryant did last week in Tasmania.
The Government rules out calls for a total arms ban and says that recommendations that would-be gun owners undergo psychological testing and obtain doctors’ certificates have run into opposition from the medical profession. On 30 March a 21-year-old woman was shot in Granby Street.There is little sign of an end to the violence. April saw six people attacked by gunmen before what appears to have been a case of mistaken identity in which PC Stephen Hardy was knee-capped after two masked men burst into his home in West Derby. He was also shot in the arm.Four more attacks last month left three victims shot and a car raked by gunfire.

It was too soon for police to say if yesterday’s shooting is connected to the Ungi gang war.. Despite research showing strong links between guns and high crime rates, the Government appears reluctant to introduce major changes to gun laws in the wake of the Dunblane child killings. December saw a full scale gun war with five people shot, one fatally, and a gun attack on a police shop. The new year started with a 16-year- old boy being shot four times in Princes Avenue, Toxteth. Hours later a 27-year-old was badly wounded in nearby Upper Warwick Street.Full hostilities resumed in March when Mr Phillips was shot four times in Toxteth in front of his three-year-old daughter and his wife He survived and remains in hospital. Mr Phillips had been charged with trying to kill Ungi but the case had been dropped earlier in the month.On 31 October Ronnie Ungi’s home was sprayed with bullets, and Jason Speed was shot at his home in Huyton on 8 November.

Later that day shots were fired into a house in Anfield.Four days later Lee Parry was shot by gunmen in Toxteth. Things quietened down until 28 July when shots were fired at the home of Kevin O’Rourke, wanted for questioning in connection with the Ungi murder.Five shots were fired into John Phillip’s car on 25 October as it was parked outside his home. Five days later Paul Foster, 20, was shot at his home in Toxteth.Police issued an appeal for calm on 22 May after five people were injured in two shooting incidents in the city. Owen Graham, 49, was gunned down in a betting shop in Granby Street, Toxteth, at 4.30pm and died at the scene. He lived at Grinshill Close, Toxteth.
The shooting came despite heightened police patrols in the neighbourhood because of fears of an attack to mark the first anniversary of the murder of Mr Ungi, a father-of-three.Mr Ungi was shot after being ambushed in his car in Toxteth at 5.30pm on 1 May last year. The shooting was the catalyst for a string of tit for tat shooting incidents in the city over the last 12 months..The latest killing brings to 44 the total number of shooting incidents on Merseyside in the last 12 months. Shots outside the Black George pub in Toxteth, where the younger generation of the Ungis drank two days after his death, signalled the start of a bloody year.In early May, a hooded gunman burst into Vic’s Gym in Kensington and opened fire, wounding 25-year-old Ricardo Rowe.On 15 May a 31-year-old was found lying in pool of blood in a road in Netherley, suffering from gunshot wounds to the leg.

“The zebras aren’t mating, they are just two zebras putting their faces towards each other,” he said.. A man was shot dead in a Liverpool betting shop last night – almost a year to the hour after the murder of David Ungi sparked a bloody gang war in the city. But if they press “make out”, footage of two zebras nuzzling appears on the screen.During an initial trial of the advertisement, which hits 100,000 homes in the London area for eight weeks from Monday, kids aged between six and 12 are said to have shown enormous enjoyment.But a spokeswoman for Kidscape, the children’s charity, said the reaction at her office was one of “shock and horror”.”It is not appropriate to use sex to sell cornflakes, and they are foisting this on children,” she said.But Nigel Sheldon, head of interactive media at J Walter Thompson, the advertising agency which pioneered the commercial with Kellogg and Videotron, said the option was not salacious. Children’s campaigners yesterday expressed horror at the new Frosties interactive advertisement, which offers kids the option to “make out”. The Kellogg commercial for the breakfast cereal is claimed as being the first of its kind in the world.