Call for BB guns ban
Ball-bearing guns should be completely banned across the United Kingdom after 17 schoolchildren were shot in Staffordshire, councillors say. Ball-bearing guns should be completely banned across the United Kingdom after 17 schoolchildren were shot in Staffordshire, councillors say. Brereton and Ravenhill Parish Council is writing to Home Secretary John Reid to call for a change in the law, after a terrifying attack on pupils at Etching Hill Primary School, Rugeley. Councillors say the BB guns – sold as toys – are dangerous weapons capable of causing serious injuries like blindness. They also want other councils to act. They want Staffordshire County and Cannock Chase District Councils and the Forestry Commission, to bring in a bylaw to ban BB guns being fired into or from any public place in the district. Read the full story in the Express & Star.
Ball-bearing guns should be completely banned across the United Kingdom after 17 schoolchildren were shot in Staffordshire, councillors say.
Brereton and Ravenhill Parish Council is writing to Home Secretary John Reid to call for a change in the law, after a terrifying attack on pupils at Etching Hill Primary School, Rugeley.
Councillors say the BB guns – sold as toys – are dangerous weapons capable of causing serious injuries like blindness. They also want other councils to act.
They want Staffordshire County and Cannock Chase District Councils and the Forestry Commission, to bring in a bylaw to ban BB guns being fired into or from any public place in the district.
The attack saw 15 boys and two girls, aged between seven and 11, injured by plastic pellets fired into the playground by 'snipers' taking pot shots through a hedge on March 15.
Four boys, aged 12, not pupils at the school, were arrested on suspicion of assault and were bailed until the end of April.
Councillor Tim Jones told the parish council that any 'toy' that could blind someone should not be sold to children. "It has been a long running problem and I think we should write to the Home Secretary and opposition spokesmen," he said.
"I think there should be a complete ban on BB guns, they could completely blind someone and there is no reason why children should walk about with them loaded in a public place."
Acting chairman Mary Easton, said: "They should not be sold anywhere, to anybody, on any street in the UK and we will continue the fight."
Councillor Ray Easton, whose granddaughter was shot by a BB gun a few years ago, said: "I don't blame the children, they don't have the sense to understand these things can be dangerous to maim people or injure them seriously. But the adults who are putting these things into their hands do."
A recent BB gun amnesty in Rugeley saw a number handed in and destroyed.
Sgt Donna Gibbs said that since the incident there were no further reports of young people with BB guns. They had done educational sessions at Fair Oak and Hagley and hoped to set up a rolling programme in Rugeley.
