Keir Starmer has said he could support tougher laws against gun ownership, speaking in the wake of a shooting outside a north London church at the weekend.
While there is no indication that the gun used in Saturday’s incident, in which four women and two children were injured by shotgun blasts, was legally owned, Starmer said there was a broader problem of ‘improper use of weapons in legal possession.
A 22-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder following the shooting outside St Aloysius Church near Euston station, which is in the Labor leader’s constituency .
Asked about the incident during a question and answer session on LBC radio on Monday, Starmer said: “There are a lot of illegally owned guns and there are legally owned guns, which I don’t think should be in the hands of of the people who are legal owners. them.
“We’ve had these incidents from time to time with guns, and every time there is, there’s evidence, which concerns me, that people have access to guns that they shouldn’t have access to.
“Now, if it’s illegal access, obviously that’s purely a matter of criminal law. But other people, where the circulation of weapons should be better controlled. So I think we need to look again at whether these laws are strong enough.”
One of Starmer’s front-runners, shadow defense minister Luke Pollard, has introduced a private member’s bill that aims to stop people from having bomb guns in their homes in the wake of a mass shooting in his constituency last year with such a legal weapon.
Jake Davison, 22, killed his mother Maxine, 51, before shooting dead four others, including a three-year-old boy, in an attack in the Keyham area of Plymouth in August, earlier of shooting himself to death.
Police returned his shotgun and license to him weeks earlier, having confiscated the gun in 2020 after Davison assaulted two teenagers in a park.
After those shootings, Starmer said, there had been reviews of people’s access to guns: “And in each case, there were examples where, in my view, the ‘individual carries a weapon’.
Asked if he wanted gun ownership laws to be made even tougher, Starmer said he did, though he stressed that people, including farmers and shooting clubs, had to to be able to own them