Tighter weapon regulation backed by Paddy Tipping

Hucknall Today reports on a killing in which a mentally ill man had used a crossbow and samurai sword to kill a neighbour, who he irrationally believed was trying to harm him.

The weapons do not currently require a licence, and had been mail ordered without any checks being carried out on the purchaser.

Paddy Tipping endorsed the following comment by the judge

"I must record my concern that it is possible for such weapons to be bought in this way without any licence being required and without even any paper records of who purchased them."

Another MP, Graham Allen, went further and called for their inclusion in forthcoming legislation to restrict the sale of replica firearms and to increase the minimum age to buy a knife from 16 to 18.

This seems fair enough, but legislation to restrict items, based on the fact that someone who was mentally ill could use them to cause harm, requires some careful consideration. Given that the average DIY store contains a huge variety of implements which could be just as lethal as a sword, it seems unlikely that they wouldn't be able to find a substitute - unless all these are restricted too. Clearly the benefit must outweigh the expense and detrimental effect to law-abiding owners. To achieve any significant benefit, it seems that a outright ban would be necessary, for example in this case, Boyer had not been diagnosed as mentally ill, so would still have been able to acquire the weapons, even if a licensing system had been in place.

The papers also point the finger at Hollywood. For example this
Telegraph article tells us:

Boyer ordered the weapons for less than £150 and started to watch violent films to learn how to use them.

Not having sat through the trial, the following is obviously speculation, but it seems highly unlikely that Boyer wasn't already watching the named films such as 'Kill Bill' - given that these are popular mainstream titles. I would further question the level of expertise that you can gain by watching a Hollywood beat-em-up, and whether someone would require any specific knowledge at all in order to inflict a fatal injury to an unarmed victim with a sword. There are echoes of the 'Child's Play' frenzy, when tabloids cited this film as a contributing factor in the murder of a child, in spite of expert witnesses contradicting this at the trial.