WHEN two-year-old Andrew Morton was killed four years ago after being shot with an airgun, there were widespread demands for a crackdown on the deadly weapons.
Andrew was being carried by his 13-year-old brother in Glasgow's Easterhouse estate when he was hit by a pellet in the head. An unemployed 27-year-old man, who had been taking pot shots from the window of his flat, was later sentenced to life impris
onment for murder.
Andrew's parents collected 11,000 signatures calling for a ban on airguns.
Regulations were tightened in the wake of Andrew's death – the minimum age for possession of an air weapon was raised from 17 to 18 and firearms dealers were required to register with the police.
But moves to go further – for instance, piloting a licensing system in Scotland that would have restricted airguns to those involved in pest control or shooting clubs – were rebuffed by the Home Office.
However, after the publication of the cross-party Calman report this month, it now looks as if responsibility for legislation on airguns is going to be transferred from Westminster to Holyrood – and the SNP will act to ban them.
Despite previously opposing such a transfer of power, the UK government has now signalled it is ready to agree to the move.
And justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has promised he would use the new powers to bring in a ban on air weapons.
Exceptions would be made for those who use airguns in the course of their job – for example, farmers using them for pest control – and registered gun clubs.
But general sales would be outlawed and an amnesty would probably be declared in a bid to gather in most of the 400,000 air weapons thought to be held in Scotland.
Three Scots have died and more than 1,150 injured in airgun incidents over the past nine years.
Just a few weeks after Andrew Morton's death in 2005, a six-year-old boy in Edinburgh was shot in the head with an airgun near his home in Pennywell Medway, Muirhouse. Tyler Scott was playing outside with his eight-year-old sister Jodie when he felt a sharp pain. Doctors said if the pellet had hit him a millimetre to the right, he too could have been killed.
And in September last year, a young mother and her baby daughter had a lucky escape after a bus they were travelling in came under fire. Lynsey Wade, 20, and one-year-old daughter Rihanna were on the X95 First bus service approaching Edinburgh Royal Infirmary when the window they were sitting next to was shattered by what appeared to be an airgun pellet.
There have also been numerous attacks on animals using air weapons, including the case last year of a stray cat in South Queensferry that had been shot up to 40 times, leaving him so badly injured a leg had to be amputated.
Last summer, a pet cat in Tranent, East Lothian, lost an eye after being shot by an air rifle.
Soon afterwards, a champion showjumping horse was shot in the neck by gun-wielding thugs as it grazed in a field near Musselburgh. The pellet missed a main artery by inches.
And this month, the Evening News reported how Jinky the ginger and white moggy from South Queensferry lost his miaow after he was shot in the throat with an airgun.
An advertising campaign launched by the Scottish Government in March aimed to end any remaining myth that air weapons can be treated like toys.
Former first minister Jack McConnell wanted to go further than the UK restrictions on airguns, but his lobbying for a licensing or permit system fell on deaf ears at Westminster. And after the SNP took over at Holyrood, former home secretary Jacqui Smith repeatedly rejected proposals from Mr MacAskill for a pilot licensing scheme in Scotland and declined jointly hosting a summit on the issue.
Edinburgh City Council even considered passing a special bylaw to ban airguns in the Capital, before giving up the idea because of "legal, political and practical difficulties".
There were an estimated 145 firearms offences involving airguns in Lothian and Borders last year.
The Calman commission – set up by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Tories – said it was not convinced Scotland had a general problem with firearms, but it acknowledged there was "appetite" to deal with air weapons differently in Scotland and concluded that the advantages of enabling the Scottish Parliament to do so outweighed the disadvantages.
The SNP now wants the apparent unanimity on the transfer of responsibility to be put into action as quickly as possible. A Scottish Government source says: "No further debate is needed – there is now complete agreement between the Scottish Government and the Calman parties."
The switch could be effected under secondary legislation and the SNP says that means it could easily be completed before the end of the year. The government source believes there would also be cross-party agreement on a ban.
If powers were transferred sooner rather than later, the pressure would then be on the Scottish Government to act quickly.
Provided the SNP could find room for an airgun ban in its legislative programme – and one of the criticisms of the current government is that its list of forthcoming bills is rather light – then the measure could be passed before the next elections in 2011.
