Hungerford massacre

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The Hungerford massacre was a spree shooting in Wiltshire and Berkshire, England, which occurred on 19 August 1987 when 27-year-old Michael Ryan shot and killed sixteen people, including his mother and an unarmed police officer, before killing himself. No motive for the killings was established. A report on the massacre, commissioned by Home Secretary Douglas Hurd, found that understaffing and telecommunication problems may have hampered the police response to the developing incident. The killings were committed using legally owned handguns and semi-automatic rifles, and the report stated that existing firearms legislation should be more stringent. Consequently, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 was passed in the wake of the massacre, banning unlicensed ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles and restricting the use of shotguns with a capacity of more than three cartridges. Subsequent shootings in Dunblane in 1996 and in Cumbria in 2010 have been compared to the Hungerford massacre...

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