I agree totally Dean, I've lost track of local articles on shootings going on in Huddersfield, Halifax and Bradford but they barely get covered on the local news let alone national - With this incident in Cumbria [ not far from where I actually grew up ] the Media are just being a bunch of bloody Ghouls capitalising on peoples fears of firearms and the '' What if '' scenario of a mad gunman. Not to mention because its so many in one go it goes from being just an isolated incidence in the Media's eyes to being a national story because so many died.
With Firearms, I was taught from a young age to always respect them because the second you don't someone can be either seriously hurt or killed, also did Cadets for a few years and before we even touched a GP Rifle/LSW/GPMG we had to know all its features back to front, all the safety measures and even before shooting we had to be cleared - taught properly how to do it so I'm fully with you that if people wish to use firearms there should be some form of training certification to show they are competent and not idiots toting a dangerous bit of kit.
On a bit of a tangent/tinfoil hat note - Is it just me or is the timing of this conveniant with this shooting after what happened in Palestine with some Brits and other nationalities being killed by the IDF on that Aid barge ? Just stinks of Agenda setting by the Media again to divert our attention away from the IDF butchering unarmed people because the outcry from that was getting really bad, what happened in Cumbria was horrible and very tragic but it just feels like the Media really jumped on this bandwagon to sway the general public away from what happened in International Waters - thats my tuppence.