The Hungerford Massacre occurred in Hungerford, Berkshire, England on August 19, 1987. Michael Robert Ryan, a 27-year-old unemployed local laborer, was armed with two semi-automatic rifles and a hand gun. He shot and killed 16 people, including his mother, and wounded 15 others, then fatally shot himself. It remains, along with the Dunblane massacre, one of the worst criminal acts involving firearms in British history.
Ryan was an only child and reportedly bullied at school. Press biographies stated his fondness for, and possibly even an obsession, with guns. They also claimed his possessed magazines about survival skills and firearms, like Soldier of Fortune, and was a fan of First Blood, the first Rambo film (this was later revealed to be untrue). The first shooting occurred seven miles to the west of Hungerford in Savermake Forest in Wiltshire in the afternoon of August 19. Fifteen minutes later, he returned home and shot and killed his mother. He set fire to the house with gasoline that he bought earlier in the day.
On foot, Ryan injured and killed several people before taking refuge at the John O’Gaunt Community Technology College, which was closed and empty for summer holidays. Police surrounded the building and negotiators made contact with him. At 7 p.m., Ryan shot himself in the school. The massacre led to the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, which banned the ownership of semi-automatic center-fire rifles and restricted the use of shotguns with a magazine capacity of more than two rounds.
