Orlando Attack: UK Security Measures Debate

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Department: Home Office

Orlando Attack: UK Security Measures

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts
Monday 13th June 2016

(8 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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If memory serves me, it was in July 2002, so the 14th anniversary thereof will soon be upon us.

Alistair Carmichael Portrait Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
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The intended targets of this vicious and homophobic attack might have been the LGBT community of Orlando, but we should regard it as an attack on us all. In a free society, when a group is attacked because they are different and a minority, it is an attack on us all, and that is how we should see it. This is a time for mourning, but that time will pass eventually, and when it does, should the opportunity present itself to the Home Secretary, I hope that she will say, as a candid friend to our friends in America, that they really need to look again at the availability of guns in their country.

Baroness May of Maidenhead Portrait Mrs May
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The right hon. Gentleman is right that this was an attack on the values we all share and an attempt to create division and hatred in society and between communities. We must all resist and fight against that and ensure that communities can come together with one voice and condemn such attacks. I think he will find that many people will be raising the issue of gun control in the United States.