Hungerford massacre
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Hungerford massacre occurred in Hungerford, Berkshire, England, on August 19, 1987. The gunman, 27-year-old Michael Robert Ryan, armed with two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun, shot and killed sixteen people including his mother, and wounded fifteen others, then fatally shot himself. A report on this incident was commissioned by the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, from the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Colin Smith. It remains, along with the Dunblane massacre, one of the worst criminal atrocities involving firearms in British history.
In the days following the massacre, the British tabloid press was filled with stories about Michael Ryan's life. Press biographies all stated that he had a near-obsessive fascination with firearms. The majority claimed that Ryan possessed magazines about survival skills and firearms, Soldier of Fortune being frequently named. He was also said to be a fan of the Rambo film First Blood in which the press erroneously claimed events similar to the Hungerford massacre take place.
