Nigel Farage has called for firearm laws to be relaxed, calling the current ban on handguns "ludicrous".

The Ukip leader criticised the "kneejerk" restrictions on handguns imposed after the 1996 Dunblane massacre in which Thomas Hamilton killed 16 schoolchildren and a teacher before shooting himself.

The laws were brought in by Sir John Major, the then Tory prime minister, and extended to a total ban by Tony Blair's Labour government in 1997.

Asked about gun controls, Farage said: "I think proper gun licensing is something we've done in this country responsibly and well for a long time, and I think the kneejerk legislation that Blair brought in that meant that the British Olympic pistol team have to go to France to even practise was just crackers.

"If you criminalise handguns then only the criminals carry the guns. It's really interesting that since Blair brought that piece of law in, gun crime doubled in the next five years in this country."

"I think that we need a proper gun licensing system, which to a large extent I think we already have, and I think the ban on handguns is ludicrous."

Ian Mearns, Labour MP for Gateshead, said the comments were an example of "how extremely dangerous Ukip are".

"Families facing a cost-of-living crisis will find it bizarre that one of Nigel Farage's priorities would be to relax Britain's tough gun controls," he added.

The remarks come after Farage was caught in a storm over his party's 2010 election policies, which he entirely disowned this week and later described as "drivel".

The Ukip leader said he had never read the 486 pages of policy documents that were published alongside Ukip's manifesto in 2010, which included plans to repaint trains in traditional colours, bring in a uniform for taxi drivers, and ban offshore windfarms amid fears they could hurt fish.

After rejecting the entire collection of policies, he told LBC 97.3 that they were put together by Ukip's then policy chief David Campbell Bannerman, who is now a Conservative MEP.

"We had a manifesto – and I'm going to put some inverted commas around it – that was produced in 2010. It was basically a series of policy discussion papers that was put up on the website as a manifesto," he said.

"It was 486 pages long. I'm pleased to say that the idiot that wrote it has now left us and joined the Conservatives. They are very welcome to him.

"Malcolm Pearson, who was leader of Ukip at the time, was picked up in interviews for not knowing the manifesto. Of course he didn't know the manifesto. It was 486 pages of excessive detail.

"Eighteen months ago, I said I wanted the whole lot taken down off the website. We reject the whole thing. We'll start again with a blank sheet of paper. So there's nothing new in that story.

"I didn't read it. It was drivel. 486 pages of drivel. I didn't read it and nor did the party leader."

However, his attempt to distance himself from the documents was undermined on Friday, after it emerged he wrote the foreword to the party's manifesto and helped launch it at an event in London.

A video started circulating of Farage speaking as Ukip's chief spokesman at the launch of the manifesto in Westminster in 2010, promising "straight talking" about the party's policies. The Ukip leader also co-authored the summary 16-page manifesto that now appears to have disappeared from the party's website.

The 2010 policy documents – which also appear to have been blocked – detail plans such as capping the number of foreign players in football teams, bringing back "proper dress" at the theatre, scrapping paid maternity leave, allowing corporal punishment in schools and holding referendums on new places of worship such as mosques.

Other ideas included making the Circle line on the London tube circular again, investigating alleged discrimination against white people at the BBC and teaching schoolchildren more about the role of Arabs and African states in slavery.

Farage's attempt to distance Ukip from its manifesto of four years ago may put him under more scrutiny about what the party stands for in the runup to the May elections.

On Thursday, the usually assured politician floundered on live television as he was asked about the party's proposal to scrap Trident, saying he was not sure where the interviewer had got this suggestion from.

When told it was on the Ukip website, he said: "When it comes to websites, I'm not the expert."

Challenged over a compulsory dress code for taxi drivers, he said: "Do we? News to me."

And asked about a policy to repaint trains in traditional colours, Farage said: "I've never read that. I've no idea what you're talking about."

However, he said it was not "obvious nonsense" that he could cut £90bn of taxes and increase spending by £30bn, even though that would be "ambitious".