SLRs were used by the 1st Battalion , Parachute Regiment ( 1 PARA ) in 1972 's Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland , in which 26 unarmed civilians were shot and 14 were killed . Two of the rifles , which were supposedly destroyed , were later used by the West Side Boys , an armed group in Sierra Leone , in 2000 's Operation Barras . The rifles were saved for souvenirs by 1 PARA , who discovered that they matched the serial numbers from their own armoury
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday (1972)
L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle