Whitehaven
They really are just tools
I couldn’t help but think of Dunblane when I heard of the news.
I wonder what the knee-jerk reaction of the government will be this time? Will the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ Tories look around at the thousands of Tory voters who use shotguns and rifles with due care and attention and who never kill anyone?
Or will they just ban shotguns and rifles now?
My own take on this is bound to be controversial, but I would actually argue that this senseless slaughter is one of the best arguments for repealing gun control legislation. If Mr Bird had run into just one person carrying a concealed firearm, how many lives could have been saved? How many people would be spared the horror of mourning right now?
Statistics in the USA are fairly unequivocal: states which have strong gun control tend to have higher murder and violent crime rates. States which allow carry and especially concealed carry tend to have lower rates of murder and violent crime.
It’s time for knee-jerk reaction, just not the obvious one.
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1
June 3, 2010 at 08:00 -
As I’ve said elsewhere, if there’s a case for arming the citizenry, it shouldn’t be on the premise that this would prevent cases such as this happening.
Since most of his victims don’t appear to be the sort of people who would have carried a gun if they’d been allowed to, I’m not sure what good it would have done.
9 out of 10 people on the street couldn’t lay their hands on their mobile/car keys/wallet within a few seconds and under pressure. It’s a bit much to start thinking we’d all become Dead Eye Dick, isn’t it?
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June 3, 2010 at 08:24 -
JuliaM, I’m not sure I agree. Firstly, what sort of people carry a gun? In countries where firearms are legal, there is no “type” or “sort” of person who carries a gun – salesmen, housewives, lawyers, builders, doctors, all sorts of people carry. The fact that British people have been brainwashed into believing that only nutters and thugs carry is purely a local cultural phenomenon.
Secondly, there is only one place a person carries: in a holster. You don’t have to look for anything.
Thirdly, most firearm owners practice. They might not be Dead-eye Dick (I never was), but they could certainly do enough to kill, wound or at the very worst, discourage random shooters.
The fact of the matter is that Derrick Bird knew that he would be the only person around with guns. He might have thought twice if he wasn’t. And even if he hadn’t, he would have been stopped much faster than he actually was.
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June 3, 2010 at 09:41 -
“In countries where firearms are legal…”
People have grown up in a firearms culture. We’ve strayed too far from that…
“Secondly, there is only one place a person carries: in a holster.”
Not true. Check out the US and individual states’ differing carry requirements.
“Thirdly, most firearm owners practice. “
I really don’t want to be around when the ones that don’t start shootin’.. !
“The fact of the matter is that Derrick Bird knew that he would be the only person around with guns.”
We can’t know that. We can’t know what he was thinking, or what he would have done if things had been otherwise. Spree killings still happen in the states.
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June 3, 2010 at 13:02 -
JuliaM, firearms are generally quite expensive pieces of kit.
They are also potentially complex, with options of single action, double action, pistols, revolvers, different safety mechanisms. I would NEVER attempt to actually use a firearm until I was absolutely clear on how it worked.
Why would you buy one if you weren’t going to practice with it? It’s true that much like that exercise bike in your shed, many of them will be bought and stuck in a gun safe and quietly forgotten about. But those won’t be the people carrying.
People who carry for self defence do not feel that merely owning the weapon is going to defend them. They have to retain proficiency or they will most likely jam their weapon or injure themselves in the process. When I owned a weapon for carrying, I would be on the shooting range at least once a month to ensure that I was able to use it effectively and accurately.
I also don’t buy into the argument that we’ve drifted too far away from gun culture. British people who emigrate to countries with gun culture have no problem adapting. Those who are interested in guns will buy them and use them socially and for self defence, those who aren’t will continue to avoid them.
As to the carry laws, they vary in allowing open or concealed carry, but you would be a complete fool to carry a loaded handgun in anything other than a properly designed holster. A handgun in a woman’s purse is as useless as a chocolate teapot, a handgun in your belt or the band of your trousers doesn’t even bear thinking about.
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June 3, 2010 at 15:48 -
“I would NEVER attempt to actually use a firearm until I was absolutely clear on how it worked.
Why would you buy one if you weren’t going to practice with it?”
I wouldn’t. No more than you would. But you’re thinking like a rational person.
Try thinking like a lot of the people in this society. Those who’d purchase on a whim, or get a gift for another person.
“I also don’t buy into the argument that we’ve drifted too far away from gun culture. British people who emigrate to countries with gun culture have no problem adapting.”
Perhaps one needs to look at the type of person/reason for emigrating. I think the answer might lie there…
“but you would be a complete fool to carry a loaded handgun in anything other than a properly designed holster.”
Indeed. Or stick a mixture of live and blank ammunition in an old Quality Street tin.
And that was one of the professionals!
No, much as I like the idea of everyone being free to choose to be armed, I doubt I’ll ever see it in my lifetime.
And it still won’t stop these events from happening.
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June 3, 2010 at 09:58 -
And who exactly would the individuals have called even if they COULD reach their mobile phone? Plod? He’s unarmed too, so about as useful as tits on a haddock. Any armed response team would have been too busy arresting members of parliament for leaking home office documents and would have taken hours to get there.
I agree with Thad. If one member of the public had legally had a gun he could have brought this guy down long before he carried on driving around “winging” people.
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June 3, 2010 at 08:15 -
Seconded. And I’ve been saying it for years.
Introduce CCW permits, backed with a stiff vetting and testing regime including civil liability law, ‘brandishing’ offences, alcohol limits, regular requalification under the tutelage of a trained Police firearms officer and annual psychological exam – and watch the violent crime rate plummet.
‘An armed society is a polite society’.
D
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June 3, 2010 at 08:49 -
Dungeekin, you could of course take it a step further, and introduce a taxation regime, as with motor vehicles. And just think of the massive bureaucracy and consequent job creation involved. And if the State licenses, vets and trains, and thereby accepts responsibility for all this weaponry, let’s not forget the huge opportunities here for practitioners of Law, with enormous taxpayer-funded payouts to claimants aggrieved by bureaucratic failure to protect them against every single gun-related hazard.
I don’t see it happening myself. I think our politicians and bureaucrats, national and local, know they would have much to fear from an armed citizenry! -
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June 3, 2010 at 08:51 -
Three things about these shootings struck me right away:
1) All this country’s draconian firearms laws did not prevent Bird arming himself.
2) His killing spree ended when he decided, not the police. As with Hungerford and Dunblane they were not able to intervene to stop the murderer.
3) His victims were defenceless – forbidden by law from carrying any weapon that might have saved them.
Last night on Newsnight, Jeremy Paxman fretted: “what can we do to protect ourselves” against this kind of thing?
The answer is obvious: carry a gun.
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June 3, 2010 at 08:56 -
Dungeekin
Under tutelage of a Police firearms officer,
Please NO, I have long years experience of firearms, using, training, competitions and Police shooting ability is poor at best.
Never have the police, military, ever won a shooting competition against us civilians, like me ex-military and a life long interest in firearms, and is appauled at the standard of police and military shooting ability, and weapons handling skills.-
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June 3, 2010 at 10:35 -
Of all the observations, this is surely the most worrying one. I’m sure the gun carrying laws are adequate and we presume licence holders are fit and proper persons. However, Hungerford, Dumblane and now Whitehaven bring that assumption to question and I agree that the police are not in a postion to respond quickly enough. Is it therefore time to improve police firearms training and arm them?
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June 3, 2010 at 11:27 -
“Dumblane and now Whitehaven bring that assumption to question and I agree that the police are not in a postion to respond quickly enough.”
The Police were not meant to be the first line of defence against criminal activity but the last. The creeping statism has educated the self-defence mechanism out of many of us and impressed upon us that keeping the peace, upholding the law and preventing harm is only for those in a hi-viz jacket.
The Police are both uninterested and incapable of doing the job they insist should be theirs and theirs alone. Their response will always be to demand more legislation and more resources whilst simultaneously telling the public to never get involved and just call them. Crime has become something for the Police to exploit.
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June 4, 2010 at 14:32 -
Have to agree. I got a marksman badge in the RAF. I wasn’t wearing my glasses and couldn’t see the target I was shooting at. (It was all down to the breathing).
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June 3, 2010 at 09:33 -
I was wondering the same.
The main difference here is that Dunblane occurred in the run up to an election. That meant both parties competed in being the friendliest to bereaved mothers.
Blessedly (small mercies), this tragedy occurred after the baby-kissers have gone back inside their cave. Hopefully therefore no gun banning reverse arms race.
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June 3, 2010 at 09:33 -
S.B.S
You don’t need to be an Olympic marksman. A double tap and two on target is all you need.
And who are you to decry police shooting ability? So, you’re ex-military. So what? That doesn’t make you the best shot in the world.
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June 3, 2010 at 19:40 -
I have seen the police shoot.
Also our gun club has members of the police, who had private arms before the dunblain ban on pistols, and now they tell me the standard of shooting is rubbish.
Ex-military, did some military in UK. terrible shots, my main military was abroad, and use of a gun was encouraged every day.
Never been beaten in a shooting comp, but can take you to a heap of graves, where they could not shoot as good or as fast as me.
Speaks for it’s self.
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June 3, 2010 at 10:20 -
I agree with Anna. When only crims and crazies have guns, as is currently the case, then the public’s only role is to provide the targets.
We should allow/encourage gun ownership (with training) for home defence and (with additional training) carry permits so folk can take their weapons with them if they choose.
Unless an armed officer is standing next to the gunman, the police will always be one step behind events. As in yesterday’s tragedy they were chasing the gunman, following his trail of deaths and injuries, just picking up the pieces. No-one was able to stop him, they all just stood there, unarmed, and were shot dead.
However our politicians and police will not countenance such loss of control over us. So I dont expect to hear this raised anywhere other than in the blogosphere.
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June 3, 2010 at 10:31 -
We now apparently have the largest Police Service in this Country.
We now allegedly have the fewest amount of firearms in this Country.Wind the clock back one decade and let the emergency services do what they always did. Urgently attend the scene. Immediately access the situation and respond appropriately with due force.
You can bet your bottom dollar than in this age of us all being deprived the means to protect ourselves the only lawful people who can help us will be on the periphery ‘risk accessing their own safety’, before they get anywhere near us to help.
Health and Safety within the emergency services is at the cost of our own safety.
If the armed services were so badly shackled no-one would leave the barracks.
I’m not criticizing the Police, rather the ridiculous restraints passed upon them. -
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June 3, 2010 at 10:53 -
SBS – I agree with you about the police weapon handling skills. I was once practising in my back garden with an air pistol. For some reason, this was reported to the police, who sent CID round to investigate. When asked, I handed him the case with the pistol in it; he took it out, looked down the barrel and PULLED THE TRIGGER!
Needless to say, I snatched it back off of him and put it away. He left rather sheepishly after a good talking to! Not quite the way he envisaged the interview going I suspect.
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June 3, 2010 at 11:00 -
I still haven’t heard whether he had an FAC, shotgun certificate or just stole the guns – anyone know?
If I remember correctly, aren’t there estimated to be 7-8 illegal guns for every legal one? The illegal ones can be small enough to conceal.
Haven’t heard anyone talking about YONAs shooting each other yet. What’s the comparison of the deaths due to nutters with legal guns vs YONAs and criminals with illegal ones?
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June 3, 2010 at 11:08 -
Most of the carriers in the States get a huge ego-lift from that feeling that they’re oh-so-dangerous. “Nobody messes with ME, boy” just about sums it up. They’re the inadequates in society, the ones that would never dare lift a finger or even their voice without a Glock on their person.
Guns are ego-magnifiers, plain and simple.
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June 3, 2010 at 11:41 -
SBS.
A while back perhaps. The Met boys have been working tres hard these last few years and are taking far more seriously with the latest threats and all.
The Met firearms units, particularly have unskilled massively.
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June 3, 2010 at 12:06 -
Anna,
For most of my adult life I had always regarded the Yanks’ gun laws as a childish and ant-social sentiment left over from their wild west pioneering days and from their concept of “the right to bear arms” from the 1776 rebellion.
However, I have recentl;y changed my mind after coming across many arguments suggesting that one reason that the Yanks have a more stable society against crime AND against state oppression is common ownership of fire arms, under licence of course.
How long would our army of state-employed jobsworths last if they had to snoop and enforce their petty regulations in the US? For instance:
ON GARBAGE COLLECTION DAY:
“Excuse me sir but your garbage bin lid is open one inch higher than the state regulation limit, you will be fined $200. We also wish to inform you that garbage will only be collected every two weeks and your local state taxes will increase.”ONE MORNING OUTSIDE A TAXPAYER’S HOUSE:
“Sir, I am fining you for your reckless beahviour in clearing the snow from the sidewalk outside your house. Such actions are illegal and can in 0.0000000000001% of cases cause a drunk wuckfit to slip and harm him or her self. I don’t care that 10 people slipped in front of your house before you cleared the snow, they were acts of God and do not come under clause UR12 of the Wuckfit Protection Act.”THAT EVENING OUTSIDE THE SAME TAXPAYER’S HOUSE:
“Sir, I must arrest you for GBH against this fine upstanding group of glue-sniffing youths because you viciously called them ‘Scum’ after they kindly kicked you to the floor for your own good.”STATE ENFORCERS AT A LITTLE OLD LADY’S HOUSE:
“I’m sorry madam but I don’t care that you have never claimed from the state in your life and have been careful to scrimp and save and obey all laws. The state says that if your alzheimer suffering husband needs care, we must force you to sell your house. Yes, even if you did pay for your house from already-taxed income.”DOCTOR’S SURGERY:
“Doctor I’ve had this persistent pain for two weeks, can you help?”
“Well, miss, I must first inform you that everything you say will be logged on the government law enforcement database. Now: How much do you drink a week? How many people do you sleep with? How many illegal acts did you commit last month? Are you a racist? How many homosexual friends do you have?…”Off topic but would be grateful if any kind readers could proof read my transcript of yesterday’s PMQs:
Historic First PMQs of the Cami-Knicker Coalition -
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June 3, 2010 at 12:57 -
After Dumblane, the gun laws were tightened up. Now Whitehaven.
Fine, tighten up the gun laws even more. What next?
When will the penny drop?
It ain’t guns that’s the problem, it’s this society. It’s sick and badly needs fixing.
Of course, it’s relatively easy to tighten up on the gun laws.
Fixing society – now that’s a long-term and huge multi-faceted issue.
The problem is that if we tighten up on the gun laws, we fall into the trap that we have resolved the issue. Like hell we have.
When the gun laws were tightened up after Dunblane, one could have assumed that gun crimes would have decreased. Actually, they didn’t.
Until society as a whole accepts that it is broken, needs fixing and actually does something about it, the Whitehaven’s of this world will sadly get more frequent and more horrific.
This isn’t a job for the Government, it’s a job for society as a whole.
My deep and sincere condolences to all those in Whitehaven who have been affected by this tragic incident.
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June 3, 2010 at 13:19 -
Will we ever face up to the unpalatable fact that such atrocities have happened, continue to happen and will certainly recur? Regardless of the gun legislation hysterically enacted by politicians, there’s always going to be an inadequate somewhere with a grudge who one day goes on the rampage and does damage. Such is the darker side of what we call – life.
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June 3, 2010 at 15:39 -
Going to have to disagree with the majority on here. I don’t think the solution to a gun problem lies with the introduction of more guns. I can appreciate the counter argument that if someone else had been armed then this could have been something that would have potentially stopped this massacre ever happening. It’s a big if though and when you are talking about guns I don’t feel the risk is worth it.
Armed response teams are only an asset when they can be deployed to face a gunman off, as has been mentioned, this gunman came and went without any intervening from the police armed or not.
Going out on a limb here but I dont think the prospect of this killer being confronted with another armed civilian would have put him off. He got up that morning with the intent to kill and he was quite prepared to die in carrying out that task. An armed stand off with a civilian has the potential to turn the streets into a shooting gallery.
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June 3, 2010 at 16:37 -
Does anybody else believe that if the economic situation does not improve in the next few years, then come 2020 we may all be needing frearms for self-protection.
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June 3, 2010 at 16:48
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June 3, 2010 at 19:40 -
Living in rural Scotland as I do, there are guns aplenty here. It’s relatively easy to get one, and you must lock it up in the metal box at home. Easy. Then you go out and shoot your dinner. Now there have been one or two fatal incidents over the years, all of which were apparent suicides (gamekeepers, farmers) . If not with their guns then of course they would have found another way out.( Could Mr Bird have killed SO MANY people, had he not been in possession of a gun? Then again, if one really needs a gun there is always a way of obtaining one I suppose.
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June 4, 2010 at 00:46 -
Just so long as the sad, pathetic individuals with their big guns can go on getting their ‘kicks’ by killing animals for fun – then all will be right with the world.
Apart from the fact that they are psychological stunted cowards who are only brave when they have a gun in their hands. It must take real guts to inflict pain and death on some bird flying through the sky – what big men you are. You could call such people ‘Neanderthals’ – but that would be unfair to real Neanderthals who were further up the evolutionary chain than these animal killing morons
Im sure when these gun totting inadequate’s look back on their lives they can derive huge amounts of pleasure from unnecessary the pain and death they have caused animals over the years –
and utter contempt and derision from those of us that don’t get our kicks from killing
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June 4, 2010 at 10:45
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