Gunman goes on rampage in Cumbria

[Neal]

How the hell does competitive shooting detract from public ownership? They are one and the same thing, please at the very least understand what you are discussing before posting.

I also find it interesting that you would take issue with someone presenting a discussion on gun ownership! Smack rather of a one-sided view point on things.

As you said that most of the GB shooting teams can't actually keep the tools they use to compete in the UK and have to practice overseas I perhaps wrongly assumed that the controls for this use were tight enough so that the guns weren’t available to the public and as they say you shouldn’t make assumptions…

I took issue with someone defending gun ownership as I thought it was insensitive to do this so soon after it happened, if it had been an anti gun speaker I would have thought it was less inappropriate so I guess it is a one sided point of view.

The only remaining step in terms of gun ownership in the UK is pretty much a complete ban, the existing rules are already that tight.

You also have no idea what this guy would or could of done had he not owned legal weapons, given that more illegal guns exist in the UK than legal ones its not a great reach to say he would not have obtained one.

Nor can you categorically state that he would not have managed to achieve a similar toll via other means.

What you are arguing for (and to say otherwise is quite frankly laughable) is a nanny state move, you just seem OK with it because it doesn't affect you. Keep in mind that an erosion of rights will someday catch up with something that does affect you.


Scaff

You’re right, he may have been able to carry out a similar attack without guns or have sourced them illegally but that fact is that he did have two licensed guns and it is highly likely these will shortly be proved to be the ones he used.

I’m not denying a further tightening of the gun laws would be another move towards a nanny state and that if that trend continues then it is only a matter of time before something affects me directly and restricts my civil liberties. On the flip side of that argument if someone fires a licensed gun at me that really will restrict my civil liberties!

I do realise I’m much more likely to be shot by an illegal gun and that gun laws will obviously have no effect on this but it is understandable that the laws will be discussed following something like this even if there is no proof that a complete bad would significantly reduce the number of deaths.

 

[Duke of Pendle]

Tighten the firearm laws again.
Fine.
Now how does it get enforced?
Search warrant for every house/building in the UK?

Do what you like with the laws - it won't make firearms magically disappear.

 

[Max Powers]

It would never have made the slightest bit of difference in this or probably any of the other two 'gun rampages' the UK's had.

Some old bloke nipping out to the newsagents or a mother on her way back from doing the school run are hardly going to be packing heat and be ready and aware enough to take out someone sniping from inside a parked mini cab 80 yards away are they? I can just imagine old Joe Bloggs catching a reflection from a gun sight in the corner of his eye and diving for cover behind a post box gun drawn and firing before the gunman takes a shot or Wether's Originals hit the pavement.

In the story I just posted a few posts up, the exact thing happened two average guys went to get their weapons when the **** began going down . The school shooting in Virginia was stopped when two law students ran to get their guns from their nearby cars, and ultimately stopped the shooting from becoming any more tragic.

 

[tyl0r_r]

So that the only people who have them are criminals?

Ideally, yes. Them and law enforcement, anyway. I wish I had a hobby that society felt would justify keeping machines invented for the sake of killing in my home.

The cab driver was a perfectly normal fellow, from the sounds of it. He'd have had a harder time killing people if he didn't happen to own these weapons. Yes, he probably could and would've done something stupid and extremely violent even without them. But I highly doubt he'd have inflicted so many deaths / injuries through other methods able to be improvised by a 50 something cabbie.

...As for the banning hunting and all of that, that'd be super! Anything besides subsistence hunting [which I am not against] is simply killing living things for one's entertainment, and I think that's terribly selfish and perhaps evil. The fact that people on my continent will fly around in helicopters shooting wolves in a field because they find that 'sport' to be 'entertaining' may influence my opinion, but the gist of it stands for all sports hunters.

 

[Max Powers]

The cab driver was a perfectly normal fellow, from the sounds of it. He'd have had a harder time killing people if he didn't happen to own these weapons. Yes, he probably could and would've done something stupid and extremely violent even without them. But I highly doubt he'd have inflicted so many deaths / injuries through other methods such as rampaging around town with his kitchen knives or another weapon able to be improvised by a 50 something cabbie.

Perfectly normal fellows don't kill 12 people dude. Your definition of perfectly normal = my definition of psychopath.

What's to stop him from blowing up his car in a crowded intersection, or making a pipe bomb? He wanted to bring people down with him and he would have done it by any means necessary.

...As for the banning hunting and all of that, that'd be super! Anything besides subsistence hunting [which I am not against] is simply killing living things for one's entertainment, and I think that's terribly selfish and perhaps evil. The fact that people on my continent will fly around in helicopters shooting wolves in a field because they find that 'sport' to be 'entertaining' may influence my opinion, but the gist of it stands for all sports hunters.

Not a hunter, but I wish there were more around here. The white tail deer population around here is becoming an epidemic and the amount of hunters is steadily declining. They destroy plants and crops, are a huge safety hazard to motorists resulting in many deaths from collisions. I don't give a crap if the people hunting them eat them or just take their hide and throw the rest in a dumpster, because the popluation of them needs to be controlled. I had one hit my car this past winter and very nearly had it go through my windshield, so I'd much prefer somebody killing some deer than to have these pests that are literally everywhere threaten my life on the roads.

But that's for another topic, and you don't seem very informed on the matter anyway.

 

[tyl0r_r]

Perfectly normal fellows don't kill 12 people dude. Your definition of perfectly normal = my definition of psychopath.

What's to stop him from blowing up his car in a crowded intersection, or making a pipe bomb? He wanted to bring people down with him and he would have done it by any means necessary.

My point is that 'normal' people sometimes snap and either become loonies or expose themselves as such. The man led a 'normal' life for 50 years and everyone around him thought that. I already said he'd have done something else violent anyway. I already said that having the guns sitting in his house made his little freak out a hell of a lot easier for him to accomplish. Pipe bombs don't just whip themselves up, either.

He was surrounded by regular folk who would've had a greater chance to realize what the hell's going on then was afforded to them by the fact that all he had to do was go to his closet and grab his killing utensils, then set out on his way. This paragraph is speculative.

Edit: As for the hunting thing, we can talk when you want to stop going ad hominem and calling me uninformed. I live in moose country. I don't buy the long standing excuse you present as a valid reason for sport hunting, nor does your pretty little example stand in all cases and forms of sports hunting - so long as we're talking about being properly informed. I worked for a very rich fellow named Sherman Hines who is a relatively famous photographer in Eastern Canada (which means 5 people have heard of him.) He enjoyed taking trips to the artic to kill polar bears, taking trips to Africa to kill animals I don't even know the names of off the top of my head. But - hey - gotta take care of those pests, right?

 

[Max Powers]

Pipe bombs don't just whip themselves up, either.

Guns don't just appear out of thin air, it certainly wouldn't have been any harder for him to create one and cause mass destruction than it would have been to acquire a handgun. The gun didn't cause his snapping, the fact that he was a psychopath cause his snapping.

If I get drunk and then decide to go driving around, is it the fault of my vehicle for being there and tempting me? Or is it my fault because I am a complete idiot to get in my car and drive drunk? I'd tend to go with the latter. I don't really see much of a difference between the two situations.

 

[tyl0r_r]

Guns don't just appear out of thin air, it certainly wouldn't have been any harder for him to create one and cause mass destruction than it would have been to acquire a handgun. The gun didn't cause his snapping, the fact that he was a psychopath cause his snapping.

If you think I implied that owning guns made him snap you have utterly misread me.

The man owned weapons. The man went (or was) nuts. The man, now a nut, had weapons on hand. The man grabbed them and went to town.

If he did not have weapons on hand, that train of action would have to be a lot more complicated. That is pretty well the extent of what I was trying to say. In my opinion, it would have been more difficult for him to learn how to and then properly construct bombs then to grab the weapons in the closest. Obviously, we disagree.

 

[TheCracker]

In the story I just posted a few posts up, the exact thing happened two average guys went to get their weapons when the **** began going down . The school shooting in Virginia was stopped when two law students ran to get their guns from their nearby cars, and ultimately stopped the shooting from becoming any more tragic.

The area the shootings covered was hundreds of square miles, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. The last thing anyone needs is a bunch of amateur vigilantes taking pot shots at every silver Citroen Picasso in the county.

 

[ExigeEvan]

The area the shootings covered was hundreds of square miles, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. The last thing anyone needs is a bunch of amateur vigilantes taking pot shots at every silver Citroen Picasso in the county.

On that point my dad fitted the initial description of "dark grey/silver Citroen Picasso driven by a man in his thirties with a shaven head" quite well except for the age part. Luckily we live a fair distance away.

 

[Emu76]

Prime Minister David Cameron warns against a "knee-jerk reaction": SOURCE

Thank god, I was hoping he would say this.

 

[ExigeEvan]

Prime Minister David Cameron warns against a "knee-jerk reaction": SOURCE

Thank god, I was hoping he would say this.

The doing the, um, opposite.

Britain's gun laws should be reviewed after Derrick Bird's Cumbria shooting massacre, Alan Johnson, the shadow home secretary, has said.

Mr Johnson said there might be a case for incorporating mental health checks into the system following claims that it is too easy for rural residents to gain access to firearms.

I've yet to meet a certifiably sane farmer, but that doesn't mean I have a problem with them owning a gun.

 

[Alex.]

Guy decides he's unhappy with something so he goes and wrecks lots of lives including killing 12 people, and then tops himself afterward because he can't face the music. Cowardice at it's pinnacle.

 

[homeforsummer]

Prime Minister David Cameron warns against a "knee-jerk reaction": SOURCE

Fairly obvious reaction that. He's craftily defending the Tory hunting set. Fox hunters and the like are pretty much synonymous with a stererotypically Tory voter.

I don't disagree with him though. I'm anti hunting and I have absolutely zero desire to own a gun myself, but as others have pointed out the current laws do very little as it is.

Further restrictions would just be a metaphor for a government intent on banning everything that presents more than zero risk. Not banning guns altogether would be a good initial test for the new government - it sets a statement of intent. The country had enough of Labour banning things, I suspect the current parliament won't make the same mistake. Much.

 

[Keef]

Ideally, yes. Them and law enforcement, anyway. I wish I had a hobby that society felt would justify keeping machines invented for the sake of killing in my home.

What happens if one of those armed criminals busts down your front door and says "boo"? Are you going to offer him some tea and biscuits while the two of you wait for law enforcement to come take him away?

The area the shootings covered was hundreds of square miles, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. The last thing anyone needs is a bunch of amateur vigilantes taking pot shots at every silver Citroen Picasso in the county.

If "a bunch of amatuer vigilantes" took "pot shots" here in the States they'd probably be sent to jail. They aren't the police, they don't have the authority to do that. But they do have the right to protect their own lives, and if someone is coming towards me with a flailing a gun like a crazed fool then you can bet I would do my best to take him out before he takes me out. Any amateur police work beyond defending your own life would have to be decided by a judge and jury.

 

[Joel]

The sentence in my signature sums up my opinion on this matter.

 

[Touring Mars]

This guy is perhaps the luckiest survivor of the Cumbrian shootings...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10232739.stm

 

[Famine]

Yeah - the shooter was in his car, called the guy over by name and shot him in the head with a shotgun when he lowered his head to the window. From the looks, he's about 9 inches away from being a stump from the neck up.

 

[DK]

This guy is perhaps the luckiest survivor of the Cumbrian shootings...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10232739.stm

I would've expected him to be communicating through a series of beeps, one for yes, two for no. Or at least with a massive hole in his head.

 

[Small_Fryz]

so what type of gun did he have to shoot all these people

 

[Touring Mars]

I would've expected him to be communicating through a series of beeps

Or via a séance...

so what type of gun did he have to shoot all these people

A sniper rifle and a shotgun.

 

[dxm8975]

This guy is perhaps the luckiest survivor of the Cumbrian shootings...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10232739.stm

Yeah...　He is the luckiest man in that incident, looks like if his face was in the line of the bullet flying he could definitely be dead like other victims, the wounds on his face speak of how terribly the gunman acted during his plan of killing some local people targetted at random.

 

[ExigeEvan]

Or via a séance...


A sniper rifle and a shotgun.

A .22 rifle with a scope isn't what most people think of when you refer to a sniper rifle

 

[Touring Mars]

Well, a rifle with a telescopic sight... I was repeating what one eye witness (Barrie Moss) had said. Either way, it doesn't really matter, does it?

 

[Keef]

A .22 rifle with a scope isn't what most people think of when you refer to a sniper rifle

A .22? Dang, he must have been popping off boom headshots with that thing, otherwise the people would have just limped down the clinic.

 

[Stevisiov]

A .22? Dang, he must have been popping off boom headshots with that thing, otherwise the people would have just limped down the clinic.

According to the a surgeon, of the 11 people he attempted to treat, 5 had been shot in the face.

He had a shotgun for close encounters too.