Rundle’s UK: Britain contemplates the mystery of evil
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Twelve people are now confirmed dead at the hands of a lone gunman in the northern English county of Cumbria. Derrick Bird, a taxi-driver in the town of Whitehaven, began his rampage at about 10.30 in the morning, killing two fellow taxi-drivers, and then moving through local towns, randomly shooting pereople. In the early afternoon, he abandoned his vehicle near the village of Boot, and in the nearby woods eventually shot himself. Twenty-five people are in hospital with gunshot wounds, three of them critical. Police said they were attending more than 30 separate crime scenes. The massacre prompted a lockdown of most of western Cumbria, with residents advised to stay in their houses, and the Sellafield nuclear plant closed down for several hours. Bird, 52, was a divorced father of two adult sons, and had recently become a grandfather. Though he was said to be “quiet” by some, he did not fit the stereotypical picture of the mass killer, being seen as generally cheerful, and with a wide circle of friends. Subsequent reports suggested that he had been provoked into the massacre by a dispute with his twin brother over the conditions in their dying mother’s will. Unconfirmed reports suggested that Bird had gunned down his brother and the brother’s solicitor before the two taxi-drivers were killed. One unnamed friend of Bird’s, who had been drinking with him the night before, said that Bird’s parting words to him had been “goodbye, you won’t see me again”. Later reports, all unconfirmed, suggested that Bird had been parading his weapons the night before, after a serious argument with colleagues at the taxi rank. It was also suggested that he had attempted to check himself into the mental health wing of a local hospital, but had been turned away. The events prompted some calls for a review of the gun laws, even though the UK has some of the tightest gun laws in the Western world. Semi-automatic weapons and pistols were more or less banned after the Hungerford and Dunblane massacres of the ’80s and ’90s. Bird appears to have been using two weapons — a shotgun and a smaller-bore hunting rifle with a telescopic sight. Several of the victims were shot at point-blank range, after Bird motioned them over to the car. The slow pace of the massacre and the nature of the shootings suggested that further restrictions on gun ownership would not have made much difference. That realisation has created a certain melancholy in much of the coverage, a simple realisation that no easy fix could have prevented the events. That leaves the country with little to contemplate but the mystery of evil, and the horror of waste, as one by one, the lives of the victim emerge and take flesh. |
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19 Comments
Surely ‘he had attempted to check himself into the mental health wing of a local hospital, but had been turned away’ suggests some sort of semi-easy fix??
This Massacre is another consequence of strict gun control. If a few non-mental citizens has some guns hidden away they could have defended themselves.
Yeah right, Cassandra. You are planning to go outside to: a) trim the hedge, b) visit the shops, pub, library, c) walk your demented father-in-law. You think to yourself, “… there just might be a crazed gunman driving down the street so I’d better get out the 12 gauge (which hasn’t been used for 10 years since the old man took a turn)”, even though it’s a bloody hassle carrying the thing around when your hands are full with other stuff, and also such a thing has never happened in the recent history of the country in which you live.
“This Massacre is another consequence of strict gun control. If a few non-mental citizens has some guns hidden away they could have defended themselves.”
Haha love this argument. It’s why I carry a knife on me at all times in case of a knife attack. No I’m not a psychopath why do you ask?
Not too bright Charlie.
What about if you are sitting inside and hear gunshots? - thanks to sheep like you a lot more people will die. How does it feel to have blood on your hands?
Daniel - if some passengers carried pocket knives 911 would not have happenned.
Poor Cassandra. Gun control facts just don’t help gun nutters do they.
Simple fact is that homicide rates in the US are 2 to 4 times higher than in similar Western countries. So much for an armed populace providing safety.
Of course your average gun owner sitting in their house hearing shooting outside would lock the doors and hide in a cupboard. The sort of people who feel they need a gun to defend themselves tend to be cowards and frightened of the world.
@New Cassandra - get some treatment or bog off back to America. You and the likes of you are far more frightening than the lunatics you seem to think we need to be arming ourselves against.
Ah, now I understand you, Cassandra. You are sitting inside and hear gunshots. Outside, presumably? So you go to the hiding place, take out the loaded gun, hide behind the sofa and prepare to defend yourself. Nothing happens because all the action is outside - in fact it sounds like it might have moved away up the street a bit. So what do you do? You step outside to see if there is someone there against whom you can defend yourself. Or maybe you feel like shooting at someone because it sounds really dangerous having lunatics outside shooting randomly. Might as well make it exciting for them.
Cassandra, you are quite likely to shoot at the wrong party, get yourself shot at and quite possibly be mistaken for the actual shooter. Curiosity could kill the cat. Stay seated, leave the gun in the hiding place and have a good lie down. You aren’t needed outside defending yourself. Next day, hand the gun in to someone who knows what they are doing.
@Charlie - wrong wrong wrong!! As Cassie is trying to point out, the logical extension of allowing the general flying public to carry knives on planes just in case of terrorist attacks (yes I know it had never happened before which when you think of it in context of being a 10000000000 to 1 chance meant it was inevitable) is for every patriot to be prepared be it on a plane or just sitting at home. It was utilising this eminently sensible approach that convinced me to cash in my super and build a reinforced machine gun nest on my front balcony (hope the bastatrd terrorists don’t sneak up from behind). Now whenever I hear gunshots in my particular cul-de-sac I immediately MAN (staffing is for PC nutbags) the nest and get some potentially hot 7.62 lead ready for Mr Beardy and his mates. I consider it to be a civic duty and despite the one time when my twin three year olds managed to loose off 600 rounds of tracer fire at old Mr Biggins place at No 34, it has not frightened or intimidated anyone I know (as they are reasonable people too). Indeed Martha at No 46 was so impressed after a tour round my fortified bunker she’s ordered a dozen 66MM anti tank rockets which I’ll be helping her install in a cleverly disguised rose bed at the weekend.
So, it’s not Cassie that’s mad and irresponsible, it’s you you Beardy supporting peacenik prat!!
Must go, just picked up a turban on my new infra red night sight (see what your “we don’t need guns” claptrap has caused!! Even hoards have to have advanced parties).
Tom,
One thing about your post makes me extremely anxious - did you get Council approval for the reinforced gun nest on the front balcony?
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
With in a week the shooting of unarmed people not expecting violent death of similar magnitude occurs on the high seas and totally unexpectedly in a peaceful, lovely place in England.
The huge psychological difference in the way we all seem to be affected by the latter event compared to the other is the emotional shock it has caused because it could happen to any of us when the disturbed human with a gun confronts us at his determination without warning.
Since we are not about to deliver aide via the high sea only compassion is wrench from us in the other incident.
To the dead bodies, to the lives lost, lives fatally interrupted there is no such difference.
A lone man with a gun stalking un-expecting innocent persons or trained ‘killers’ swarming en mass onto unarmed, fearful, courageous protesters on another’s instructions opening up with machine guns both commit the crime of murder but our selfish orientated appraisal of the possibility of personal assault determines our reaction.
You losers will like this….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLjNJI54GMM
@Cass the nutbag - as it’s from you I don’t think I’ll bother.
Oh, gun control, the debate that just keeps on givin’.
In place of a sensible contribution regarding the presence of firearms within a home being one more opportunity for someone to get shot - and quite likely a family member, I’d like you imagine a world where the scribe of the American Constitution had a bit of a moment and scrawled ‘the right to arm bears’ in place of what they have…
Mike,
In light of your post all has become clear - the original American Constitution had a terrible typo which has shaped the nation into what it is today. It was supposed to read ‘the right to bare arms’.
Mind you, inevitably this would have caused trouble with some predominantly Muslim countries where bare arms are frowned upon.
The US Constitution’s right to bear arms would be fine if their Supreme Court said it only applied to weapons of a type available at time of the drafting and enactment of the provision. That is 70 years before the first effective machine gun (the Gatling Gun) and nearly 100 years before the invention of the semi automatic rifle.
The insanity of the US is that their court’s have found an intention of their Constitution’s drafters to allow ordinary citizens to have weapons that were of unimaginable destructive potential and lethality to those same drafters.
It’s OK Philllip, Americans can settle it amongst themselves. They don’t need advice from us.
Philllip, agreed. I believe it is the patriotic duty of every American to defend the values and ideas espoused in the Constitution by owning and maintaining a large-bore, black powder rifle, of the kind available up to and during the Civil War.
This would also has the benefit of forcing those riled, in the the heat of the moment to reconsider their actions. I mean, to shoot someone, that’s a 2-3 minute procedure - opening the charge of powder, loading it, ramming the shot, pulling out the ramrod, placing it back, cocking the rifle, loading and firing.