Shootings in Cumbria

vilkrang wrote:Low crime rate, not low gun crime rate. Gun crime rate in Switzerland is still higher than in the UK.

Aye, you can't bring up low crime rates in Switzerland without mentioning their extraordinarily low drug use and lack of poverty. It's a case of the rich don't need to steal

Vilks, you're right that this guy didn't appear to be afraid of dying.

However an argument can be made that if the population was armed someone might have shot him early on in the piece, stopping him before he killed too many.

But then you run the risk of having shoot-outs between citizens in the streets - which isn't particularly appealing.

Hass wrote:Vilks, you're right that this guy didn't appear to be afraid of dying.

However an argument can be made that if the population was armed someone might have shot him early on in the piece, stopping him before he killed too many.

But then you run the risk of having shoot-outs between citizens in the streets - which isn't particularly appealing.

Precisely. Other than a few terribly sad incidents, gun crime in England is lower than most of the world. We don't have a big problem which indicates that we must be doing something right and I don't see why we should take an extraordinarily risky move of relaxing laws when in general they are working fine as they are.

Way off the beam AD.
Gun laws ought to be even more stringent - with the most important issue being the checking up of licenses on a regular, randomly especially, basis.

The trouble these days is that the Police are so bogged down with pen-pushing form filling, these controls and checks are rarely administered and as such, freaks like Bird slip through the net.

But, having said that, there is no way one can suspect the act, let alone stop a suicidal maniac once the rusty cord inside his brain snaps ...

A terrible tragedy ...

Bird was a registered gun owner for more than 20 years. I don't think any amount of even more stringent gun control legislation could have prevented this outrage.

Is it me or was Armed response a bit slow? Guess its the rural location thing again.

G.Wood wrote:

vilkrang wrote:Low crime rate, not low gun crime rate. Gun crime rate in Switzerland is still higher than in the UK.

Aye, you can't bring up low crime rates in Switzerland without mentioning their extraordinarily low drug use and lack of poverty. It's a case of the rich don't need to steal

But they do need to arm themselves, it seems.

Hass wrote:I'm happy I live in a place where tough restrictions generally work.

They work so well that all three whackos in Hungerford, Dunblane and Whitehaven had gun licences.

I'm going to assume you are just taking the piss AD because I can't take you seriously. More guns=less gun crime, is essentially the argument you are putting forward. Your wackiest proposal yet.

Yeah and the way to stop that is make more guns available more easily.

JKLever wrote:Is it me or was Armed response a bit slow? Guess its the rural location thing again.

Or the fact that all his victims were unarmed.

Allan, are you seriously suggesting that a country with no culture of widespread gun ownership liberalises its gun ownership laws?

What evidence is there that a free-for-all would reduce the incidence of events such as yesterday's?

Can you cite any would be mass murderers who have been stopped in their tracks by an armed civilian?

vilkrang wrote:I'm going to assume you are just taking the piss AD because I can't take you seriously. More guns=less gun crime, is essentially the argument you are putting forward. Your wackiest proposal yet.

I see even some liberals are putting forward the idea that we should have a routinely armed police which should be fun whenever the next big demo occurs. JKL complains about the slowness of the armed response. No wonder, the police have to get permission off the Chief Constable, if not the Home Secretary, before the shooters can be brought out and then they still have to track the miscreant down.

The point you seem to be missing is that gun control is all about disarming the general public. Criminals and whackos will always be able to get hold of a gun if they really want to as recent cases have shown and in the case of the three whacko murder sprees in the last 23 years all 3 whackos, including the present case, were licensed gunholders despite the laws being tightened up after both Hungerford in 1987 and Dunblane in 1996.

Noone in their right mind believes that criminals and nutcases should have access to guns but if gun control is tightened any further they will be the only ones (apart from the police which is an equally scary prospect) who will have access to them.

Allan D wrote:

JKLever wrote:Is it me or was Armed response a bit slow? Guess its the rural location thing again.

Or the fact that all his victims were unarmed.

Ok, you clearly have a few screws loose up stairs if you think Joe public should all be walking around with guns just in case a nutcase goes on a killing spree.

Thank fark none of the main political parties share your view.

Allan D wrote:

vilkrang wrote:I'm going to assume you are just taking the piss AD because I can't take you seriously. More guns=less gun crime, is essentially the argument you are putting forward. Your wackiest proposal yet.

I see even some liberals are putting forward the idea that we should have a routinely armed police which should be fun whenever the next big demo occurs. JKL complains about the slowness of the armed response. No wonder, the police have to get permission off the Chief Constable, if not the Home Secretary, before the shooters can be brought out and then they still have to track the miscreant down.

The point you seem to be missing is that gun control is all about disarming the general public. Criminals and whackos will always be able to get hold of a gun if they really want to as recent cases have shown and in the case of the three whacko murder sprees in the last 23 years all 3 whackos, including the present case, were licensed gunholders despite the laws being tightened up after both Hungerford in 1987 and Dunblane in 1996.

Noone in their right mind believes that criminals and nutcases should have access to guns but if gun control is tightened any further they will be the only ones (apart from the police which is an equally scary prospect) who will have access to them.

Allan, until something inside the minds of the "wackos" snapped they were ordinary members of the public. They would any ordinary member of the public need to possess an auto-matic rifle?

I sincerely believe now that you are an incredibly well constructed 'hoax'.

eowyn wrote:

Allan D wrote:

vilkrang wrote:I'm going to assume you are just taking the piss AD because I can't take you seriously. More guns=less gun crime, is essentially the argument you are putting forward. Your wackiest proposal yet.

I see even some liberals are putting forward the idea that we should have a routinely armed police which should be fun whenever the next big demo occurs. JKL complains about the slowness of the armed response. No wonder, the police have to get permission off the Chief Constable, if not the Home Secretary, before the shooters can be brought out and then they still have to track the miscreant down.

The point you seem to be missing is that gun control is all about disarming the general public. Criminals and whackos will always be able to get hold of a gun if they really want to as recent cases have shown and in the case of the three whacko murder sprees in the last 23 years all 3 whackos, including the present case, were licensed gunholders despite the laws being tightened up after both Hungerford in 1987 and Dunblane in 1996.

Noone in their right mind believes that criminals and nutcases should have access to guns but if gun control is tightened any further they will be the only ones (apart from the police which is an equally scary prospect) who will have access to them.

Allan, until something inside the minds of the "wackos" snapped they were ordinary members of the public. They would any ordinary member of the public need to possess an auto-matic rifle?

I sincerely believe now that you are an incredibly well constructed 'hoax'.

I think I'm with you, this is just too insane to be plausible.

Eowyn wrote:Allan, until something inside the minds of the "wackos" snapped they were ordinary members of the public

Quite, ordinary members of the public with gun licences. Again you seem to overlook the point that tighter gun laws do not keep guns out of either the hands of criminals or the criminally insane as these cases demonstrate. As this man was a taxi-driver, if, instead of taking his rifle and shooting people in a very measured and deliberate way, starting with his brother and solicitor, in a 12-hour period over a 30-mile area, he had just mowed down a bus queue with his taxi that would not have been a very good argument for restricting the granting of taxicab licences.

We license millions of people every year to handle a lethal weapon which in 2008 killed over two and half thousand people in the UK including 124 children as well as injuring almost 230 thousand people yet there seems to be a strange lack of demand to restrict the number of driving licences or make it more difficult to obtain one every time there is a pile-up on the M1, although that is a reform I would support. At least Cameron has avoided giving way to the knee-jerk reactions politicians are susceptible to and which manifested itself after Hungerford and Dunblane.

Cumbria shootings; PM warns against 'knee-jerk' reactions

I think I'm going to sit back and laugh now, this is just too absurd to argue any further .

So basically AD's argument is - Cars kill people and they're allowed, so why not allow guns as well so more people can be killed.

Do you wake up every morning and scan the papers to see which reprehensible far right policy you can support?

Stick to posting re-worked cricket articles and girlie pictures, Allan. You're embarrassing yourself.

How dare you, I have never re-worked a cricket article in my life. You deserve to be shot.

I take it from AD's strident arguments in this thread that he's a gun-totin' grouse and fox shooter?

RIP!

unfortunately such shootings are quite common here in the US and its mostly done by lonely men.

skully wrote:I take it from AD's strident arguments in this thread that he's a gun-totin' grouse and fox shooter?

Quite, there are lots of foxes here in Islington. We don our red coats and ride down Upper Street every Saturday.

(Clue to the uninitiated: one of those statements is true, the other isn't. Guess which).

Tally Ho, ol' bean.