The gun control question

alexsandr

I hope we quickly get the information on how he managed to get 2 guns
Were they legal?
Why would a taxi driver need guns?
Why does anyone need a rifle anyway. they should be kept in secure ranges with proper security.

Kevyn Bodman

'Thankfully armed rampages are rare in Britain because gun control is tight'

Your 'because'is not justified.

Kevyn Bodman

The issue is not 'complicated by philosophical differences'.
The issue is much more likely to be illuminated by philosophical differences,and the discussion that follows.

Kennybhoy

Liquid lunch David?

Edmund Jerk

Blair would've made a statement and called for tightened controls, let's hope Cameron learns that that was one of Tone's character defects: that government must, and indeed should always be used to solve our problems. This is wrong. The criminal classes can get hold of guns, and if a mad man has half a brain he could pick up a gun illegally; so making it harder to get firearms legally is a foolish idea. Don't do it Dave.

David Blackburn

Kevyn Bodman,

You ignored the word 'sensitive'.

Simon Stephenson

"Thankfully armed rampages are rare in Britain because gun control is tight"

Er ... isn't the accuracy of assuming a causal linkage between these two central to what the review will be investigating? I mean, if we're just going to assume that more control = fewer rampages then there hardly seems to be much point in having a review at all. Other than to pay a group of people a substantial amount of money to do nothing more than to ensure that the issue is kept in the long grass until such time as it disappears into the undergrowth of its own accord.

Bill Rees

"Thankfully armed rampages are rare in Britain partly because gun control is tight."
Not really true!
Armed rampages are rare because we live in a civilised society, but, when they happen, the perpetrators are able to kill a lot of people precisely because the rest of us don't have guns with which to shoot back and kill someone like Derrick Bird.
This sort of thing wouldn't happen in an American town similar to Whitehaven, because the local citizenry would have the wherewithal to deal with Mr Bird quickly, after the first couple of deaths.
When this sort of event happens in the USA it is normally in a controlled environment where guns aren't allowed to be carried openly, such as Columbine School or Fort Hood. In those cases the gunman can also create havoc relatively unchallenged.
I'm not saying that everyone in the UK should have guns, but it does suggest that banning guns won't have much effect in the face of a determined psychopath, and some people who could have defended themselves will die.

Kevyn Bodman

I am in favour of legalising firearms ownership for the citizenry.

I hope we will see comments here putting forward the view that controls,or more contols, are needed because I would be interested in how those arguments are developed.

alexsandr above asks 'Why would a taxi driver need guns? Why does anyone need a rifle anyway.'

For me, if someone wants, not needs, a gun then he should be able to have one.
Owning a gun does not need to be a crime and justifying ownership on the basis of 'need' is something I am very unhappy about.

Threatening to shoot or shooting someone should be a crime.Shooting and damaging someone's property without the owner's consent should be a crime.
But why should ownership itself be a crime?
(Genuine question.)

AVI

@aleksander
Why would any profession exclude gun ownership? What if his hobby was clay pigeon shooting, or he spent weekends on a friend's farm, shooting pigeons and other crop-destroying pests? Or range-shooting or deer stalking? I don't see that because he was a taxi driver automatically excludes him from gun ownership.
AVI

Ronnie

Lots of knee jerk blah blah on this.

I'd actually like to know why this guy flipped so badly that he decided to use his gun to shoot and kill so many people. At the moment lets have more understanding and less shouting from entrenched positions.

We currently have tight gun control but it doesn't prevent tragedies like this. On the other hand the idea that more gun possession would result in less shooting seems a rather strange conclusion to draw (sic).

To follow the Texas analogy, I imagine a posse of armed citizens tear-assing around the Lake District looking for this guy as soon as news of the first shooting had got out.

Do we want that? Genuine question, I'm not judging yet.

Further more, is the real question here about guns or is it about getting to grips with what pushed this guy over the edge? Again, genuine question.

Simon Stephenson

I'm sorry, but qualifying the statement with the word "partly" is just as invalid as making it unqualified. Unless you have evidence to demonstrate that there is a causal inverse linkage between the severity of gun control and the number of armed rampages, you're doing nothing more than expressing an opinion.

toco

All non farm based guns which are also subject to proper controls(eg.locked cabinets) should be kept at the most convenient police station for users too access.Undoubtedly this would cause concern to some but is this not just what is required.

Kennybhoy

"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."

George Orwell

Olaf

Both weapons were licensed and he had held a licence for 20 years without problems. He just isn't the sort of person that would ever get picked up as a problem.

Why did he have a rifle? Rifles are better for killing small pests like rabbits. You can't get close enough with a shotgun.

No reasonable measures would have stopped this. I don't think we need to change our firearms laws. If anything they are too restrictive.

You don't ban cars because someone deliberately drives into a crowd.

John Levett

"Thankfully armed rampages are rare in Britain because gun control is tight.."

They are even more rare in France where there is much less hysteria about gun ownership. Guns are not the problem: what needs addressing are the divisions and injustices fermenting in the UK's micro-managed, over-surveilled, pressure cooker society.

Danko

alexsandr

From what I have heard he had a shotgun and a .22 rifle. Both are used for hunting. As he lived in Cumbria it would follow that this is he used them for.

What has happened is undoubtedly a tragidy for all those involved, including Mr Bird's sons who are going to have to live with their fathers crimes for the rest of their lives. We should have a full inquiry into it, and we should look at his mental health history. However we should not jump to conclusions or impose knee jerk legislation.

JR

John Levett - Erm so now you're drawing causality between a micro-managed society and gun crime? The fundemental flaws in your argument are obvious - gun crime per capita in the US and Canada etc but I do like the thought that you genuinely believe there would be less gun crime in France if they hadn't imposed the smoking ban.

alexsandr

I remember an episode of the Thin Blue Line with Rowan Atkinson. He was refusing to issue gun licences because the act of wanting a gun licence was the action of a mad man, and mad men are barred from holding gun licences.

Hmmmm

I would rather uphold the freedon of not getting shot over the freedom of people to have guns.

Snowman

A small set of tractor statistics first:

It took some forty years for gun crime to reach the level of around 4,000 incidents pa by 1997. Then came Dunblane, Labour, and a new, hastily cobbled up Act restricting and tightening gun ownership. Within only seven more years, in the gun crime statistics, another 4,000 incidents pa appeared on top of the pre-1997 4,000 cases, i.e. the gun crime doubled.

Let us tighten some more then, and treble of quadruple the current level of gun crime. And why not, there are 60mn of us, it will take some serious time for the most of us to get killed by the gun.

Naomi Muse

Oh I do hope that there will not be a knee-jerk reaction to clobber anyone having a gun.

That's what completely scuppered the UK in competitive pistol shooting.

It is what triggered ('scuse the term) his state of mind to being that which led a normally 'easy-going' man into one who can do this sort of thing. He sounds as if he does not fit the profile of the Hungerford man at all.

Armed rampages are rare but what collection of happenings and emotions did this man go through to get to that state?

Did someone take advantage of him just that once too often?

To blame the guns would not be appropriate. To review gun controls might be, but review means to look at them afresh, not to look toward reducing access, per se.

AF

Alexsandr.
holding guns in a central location(clubs are usually in remote places)would be a nightmare and an expensive one at that.Imagine the attraction it would be ,targeted by terrorists and criminals.
Bill Rees.
Most everyone in the UK have to think twice nay, three times before they would challenge a burgular in their own home.
aint neva gonna appen mate.

Barry Bilge

Olaf said: "Both weapons were licensed and he had held a licence for 20 years without problems. He just isn't the sort of person that would ever get picked up as a problem."

I agree with this. It is similar to CRB checks that don't prevent first offences or offenders who continue to be undetected but are supposed to prevent convicted offenders from working where they shouldn't. The legislation is not there to make *everything* alright because it cannot.

Bad legislation didn't cause this crime and I would be surprised if any amount of legislation could have prevented it. We only ever talk about gun ownership when such incidents happen which is the worst time for having a sensible discussion about it.

Kennybhoy

alexsandr wrote:

"I remember an episode of the Thin Blue Line.. wanting a gun licence was the action of a mad man.."

I am very much afraid that this is in fact the attitude of the left-liberal establishment...

alexsandr

Hmm Snowman

Mebbe the rise has been because we dont police our borders effectively anymore?

Verity

"Thankfully armed rampages are rare in Britain partly because gun control is tight,". David Blackburn, do you honestly think that gun control is not tight elsewhere, like, oh, the United States, say?

BTW, the reason the rampager at the last college shooting - I think around 18 months or two years ago - didn't manage to kill more people was, so many of the students were armed and one of them took him out.

GeoffH

"I would rather uphold the freedon of not getting shot over the freedom of people to have guns."

Fatuous, fatuous.

I live in Cumbria, though some little way from Whitehaven and thus beyond the events of yesterday. But the character of this place is much the same.

Small farms where guns are an essential tool for pest control abound. They also have tractors and other essential farm machinery. Whenever and unfortunate accident involving these results in death of pedestrians, are the farmers to be deprived of them in the name of the "right of people not to be run over by a tractor" placed higher than the "right of farmers to own a tractor"?

Bird was a taxi driver and to claim that taxi-drivers don't 'need' a gun is a facile diversion. Many people, taxi driver or not, in this sort of environment have associations with the farms and farmers that surround the towns and villages. They do get involved in pest control as a part of the normal routine of the rural economy. In this light there would be nothing untoward in anyone owning a licensed firearm for this sort of work.

The situation is not the same as some leafy suburb in the south east. Or the environs of The Spectator offices.

Tankus

Laws are sufficient , don't need changing because of one nutter .

Minekiller

When any individual wants to create havoc or go on a rampage with the intent of taking or damaging human life, they will prepare in advance and acquire whatever weaponry they intend to use, regardless of legality. They will obtain whatever weapons technology is available and affordable. The Rwandan Genocide was carried out mainly with farm tools.

The legality of possession is not the issue, indeed it could be argued that he'd have thought twice about shooting at his fellow citizens if he knew that they were armed and would shoot back and even if he was still determined may have shot less people until a disciplined, and legally armed citizen drew their weapon and shot him in self-defence.

More Gun legislation drove ownership underground after Dunblane and whilst armed crime using firearms escalated. In Switzerland were the Citizen Army keep German made G3 Assault rifles at home, then per capita of possession and incidents, that country should statistically be enduring daily bloodbaths (they have had two serious incidents in decades). Yet, this is not the case. The problem is no therefore with the legislation or the possession.

ROJ

Gun control? That's the wrong question. What should be asked is whether police in this country should routinely carry guns. The Cumbrian rampage apparently lasted almost three hours, and as far as we have been told, no police shot was fired. Bear in mind that in the case of the massacre at the Fort Hood army base in Texas last November, the shooter was brought down by civilian police who were on the base only to direct traffic. The Cumbrian police force has its own armed response unit, we are told. Where was it, we may ask? And in the awful circumstances yesterday in Cumbria, how much more use would have been a constable with a revolver?

Simon Too

alekssander - "I would rather uphold the freedon of not getting shot over the freedom of people to have guns.
"

Banning firearms would not prevent you getting shot, although it might stop you getting shot by a legally held firearm. Unfortunately as the legal holding of firearms declines, the illegal holding of firearms blossoms.

Apart from that flaw, your argument is the basic one for a totalitarian security state where the individual is denied any means to cause any hsrm. It just doesn't work. Nobody could drive, nobody could smoke a cigarette, nobody could mill corn; no one could do anything and we would all expire.

What worries me is that, surely, you must know that anyway.

Snowman

alexsandr @ 3.48:

you have a point, it could be a contributory or even the main reason, yet my point remains valid. The country has had the most draconian gun laws in the last 13 years or so, their enactment did a fat lot of good to anyone, yet prevented tens of thousands of law abiding burghers to enjoy a hobby.

The Czechs are of rougher stock, and harbour a lot of resentment what with forty years of slavery under the Red Menace. Weird as it may seem. the post-communist law lets them own guns not only for hunting, target shooting but personal protection, too. And you know what? The level of gun crime ain’t that different (per 100,000) than that of this country.

Have been saying it over and over again, and not only in relation to guns, in a genuinely free country citizens aren’t restricted on the basis of ‘what it’, but punished when they do wrong, and by punished I mean inflicting pain on the miscreant of whatever kind.

Nicholas

"I would rather uphold the freedon of not getting shot over the freedom of people to have guns"

What a nonsensical statement that is. There is no freedom not to get shot. It is entirely passive and depends on other people not shooting you. And that does not depend upon firearms legislation or any other legislation because criminals with illegal firearms or terrorists might still shoot you. In fact there is probably a greater chance of that.

Personally I would rather uphold the freedom not to live under the sort of pointless rules that the idiotic bubblewrap brigade like you want to create and instead take my chances.

In2minds

Edmund Jerk @ June 3rd, 2010 2:31pm and Tankus @ June 3rd, 2010 3:59pm,

I agree, I've written my thoughts on the CoffeeHousers' Wall,today @ 10:51am. As Tankus says - "Laws are sufficient , don't need changing because of one nutter".
Or because of a chorus of 'concern' from ACPO.

Moraymint

I suspect I'll get grief for this, but I'm one of those citizens who believes that there is nothing inherently wrong in gun ownership. Yes, I own several myself (legally btw).

I like the idea of being able to shoot my own fodder. Dare I say, I also consider having a weapon in the house as protection-of-last-resort should my family ever be seriously threatened (my weapons are stored in an approved gun safe btw). I know, I know ... the intruder's human rights are paramount etc etc (being the leitmotif of our enlightened times).

Anyway, who knows what the future holds as energy and, therefore, food availability and prices climb inexorably over the coming years?

I'm not sure society can ever prevent without fail the type of incident we've just seen in Cumbria. Even if we banned every type of conceivable weapon in the land, no doubt sooner or later some nutter would get his hands on one on the black market and wreak havoc ... if that's what he really wanted to do.

alexsandr

I dont live in a leafy suburb.

It is not only the nutters who scare me with guns, it is the problem with urban gangs holding guns too.

David Ossitt

alexsandr

“I would rather uphold the freedon (sic) of not getting shot over the freedom of people to have guns.”

What you propose is not (freedon) or even freedom but servitude to a nanny state, for gods sake grow up.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

Using the logic of those wanting to ban guns, we would have banned MPs long ago.

Oh dear, bad example.

John Levett

JR - Isolated per capita statistics do not tell the whole story. I stand to be corrected but I think there is a significantly higher rate of violent offending in the UK than in either the USA or Canada and, yes, it's my view that the root of the problem lies in the UK's social structure.

I'm not sure what the smoking ban has to do with anything: my point, as I'm sure you must be aware, was that David Blackburn's simplistic link between gun crime and control doesn't stand up when considered against the French statistics.

GeoffH

"I dont live in a leafy suburb.

It is not only the nutters who scare me with guns, it is the problem with urban gangs holding guns too"

And just how much notice do you think 'urban gangs' take of the law?

GeoffH

Moraymint: "I suspect I'll get grief for this, but I'm one of those citizens who believes that there is nothing inherently wrong in gun ownership."

Not from me, you won't.

Kevyn Bodman

ROJ at 4.17pm asks whether police should be routinely armed;it's a very important question.
Yes,OK.If the citizenry are armed too.

I've been shocked on recent visits to the UK to see police officers tooled up and dressed like paramilitary thugs,at a cafe in a supermarket at 8.00am.
In fact I think they were on a break,fair enough I've got no objection.But they didn't look as if they were in uniform to keep the peace;they were dressed and,to my mind,strutting as if to intimidate.
If my impression was correct and if,under the appearance of an intimidating thug there lies a real thug then it would be most undesirable if only the police were armed.

David Lindsay

I have never had any involvement in any gun-related activity, I have no desire to own a gun, and I cannot see what good has been done by the second most restrictive gun laws in the world.

Private gun ownership is compulsory in Switzerland and practically impossible in Japan. They are both very peaceable and orderly countries. They are also still politically self-governing and culturally self-respecting ones.

And, which is the present point, they have very traditional and effective family and community structures, such as both America with her Second Amendment, and a Britain which is gun-sodden and knife-sodden entirely regardless of the law, used to have.

strapworld

I find some of the comments here quite unbelievable. Are they living with their eyes permanantly closed?

Dunblane took away guns from decent people. Olympic sportsmen and women could not practise their sport. Decent men and women, members of gun clubs, could no longer participate.

BUT did it stop criminals holding guns? Of course not more and more crimes are committed with criminals using guns. Forget the doctored crime figures the truth is guns are easily obtained by the criminal classes.

You could not make it up. Absolute stupidity.

No doubt many of the people here would want decent people banned from holding shotguns. It is about time people grew up.

Noa

Kevin Bodman

I agree that the present gun laws are unduly restrictive and should be liberalised.

Unfortunately the recent tragic event is likely to provoke greater, not lesser, gun control.

Kennybhoy

Kevyn Bodman,

Regarding you last post above you may find these links of interest.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article567961.ece

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266001/Police-need-powerful-weapons-combat-Mumbai-style-terror-attacks-says-police-chief.html

Snowman

One’s hard to fathom what fuels the minds of the alexsandrs of this world. It’s always the same, whatever the issue - from the economy to a subject we are discussing here, the gun control. They come up with a proposition of a relationship that’s patently false. They go ahead nevertheless. The outcome’s doesn’t yield what was expected. Instead of re-examining the initial proposition, admitting failure, they push deeper into the hole.

The Red Menace provided a brilliant example of the fallacious rationale of the breed at its purest. ‘Private ownership engenders poverty’ was their starting proposition. Faulty, of course. They nationalised the heavy stuff first. It didn’t help. Steel output broke records, one couldn’t get a pack of nails. Focus switched onto the smaller fish, the barbers, cobblers. Nationalising them didn’t help either.

But wait a minute, it must be the reluctance of some burghers to obey the ‘truth’, let’s kill some of those unrepentant bourgeoisie elements. They did, the economy kept on moving south.

Unbelievable as it may sound, in the USSR in the 60s when Nikita was in charge, birds got the blame, too. The bloody feathered creatures pecked on the harvest that would have otherwise flourished thanks to the collectivised farms, no private farmer in sight.

With guns, it wouldn’t shock at all if we pre- ended with the deluded control freaks suggesting to expunge the word ‘gun’ and any synonyms of it from everywhere – books, films, dictionaries and stuff.

How would dear George sum up our society if someone dug him up?

TrevorsDen

From what i have heard (and of course it may be wrong) this man brandished a gun the nioght before and was disarmed and he also wnt to a hospital oro treatment (but was sent away) and He was also involved in disputes the day before.

So it could have been stopped before it started.

TrevorsDen

Was he solely a taxi driver? Was he also a farmer?

Otherwise he may not have been entitled to a license. But he seems to have brandished a gun the day before and also gone to hospital for help. So the signs were there and nothing was done.

Verity

ROJ - "What should be asked is whether police in this country should routinely carry guns" ...

Please, God, no! They can't even handle tasers.

alexsandr

Well you lot may want a society where there are rednecks chasing each other with shotguns, but I prefer a society when people dont have guns, we secure our borders to keep them out, and the state does its job to keep us safe.
for me the one job of the state is to stop us being killed or robbed by criminals or foreign powers.
on another post you were all baying for the plod to enforce the drunk and disorderly laws. this is the same -you cant have it both ways FFS

GeoffH

"Well you lot may want a society where there are rednecks chasing each other with shotguns,"

Nice to know what you think of us Cumbrians.

Noa

Snowman @ 6.22pm

An excellent post. A Inquiry into this event and the circumstances surrounding it should have the widest terms of reference. These should include the review of the present restrictions on gun ownership, the requirements and abilities of police forces to work together and with specialist units of the armed forces;, within the framework of government rationalisation and budget cuts.

This tragedy should be used provide lessons learned and to promote and not restrict democracy.

Verity

Alexsandr - "Well you lot may want a society where there are rednecks chasing each other with shotguns".

Well, oddly enough, I find your fantasy ridiculous. (Where do you find rednecks in Britain, by the way? Were you imagining that that would be imported to anchor your fantasies?)

I prefer an armed society. This means you don't know who has a gun in her purse or tucked into his belt. Or briefcase. Or glove compartment.

Never forget the truth of this: An armed society is a polite society.

Slim JIm

I think David Cameron got it absolutely spot on: ''We cannot legislate to stop a switch flipping in someone's head.'' The existing laws are tough enough. One has to be honest when applying for a gun licence or shotgun certificate; indeed the applicant must give permission for the police to contact one's GP. Renewals must be obtained every 5 years (in the case of shotgun certificates) with the same rigorous process.

Snowman

alexsandr @ 7.01:

listen up, you have abit of a problem, you confuse things, drive to conclusions that seem logical, but aren’t. Nicholas above pointed to one of your illogical comparisons. Here, you committing another error.

Bet you all those posting here down to Verity have no quarrel with the police enforcing the law. We pay them to do so. The ask is what laws should they enforce. It was the latter we keep mostly ranting about, not the enforcement.

Have no idea of your age, but times there were when owning guns in this country didn’t differ much from owning a pocket knife, would you believe it? And no rednecks chasing good burghers anywhere. Today, one finds it hard to own a gun, and one counts himself lucky not to get nicked having a pocket knife if stopped by the police. The way you talk about things, this should be the safest country in the Universe. Is it?

Pity you weren’t born in one of the societies that had the misfortune to taste the 'benevolent' power of the State you so admire. The rulers liked a fodder of your ilk.

Olaf Rye

Good point Verity ! An armed society is indeed a polite society--it might make running their mouths off a little less attractive. In the US, people are wonderfully polite at work and on the street.

I grew up with firearms, and did five years with the paras, and am comfortable with them to the point where I am quite confident that I am much better using them than any moronic criminal that has not put hundreds of thousands of rounds down range and done shooting drills. As ever, the statists want us helpless and utterly dependent on them for protection.

Nicholas

alexsandr: "Well you lot may want a society where there are rednecks chasing each other with shotguns, but I prefer a society when people dont have guns, we secure our borders to keep them out, and the state does its job to keep us safe.
for me the one job of the state is to stop us being killed or robbed by criminals or foreign powers.
on another post you were all baying for the plod to enforce the drunk and disorderly laws. this is the same -you cant have it both ways FFS"

God, where to begin with this - or do I really want to bother.

Does a desire to have the ancient freedom to possess arms for self defence restored extend to wanting a society where rednecks chase each other with shotguns? Don't think so.

Do we secure our borders? Not so sure about that, (q.v. Neather)

It is precisely the surrender of legitimate civic self-defence against criminals to the state that has led us to the present situation. The police were originally engaged to undertake the enforcement of the rule of law on behalf of the citizen - as civilians in uniform - and on a local community basis with the support and direct participation of that community. Now look.

And the equivalent analogy to the drunk and disorderly bit would be the police arresting people for owning bottles of beer and/or drinking them. Because there is a difference you know between owning a gun and doing something criminal or anti-social with it as there is between drinking alcohol and being drunk and disorderly.

Your thought processes seem very muddled but the fact that much of the country also seems to think like you really worries me. I think that you may be one of those people nervous of and scared simply by guns rather than the people using them. Since we can't ever stop the criminal, the terrorist and the deranged from using guns I would rather a society where I know there are also good people around able to shoot back.

Simon Stephenson

Nicholas 10.22am

(to alexsandr)

"Your thought processes seem very muddled but the fact that much of the country also seems to think like you really worries me"

Yes, me too.

We seem to have become locked in a line of thinking that deems the socializing part of the human mind to be the only part that is creditable, and the part that makes each human unique to be far more dangerous than beneficial to humanity as a whole. Left to their own devices, humans are looked on as potential wreckers, not creators, and we are expected to believe that that the only "progressive" alterations to the status quo are those that are arrived at by the deliberation of a committee of the good.

Aiding and abetting this pattern of thought is the presentation of the catastrophes and tragedies of human history as being the result of the over-indulgence of individuality with no quarter given to the thought that it may be more to do with the over-suppression of it.

Dominic

We can no more ban guns owing to horrible shooting sprees than we can ban bridges owing to horrible suicides.

Levelhead

Yes, let's keep guns in central armouries so that criminals know exactly where to find them. Also, how do you propose a farmer who uses a .22 rifle for pest destruction is going to comply with this? What does he do when he sees a fox destroying his hens, go to the armoury and draw out the rifle hoping that the fox has stayed around in the meantime? Anyway how do you know he hasn't taken the gun to shoot his neighbour? I'm sorry but we all just have to grow up and accept that we either have armed citizens who might present this sort of thing (and we're never going to be gorwn up enough for that) or realise that it's going to happen, albeit very rarely, and there's not much we can do about it.