12 confirmed murdered and 25 injured after Gunman runs amok in Whitehaven, Egremont and Seascale, Cu

Originally posted by noangels
reply to post by Everton

 

his workmates were taking the piss out of him not being able to pull the ladies mate,guess that was the straw that broke the camels back

It would happen in any country, if it wasn't a gun it would of been a knife or blunt object.

The family will comes into this big time.
My father always said nothing smashes a family apart like a bad will going down.
Guess what? It's just happened in the most horrible way....

@thomas you sound unbelievable ignorant to say say what you do millions of hundreds of thousands of peopleare stillarmedin the uk and they are not shooting each other unless they are the criminals shooting each other

sorry hundreds of thouands not illions

reply to post by Everton


lol well he had firearms to make up for his lack of whatever so you could be right!case solved lets phone the police up and tell them we have cracked it


joking aside,my heart goes out for all the familes worrying and coming to terms with missing friends and loved ones

Originally posted by Fang
reply to post by DaMod

 

By advocating the ownership and concealed carrying of firearms as the road to a healthy, sane and safe society, they show just how out of step they are with the rest of the planet.

Maybe it's other country's that are out-of-step with them?
The USA didn't get to be the numero uno country in the western world (or indeed the planet) by being soft and big on gun control you know.

Originally posted by Fang
reply to post by DaMod

 

By advocating the ownership and concealed carrying of firearms as the road to a healthy, sane and safe society, they show just how out of step they are with the rest of the planet.

Anyway, I'm of to the pub, now where did I leave my Glock?

In Rothchilds limo perhaps?

reply to post by Fang


your so rite on the Gun issue,in the UK we who hold/held firearms
or shotgun licences do for hunting animals and target shooting
in clubs, clay pigeon shooting, also keeping down the rabbit
population and vermin.

i was brought up around guns having family in the game keeping
fields of work and had to have great respect for the guns you owned.

we in the UK dont think of having guns to protect ourselves and i
would never point a gun at a person even in jest unloaded,its like
an unwritten law gun safety and totally different to why you would
want to own a gun in the USA.

1st it was dunblane that put in place stricter rules as to ownership
of firearms,Now this will no doubt make shotgun ownership even
harder to keep a licence...if that was the weapon he used.

after reading up on him he sounds like he was once a responsable gun
owner and he simply lost the plot so that sort of contradicts what i
said a little.but for the most you cant compare USA gun ownership
to the UK's.

[edit on 2/6/2010 by stealthyaroura]

reply to post by WatchRider


spot on mate,a will can break once happy families!

Its similar to Columbine in terms of sociability though.

Here's a guy whose isolated by geographic circumstances anyway, made even moreso by those around him (despite what they say about HIM being cheery and welcoming.) Of course eyewitnesses are never going to go on camera and publically declare they or the whole town treated this guy like scum.

columbine was similar in that the Gunmen had motives, but people oversaw them as the media picked up on other issues (such as them being into Manson, Trenchcoats etc) and pigeonholed them into a subcategory, instead of focusing on the underlying issue.

The issue being that you can only push people so far until they break, he was isolated, most likely ridiculed, just had a heated argument and was single (having new-born family members would have led him to look at his life and wonder why nobody could accept him), and so as a last-resort in a manic episode he took the first steps into this rampage.

The issue isn't about Gun Control, its about accepting cultural/social/mental-health differences in the community and to stop isolating individuals in this capitalist system we live in.

Originally posted by Fang
reply to post by DaMod

 

I have given up engaging in the 'Gun' debate with most Americans. It's pointless and the gulf between most Americans and non-Americans on this issue is huge. Gun ownership in the USA is a genie which will never be put back in the bottle. So be it.

What I don't understand is why whenever there is a tragedy perpetrated by a gun totting madman in another country, some American posters on this board feel the need to evangelise about the benefits and joys of gun possession. "It would never have happened if.....". They ignore the contradictory evidence on their door step, they fail to see that their hectoring is seen by others as insecurity.

The main driver of gun ownership in the USA is not the protection of individual freedoms, The constitution, or anything else, but fear. More specifically, fear of their fellow citizens. And that is because, unlike the UK and many other societies, social mixing between different social classes and ethnic groups is very,very limited.

By advocating the ownership and concealed carrying of firearms as the road to a healthy, sane and safe society, they show just how out of step they are with the rest of the planet.

Anyway, I'm of to the pub, now where did I leave my Glock?

"He who would trade liberty for temporary security deserves neither liberty nor security." -- Ben Franklin

When I first purchased a firearm it was because it gave me a sense of protection from those that would do me or my family harm. To you that sounds like a fools errand but the police cannot protect all of us all the time and bad men will get guns no matter how many cameras you have or what the laws are. That is an unfortunate fact of modern society.

The reason I believe it a deterrent is for the simple fact that an individual with the idea of doing wrong against another might think twice as there is a good possibility that person might be armed. It's not about gun toting or being a cowboy. This is 2010 not 1810.

The main issue is protection from those that rule us and those that would do us harm. If the UK wanted to turn itself into a police state who could stop them? Certainly not a society of unarmed peasants.

Anyway my point. Obviously this madman got his firearm from somewhere. If they are banned that must mean it wasn't on the up and up. Yes, I believe he would have been deterred from a killing spree because he doesn't know who would shoot back. It's obvious the wonderful "police" aren't able to provide ample protection were a madman with a gun just happen to snap.

That fact is unfortunate to those that where killed by his hand. Make no mistake, my heart goes out to them from thousands of miles away.

[edit on 2-6-2010 by DaMod]

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
This may be a little off topic, but doesn't this situation demonstrate the foolishness of disarming the law abiding public? A criminal has a gun and entire regions are being told to hide in their homes?

Thing is, he was not a criminal. He was a 'friendly person' till this happened.

And he had 2 guns.

reply to post by noangels


That makes sense. People who do this kind of thing usually feel they are being picked on or treated in a way thats not fair. Not always, but that does seem to be a common thread.

Originally posted by Muckster
True, but the chances are, other armed people in the street would then blow his head off... making the death toll just two people (instead of the blood bath that looks like its unfolding!

That makes sense.

Everyone has a gun, the gunman has a gun.. Shoot the gunman.

Wait, which one was he now??

Originally posted by ChrisF231
Gee Brits, how that archaic concept of "armed response vehicles" working out? Yeah they are real effective as you can see. Police forces in the real world ditched that concept back in the 1800s ...

You have one every year, if not more frequently.

Yeah, the difference is we are actually capable of stopping these kinds of incidents within minutes of them occurring instead of hours (or days in the case of the Hungerford Massacre).

What a crock! How many masacres in the US get above double figures in fatality figures? And how many in the UK?

Prosecution rests, come back when you have a case to put forward. Your superiority complex is unwarranted, this happens every year in the USA, compared to every decade (if that) in the UK.

RIP to those who've lost their lives.

Originally posted by noangels
reply to post by Everton

 

his workmates were taking the piss out of him not being able to pull the ladies mate,guess that was the straw that broke the camels back

This guy seems to have shot his twin brother amongst others, i'm not sure if jokes from his workmates were responsible. He must have been mentally unstable leading up to this. No-one had spotted it and he has access to guns, it all lead to a great tragedy.

reply to post by kangshung


Playing the numbers game eh.

The Uk's population is what? Roughly 61,414,062 people right.

The USA's population is what? Roughly 300,000,000 people right.

If you are going to play the numbers game you should start using ratios as we outnumber you almost 6 fold.

Originally posted by Fang

I have given up engaging in the 'Gun' debate with most Americans. It's pointless and the gulf between most Americans and non-Americans on this issue is huge. Gun ownership in the USA is a genie which will never be put back in the bottle. So be it.

...and it should never "be put in the bottle"... Our fervent defense of our rights, including the Second Amendment has EVERYTHING to do with our Constitution...

If we didn't have this right we probably would have as many or more crimes than the U.K has... and BTW, the evidence and the facts shows that crimes in the U.K. are worse than in the U.S., including gun crimes have increased there despite the gun ban.

The most violent country in Europe: Britain is also worse than South Africa and U.S.

..................
The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:

The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Crimes in the U.K. are at 2,034 per 100,000 people, meanwhile in the U.S. crimes are 466 per 100,000 people...yet you want to claim there is less crimes in the U.K ?... Even gun crimes have increased there since the ban..... Obviously you are out of touch with reality...

Originally posted by Fang
What I don't understand is why whenever there is a tragedy perpetrated by a gun totting madman in another country, some American posters on this board feel the need to evangelise about the benefits and joys of gun possession. "It would never have happened if.....". They ignore the contradictory evidence on their door step, they fail to see that their hectoring is seen by others as insecurity.

The same way that every time there is a tragic event in the U.S., and more so if it involves gun crime, many European members go on a rampage about "the reason for these crimes is because gun laws in America"...

BTW, I showed that the evidence paints a real different picture to your claim... Even some British members disagree with you, and British newspapers disagree as well...

We are not insecure... the insecure ones are those who "FEAR" guns" and they scramble to get under a rock just by the mention of a gun...

BTW, even one of the most peaceful men in the history of this planet had to say the following about weapons in his autobiography...

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest. Gandhi

www.abhijeetsingh.com...

Originally posted by Fang
The main driver of gun ownership in the USA is not the protection of individual freedoms, The constitution, or anything else, but fear. More specifically, fear of their fellow citizens. And that is because, unlike the UK and many other societies, social mixing between different social classes and ethnic groups is very,very limited.

Fear?... I wonder who is really afraid, more so when crime has increased so much since the gun ban in the U.K. and since the Labor Party took office...

I was raised mostly in Spain, and went to school there, but I live in the U.S. now and live in one of the most free states in the Union. People can even have their weapons holstered and NO ONE, not even the police would think that "they are out to get me"....

In fact, crime is so low in these parts that many people still leave their houses unlocked, and people park their cars to buy coffee and NEVER turn off the car, and leave their cars running with the key in the ignotion...

This is one of the most amicable states I have lived in. The states where people are afraid are the states where there is either a ban on firearms, or they are heavily restricted...and those are the same states where most of the crime in the U.S. occurs...Just like what is happening in the U.K. and other European countries...

Originally posted by Fang

By advocating the ownership and concealed carrying of firearms as the road to a healthy, sane and safe society, they show just how out of step they are with the rest of the planet.

We are realists... we are not dreaming up in a cloud thinking everyone is an angel, and look at what is happening in your country for your way of thinking, which btw is not shared by most British people...

Originally posted by Fang
Anyway, I'm of to the pub, now where did I leave my Glock?

You mean your water pistol? yeah criminals will definetedly be afraid of it...



[edit on 2-6-2010 by ElectricUniverse]

Doubt ill be posting more in this thread as its being de-railed, those discussions are fine but should be in a questions thread really.

Latest Official news can be found here:
www.cumbria.police.uk...

Media will most likely update first but its only confirmed on the Police website.

Cx

Originally posted by Fang

What I don't understand is why whenever there is a tragedy perpetrated by a gun totting madman in another country, some American posters on this board feel the need to evangelise about the benefits and joys of gun possession. "It would never have happened if.....". They ignore the contradictory evidence on their door step, they fail to see that their hectoring is seen by others as insecurity.

If you came into any thread on a shooting like this in the US, you might understand why. Every time it happens here we have a flood of Brits clucking their tongues and saying "see, this would never happen if you werent so gun happy over there," and evangelize on the benefits and joys of banning guns.

They are just trying to point out the contradictory evidence on your doorstep.

As far as our image in the UK, who cares if you think we are "insecure?" Since when is it our job to live up to your standards? We ended that little game (using our guns) a couple hundred years ago.

reply to post by DaMod


A fair point.

Still, using the same logic:

You outnumber us six to one. My money (and this is based on my recollection of the amount of this type of incident in each country during my lifetime) says that this kind of incident is much more then 6 times more common in the states.

The argument that offended me was that if we allowed open possesion of firearms, this wouldn't have happened.

'Deny ignorance'

Originally posted by Silcone Synapse
Edit:

Any evidence that he was on SSRI drugs(anti depressants)?
Such people often are.

[edit on 2/6/2010 by Silcone Synapse]

That was my first thought too, zoloft comes to mind.

Wouldn't be the first time someone on an SSRI lost the plot in an instant and couldn't come back...