Gunman kills several in west Cumbria

Goshin said:

I was about to walk away from the computer, but this one pulled me back in. :mrgreen:


I bolded the sentence I wish to address. Now, I'm not an expert on the Brit version of common law, but I do seem to recall that at one time, the right of British subjects to own arms for their own defense was enshrined in common law; but that the erosion of that right began in the late 19th century. I think someone once mentioned that it was found in Blackstone's writings? Little help here, someone?

The first thing I could find with a quick search was this:



Right to keep and bear arms - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


A bit more looking turned this up:



THE HISTORICAL ENGLISH RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, by Colin Greenwood

... any thoughts?

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Hmmm. That's interesting. I think you may have made me an inadvertant liar. I'll have a look at your sources. What this would mean is that this right was given up or the common law definition of such was modified such that we arrived at a position where society ceased to be exercised by the limitations on gun ownership. I was pretty sure that the ownership was once wider and less restricted, but not that it was ever enshrined in common law. I would maintain that the cultural significance of any right to bear arms has been utterly distinct from that in the US for the previously stated 200 years or so.

Great discussion, though. Lots to read and think about.

Cheers G!

A

Goshin said:

This has been addressed before.

1. "Concealed". If weapons are kept properly concealed and on one's person, it will be difficult for kids to steal arms from teachers or even know who is and who is not armed.
2. "Education". The solution for everything is education, right? Or so some say... gun safety programs for kids, like the NRA's "Eddie Eagle" program, have been proven to dramatically reduce child/gun accidents.

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Even educated kids still do stupid things. Concealed is probably the best option.

Goshin said:

3. "Special precautions". Massad Ayoob uses a special safety mechanism on some of his guns: a magnetic ring worn on the hand that released a special safety lock on the gun. Someone without the ring cannot fire the gun. Something similar could be applied to guns carried by teachers, coaches, principals, etc.

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Seeing as many schools can't even afford books I highly doubt they can spend money to supply teachers with weapons, let alone weapons with specialized and most likely expensive locking mechanisms.

Gibberish said:

Even educated kids still do stupid things. Concealed is probably the best option.

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Yup... but we don't keep them locked up until they're 25 just because we KNOW they're going to do some stupid things. :mrgreen:

I would consider concealed to be the best option. Other possible options could include a gun safe in the principle's office, with the principle and those staff members who have the appropriate training knowing the combo.

Seeing as many schools can't even afford books I highly doubt they can spend money to supply teachers with weapons, let alone weapons with specialized and most likely expensive locking mechanisms.

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But it's FER THE CHIRREN!! Aren't we supposed to do EVERYTHING fer the chirren? Without counting the cost?? That's what politicians say when they're pushing things like SCHIP and gun control, anyway... :mrgreen:

****, we throw money at schools like it was water, and half of it gets spent on BS bureaucracy, paperwork, and fancy stuff that has nothing to do with edumacation. I'd be willing to chip in to buy the principle and a couple of coaches a couple of good guns with magnetic ringlocks, even though I really consider the m-ring to be an unnesessary precaution.

jamesrage said:

-- Most of those deaths would have never happened if those people were allowed to arm themselves.

This terrible tragedy is an example why individuals should be armed --

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I am in favour of gun ownership for law abiding citizens here in the UK however the sheer randomness of Derrick Bird's attacks once he killed his own twin brother and family solicitor showed that gun ownership would not have protected anyone. Some of his victims were killed as he simply drove past them and they had zero chance of knowing what was about top happen. It wasn't like Columbine where the killers had people trapped in some rooms to be shot at and where an armed teacher or member of staff could have reacted.

Goshin said:

-- Indeed, I believe I am correct that it was a similar mass-killing that lead England to essentially ban handguns entirely. Nor is it at all beyond imagining that the anti-gun political crowd in Britain will use this tragedy in an effort to further restrict law-abiding gun owners and further impair the British citizen's right of self-defense.

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Thank you.

Andalublue said:

-- Gun ownership appears in neither the Spanish constitution nor any of the canon of laws and precedent that makes up the informal British constitution. Added to this, in Britain at least, the idea that gun ownership for personal safety purposes is a quite alien concept, the (unarmed) police are there to protect the citizen and someone who might claim the need to own a gun for personal protection has always been seen as an oddity, a bit weird in fact. And this has always been the case for at least 200 years. I realise that this culture is utterly different from the attitude to gun ownership in the US.

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There isn't a constitutional right as enshrined in the US to bear arms, however what you also have to acknowledge is that banning guns hasn't stopped or prevented illegal gun ownership and drugs related gun deaths in the UK. All we have now is a situation where it's harder for a law abiding citizen to protect themselves than for a criminal to get hold of firearms. We may have had only 3-4 mass shootings such as yesterday and Dunblane before this but gun related incidents via drugs related crime are pretty frequent.

On the subject of police, I admire that they are largely unarmed - however they are also usually heavily involved in paperwork and other duties. They do respond quickly to emergencies like this but they are not as visible or as much of a deterrent as they once were. This is probably more to do with procedure and red tape though than anything else. Hopefully the new Govt will cut away a lot of the red tape many of us in public services have to deal with in our daily jobs.

alexa said:

-- Understand we do not want guns. No one is asking for guns. If there were anyway of having even less guns that is what they would be asking for, but again, in a situation like this, I have not noticed that having guns helps the US one bit and the US has a lot more incidents like this than we do.

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There are some 300,000 firearms licences in the UK. Some of us do believe in gun ownership.

I'd also look beyond the US and at Canada and Switzerland which have either as high or even higher a gun ownership percentage. I mean no insult to our US posters but I would like us to be more like Canada or Switzerland if we ever reversed our policies. One thing I do strongly agree with in the US is "concealed carry" - the crime figures in states that allow this are worth studying.

Infinite Chaos said:

There are some 300,000 firearms licences in the UK. Some of us do believe in gun ownership.

I'd also look beyond the US and at Canada and Switzerland which have either as high or even higher a gun ownership percentage. I mean no insult to our US posters but I would like us to be more like Canada or Switzerland if we ever reversed our policies. One thing I do strongly agree with in the US is "concealed carry" - the crime figures in states that allow this are worth studying.

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Do you believe in everyone having a gun becuase that was what this was about. We all need to be armed or there will be the same as yesterday again? Do you want the police armed every day. That is what this was about. If so, enjoy but it remains that their is an overwhelming consesnus in the UK against us all having guns and against the police being armed so you are in the minority. Of course you are allowed your opiniion. I never said you were not. You are simply in the minority and I do not share your view.

alexa said:

Do you believe in everyone having a gun becuase that was what this was about. We all need to be armed or there will be the same as yesterday again? Do you want the police armed every day. That is what this was about. If so, enjoy but it remains that their is an overwhelming consesnus in the UK against us all having guns and against the police being armed so you are in the minority. Of course you are allowed your opiniion. I never said you were not. You are simply in the minority and I do not share your view.

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I thought Western Democracy was all about protecting the rights of minorities?? :mrgreen:

Goshin said:

I thought Western Democracy was all about protecting the rights of minorities?? :mrgreen:

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Absolutely those with a minority view have the right to have that view and to express it.

alexa said:

Absolutely those with a minority view have the right to have that view and to express it.

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But not to exercise their rights actively if the majority disagree, eh? :mrgreen:

Slightly off topic but my friend purchased his first firearm today. He was positively giddy with excitement!

Here's what he got...



Positively exquisite - hopefully he never has to use it against anyone. Water melons and beer cans will suffice.

alms said:

Slightly off topic but my friend purchased his first firearm today. He was positively giddy with excitement!

Here's what he got...

Positively exquisite - hopefully he never has to use it against anyone. Water melons and beer cans will suffice.

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Slightly, off topic... pretty much ****all to do with topic is better wording. But hey, to each their own.

Anyway, I'm glad this mother****er extuingished himself from the Earth, cause the British justice system unfortunately wouldn't have.

Jetboogieman said:

Slightly, off topic... pretty much ****all to do with topic is better wording. But hey, to each their own.

Anyway, I'm glad this mother****er extuingished himself from the Earth, cause the British justice system unfortunately wouldn't have.

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Jet,

I believe there was an ongoing discussion concerning firearms and the like. Not sure why you felt the need to be so abrasive but, hey, to each their own.

alms said:

Jet,

I believe there was an ongoing discussion concerning firearms and the like. Not sure why you felt the need to be so abrasive but, hey, to each their own.

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Um, there are different forums to talk about how your friend just got a wonderful firearm. It is beautiful I won't doubt that. Just not really constructive to this conversation.


As with people trying to say that if the UK had plenty of guns this disaster wouldn't have been as bad as it had been.... that is absolute bollocks and you know it.

Jetboogieman said:

Um, there are different forums to talk about how your friend just got a wonderful firearm. It is beautiful I won't doubt that. Just not really constructive to this conversation.

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Jet,

And there are different forums to discuss the relative efficacy of gun control within the context of culture, yet that discussion somehow managed to surface in this thread without eliciting an abrasive retort from you.

If you're insisting that I discuss or post things only directly relevant to the thread topic then there isn't much to say about this one other than "it's a tragedy" or "glad it's over". A reasonable amount of topically tangential discussion is to be expected, but I digress...

I don't want to bicker anymore but I don't think there was anything wrong with my post.

As with people trying to say that if the UK had plenty of guns this disaster wouldn't have been as bad as it had been.... that is absolute bollocks and you know it.

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I don't claim to know one way or the other, but it's not totally unreasonable to suggest that an armed citizenry would have been in a better position to intervene.

Andalublue said:

-- What this would mean is that this right was given up or the common law definition of such was modified such that we arrived at a position where society ceased to be exercised by the limitations on gun ownership. I was pretty sure that the ownership was once wider and less restricted, but not that it was ever enshrined in common law. --

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Goshin's sources are essentially correct, there has been for a long while a right (this time written as in our original "Bill of Rights") but the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act is generally cited as making the carrying of any object for the purpose of self-defence a criminal offence.

This means things like pepper spray which a woman could carry in her handbag to ward off a rapist is illegal and she could be prosecuted - even if she somehow exercised her right to self defence. What we have is one right to self defence but on the other hand severe restrictions on how we might protect ourselves - i.e. we aren't allowed to carry anything that could be used for self defence...

alexa said:

Do you believe in everyone having a gun becuase that was what this was about. We all need to be armed or there will be the same as yesterday again? Do you want the police armed every day. That is what this was about. If so, enjoy but it remains that their is an overwhelming consesnus in the UK against us all having guns and against the police being armed so you are in the minority. Of course you are allowed your opiniion. I never said you were not. You are simply in the minority and I do not share your view.

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I recognise I'm in a minority - however as I pointed out above the law puts us in a quandary - you are allowed to protect yourself in an attack but you aren't allowed the means to do so. I strongly believe in an educated populace - this might include what the Swiss do and require everyone to have yearly re-training with their weapons. Equally and without meaning to insult the US posters, Canada is a very good example where there is almost as high gun ownership as in the US but has far less incidents. I'm not entirely sure why - I haven't looked at it in great depth.

The UK had pretty high gun ownership until the 1953 act that began to erode gun ownership - I can find no "Dunblane" or "Hungerford" or now "Whitehaven" type incidents in the UK before 1953 - I don't know if the people who went out and shot so many would have done if there had been greater gun ownership among the populace. I don't know if the evil men who perpetrated the horrors would have been put off knowing that UK citizens they encountered could protect themselves.

I DO know that these three incidents happened after the 1953 act. I'm not theorising - just commenting.

This was of course a tragedy but what I do not understand is the predictable reaction for a review and tightening of UK guns laws.
Such as after Dunblane and the rushed through & badly written legislation which banned handguns, the Hungerford massacre in 1987 banning semi-automatics and once again the legislators are fending off pressure from campaigners over changing the law.

Gun control in UK is one of the tightest in the world, passing through more legislation does not mean incidents like this will not happen, the problem does not lie within the weapon but the wielder and this was a extremely disturbed individual and I doubt the legality of the weapon would have mattered to someone so determined to cause deaths.

PeteEU said:

What lessons? That guns kill people?

The UK has very few cases of this kind, and in the US where children can basically get guns, there are such shootings almost on a weekly basis.

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white Americans have lower rates of violent crimes than whites in Europe

we have increased our number of legal guns and our crime rates have decreased while England-which never had much violent crime-banned handguns over one incident and saw crime go up

alms said:

Slightly off topic but my friend purchased his first firearm today. He was positively giddy with excitement!

Here's what he got...

Positively exquisite - hopefully he never has to use it against anyone. Water melons and beer cans will suffice.

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Benelli NOVA I believe-while Benelli's mostly famous for their recoil operated shotguns (have several) this pumpgun is a well made weapon

TurtleDude said:

white Americans have lower rates of violent crimes than whites in Europe

we have increased our number of legal guns and our crime rates have decreased while England-which never had much violent crime-banned handguns over one incident and saw crime go up

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I dunno where you get your information sport.

Here's some homicide rates for you by continent.

North America - 6.5
Europe - 5.4

By Country and year. 2001 - most recent


United States - 5.6 / 5.7 / 5.7 / 5.7 / 5.5 / 5.6 / 5.7 / 5.6 / 5.4 / 5.4

England and wales - 1.61 / 1.52 / 1.62 / 1.62 / 1.37 / 1.37

And alot of violent crime you're reffering to comes from drunken louts on a saturday night. Who do tend to be pricks.

As an Englishmen, I'd rather die then see everyone have guns. I like to system, and I like the fact when I lived there I never had to see one except if you saw an armed cop unit.

Anyone trying to use this incident as a case for gun legalization is just sick in my opinion.

PeteEU said:

What lessons? That guns kill people?

The UK has very few cases of this kind, and in the US where children can basically get guns, there are such shootings almost on a weekly basis.

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Obviously, gun control doesn't do much to stop this sorta thing.

On another note, does anyone remember when the Brits wanted to outlaw butcher knives a few years ago?

Jetboogieman said:

I dunno where you get your information sport.

Here's some homicide rates for you by continent.

North America - 6.5
Europe - 5.4

By Country and year. 2001 - most recent


United States - 5.6 / 5.7 / 5.7 / 5.7 / 5.5 / 5.6 / 5.7 / 5.6 / 5.4 / 5.4

England and wales - 1.61 / 1.52 / 1.62 / 1.62 / 1.37 / 1.37

And alot of violent crime you're reffering to comes from drunken louts on a saturday night. Who do tend to be pricks.

As an Englishmen, I'd rather die then see everyone have guns. I like to system, and I like the fact when I lived there I never had to see one except if you saw an armed cop unit.

Anyone trying to use this incident as a case for gun legalization is just sick in my opinion.

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England and Wales have far fewer minorities than the United States, too. Just pointing out a fact.

My point, you ask? You're comparing the whitest country in the world to the most diverse country in the world. Not a very honest comparison, IMO.

apdst said:

Obviously, gun control doesn't do much to stop this sorta thing.

On another note, does anyone remember when the Brits wanted to outlaw butcher knives a few years ago?

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Did an armed populace stop this?

11 dead in Alabama shooting spree - Americas, World - The Independent

or this

April 2007: At least 22 people are killed as a gunman goes on the rampage at the campus of Virginia Tech

Or this

September 1999 – A 47-year-old loner killed seven people in a Fort Worth, Texas, Baptist church. Then he killed himself

Or this

December 5, 2007 – A gunman opened fire from a balcony in a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, killing eight people and wounding five, before taking his own life, police said.

or this

Feb. 14, 2008: A 27-year-old man goes on a rampage at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, shooting 21 people, killing five and later himself. University police report that the suspect, a former student, had stopped taking medication and had been acting “somewhat erratic.”

Jetboogieman said:

Did an armed populace stop this?

11 dead in Alabama shooting spree - Americas, World - The Independent

or this

April 2007: At least 22 people are killed as a gunman goes on the rampage at the campus of Virginia Tech

Or this

September 1999 – A 47-year-old loner killed seven people in a Fort Worth, Texas, Baptist church. Then he killed himself

Or this

December 5, 2007 – A gunman opened fire from a balcony in a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, killing eight people and wounding five, before taking his own life, police said.

or this

Feb. 14, 2008: A 27-year-old man goes on a rampage at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, shooting 21 people, killing five and later himself. University police report that the suspect, a former student, had stopped taking medication and had been acting “somewhat erratic.”

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Did an unarmed populace stop the West Cumbria shooting? Did an unarmed populace in Japan stop a knife attack that cost 7 people their lives?

I would like to point out a very important fact about all the incidents that you posted: they all happened in gun free zone, where it is illegal for people to carry guns.

How many shooting sprees occur at someplace like a biker bar, where most the patrons are surely to be armed and very unafraid to shoot back? Don't see that sorta thing too often. Do you?

It's an obvious fact, that the nut jobs whom go on shooting sprees target people that they know are unarmed.

So, to answer your question, no, an armed populace didn't prevent these attacks. However, these attacks weren't perpetrated upon an armed populace.

apdst said:

So, to answer your question, no, an armed populace didn't prevent these attacks. However, these attacks weren't perpetrated upon an armed populace.

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Well according to you, anyone being able to legally carry guns could stop attacks like these?

This incident was an isolated one. One which no one could have predicted. **** what if everyone was armed... but just happened to forget to bring their guns out with them. Trying to turn this into a political issue is wrong. The facts are this. We have lower gun crime, less murder and less crime overall.

Jetboogieman said:

Well according to you, anyone being able to legally carry guns could stop attacks like these?

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Allow me to, again, point a glaring fact about shooting sprees: they happen in places where the shooter expects everyone to be unarmed. I doubt that that is a coincidence.

This incident was an isolated one. One which no one could have predicted. **** what if everyone was armed... but just happened to forget to bring their guns out with them. Trying to turn this into a political issue is wrong. The facts are this. We have lower gun crime, less murder and less crime overall.

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You have a different demographic, too. Maybe we should ship a few hundred thousand illegal aliens to your neighborhood and see what happens to your crime rate?