Thursday 3 June 2010

Senseless insanity

My heart goes out to the families of those murdered by Derrick Bird in Cumbria on Wednesday.

A seemingly senseless wanton waste of life.

We will never know the full truth of “why” he chose to kill so many people, before killing himself and may only ever be left with the speculation rife in the media that it was over “financial pressures” and or a “family feud”.

It is a horror reminiscent of Dunblane and Hungerford.

So I would not be surprised if the Westminster political bubble (that lives outside the real world) knee-jerked into action to “tighten” the use of legitimate firearms yet more.

Derrick Bird held a firearms certificate for over 20 years without incident, so how do you legislate against a few hours of insanity like this?

Sadly you just cannot……

Far from making our streets safer the ban on firearms since Hungerford and Dunblane has only served to move their use and availability into a black murky criminal world that can neither be policed, nor neutered despite the occasional “amnesty” from time to time.

For criminals have never been ones to obey the law.

What I do know is that if I’d been in the area on Wednesday and been allowed to carry a concealed firearm (which law abiding citizens were once in this country allowed to do under Common Law) I’d have shot back.

Or maybe have been shot too, but at least it would have been on equal terms, not helpless slaughter.

Maybe Derrick Bird would have been deterred from roaming the county looking for victims if he’d known someone might have shot back.

Then again perhaps not…….

There have been many studies about the “effect” law abiding citizens carrying concealed firearms have in controlling crime. The most in depth and far reaching one covering many countries world wide by Gary A Mauser and Don B Kates was published in 2006.

You can read it here….

The conclusion about English gun control and legislation is interesting indeed.

“Half a century of strict controls has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of (hand-guns) in crime than ever before; No matter how one approaches the figures one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less (in England before 1920) when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction.”
Chief Superintendent Greenwood.

The most startling conclusion worldwide is that it is not legislation restricting or even allowing access to firearms (such as the Second Amendment in the USA) that affects murder rates, but the socio-economic and cultural factors (lunatics aside) of any particular nation that have the greatest impact on said murder rates.

Interesting.

However criminals calculate the odds of "will I get away with this", and then they calculate what will happen to them if they are caught.

Unless they are stupid of course…..

But the brighter ones know that if a potential victim in a confrontational crime such as in a robbery, burglary, assault or a mugging could be carrying a concealed firearm they are less likely to perpetrate the crime for ‘fear’ of being maimed or killed themselves.

This is a fact borne out by countless studies and forms part of the main argument by John R Lott in his book More Guns Less Crime.

Derrick Bird was not a convicted criminal, he was once a law abiding citizen who stepped over the edge of sanity into a world of senseless insanity.

Sadly no amount of legislation or restriction to access on firearms would have prevented such a huge loss of life on Wednesday.

But someone carrying a concealed firearm shooting back, might just have……….


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