Ten years since the massacre at Dunblane

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

As noted here. It was widely reported in the US at the time; I can only imagine the coverage in the UK. What are your thoughts about the resultant actions in the UK re: gun control, etc.? Did they help?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 13 March 2006 06:56 (nineteen years ago)

I think one of the reasons why this was so widely reported is that it was such a completely unheard of event in Britain. The last time something like this had happened was the Hungerford Massacre, that happened in 1987 (also on March 13th).
In general, gun crime is extremely scarce in the UK, but in some places (like Manchester, Nottingham and Birmingham) gun crimes make the news quite often. In saying that, a police officer being shot and killed in duty has made the first item of the national evening news every time.
Although the gun controls that were put in place after Dunblane cracked down on reasons to own a gun there has been a steady increase in gun crime ever since, even though it is still tiny compared to the US. There are typically less deaths from gun related crime every year in the UK than there are every day in the US.

for information:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hosb0205.pdf

― TB, Monday, 13 March 2006 09:28 (nineteen years ago)

It was a shocking day. My younger brother was only 7 at the time and I came home from work in London to news that someone had gone nuts in a Scottish school and killed a load of kids, I thought the worst for a minute but quickly confirmed it wasn't his school.

It was one of those events that glues you to the TV, possibly the first big one since the proliferation of cable & 24 hour news channels.

I dont' think the gun control laws have helped to prevent this happening again. If an evil nutter wants to kill kids nothing can really stop him. Tighter gun controls is probably a good thing I suppose, so some good came from it (though you wouldn't know it to look at the numbers of shootings in some parts of Britain).

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 13 March 2006 09:29 (nineteen years ago)

Hungerford happened in August.

― Ned T.RIfle II (Ned T.Rifle II), Monday, 13 March 2006 09:44 (nineteen years ago)

Also there were gun control measures (albeit rather weaker ones) put in after Hungerford.

When Hungerford happened I was on holiday and listening in the car I assumed it was a play so unlikely it seemed that something like that should happen in the UK.

To be honest I find it hard to even think about Dunblane. My kids are both at school at the moment and, of course, you assume they are safe. My daughter is the same age as the children at Dunblane and seeing the picture of the class and their teacher (who was also killed) just makes you think of your own kids and just what a terrible time those parents must have gone through, indeed, especially this week, must still be going through.

― Ned T.RIfle II (Ned T.Rifle II), Monday, 13 March 2006 09:56 (nineteen years ago)

i don't think it was that big a deal here. doubt it changed gun control much -- guns being illegal doesn't stop the continued rise in gun crime.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 09:58 (nineteen years ago)

dunblane wasn't that big a deal, there?

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 13 March 2006 10:09 (nineteen years ago)

not really, no, iirc.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 10:12 (nineteen years ago)

Dunblane wasn't a big deal where? In the UK? I assure you it was.

― Ned T.RIfle II (Ned T.Rifle II), Monday, 13 March 2006 10:15 (nineteen years ago)

south of england? really? how did life change after dunblane?

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 10:20 (nineteen years ago)

Just because bad people still get guns doesn't mean that the laws brought in after Dunblane didn't work.

― Dave B (daveb), Monday, 13 March 2006 10:26 (nineteen years ago)

If you're talking about how my life (or yours) changed directly, then of course, you can say not much, but then how does any news item anything really change one's life?

But if you're saying that at the time of the shooting it wasn't on most peoples minds, and it wasn't top of the news for weeks, and it didn't lead to a government enquiry and changes in the law (a ban on handguns) then I'm afraid you're mistaken.

― Ned T.RIfle II (Ned T.Rifle II), Monday, 13 March 2006 10:28 (nineteen years ago)

how does any news item anything really change one's life?

quite a lot, often. recent news items which will affect my life more than dunblane did:

-ID cards to be law
-iran to get stomped
-re-up of selective schooling

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 10:31 (nineteen years ago)

gun control wasn't really the key question to arise from dunblane but it certainly became the media obsession, mostly because its an easier discussion to hold.

― [apal racoon, Monday, 13 March 2006 10:32 (nineteen years ago)

TMWS - you've narrowed it down to talking about your life from how much impact did it have "over here"...

Obv. if we're talking about individuals some news items will have some impact on some people...

― Ned T.RIfle II (Ned T.Rifle II), Monday, 13 March 2006 10:38 (nineteen years ago)

you've narrowed it down to talking about your life from how much impact did it have "over here"...

well, the things i mentioned affect everyone in the way that dunblane didn't.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 10:54 (nineteen years ago)

i don't think it was that big a deal here.

Anyone abroad reading this would assume you meant that it wasn't a big deal in terms of it being talked about, worried about etc. as compared with other stories in the news. It was a big deal. It was a huge story. You're being disingenuous.

If you want to make some point about such stories ultimately having little affect on people's lives other than in terms of how they themselves let it affect them, fine. But people are going to assume you were referring to the shock and coverage that other people had been talking about if you just say "it wasn't that big a deal over here".

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 13 March 2006 11:08 (nineteen years ago)

Not affect, effect. Oops. I'm still so traumatised I've forgotten English.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 13 March 2006 11:09 (nineteen years ago)

among 15-year-olds in a school in south east england, it wasn't a big deal.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 11:41 (nineteen years ago)

yes, I read it as "we didn't really hear that much abt it", rather than "my life didn't change, as a result"

if you meant just the second, it only sounds a little like you didn't care, that much, either

crosspost

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 13 March 2006 11:41 (nineteen years ago)

big deal

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 13 March 2006 11:42 (nineteen years ago)

I think what Enrique means is that he didn't watch the news much when he was 15. That's the kind of information this thread needs.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 13 March 2006 11:45 (nineteen years ago)

i didn't care, that much.

xpost: i did watch the news, it was typically hysterical, but for me 'big deal' means 'will change lives outside the community where it happened', or something like that.

in a weird way harris and klebold were a 'bigger deal' 'over here' cos their thing fed into pop culture.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 11:50 (nineteen years ago)

'i didn't care, that much.'

'i did watch the news, it was typically hysterical'

Blimey - I'm speechless...momentarily.

There is no way Columbine was a bigger deal for the UK as a whole than Dunblane. I think you're confusing you and friends for the wider community. UK laws were not changed after Columbine, UK laws changed (twice) as a direct result of Dunblane.

― Ned T.RIfle II (Ned T.Rifle II), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:18 (nineteen years ago)

laws primarily affecting handgun-owners were changed.

i cared as much as i cared about sarah payne, i suppose: it was obviously a horrible crime but i didn't see why it should dominate the news for weeks.

there isn't a UK as a whole, is there, which experiences everything the same way?

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:23 (nineteen years ago)

If the murders of 16 school children shouldn't dominate the news, what should?

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:25 (nineteen years ago)

'for weeks'

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:28 (nineteen years ago)

Did you sit going "Why are we still hearing about these dead kids? It was DAYS ago! It was MILES away!"?

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:29 (nineteen years ago)

'there isn't a UK as a whole, is there, which experiences everything the same way? '

No, and I didn't say that.

― Ned T.RIfle II (Ned T.Rifle II), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:30 (nineteen years ago)

Did you sit going "Why are we still hearing about these dead kids? It was DAYS ago! It was MILES away!"?
-- Onimo (gerry.wat...), March 13th, 2006.

possibly yeah. wonder how many kids died in south american slums on that day. or how things were going down in afghanistan.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:33 (nineteen years ago)

I'm sure you wondered about those very things at the time.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:35 (nineteen years ago)

You can say "but children are starving to death in Africa" to trump pretty much any news item in the last 30 years, that doesn't reduce the impact of a story about children being murdered in a place that everyone had previously considered safe.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:37 (nineteen years ago)

our school in milton keynes got an extra gate after dunblane.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:38 (nineteen years ago)

who knows? but if the same thing happened today, and the news went mental, i would, after a bit, say something similar. it doesn't belittle the dunblane massacre. it belittles the rest of the world's sorrows not to.

xpost

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:40 (nineteen years ago)

and for a while we were told to stay within school perimetres at lunchtime etc. unless there's a good reason to do otherwise (going to the chippy's wasn't).

it made my life miserable for a few months in the south of england

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:41 (nineteen years ago)

the memories are all flooding back thanks to this thread :(

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:41 (nineteen years ago)

It was the first big news event I ever learnt about from the internet, I think.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:42 (nineteen years ago)

and for a while we were told to stay within school perimetres at lunchtime etc. unless there's a good reason to do otherwise (going to the chippy's wasn't).

Yes, similar stuff happened all over the country (except in South East England, possibly), regardless of the fact that the massacre took place inside the school perimeter.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:43 (nineteen years ago)

--and for a while we were told to stay within school perimetres at lunchtime etc. unless there's a good reason to do otherwise (going to the chippy's wasn't).

--Yes, similar stuff happened all over the country (except in South East England, possibly),

yeah, didn't happen at my school, but that's insane anyway.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:45 (nineteen years ago)

just like Thomas Hamilton

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:47 (nineteen years ago)

like there was a national movement of gun-wielding maniacs...

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:48 (nineteen years ago)

hence the news.

QED

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 13 March 2006 12:50 (nineteen years ago)

The organisers of the 2012 Olympics are currently trying to figure out how they can host the shooting events in London, given that half the weapons involved are currently banned and the British team has to train in the Netherlands.

Apparently they've come up with some compromise which would involve all the guns being kept under lock and key at the shooting venue, but the shooters themselves think they should be allowed to keep handguns in their bedrooms or somesuch.

The slightly nutty elderly bloke who lived opposite me in 1996 had a vast collection of legally held firearms in his house, and used to regularly threaten to shoot various noisy neighbours. Nobody took him very seriously until Dunblane happened, at which point the street was sealed off by armed police who spent about three hours taking all his guns away...

Whenever Dunblane is mentioned in any context now, does anyone think of anything other than the massacre? Ditto Hungerford. They had a couple moving to Dunblane on Location Location Location a little while back, and one of the reasons they wanted to live there was because the schools were so good. I'm sure I wasn't the only one to irrationaly think "eh?" when they said that.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Monday, 13 March 2006 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

andy murray's from dunblane

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 13 March 2006 15:11 (nineteen years ago)

I thought the gun controls were stupidly excessive then, and I still do. I thought the upping of security at schools was stupidly excessive then, and I still do. Dunblane was another step along the irrational path to thinking we can legislate for every contingency. Since then, government in the UK has increasingly revolved around responding to whatever event appears most newsworthy at the moment. It's bad risk management, bad resource management, and stupidly ineffectual politics. But hey, that seems to be how people like their politics.

― I'm thinking six, six, six (noodle vague), Monday, 13 March 2006 15:12 (nineteen years ago)

Aye, he knew Hamilton personally through attending a boys club or scouts or something.

xpost

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 13 March 2006 15:14 (nineteen years ago)

It does seem that the government is compelled to legislate on any issue deemed newsworthy. Hamilton owned his guns legally and there was already a law against killing people so I don't know what, if anything, the legislation did to prevent this happening again.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 13 March 2006 15:16 (nineteen years ago)

did you know hamilton happened to write to the queen the friday before the shootings, asking for help.

― [apal fret, Monday, 13 March 2006 15:21 (nineteen years ago)

Hamilton owned his guns legally and there was already a law against killing people so

I don't think this really works as an argument against gun control. Laws like this are about making a crime more difficult, not making it clearer that it's illegal. Thomas Hamilton might well not have been the sort to get involved in the criminal underworld to get guns if they were blocked to him legally.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 13 March 2006 15:22 (nineteen years ago)

x post

What, asking her to cover him while he went in?

― I'm thinking six, six, six (noodle vague), Monday, 13 March 2006 15:27 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 140 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

He stole that bit from Chris Rock.

"Bullets should cost $5000. Make you think long and hard before killing a motherfucker."

― gbx (skowly), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

haha oh i remember that bit now too

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 17:47 (nineteen years ago)

more gun control funnees pls

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 17:47 (nineteen years ago)

The A-Z of gun control jokes.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 17:55 (nineteen years ago)

haha! g had me in hysterics.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

when i read

x.. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.

i thought it said "when you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create sleeves" and i giggled

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 18:05 (nineteen years ago)

Does that mean gun fans have no time for amendments 11 to 27? I always though 13 and 19 were quite good ones.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 18:11 (nineteen years ago)

"guest of honour: jesus christ?"

jesus christ!

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 18:26 (nineteen years ago)

eleven months pass...

And now it's 11.
I think it's good to see Andy Murray in the news without there being the need to mention his connection to Dunblane at this particular time. I wonder how long it takes for people not to associate places with terrible events, if they ever can? I was in Hungerford recently and spent a couple of hours wandering about before I remembered what happened there, but I can never pass Locherbie without thinking of those pictures of half a plane cabin in a field. Should we be able to forget even?

― Ned Trifle II, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:51 (eighteen years ago)

people who live in east london seem able to forget it was bombed, so i guess it's possible.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:53 (eighteen years ago)

... what bombing are you talking about?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:56 (eighteen years ago)

there was this german fella, name of adolf hitler...

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:59 (eighteen years ago)

well, austrian.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:59 (eighteen years ago)

Well, it kind of was 60 years ago

― Tom D., Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:59 (eighteen years ago)

lockerbie was almost 20 years ago now, and left fewer traces.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:00 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, but 60 years? As opposed to 20 years?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:01 (eighteen years ago)

i don't think it was that big a deal here.

― onimo, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:02 (eighteen years ago)

What is the statute of limitations on grief?

Maybe the East End had the right idea; don't make a fuss, just quietly get on with it, rebuild, don't erect memorials and hold candlelit services, just get on with it?

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:03 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, i still don't remember it being that big a deal here, sorry.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:07 (eighteen years ago)

'the East End' isn't as small and specific as places like Hungerford and Lockerbie - places people generally wouldn't know at all unless they'd been the scene of such disasters. unfortunately disasters are what put many small places on the map (of our minds) in this way (see also Soham).

― blueski, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:07 (eighteen years ago)

Actually some people have been trying to build some sort of memorial in the East End for about ten years but it seems to have fizzled out.

― Ned Trifle II, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:14 (eighteen years ago)

What is the statute of limitations on grief?

There's a statute of limitations on breathing, which means there's far less people around who experienced stuff that happened 60 years ago as opposed to 20 years ago

― Tom D., Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:15 (eighteen years ago)

yeah but the 'stuff that happened' in the blitz affected far far far more people than the lockerbie bombing.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:16 (eighteen years ago)

John Lydon could've been on that Lockerbie plane. I think he missed the flight or something. Actually it was probably just that it was a 'few hours earlier'.

― blueski, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:20 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, i still don't remember it being that big a deal here, sorry.

That one guy that quit on Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:07 (7 minutes ago)

And I still beg to differ.
But...er...let's not go there.

I'm more interested in the way these things are remembered or not and the East End seems to be a good example. But Coventry was a big place and somewhere that sufferered terribly and they did build a memorial to it, twinned themselves with Dresden, did things which suggest that they never want to stop remembering.

― Ned Trifle II, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:26 (eighteen years ago)

Wearing The Blitz Spirit of Getting On With It as a badge of honour for 60 years is not the same as forgetting about it.

― onimo, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:29 (eighteen years ago)

Got to completely disagree with Enrique as well. Unless he means personally again. It's hard to tell.

― Frogman Henry, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:31 (eighteen years ago)

(e.g. see how often it was mentioned during all the 2012 Olympic bid shenanigans)

― onimo, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:31 (eighteen years ago)

i just don't know what there is to think about, with lockerbie, or hungerford, unless it was a particularly memorable moment in yr life for whatever reason. but then i do get spooked a little by the modernity of german cities...

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:32 (eighteen years ago)

they're just so efficient

― blueski, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:37 (eighteen years ago)

what do you mean 'unless he means personally'? what other arbiter is there for big-deal-ness? the media!?

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:39 (eighteen years ago)

Your original statement was "i don't think it was that big a deal here" which is absolutely wrong. Was "here" your mind or England? Because if the latter you're wrong, 100%.

― Frogman Henry, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:44 (eighteen years ago)

presumably Ryan (Hungerford murderer) had mental health problems?

I can't remember the name of the Dunblane murderer. What was his motivation? Why is this when it wasn't as long ago?

Difference between these events and most shootings in Nottingham, Manchester, London ect ect is that the latter shootings are drugs related, no?

Gun control laws in UK should prolly stay as they are. What should change is how we tackle mental health problems (which, I fear, is experiential, it's not like we are really doing anything worng, more that we don't know what to do yet) and drug laws including a lot of decriminalisation and legalisation, at least at the user level. Would certainly free up police time to go after the dealers.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:45 (eighteen years ago)

"what other arbiter is there for big-deal-ness? the media!?"

FFS Disingenuos Dan

― Frogman Henry, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:46 (eighteen years ago)

I don't know Dunblane murderer's name either. Did he shoot himself (this may explain why)? My memory on this is terrible.

― blueski, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:46 (eighteen years ago)

Thomas Hamilton. Shot himself. Cranky interfering busybody, forever writing letters of complaint to all and sundry about real and imagined slights.

― Tom D., Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:49 (eighteen years ago)

What was his motivation?

"I'll teach them to ignore and insult me!"

― Tom D., Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:50 (eighteen years ago)

If he was still alive everyone would know his name and he'd have gone thru Huntley-esque media-orchestrated vilification times 10.

― blueski, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:52 (eighteen years ago)

he did shoot himself. suspected paedophile apparently.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:52 (eighteen years ago)

what the hell are you on about mark?

frogman -- in what way is something a 'big deal' or not? it's not a negative judgement on the town i was living in in 1996 went on pretty much as before after the massacre, and that it wasn't a 'big deal'; to be honest columbine felt like a 'bigger deal' and that was on another continent. i don't know why. i mean ffs i was at school at this time and didn't feel the impact.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:52 (eighteen years ago)

I am quite lucid, what don't you understand? ask and I will clarify.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:54 (eighteen years ago)

suspected paedophile apparently

He wasn't a paedophile tho, at least I've never heard of any proof that he was

― Tom D., Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:56 (eighteen years ago)

it just seems to be a bunch of non-sequiturs to me.

"Difference between these events and most shootings in Nottingham, Manchester, London ect ect is that the latter shootings are drugs related, no?"

what?

"Gun control laws in UK should prolly stay as they are."

well, ok, whatever. why?

"What should change is how we tackle mental health problems (which, I fear, is experiential, it's not like we are really doing anything worng, more that we don't know what to do yet)"

yeah let's "tackle" mental health. sure we're not doing anything wrong.

"and drug laws including a lot of decriminalisation and legalisation, at least at the user level. Would certainly free up police time to go after the dealers."

what?

basically you're saying we could stop murders by legalizing drugs and... um... curing crazy people? (because obviously legalizing personal use would stop gang wars happening. police already do target gangs over individual users...)

i don't think you'll ever get a perfect mental health system that can prevent people from occasionally flipping out and killing lots of people, i guess.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:59 (eighteen years ago)

no tom he was a 'suspected paedo'. it makes it easy for people to get a handle on his 'motivation'.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:59 (eighteen years ago)

"frogman -- in what way is something a 'big deal' or not? it's not a negative judgement on the town i was living in in 1996 went on pretty much as before after the massacre, and that it wasn't a 'big deal'; to be honest columbine felt like a 'bigger deal' and that was on another continent. i don't know why. i mean ffs i was at school at this time and didn't feel the impact. "

I was in uni.. I wasn't a news junkie or anything, but i remember it then and now as an exceptional event. If you remember differently, fine, but your age and conciousness of the world has to be taken into account.
Which you do, in some of your above posts. But i think an objective view would say it was a "big deal" in people's conversations, in the media they consumed, in people's thoughts and memories (even if the date and year now elude them.). As for things going on much as before, well they always do after shocking tragedies don't they, exceot in ground zero.
Basically a massive fuss was made about it, politically and socially. You don't remember that, clearly.

― Frogman Henry, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 14:03 (eighteen years ago)

i don't think you'll ever get a perfect mental health system that can prevent people from occasionally flipping out and killing lots of people, i guess.

no, not a perfect one, we could not produce a perfect anything, simply a much better one than the one we've got! So instead of 1 mass murder every 10 years there might be, say, one every 100 years - i.e. an obviously improved situation.

yeah let's "tackle" mental health. sure we're not doing anything wrong.

by which I mean to say that we are doing the best we can within the confines of our present knowledge. It's not as if we are not doing all we could coz there are ppl who have a motivation to act to the contrary, as is the case with, for example, drugs or wars.

[oi]Difference between these events and most shootings in Nottingham, Manchester, London ect ect is that the latter shootings are drugs related, no?[/i]

fairly obv I would have thought. Most recent shootings are drugs related; Hungerford and Dunblane were not! So we can't blame our current spate of shootings on the failure of legislation in the wake of Hungerford and Dunblane, as that was brought in to tackle *different types* of shootings with quite different motivations! Nobody in 1987 or 1997 could have anticipated the drug dealer situation in 2007!

and drug laws including a lot of decriminalisation and legalisation, at least at the user level. Would certainly free up police time to go after the dealers.

what exactly is the point of cannabis being illegal? Half my friends are criminalised. For what? Legalise it, regulate it, same with E and speed, let the police spend all of their time going after the crack dealers.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 14:09 (eighteen years ago)

obviously legalizing personal use would stop gang wars happening

if the drugs were legalised and sold thru registered outlets like alcohol and tobacco with the same forms of regulation, yes it would.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 14:11 (eighteen years ago)

"by which I mean to say that we are doing the best we can within the confines of our present knowledge. It's not as if we are not doing all we could coz there are ppl who have a motivation to act to the contrary, as is the case with, for example, drugs or wars."

i don't think motivation has that big a role in human affairs but anyway the mental health system's problems are not that much to do with the limits of our knowledge but a) the limits of money b) the limited sense that 'mental health' is a category that can be prized away from the rest of the social structure and all its problems.

how much in the way of resources would you think it reasonable to commit to reducing the mass murder rate from once a decade to once a century? seriously?

i don't get why you link drug murders to these kinds of events either, it just seems totally irrelevant. gun laws won't stop gang violence, most of the guns they use are illegal already.

why not just legalize crack? < / david simon >

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 14:15 (eighteen years ago)

""obviously legalizing personal use would stop gang wars happening"

if the drugs were legalised and sold thru registered outlets like alcohol and tobacco with the same forms of regulation, yes it would.

Grandpont Genie on Tuesday, 13 March 2007 17:11 (3 minutes ago)"

i basically agree with that, though drugs are lame. and again we come to the 'fair trade cocaine' issue.

but you mentioned 'yay the police could go after dealers' so i was a but uh? why bother legalizing then?

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 14:17 (eighteen years ago)

I still remember it very clearly. I'm from Stirling, less than ten miles down the road from Dunblane. It had a huge impact. At school our English teacher was called away for some reason. We only learned at lunchtime his daughter was a pupil at Dunblane. She wasn't in the class in the gym, but it brought it home. One of the girls who survived the shooting lived in my dad's block.
There really hasn't been any single news story that's had such a huge impact. It dominated the Scottish press for days. You just don't expect something like that, especially somewhere as quiet and well to do as Dunblane.
At school it was all people talked about. Some people I knew had been to Thomas Hamilton's youth groups when they were younger. There was all sorts of talk about how dodgy he was, getting little boys to run around topless. It was long afterwards that our school, and many others, upped their security, putting fences round the grounds and making visitors wear ID etc. Compare that to the open, community orientated place school had seemed before that. That was a massive change of ethos in education.
Then the small details: I remember the shooting and fishing shop in Stirling closing down immediately (it was where Hamilton bought many of his guns) and it took three or four years before anyone took over the lease.
Or the police investigation and the big report into how Hamilton was given a gun license despite having a police file and a history of dodginess. There were all sorts of rumours that this could go as high as to the head of Central Region police, the MP at the time (Michael Forsyth).
Then there were the papers only released to the public a couple of years ago that gave further insight into the failings of communication between the council and police.
Or things like going round to my Dad's in Dunblane and people asking for directions to the graveyard where the children were, like they were tourists of death or something.
It really did have a massive impact, and not just locally.

― Stew, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 14:52 (eighteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.