Somebody is going to have to tell the wife and children.
They just took one night a month for themselves. A pipe dream at the warehouse became the modest reality of a regular night out for the dads. Nothing expensive, cheaper than Saturday football anyway. Nothing to make them worry at home, just some live music at a proper small venue with your mates from work and then catching the last train home. The music was good, beer was drunk but nothing excessive. We are not dealing with excessive people here. As each returning unlit train station ticked them closer to real life again, they would have been hoping to keep that young again feeling as long as possible.
The last wisps of backlit clouds were fading out of the night sky as the group of friends walked from the Smallmarket Station to the Star of India. Of course it’s a cliché but curry is still one of the very good ways to end the night perfectly. Lamb bhuna and bhajis later Trevor is walking home alone through the quiet early hours of the Smallmarket night time economy.
Track back 6 hours and Barry is hanging out with his new best friend Trace. He’s known her for months but he still hasn’t bothered to find out her last name. She is one of those irregular girls who seem to bump into his life whenever he has cheap cider, dope and access to somewhere to crash. There is absolutely no need to ever know her last name. Barry had a council funded flat with a Trish but she kicked him out. They were having a baby, that was the plan then maybe he would sort himself out and get a job. Never happened. He loved her so much he hurt her to prove it. Barry’s Mum sees him when he’s on the scrounge. She has no idea where he lives now. How could she? It changes from couch to couch on a weekly basis.
At some point Barry, Trace and some other random lad who has attached himself to Barry’s random walk through life set off on the mooch round Smallmarket. Maybe the cider ran out and they were moved on or somebody else had somewhere with a better Playstation to chill at or the dope dealer didn’t feel like delivering and they were picking up. We may never know. Perhaps Barry was sensing that Trace isn’t going to put out. Perhaps he is thinking of Trish and the life he can’t be bothered to have. He’s angry. Shouty, abusive, abrasive looking for a chance to make somebody else feel bad so he can feel good again. It never worked with the lovely Trish but Barry isn’t good at learning from experience and has chronically poor impulse control despite “Think First” “Anger Management” “Youth Custody” and all the other undemanding interventions that he has floated through.
And then they meet. Trevor is walking home one way and Planet Barry with his twin moons is coming the other. Words were not exchanged. Trevor has thoughts of home, family, maybe hangover and a fried breakfast. As they pass, Barry punches him once, as hard as he can. Some essential part of Trevor’s brain immediately rips and tears as his head is torqued sideways. As he lies dying, Barry, Trace and random lad gather round him wondering at what Barry’s single punch has done. Trevor dies in the street before the ambulance could possibly arrive.
The police arrive and Barry pulls the “innocent passer by just trying to help this bloke who has fallen down” routine. He keeps that going through a number of carefully written prepared statements handed over by his straight faced solicitor. He keeps it going right until we show him the CCTV of the passing punch.This is followed by another prepared statement whereby apparently Trevor has taken it into his head to finish the night by beating on ASBO boy and Barry was only acting “in self defence” getting his reaction in first.
At Court Barry will cop the earliest possible plea to manslaughter. His barrister will try and put off the evil day so that Barry can have more extra cushy remand time rather than proper prison conditions but a good C.P.S. lawyer heads the defence boy off at the pass. “Barry never meant to do serious harm, just a single punch, how could he know what would happen?” It is clearly always going to be an agreed plea to manslaughter.
In the twisted mirror of criminal justice, Barry’s chaotic life and behaviour will re-emerge as mitigation in a pre-sentence report. This will be feathered by his barrister who will detail all the disappointments that have dinged round Barry’s head to the point where he punched a man to death without ever quite mentioning that, with no provocation, Barry.punched.a.man.to.death.
Somebody is going to have to tell Trevor’s missus that the Judge isn’t going over 4 years on the sentence. Me? No thanks. I think the Judge should tell her and he can explain why because I am damned if I can.
A Street. The Morning
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
very sad, very true, nough said – ties in very nicely with the downfall video
“Somebody is going to have to tell Barry’s missus…”
Or Trevor’s.
Richard75
My thanks
NJ
And as the lawyers go off to the pub to drink and laugh how they got one over each other during the days trials and tribulations, everyone else is holding their heads in their hands, barely containing the tears saying “what the fu….”
That sounds scarily like a recent case in this area!!
A friend of mine got punched randomly like this a few years ago. Unprovoked, not even eye contact as he walked home through the centre of town around midnight. Fortunately assailant very drunk and victim was sober, only one surprise punch landed and all the others avoided. Totally unharmed (apart from a black eye). But sobering to think that a moment of stupidity on the part of a monumentally stupid idiot can end a life.
4 years = 18 months of jailtime, I believe. Shocking.
We dont seem to place the same weight on the taking of a life as we do on idiotic spending on child protection (CRB checks for all), preventing police violence/institutional racism, or any of the other mad things that go on. But, given the beneficial effect of deterrence, surely this is something for which we should be willing to pay? I would.
Also to be fair, the judges dont seem to have much discretion. Amongst manslaughter cases I would have thought that this comes near to the bad end and would have been worthy of a heavier sentence. The people who should be doing the explaining are Jack Straw as Minister for Justice, and the people in his sentencing guidelines commission. I wonder how Jack Straw would like to do that? I know that a lot of the evil t&^%s have preferred to lambast judges rather than take responsibility for the guidelines – notably Vera Baird and John Reid
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5089388.stm
Although Vera was forced to apologise -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5096266.stm
Is this a true story NJ?
Should add; that last question wasn’t in an “I don’t believe you” tone…
Legal armed self defense.
And I know that might not have helped Trevor specifically.
But in general, it would help thin the herd.
And I don’t say that flippantly. A basic fact that liberals on both sides of the Atlantic have failed to come to grips with is that the great majority of property and violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders. Self defense and long prison sentences for serious crimes both have the happy consequence of taking habitual offenders out of circulation.
Or you might settle for long prison sentences alone, considering the odds of legalizing effective self-defense in the land where Great Britain used to be. But you guys are catching and surpassing crime rates in the United States, which is really saying something considering our historical baseline.
Saladman – legal armed self defence wouldnt have helped Trevor for at least two reasons -
1) Trevor died from a single unexpected punch. Therefore no opportunity to defend self.
2) Shooting someone for punching you is not proportionate and thus is not self defence.
While I thought that the (idiot kneejerk prat) John Major ban on handguns post Dunblane was idiotic, knee jerk, OTT, mainly pointless, I dont like guns. I generally think the UK is better off than the US because of the lack of general availability. Yes, some gangs do have them, but the death rate from having widely available guns would be far higher than it is now. The UK has a homicide rate of 2 per 100,000 vs the US 5 per 100,000.
I can see that in the US, starting from the gun availability that it has (eg very high), legalising concealed carry permits or unconcealed carry permits for the law abiding might work. I have read John Lott’s work on guns and that of his detractors. Evidence is available on both sides, but I am not totally convinced by Lott. Higher gun availability also would mean that the British cops would have to be armed, not something that I think they would agree to. It ups the ante.
The idea of everyone wearing sidearms reminds me of several Robert Heinlein books (he was definitely in the Saladman camp), notably “Beyond this horizon”.
I’m glad you beat me to that, MOP. The moment that the British murder rate reaches that of the US, perhaps we should have this debate again.
Excellent post!
That was a powerful, thought-provoking piece.
Bloody well-written too.
Even if this man was given the chance to defend himself he would then find himself on the wrong side of the law. http://orangepunch.freedomblogging.com/2008/01/25/ban-guns-to-prevent-crime-ha/
I don’t want to blow anyone’s anonymity by posting the link, but I’ve just seen the report on this case in a certain national newspaper.
Powerful piece of writing NJ.
History has a habit of repeating itself at the most inconvenient times. Hopefully I haven’t caused any trouble for anyone
I was working late one night in a CCTV control room. A couple of cameras were not responding to commands, a quick fix. It was a Friday, and the town was quite busy groups of people wandering around looking for Taxis, Kebabs, KFC, places to puke. One of the operators is casually following a couple of drunk males, one of them is obviously pissed, his mate appears to be less so. Another male is sitting on a low wall/fence with someone else standing behind them possibly waiting for friends/transport. As drunk pair get level, pissed man lashes out at the sitting male who is thrown over backwards by the blow. Blood everywhere. Pissed males mate is obviously astonished at what his ‘friend’ has done. Victim even more so. Police rapidly on scene. Over radio, we hear words to the effect that the sitting man had done/said nothing and he was lamped because pissed man ‘felt like it’. We played the tape back 2 or 3 times in shock. The video quality was quite good, and the operator caught the indecent perfectly. Bizarre what drunks will do.
And what did he get Tony F……..? A caution?
The base problem as NJ illustrates is our broken system with no responsibility and lack of deterrent.
I really, really wish it was compulsory for all wigs and their ilk to shadow a 2-man city-centre patrol a few times a year. Combine with removal of sentancing criteria and i suspect these soft sentances will quickly become pretty tough.
Better yet, put Jacqui Spliff and Gordon BrownStreak in the city centre in body-armor with 2 coppers one night a month for a year. I wonder how long all these crap soft sentances would last then…
Why do judges buy all the crap spouted by defence lawyers? I would like to think that judges are pretty intelligent, if miles out of touch, but surely they must see through this?
@21
Surely the rule of law states that it doesn’t matter what you believe or think. It only matters what you can prove.
I suspect a brief look at the social backgrounds and home addresses of most of our extant Crown / High Court judges might answer that. If you’ve never experienced ferals roaming wild in their natural environment, it would be easy to believe that they’re a media myth, and that all people are basically decent but misguided.
Oh, that again? Fine, but you drive the bulldozer that’ll be needed to keep the streets clear of bodies after kicking out time at Club Aggro.
There seems to be some bizarre belief that there’s a mass of Ordinary Decent Britons just itching to tool up and bring street justice back to the land. That’s gun-porn fantasy. After 50 years of indoctrination, most Ordinary Decent Britons are more likely to believe the biased sample fallacy that carrying a weapon makes you more likely to be a victim of crime.
Fine, go ahead and tell the citizenry to tool up. The first people who do so will be:
1) You, and;
2) The very last people that you’d want to see armed. And they’ll have you outnumbered thousands to one. You’ll need to reload, a lot.
Just planning for the future here: credit crunch and all that. Assuming we do go with the American armed response system… is ammunition tax deductible? The irony of getting nicked for tax dodging based on the purchase of firearms and ordnance is almost more than I can bear.
The people you least want to see armed may well be armed already !
Roy Batty: “The people you least want to see armed may well be armed already !”
I doubt there’s any ‘may be’ about it. They could well be better shotstoo..!
Ah JuliaM there you go again from the safety of your armchair with your smug condescension. Firearms are dangerous things but then I’m sure in your furry little Guardian reading world no one would have them and if we all just loved each other a little more all would be well with the world.
Lets try a little experiment JuliaM, how about you call your local nick today and ask them if you can go on a ride along for a shift or two with one of their late turn patrols, maybe over this weekend? We’ll even give you some body armour so you’re easily identifiable. Then on Monday you can come back and tell us how you’ve gotten on? How’s that sound to you?
Well, hello again, ’19′.
My ‘furry little Guardian reading world’? Oh, boy, have you got the wrong girl, or what…
Hint: read a bit before engaging brain. And let’s hope for the sake of all that (if you are indeed a firearms officer) you can control your temper and your assumptions a little better when you have a gun in your hand than you evidently do when you have a keyboard.
And no-one who reads blogs, books, newspapers, watches documentaries etc doubts that the police have a tough job to do, particularly these days. Funnily enough, no-one yet has said that, on this thread or the one at Gadget’s.
So lay off shooting at that strawman, eh? Your grouping’s way off…
And if the EU has it’s way bloggers and their anonymity will become a thing of the past. http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/eu-strikes-back-at-media-and-bloggers.html
And if the EU gets it’s way bloggers and their anonymity will become a thing of the past: http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/eu-strikes-back-at-media-and-bloggers.html
Yes, they “may”, and banning weapons ensures that only criminals are armed. Agreed. However, tell Denzil and Darren that they can legally tool up, and they will do so, overnight. All Denzils, and all Darrens, everywhere. You have seen these people prowling the streets, yes?
So congratulations: instead of ensuring that only criminals are armed, now we’ve ensured that all violently minded people are armed, all the time.
Oh, what’s the use? The honest pro-gun argument is just the standard Dirty Harry fantasy: “I want to pack a gun, and so I don’t care who else does, because mine will be bigger, and I’ll shoot first because I have Superior Training (and/or superpowers).”
OK, joking aside, I concede that it is possible to live in a safe, armed British society. All you need is to get in a time machine, go back to 1953, and scupper the Prevention of Crime Act and all subsequent legislation, and then regularly hand out pistols to the Right Sort of Chap on every street corner and omnibus in the land.
Alternatively, you could repeal all offensive weapon legislation now, then hide in a bunker for 50 years or so, then emerge and live out your dotage among the survivors.
Note that given the clear anti-weapon views of all influential political leaders (and the politicians who read their newspapers), the former option is slightly more realistic.
As for the NDs, as the old joke goes.
There are two types of firearms carriers in the world. Those who have had an ND and those who are going to have one.
Hardly seems fair to jump on someone’s back for suggesting that widely available firearms are a bad thing.
“how about you call your local nick today and ask them if you can go on a ride along for a shift or two with one of their late turn patrols, maybe over this weekend?”
What’s one thing got to do with the other? How does realising – as if you didn’t already – that feral scum exist and breed outside Wetherspoons’ pubs the country over in any way contribute towards your apparent belief that the public should be allowed to carry guns on the street?
And, on a lighter note, what’s the local late turn patrol likely to say to a request like that?
I imagine the Barries of this world already have a long criminal career behind them. A suitably punitive system would prevent them from throwing that random punch by already having locked them up for a previous offense.
I’d like to see serious escallation in sentencing. Someone who commits the same crime ten times should be serving ten times as long for the last conviction than the first. Barry could probably be counted on to take himself out of circulation permanently before actually killing anyone.
Actually the crims may be armed, but most of their guns are converted replicas – so not exactly accurate. Also they dont get proper range time and training so they arent going to be that accurate. Spray and pray. Of course this does mean that innocent bystanders are going to be hit. Handguns are really quite difficult to shoot accurately (I learnt to shoot in the school Cadet force, everything from Browning 9mm up to Bren guns. Sterling SMGs were great, Brownings were not fun.)
Also, can I point out -
Banning firearms does not only insure the criminals are armed, on the side of law and order, there are armed police.
I thought that the handgun ban was silly. But, I dont think we should allow general US-style access to guns.
ND = Negligent discharge. Happens to all of us. Boy, did the instructor shout at the idiot who fired his rifle before permission had been given. Then there was the idiot who turned around with a Sterling, with his FINGER ON THE TRIGGER, saying “Sir, sir, I think my gun is jammed” pointing the gun at the instructors. They scattered at speed. That’s after god knows how many range safety lectures and shouty corporals. Some people should not be allowed near guns.
Hibbo @19, Sorry, I don’t know what he got. I know what he should have got, and I had some rope to hand too…..:-)
MOP @ 33
I learned about slow burning powder as a cadet the hard way, cost me some eyebrows and a proper bollocking. Still not as bad as the muppet who decided to toss his still smouldering ciggie into ammo box. We all buggered off sharpish leaving the CPO (the range officer) to crawl slowly back.
MoP:“Also they dont get proper range time and training so they arent going to be that accurate. “
That’s probably true, and I doubt that watching rap videos encourages good shooting technique. But the link I posted to the ‘Mirror’ article recalled an incident where firearms officers called out to ‘humanely destroy’ two escaped bullocks took 18 shots to do so.
Either the officers concerned needed a lot more range time, or they were using far too low-calibre weapons for the job at hand.
Makes me sick -and people wonder why street justice is so tempting for officers. They KNOW that this piece of filth has killed a man, destroyed his family and probably cast a deep shadow on friends and work collegues lives ( how many wanted to go out on the next works do I wonder?). Yet the big wigs who earn more a case than many people earn a month or year play their game and “justice” wins, ie scum win good honest people lose.
Let us not kid ourselves this is what has happened, a feral being has been proven to kill someone and the rich lawyers who never ever have to face his ilk in the real world protect their racket and play their games. The feral being is then released back into the wild to kill and harm again after a time in a warm safe place where we let them get bigger and stronger by providing free gyms.
This is the real face of broken britain – the rich protecting their racket and the poor paying the terrible price.
What we need is a damn big war….
Oh I would have loved to be the nicking team on this one, he would have resisted…natural justice. Reality is though he would have come real quiet because when faced with people who are able and willing to fight back this sort of shit just waits till he cuffed and in the back of a van to start “raging in the cage” until he is at a custody block and wants all his bloody human rights…scum.
If you shot ‘em then the world would be a better place. Simple.
AJA
juliaM I think you might just find that learning to shoot people in the right place isn’t the same as shooting bullocks, of course if YOU want to go and sweet talk an angry bullock back into it’s pen i am sure the police would be happy to let you.
AJA I agree and i’m not in the police.
“learning to shoot people in the right place isn’t the same as shooting bullocks,”
Isn’t the quick and humane destruction of rampaging animals catered for in their training? If so, it should be, if it’s going to be a part of their duty.
Take 18 attempts to kill a bullock in an abbatoir, and the RSPCA will be asking questions. And DEFRA will remove your license to practice.
Take 18 attempts to kill a bullock in an abbatoir, and the RSPCA will be asking questions. And DEFRA will remove your license to practice.
bullocks in an abattoir are held in a crush and stunned before killing, bit different to them running around in the street don’t you think? or are you such an expert in animal shooting that you think it’s like something off a western, point gun any old how, pull trigger and animal helpfully falls dead?
“are you such an expert in animal shooting that you think it’s like something off a western, point gun any old how, pull trigger and animal helpfully falls dead?”
Well, it seems that that that’s not too dissimilar than the ‘highly trained experts’, is it? If you puill the trigger 18 times, that is….
If they can’t make a humane kill, then perhaps they shouldn’t be doing the job?
Well, it seems that that that’s not too dissimilar than the ‘highly trained experts’, is it? If you puill the trigger 18 times, that is….
is that supposed to be ‘pull’ the trigger, never heard of a puill before
If they can’t make a humane kill, then perhaps they shouldn’t be doing the job?
the bit about a moving target went straight over your head didn’t it
“Surely the rule of law states that it doesn’t matter what you believe or think. It only matters what you can prove.”
So why do defence lawyers not have to PROVE the tripe that they spout? That their client is a changed man etc?
Bollocks, I’m starting to sound like a Daily Heil reader…..
“never heard of a puill before”
It’s a typo – I guess you have a magic keyboard yourself?
“the bit about a moving target went straight over your head didn’t it”
No, it didn’t. If thats the reason they took so many shots to do the job, that’s actually worse. They should have waited until they could make a safe and lethal shot at a stationary or near-stationary animal, for both humane and safety reasons – ask anyone who hunts game.
[...] Only 24 hours to crack the case [...]
[...] Only 24 hours to crack the case [...]
JuliaM
yes I have a magic keyboard, it’s called using a spell checker and stationary or near stationary animals can decide to move whenever they want.(one of the anyone’s who have hunted game)
Julia.
As someone who used to be a very good shot when i was a boy, believe me when i say even if they were trained to better than Olympic standard you cannot hit the “peach” (named because it is a small peach sized area in the average human head that gives a near-instant kill – irreversible and widely considered to be painless) against a moving, ducking, covering target at range that appears with no notice and then dissapears again. Shooting any other part of the human body unless it is with a rifle of the anti-material calibre (0.50 cal or better) does not given an “instant kill” (let alone with the low calibre ammunition we use). Even if you hit the heart it will still take a minute or two for the person to die.
So we’ve just established your “human kill” idea is at best incredibly difficult if not impossible under the circumstances.
Also lets be honest here – you have an axe to grind with the police (since you disagree with even balanced opinions on any of the blogs you post on) and you’re doing so in the face of many, many reasoned and above all INFORMED opinions.
And no i’m not a copper nor have i ever been one. Difference is i have friends who are coppers and therefore am willing to listen to other’s opinions and decide if i agree or not, rather than having a pre-formed and immovable opinion when i enter a discussion (at which point it’s no longer a true discussion).
Is it just me, or have the comments just got a bit silly? Is it the Merkin gun lobby or the BNP that first tried to hijack the debate?
“So we’ve just established your “human kill” idea…”
Whoops! Freudian slip, Binary Surfer…?
As to your other point: “a moving, ducking, covering target at range that appears with no notice and then dissapears again. Shooting any other part of the human body…”
We were talking about bullocks. They don’t duck and cover, as a rule.
“Also lets be honest here – you have an axe to grind with the police…”
Yup, that’s why, on my blog, I’ve recommended this post as ‘Post of the Month’ and thereby got it picked up by other blogs. And why I have, in the past, recommended other police blog posts – this site, and another (possibly ‘Sheepdogs and Wolves’) – for the quality of their writing, or what they has to sat at that particular time. And why I initially blogged in support of the police action on the shooting of Saunders. I still think they were probably right (unless new facts come to light to make me change my opinion). But I think the family are also right to take the legal options open to them if they see fit to do so.
Yes, I highlight cases where the police have screwed up, and the culture of unthinking obedience to NuLabour’s rules and regulations that seems to exist for senior officers, and the madness of target-driven policies, as do many bloggers. That doesn’t make me ‘anti-police’.
I’m sorry the facts don’t fit your preconceptions.
hi everyone
“Shooting any other part of the human body unless it is with a rifle of the anti-material calibre (0.50 cal or better) does not given an “instant kill””
Except, of course, on Call of Duty 4 for the PlayStation.
You go all the way through school, college and university then do your law training in order to get a job getting revolting little shits off the hook. I’d rather be unemployed than defend the Barry’s of this world. Plenty of people have a shit life, plenty of them have a hundred disappointments every day, that doesn’t give them the right to take away a life and our crappy judicial system really needs to get this through it’s overpaid skull. People like Barry are a relentlessly depressing indication of society at the moment and something really needs to be done. People blame the police and it really isn’t their fault, they catch the bastards then the judiciary let them go. What a judge should be asking themself is “What sentence would I give if he’d done this to my other half?” and THEN sentence.
And as if by magic
‘Two boys who killed a partially-sighted man by kicking and stamping on him at a tram stop in Sheffield have been jailed for four years each for manslaughter’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7618051.stm
I am sorry, be he died as a direct consequence of the beating he got. If they had not attacked him, he would be alive today. How can they possibly not be murderers?
Browning 9mm, not easy to fire, unless you take your time. 7.62 SLR, accurate to 600 meters, and so satisfying to see the targets fall down. SA80, or whatever they are calling it this year, with Iron sights, should get a 20 round grouping of about 15mm, with the optical sights probably better. Stirling 9mm…Clean a street, room, or pick out individual targets, allegedly. I couldn’t hit a barn door with one.
If possible, read the Sun today,[16/9] centre pages, written by a mother totally exasperated by the system re her pond life son. Very sad.
xxx MOP on September 11, 2008 said:
Actually the crims may be armed, but most of their guns are converted replicas – xxx
Wrong.
If these guns were “converted replicas” they would be no problem, because they would blow the face off the one trying to use them. (GREAT stuff. Removes them from the gene pool. you just have to make sure they get the guns before they have a chance to breed.)
What you MEAN is REACTIVATED deactivated guns. Which are REAL, but are put “out of action”, but with a good engineer, can be made like new again.
(UNLESS replica makers have started to have their metal, and the finished product proofed since I was last in Britain.)
Von Brandenburg-Preussen.
xxx MOP on September 11, 2008 said:
(I learnt to shoot in the school Cadet force, .) xxx
Oh well. I guess that makes you the site expert then.
Wow, an ARMY cadet. Gee. I wish I were big and brave enough.
Von Brandenburg-Preussen.
(Marinesicherungstruppe (German Navy Military police) firearms instructor, Small arms and small arms munitions technician, range safety officer (N.C.O), Marksman 1st class on pistol, rifle, light and heavy machine guns).
@Ragnar
I actually bother to do a bit of research before mouthing off. Let me quote from a Home Office research report -
“The fact that many used guns are kept in circulation serves to underpin the supply side of the
market, as do the legal sale and illegal conversion of imitation and (to a lesser extent)
deactivated firearms, illegal importation of prohibited weapons, ongoing leakage from
legal sources such as shotguns and shotgun ammunition,”
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hors298.pdf
I believe that the imitation firearms dont always blow up with the first shot, although one would be foolish to use one – I’d guess that the home made bullets help to reduce stress on the gun. Also post 1995 deactivated guns are almost certain to be impossible to reactivate (the degree of deactivation is severe enough). Am somewhat surprised actually by the proportion of “real” handguns in use though.
I never claimed to be an expert. But the amount of training I got is about as much as any criminal is likely to get in the UK (or more), so being unable to hit the side of a barn door with a handgun is probably a fair reflection of the standard for a crim. I’d guess that their marksmanship is made worse by stuff like this – the converted MAC 10s that were in the news appear to have smooth barrels (no rifling, which is what makes a bullet go straight).
You do seem to go berserk a lot. I qualified as a 1st class marksman with .303 Lee-Enfield, the SLR and on a .22 rifle, but I dont claim to be as “expert” as someone who shoots a lot and has proper training, sheesh.
xxxMOP on September 21, 2008 said:
illegal conversion of imitation deactivated firearms,xxx
Aye laddie. I have read it. And I do not believe them. There is NO evidence, except annacdotal, within the doccument, (and this from a “Government” that have at times suggested banning kiddys bow and arrows as dangerous weapons!)
They obviously have an axe to grind in the discussion, in that they have been pushing for the ban of imitation firearms for years.
Every little helps, even if it IS only anaccdotal.
IF the amount of firearms in use were converted immitations, as they say, we would be attending the hospital every two or three days to pick up the remains, and their would be a LOT of one handed, one eyed crims out there.
UNLESS, As I said, they are making imitation guns out of proper Gun steel these days, which I doubt, as most are made in China, and even the REAL Chinese guns are only good for about 10,000 shots.
xxxI qualified as a 1st class marksman with .303 Lee-Enfield, the SLRxxx
We have to do that five times per month, therefore, once + per week, to keep our Qalification. (Had the equivalent RAF on Lee Enfields at 14 years old with the A.T.C. Was also on the 1977 A.T.C N.W. Wing Bisley team).
Von Brandenburg.Preussen.
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