Taxi driver Derrick Bird’s shotgun slaughter in the UK’s Lake District continues to put the pedal-to-the-metal re: the island nation’s efforts to strengthen its Draconian gun laws. Although Prime Minister David Cameron warned his electorate not to “jump to conclusions” about what must be done, the country’s punditocracy has eschewed any discussion of liberalizing gun laws for self-protection in favor of gun-demonization-as-usual. Oh sure, the idea that someone with a gun could have stopped Bird’s murderous rampage gets a look-in, but it’s dismissed as quickly and casually as an Eton fag. After, it’s an American concept. (Armed self-defense, not ritualistically bullying.) Ian Bell writing in heraldscotland.com . . .
The death toll from firearms in the United States, today as in 1996, destroys that fantasy [of an armed citizen stopping a spree killer]. In America now the argument is over the right to bear and display personal weapons in bars, restaurants, even classrooms. A constituency in the land of gun porn even maintains that ‘taking away our guns’ is part of the socialist-Muslim design of the Hitlerite (any enemy will do) Obama. They are ready for that threat, locked and loaded, mad – oh, yes – as hell.
Yes, we are all loony tunes (look it up Ian). Just in case the “we aren’t America and America is bad” meme doesn’t have enough publicity oxygen to huff, the dead killer himself left a big ass tank of the stuff. The mirror.co.uk tells the tale:
Derrick Bird taunted a teacher with the words “have a nice day” – then shot her in the face.
Samantha Christie was taking a photograph and was only spared death because her camera took most of the impact.
Samantha and boyfriend Craig, in their 20s, were camping in the Lake District when Bird drew up alongside them in the village of Boot and shot her in the mouth at point-blank range.
Fisherground Campsite owner Mick Parkin, 49, said: “The only thing Samantha remembers is Bird saying ‘have a nice day’ as he shot her in the mouth. It was just like something out of the film The Terminator.”
