I watched so many hours of French Open quarter final tennis yesterday afternoon and evening that it was late before I switched on the news. When I heard that some middle-aged taxi-driver had taken a hunting rifle and gone on a three-hour shooting spree through the villages of west Cumbria, in the north of England, like most people, I was shocked. This kind of mass murder happens very rarely in the UK, (Hungerford 1987 and Dunblane 1996) because of strict gun laws but when it does happen you have to ask yourself, why and what on earth was this guy thinking?
Derrick Bird, aged 52, described as a quiet, unassuming man, a ‘local lad’, shot and killed 12 people, including his twin brother, the family solicitor, colleagues and strangers. He injured 11 others and then killed himself. In trying to make sense of it, it has been said that there was a family row over a will. He had also held gun licences for 20 years. It still does not make any sense. One psychologist said this type of behaviour is fuelled by anger, paranoia and low self-esteem. His anger against the world must have been simmering for years and something pushed him over the edge. If he hadn’t had a gun to hand perhaps this could have been avoided.
Criminology professor, David Wilson, said on Sky News that while small face-to-face communities, such as the one where Derrick Bird lived, are often the best places to live, they are also the very places where discontents simmer beneath the surface. But what could have motivated this kind of behaviour? Usually banal issues or very normal emotions like jealousy or anger. So I think what he is saying is that normal people are capable of appalling behaviour when pushed over the edge. Living in a small tight-knit community is possibly likely to push you over the edge because there is no escape, except into a terrifying fantasy world of violence and power involving guns. And if in that small close-knit community, the person who falls over the edge without anyone noticing has access to a gun, the consequences are potentially catastrophic.
I always knew I was right about living in a big city; it is safer. Apart from the fact that there is always an awful lot more to do, the nut jobs are a lot easier to identify and avoid. Just don’t sit next to them on the bus. Of course you might never know who your neighbours are but at least you don’t have to talk to them. This means you are less likely to upset them and create dangerous levels of simmering discontent. Given the smallness of the community in Cyprus, I really think somebody should rethink the gun laws. What about all those hunters going around killing small animals and all those ex-national guardsmen forced to keep a gun in the house, just in case…..
