Shooting incident in Plymouth

[Agriv8]

14 minutes ago, Zapp said:

Police firearms departments are overstretched and subject to a lot of bureaucracy.  FEOs, who dont get paid a great deal, have to manage big caseloads and take risk based decisions all the time.  Sadly its inevitable that they arent always going to get it right.

People will slip through the net unless it is fixed, and in my opinion this rather than our gun laws is where the problem lies.  Off the top of my head I can think of two very serious child sex offenders who were members of this forum and who had guns.  I've personally been threatened, stalked and harassed by people who were on PW.   

Zapp that’s truly worrying! On both aspects of that post !
 

maybe a simple reporting mechanism to feo would help ?

Mr Cameron as PM personally stopped our FA license fees rising - I am not sure our current PM will resist as much 

Agriv8

[MARSH GUN]

2 minutes ago, toontastic said:

The question of his suitability to own guns has been questioned due to the fact he didn't post about game/clay shooting. Is this now part of the criteria for having a licence that you must go on social media and talk about it. 

Perhaps not , but i think hitherto we can be reasonable certain what any licensed gun owner posts on the WWW will be monitored at some level.

[toontastic]

The fact is he is being judged on what we now know about him. If we knew the facts of his state of mind at the time of issue we may have different conclusions. 

[Walker570]

Good early report in the Telegraph this morning and a warning not to go spreading maybe this and maybe that. Let the official investigation go ahead and then have the full report.  The media of course will love it.

With regard to suitability of the license holder ...Hungerford, Dunblane etc etc where the police where warned about the person but still issued.

[bottletopbill]

All shooting organisations should be email the Home Secretary about this incident and work together with shooters to try and explain we are deeply upset about these wasted lives.

And why was he allowed a shotgun  surely some one must have had some concerns about his comments and links.  

Sorry to the Families of those who have lost there lives.

[Flyboy1950]

Seems like the shooters mother tried to get him mental health services but they were to stretched to help. So very sad all round. No organisations are going to come out of this smelling of roses.

FB

[Lord v]

32 minutes ago, shotmaker said:

Viewing his social media and YouTube it struck me that the only shooting related things he posted were video game footage, absolutely nothing at all to do with clay/game and nothing to suggest he owned a shotgun himself, but he's clearly very interested in guns based on the types of accounts he's following and commenting on, on YouTube. 

 

Other than the video game footage you could say exactly the same about me. I never post about my guns or going shooting on social media obviously attached to my real name (which are never public anyway). Other than my being in a couple of shooting/gun manufacturer groups on FB and Instagram there is nothing to suggest I may own a gun or shoot myself. My membership of non shooting related forums online far outstrips my membership to shooting related activities.   

I think it's safe to say the perpetrator had some significant issues that would suggest his ownership should have been in question. His lack of posting about shooting is so far down that list so as to be non existent.   

[shotmaker]

6 minutes ago, toontastic said:

The question of his suitability to own guns has been questioned due to the fact he didn't post about game/clay shooting. Is this now part of the criteria for having a licence that you must go on social media and talk about it. 

No, you've misunderstood. I never, at any point suggested that he was unsuitable to own guns because he didn't post about shooting on social media. I also never suggested that one should have to post on social media about owning guns in order to be granted a certificate. I actually believe that less is more, when it comes to posting on social media. 

I questioned his suitability to own guns based only on the content of the videos he posted. (He discusses, in great detail, his mental health issues and some deeply personal problems that he's struggled with since he was a teenager, and how they continue to affect him (up until last month) in his adult life. How he struggles to belong in society etc - I've sat and watched a couple of hours worth of footage he's posted and it's frankly disturbing. A cry for help perhaps. (I suspect that perhaps you didn't see the videos I'm referring to, of course I could be wrong)

The point I was making about THIS ONE INDIVIDUAL whom we are discussing in this thread, was that I found it strange that HE had not posted anything at all on his YouTube about shotgun shooting, given the level of detail he goes in to about his life in the videos. I said how it struck me as strange that despite posting several videos of himself playing shooting video games, on an account on which he referred to himself as a shooting enthusiast, that he didn't post footage of himself shooting in real life. It was just an observation. 

I didn't mention shotgun certificate holders in general, or what they should or shouldn't post on social media in order to be granted a shotgun certificate. I was commenting about this one individual, his social media content and some questions it raised. 

[den5008]

5 hours ago, cookoff013 said:

+1.

+2

[12gauge82]

This is a tragic event that is hard to comprehend, like I'm sure everyone on here, my heart genuinely goes out to anyone affected. 

The problem with the licensing side of things is while people can legally hold firearms, no matter how good the licensing process is, there will always be mistakes, loopholes, or people that have never raised any flags or have become mentally ill who will do something like this, that's not the shooting communitys fault, or the polices fault either. Like anything in life, everything has a risk attached and while licence holders can own guns, unfortunately there's always going to be a small chance of a shooting occurring. 

[Dave-G]

I guess this might go down like a lead balloon to some members - but I've always wondered about the wisdom of only requiring one referee for shotguns when we need two for rifles. A second referee requirement could make a difference - and its one I would easily accept.

 

Both are very deadly purposeful weapons to an unstable person in a certain frame of mind.

[old'un]

54 minutes ago, shotmaker said:

I questioned his suitability to own guns based only on the content of the videos he posted. (He discusses, in great detail, his mental health issues and some deeply personal problems that he's struggled with since he was a teenager, and how they continue to affect him (up until last month) in his adult life. How he struggles to belong in society etc - I've sat and watched a couple of hours worth of footage he's posted and it's frankly disturbing. A cry for help perhaps. (I suspect that perhaps you didn't see the videos I'm referring to, of course I could be wrong)

 

One of his videos I watched was “Missing out on teenage love and experiences and people who say its not a big deal” although he did not see himself as “Incel” he subscribed to their channel and ideology which is disturbing in its self, Incels often blame the ills of society for their plight, and find themselves angry at the world and women in particular for the lack of interest from the opposite sex, despite their best efforts.

The frighting thing is, there are over 17k followers of the incel (involuntarily celibate) ideology.

[oowee]

3 minutes ago, Dave-G said:

I guess this might go down like a lead balloon to some members - but I've always wondered about the wisdom of only requiring one referee for shotguns when we need two for rifles. A second referee requirement could make a difference - and its one I would easily accept.

 

Both are very deadly purposeful weapons to an unstable person in a certain frame of mind.

I wonder about the wisdom of the whole bureaucratic paper driven process full stop. Two sig's 5 sig's what the difference. It's all buzcocks.

[Walker570]

40 minutes ago, old'un said:

One of his videos I watched was “Missing out on teenage love and experiences and people who say its not a big deal” although he did not see himself as “Incel” he subscribed to their channel and ideology which is disturbing in its self, Incels often blame the ills of society for their plight, and find themselves angry at the world and women in particular for the lack of interest from the opposite sex, despite their best efforts.

The frighting thing is, there are over 17k followers of the incel (involuntarily celibate) ideology.

Yep watched that video too but didn't need to listen to the verbals just the pictures an animation on his face would have had been making a non referral on an application when I was in the job.  I cannot believe the shotgun was legally held. We shall see in the final report.

[clangerman]

tickets are irrelevant when it comes to mental illness if you don’t own a firearm you use a knife had this moron used one quietly at night he could have produced a lot more victims but why let the truth get in the way of covering up police failures 

[12gauge82]

11 minutes ago, clangerman said:

tickets are irrelevant when it comes to mental illness if you don’t own a firearm you use a knife had this moron used one quietly at night he could have produced a lot more victims but why let the truth get in the way of covering up police failures 

There might well be police failings in this case, there again, there might not. The problem is, if you can be licensed to own a gun, there's always the possibility of incidents like this occurring, to simply blame the police is to my mind a bit too black and white and it could even be flat wrong. And if we go down the road of a black and white approach, the easiest way to 100% guarantee no licence holder can do something like this again, is to outright ban civilian ownership of guns. 

[clangerman]

Just now, 12gauge82 said:

There might well be police failings in this case, there again, there might not. The problem is, if you can be licensed to own a gun, there's always the possibility of incidents like this occurring, to simply blame the police is to my mind a bit too black and white and it could even be flat wrong. And if we go down the road of a black and white approach, the easiest way to 100% guarantee no licence holder can do something like this again, is to outright ban civilian ownership of guns. 

it’s a fair bet we will shortly be in the position if your not using firearms at least weekly you won’t be owning any after that will come a total ban at least the police will be out of scapegoats then it’s their job and others to have spotted he’s a danger they all failed simple as 

[JohnfromUK]

Just now, 12gauge82 said:

There might well be police failings in this case, there again, there might not.

This /\.

We need to await the outcomes of the various enquiries, coroners findings, investigations that will inevitably happen.

It is FAR too early to be making judgements.  Now is the time for grieving for the victims and respecting the privacy of the local people who will have been affected and traumatised.

[Mungler]

2 hours ago, Zapp said:

Police firearms departments are overstretched and subject to a lot of bureaucracy.  FEOs, who dont get paid a great deal, have to manage big caseloads and take risk based decisions all the time.  Sadly its inevitable that they arent always going to get it right.

People will slip through the net unless it is fixed, and in my opinion this rather than our gun laws is where the problem lies.  Off the top of my head I can think of two very serious child sex offenders who were members of this forum and who had guns.  I've personally been threatened, stalked and harassed by people who were on PW.   

And then you have your run of the mill ‘odd balls’ on here who post about things they claim to own (and in particular cars) but which they do not. Then there’s those who pretend to be people they’re not. Since you mention it there’s some really strange people on here and who are attracted to shooting.

Tragic as these (rare) incidents are, it’s a numbers game - 2000 people die on the roads each year (and substantially more suffer life changing injuries) and whilst perpetrated by driving licence holders, we won’t consider banning cars for one moment. However, death by lawfully held forearm is politician capital and in fairness I fully understand the loved ones of those who have died demanding all firearms be banned in the same way pistols were.

[old man]

1 hour ago, 12gauge82 said:

This is a tragic event that is hard to comprehend, like I'm sure everyone on here, my heart genuinely goes out to anyone affected. 

The problem with the licensing side of things is while people can legally hold firearms, no matter how good the licensing process is, there will always be mistakes, loopholes, or people that have never raised any flags or have become mentally ill who will do something like this, that's not the shooting communitys fault, or the polices fault either. Like anything in life, everything has a risk attached and while licence holders can own guns, unfortunately there's always going to be a small chance of a shooting occurring. 

My own thoughts too.

[Gordon R]

Quote

With regard to suitability of the license holder ...Hungerford, Dunblane etc etc where the police where warned about the person but still issued.

According to the press, the NHS and Police were warned about him.

[old man]

1 hour ago, Dave-G said:

I guess this might go down like a lead balloon to some members - but I've always wondered about the wisdom of only requiring one referee for shotguns when we need two for rifles. A second referee requirement could make a difference - and its one I would easily accept.

 

Both are very deadly purposeful weapons to an unstable person in a certain frame of mind.

Nope, they are just guns. The term weapon is derived from the intent to inflict harm or damage, that could be applied to a piece of wood?

Edited August 13, 2021 by old man
spelling

[TRINITY]

Plenty of people been killed by vehicles being deliberately driven into them. So do we ban cars. 

Gun owners are easy people to target (no pun) in order to score cheap political points. 

 

[toontastic]

9 minutes ago, TRINITY said:

Plenty of people been killed by vehicles being deliberately driven into them. So do we ban cars. 

Gun owners are easy people to target (no pun) in order to score cheap political points. 

 

I bet if you asked some environmental activists they would say yes

[henry d]

I originally posted this thread after my BIL got several text messages, as he lives nearby but is visiting us, and waited a while for the first few reports.

The area is well known for dealing and using, mostly weed, and I wonder if there may be something that comes out of this terrible event also linking weed? No matter what, it's a terrible event.