UK Soldier Shot Colleague and Self

[Pert_UK]

"A drunk soldier on peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan blasted a colleague with bullets as he shouted "Do you think you're hard now?" before turning the gun on himself, an inquest has heard.

In August last year, Corporal John Gregory, 30, from Catterick, North Yorkshire, fired up to 10 bullets at Sergeant Robert Busuttil, also 30, from Sketty in Swansea, as he relaxed in a hammock at his military base at Kabul airport...

"Gregory struck Busuttil, Busuttil retaliated by striking Gregory several times to the head.

"They then made up and shook hands, but Gregory left the recreation area, coming back 40 minutes later with an SA80 rifle. "

Full article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3110422.stm

This is a tragedy. But here's the thing........If you can't trust trained, professional soldiers not to reach for and misuse a gun after an argument and a few beers, what makes you think you can trust your neighbour or any other member of the population?

This is one of the key objections to allowing the population to keep firearms, IMHO. No matter how responsible most owners are, it only takes a minority to lose the plot and tragedies like this follow.

OK, yes, I know, there are other weapons available - he could have reached for a knife, for example. But with a knife, there would have been a better chance for the victim to defend himself, or for bystanders to become quickly involved. No chance with a gun.

Just my thoughts........I know that the RKBA crowd are all very comfortable with their own gun ownership, but I'd be interested to know how they feel about other people owning guns.

[Man_in_the_Moon]

1. wow

Nice of you to blame the gun.

The GUN made him do it alright.

IT couldnt have been the fact that his brain was addled with alcohol and stress now could it?

Naaa

It just has gotta be the gun...

[Pert_UK]

2. And the Oscar for ignoring the content of someone's post goes to....

(Drumroll).............."Man_in_the_Moon!!!!"

"How did you do it, Man_in_the_Moon?"

"Well, I mainly ignored what the person had written and just posted something about blaming guns....."

I never blamed the gun.I never blamed the gun.I never blamed the gun.I never blamed the gun.I never blamed the gun.I never blamed the gun.

Moreover, I pointed out that another weapon could have been used, i.e. a knife.

To the best of my knowledge I have never blamed a gun for anything.

What I did say was:

1. if you can't trust a soldier to behave responsibly with a gun, then how come you trust your neighbours to behave responsibly?

2. if a different weapon had been used, rather than a gun, then there would have been less chance of it ending in 2 unnecessary deaths. i.e. the guy might well have attacked his colleague anyway (in fact, this seems more than likely), but if he'd attacked him with a knife, axe, sword, brick etc. then IMHO it is more likely that the victim might have defended himself, or other people would have been able to intervene before 2 deaths occurred.

I asked a civil and sensible question of gun-owners, out of genuine curiousity, and used an example to illustrate my point. My own inclination is that I could possibly just about trust myself with a gun, but I wouldn't want all my neighbours to have one because I don't trust them as much as I trust myself. Therefore, I'm happy that in the UK NOBODY has access.

I know that gun owners are confident in their own responsibility, but I'm curious to know how they feel about their neighbours owning guns.

Actually, I don't know why I'm even bothering to defend myself against such utter rubbish, but I'm bored....

[Spentastic]

7. Blimey Pert

Typical. Blame the bloody gun! If people start blaming beer and stress then I'm certainly a potential murderer.

[acerbic]

3. Now that could be submitted to the Guinness Book of Records

...in category "Reading Comprehension". :-)

Nice of you to blame the gun.
The GUN made him do it alright.

Yup, it only said

"OK, yes, I know, there are other weapons available - he could have reached for a knife, for example. But with a knife, there would have been a better chance for the victim to defend himself, or for bystanders to become quickly involved. No chance with a gun."

Apparently not clear enough for you. :eyes:

[Pert_UK]

4. Thank you......I thought I'd lost my mind just for a minute there!

:toast:

P.

[acerbic]

5. Oscar, Guinness, Nobel Prize, whatever...

...but it certainly deserves some extra recognition. :-)

[Pert_UK]

6. The extra amusing thing was....

the reason suggested for the soldier's actions:

"IT couldnt have been the fact that his brain was addled with alcohol and stress now could it?"

I agree - these probably ARE the reasons he flipped out. These are also things that many people face each and every day.

Now, Man_in_the_Moon.......please give me 3 good reasons why anybody subject to the pressures of alcohol and stress should have their access to firearms restricted solely by their self-control?

Fairly difficult to answer if you've already conceded that alcohol and stress can drive even a well-trained professional to murder.....

:-)

P.

[Ergotron]

8. I'm comfortable with you owning a gun...

provided you are properly trained in it's use. It was not this soldiers training that comes into question, it's his use of alcohol and lack of personal responsibility.

[Dead_Parrot]

16. If it comes to a choice...

...between having a gun or having a beer, I'll be in the pub...

"Beers don't make people drunk,
People make people drunk." -- me. :silly:

[Pert_UK]

18. But that's more or less my point..........

No matter how many rules and regulations you put around the use of guns, and no matter how much training someone has, you are still giving them access to a tool that is uniquely good at killing large numbers of people.

It just seems to me that whenever someone reaches for a gun in a moment of madness, the pro-RKBA crowd point to a bunch of rules and say, "Well, if he'd obeyed the proper rules of gun safety this would never have happened". That's not the point. People do often ignore rules. We also have a rule about not killing other people, but when there's a gun present it just seems to make it too easy to break that rule too. It's no effort.

[RoeBear]

9. My turn to be made fun of.

People are going to do stupid shit no matter what tools are available. Do you eliminate each tool as it's misused? As you said it may have been a less tragic story if a gun hadn't been available but what if he'd just jumped in a HumVee instead? Would you instead be saying "If you can't trust trained, professional soldiers not to reach for and misuse a VEHICLE after an argument and a few beers, what makes you think you can trust your neighbour or any other member of the population?"

We give people freedoms. Sometimes those freedoms are misused. It's better to have freedoms that are misused on occaision then to not have the freedom at all. That includes freedom of speech, religion, assembly, freedom of the press and the freedoms of the 2nd amendment.

[Spentastic]

10. I just don't understand.

"That includes freedom of speech, religion, assembly, freedom of the press and the freedoms "

appear to be logically equivalent to

"freedoms of the 2nd amendment."

In some people's minds.

Is it possible to have a functioning democracy without the first bit? I'd argue it is not.

Is it possible to have a functioning democracy without the second bit? I'd argue yes.

If the two are not logically equivalent then why are they to be treated in the same way?

[MrBenchley]

11. And never mind that the

"freedom of the second amendment" is the freedom of Americans, as a collective people, to bear arms in a milita to defend our collective freedom...

But, hey, this British soldier shot another even though Britain has gun laws....maybe we SHOULD repeal all gun laws, get rid of background checks, and let every loony we can find tote concealed weapons............not.

[Ergotron]

13. The loonies are already toting concealed weapons...illegally.

That's why we have the crime problem in our inner cities. Remember, there are very few firearms carried legally on the streets of D.C., Chicago, and New York yet crimes committed with guns is an all to frequent occurence.

The loonies don't worry about silly little things like training, background checks, and laws.

[MrBenchley]

14. And more guns makes the problem worse

"yet crimes committed with guns is an all to frequent occurence."
Still, everytime there is a common sense proposal to keep guns out of criminal hands all we hear from the RKBA crowd are howls of rage and furious reams of hooey. Not to mention the idiotic proposal to put assault rifles back on the street.

"The loonies don't worry about silly little things like training, background checks, and laws."
We can tell...just look at what they did in Missouri.

[Ergotron]

12. We do not live in a Democracy.

We live in a Representative Republic. The citizens don't make, and rarely get a vote on, the laws created in Washington. We elect people who we believe most nearly represent our views to make laws on our behalf. The Second Amendment was written at a time when there was a great distrust of standing armies in peacetime and the framers felt it important to give the citizens a means to defend themselves against tyranny.

Example: Waco. Regardless of who's side of the story you believe the people on the inside of the compound believed they were defending themselves against tyranny and oppression. Were they wrong? Not my place to say, but I can say that the government has made some major changes in how it handles situations such as this.

[MrBenchley]

15. Example: Waco?

Ho kay........

"Were they wrong? Not my place to say"
Gee, you mean you think there's a chance Koresh WAS the Messiah?

[Pert_UK]

19. I'm not going to make fun of anybody who doesn't deserve it.

You make good points here......I only go for sarcasm when somebody deserves it (in the above case when somebody ranted about something that I had specifically and deliberately not said).

I was expecting someone to bring this argument up, i.e. guns can be misused, so can something else (e.g. cars), so why isn't Pert arguing that cars be banned for the sake of consistency.

To be honest, it's a difficult point to address comprehensively. However, my view is that:

- cars are essential, guns are not (I'm expecting some comeback on this). If cars disappeared from public hands then people couldn't get to the shops, couldn't get to work, couldn't get to hospital etc. If guns disappeared then I struggle to see a genuine, similar problem that would ensue
- a car is designed to get you from A to B. A gun is designed (generally) to kill. Yes, yes, yes, I know all about target shooting but at the end of the day a gun is designed as a weapon, and manufacturers do construct them with the primary aim of being able to offer maximum killing potential
- generally speaking (although there are a few cases) people don't reach for the car and use it as a weapon in a moment of anger/madness/drunken stupidity. If they do, odds are that they might kill themselves and maybe one or two other people, who would need to be outside, and who would have a chance to see the car coming and escape. Someone reaching for a gun has a far more practical, efficient means of killing a large number of people with little chance of them escaping.

Actually, there are some other arguments around this, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Regarding the 2nd amendment, I'd go along with Spentastic's views......freedom to own a gun (as I've said before) does not sit comfortably within that list of other freedoms, and in addition this freedom relies on a very specific interpretation of the 2nd amendment.

[jody]

21. But Pert_UK, a reply in another thread started by CO_Liberal

gave a link to an article about an auto being used for suicide and attempted murder.

Your statement that "cars are essential, guns are not" et al is an assertion that ignores the fact that both tools are used to commit suicide and murder.

You mentioned in another reply something about government allowing citizens to keep arms. Perhaps that is the view from the UK, but in the US, our government does not allow us our basic rights including the right to defend self and state. The role of government is to protect our inalienable or natural or inherient rights, it is not the source of such rights.

[1a2b3c]

23. guns are just as much essential as a car.

[Pert_UK]

24. Mate, you have GOT to explain that to me......

Because I CANNOT even begin to understand where you're coming from.......

P.

[1a2b3c]

25. You called me mate

Thats a first for me.

Anyway a gun is just as essential as a car. Take it however you want. Maybe they are both essential, maybe neither one is. You can live without both but both are usefull tools.

I hate to use my paranoid rhetoric again but think of it this way. The way the world is moving now there doesnt seem to be a need for guns and there is a big need for cars. We are industrialized and computerized. Lets say something happens to change that, like say a poweroutage that last years. Then which would be more important, a car or a gun?

They both have their uses and neither one is more essential than the other.

[jody]

17. Pert, it is dangerous to make policy based on a special case. One could

take an instance of someone using an automobile to murder a victim and propose that automobiles be banned.

Central to the RKBA argument is the "rights of an individual" versus "any perceived danger to society". As long as society's agent, i.e. government, is not obligated to protect an individual, then an individal has the right to defend self.

Our current US government is sufficient evidence for me that government can not be trusted.

[Pert_UK]

20. I wasn't really doing that.....

I was using an example to illustrate my point, i.e. if a soldier can't be trusted not to misuse his gun then how comfortable do you feel about your neighbour owning one.

And I agree that under the rulership of King George it's not surprising that you're not keen to give up the means to defend yourself.....but if the government really did want to take your gun away, do you think you'd be able to stop them?

P.

[jody]

22. Stop them? Absolutely but I hope it doesn't come to that. I am confident

that a significant number of active military and reserve/national guard troops would refuse to obey an order to attack and disarm US citizens. In fact, the overwhelming majority of military troops support an individual's RKBA.

On the other hand, if our population ever becomes essentially disarmed, then a military takeover of our government is a probable.

I believe the US has the oldest continuous government of any country in the world. It's worth defending because it's an experiment to see if all races, creeds, etc. can live in relative harmony.

[hansberrym]

26. In fact it brightens my day

to learn that Anti-RKBA celebrities own, or have owned, firearms themselves.


Senator Feinstein come to mind. Her constant support of gun control
stands in contrast to her own concealed weapons permit a decade or so earlier. Of course, she is an important person (to herself) and she really needed a handgun for protection, so it was OK in her own case.
But one shudders to think how many lives she might have taken if she went into a blue rage with that handgun in her purse.

Seriously, I do not trust the Senator with my money or my life, but I would trust her to defend her own life if the need arises. Nor do I believe that I have a right to petion government to disarm her, as long as she remains a law abiding citizen.