10th March 1998
Taken from a posting by myself on 'argonet.zfc'.
The thread is about an armed robber shot by police, in his own home.
Apparently he was drunk, not quite with-it and running around with a replica
gun which it appears he pointed at the police...
...big mistake!
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I feel some sympathy for the guy, but not much.
My sympathy is for the police. They saw what could have been a very nasty situation (the guy was acting irrationally - drunk) and he was waving a weapon around (which may or may not have been real). It wouldn't take much, if it was a real psycho with a real weapon, to open his front door and start shooting into other people's houses. So the police take action to take the guy down. Maybe they intended to only shoot his arm, not him, but the shot was made and the guy was stopped.
Then they find out it was some drunk guy with a replica and people feel
sorry for him.
If I drank way too much cherry brandy and ran around Bridgwater with an M-16
replica, I'd hope to hell that the police would consider and possibly even
implement a bullet in my head.
After the various gun problems, brought to a head by the incident in Dunblane, and then again in Australia; I fully support harsh, swift and decisive action against ANYBODY using a weapon (real or otherwise) in a dangerous way (in public or at home).
Me? I own a GAT and whilst I would use it outside in my own land, I would
not use it in a public place. Anybody who knows guns should recognise a GAT.
I certainly wouldn't run around ANYWHERE with anything more seriously
gun-shaped unless I was acting in a movie.
People with guns are DANGEROUS and should be treated as such.