Shootings in the North West of England, several dead

[Dasquian Belargic]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/10214661.stm

This is so terrible and unexpected. My father lives in Cumbria.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Wow, that is startling. :(

[Yog]

That is really terrible.

[Droo]

I was following this story earlier today but there wasn't much to say due to authorities being so tight-lipped with the details. And now the facts are coming out: twelve dead, eleven injured, and one suicide. Horrific. And as yet, it seems, no reason for this other than the fact he was a madman.

[Rutabaga]

Such an incident is, unfortunately, almost par for the course here in the US. But to hear that it's happened in England...that is basically unprecedented. From what I was reading, this was the first incident of its kind since that madman went into the school in Dunblane, Scotland, and killed so many children.

My hearts breaks for everyone touched by this terrible tragedy, it truly does. :cry

[Lilaena De'Ville]

We're also a lot bigger than the UK so, technically yes, we have more madmen here. The ratio of madmen to sane people is probably similar.

[Taataani Meorrrei]

We're also a lot bigger than the UK so, technically yes, we have more madmen here. The ratio of madmen to sane people is probably similar.

Not that it has any bearing but that's not true. Our violent crime ratios, while they've been dropping for years, are still higher than the UK's, though they've generally been rising for the past few years. The gap is shrinking, but there's never really been any contest.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Oh, well, then ignore me. I said 'probably'. :(

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Nah that's actually pertinent. Was just listening to an NPR podcast about the discrepencies between perceptions and reality vis a vis national crime. I think the notion was that there's been a crime downtrend across the board in the US of 5% that cannot be trended away, and yet 75% of people asked consider crime to be increasing here.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I would guess that the fact that we don't have such a ready access to guns would have an impact on the number of gun related crimes here. I don't know what the official per person crime statistics are so that is just me thinking more guns = more gun related crimes. Still, Nottingham is renowned for its high gun-crime levels, and Glasgow routinely seems to get talked about as knife-crime/murder capital of Europe so *shrugs*

Shooting sprees like this are just rare, and it was especially shocking for me to hear that it was so close to home.

[Dasquian Belargic]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10500959.stm

Welp, now there is some armed madman in Newcastle.