The killing spree of Derrick Bird in Cumbria prompts many questions. What made an apparently ordinary man flip with such terrible consequences? Why did it take the police so long to respond in this case? Why was he in possession of firearms? And, not least, what is happening in society that makes so called ‘amok killing’ more common, not just in Britain, but worldwide?
It has been suggested that Bird may have had tax problems, and, that there may have been disputes within his family concerning a will. The details, no doubt, will soon be revealed, but it will also be most interesting to discover whether or not he was on anti-depressant drugs. In the USA at least half a dozen perpetrators of shooting sprees have been on anti-depressants – including Jeff Weise who shot 14 at Red Lake Senior High School and elsewhere in Minnesota in 2004.
One of the 1999 Columbine school killers, Eric Harris, was on medication too. He had been taking Zoloft and a similar drug, Luvox. Both are so called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). They function by increasing levels of serotonin. It has been suggested that side-effects may include “increased aggression, loss of remorse, depersonalization and mania.”
The internet and virtual violence in various forms have been associated with many amok killings. Weise was known as ‘Blades 11’ on the web and was obsessed by zombies and aliens. Harris had an AOL website upon which he made death threats (which first brought him to police attention). He also made strange videos about guns with his co-perpetrator at Columbine, Dylan Klebold. The two most recent Finnish spree killers, Matti Juhani Saari - who killed 11 at Kauhajoki vocational college in western Finland in 2009 - and Pekka-Eric Auvinen - who killed 9 in 2007 at Jokela High School - were connected with a web group that, most worryingly, exchanged information about school shootings via You Tube.
The internet appears to have played a significant role in many recent incidents, especially those involving younger perpetrators. It is also apparent that many amok killers have been interested in violent films. At the time of the Dunblane school shootings, I presented to Lord Cullen evidence that the average rental video at that time (1996) had 13 killings in it. That figure may be higher now, but it is certainly true that the body count in ‘shoot ‘em up’ films has become greater. Action films today are more intense, and more ‘hyper-real.’ We have come a long way since the Lone Ranger shot the bad guy with a silver bullet. The virtual body count can now run into hundreds.
We know that Derrick Bird watched a Steven Seagal movie On Deadly Ground before going on his journey of death. This sort of movie usually begins with something dreadful happening to the hero and/or, his friends or family. A revenge motive is established which then sanctions a killing spree by the empowered and morally unrestrained righteous avenger. Such narratives seem designed to appeal to the powerless which may make them so intoxicating to some.
Many psychologists have suggested that watching violent material though TV, gaming or cinema may be a contributing effect in perpetrator violence. As far as children are concerned, The American Psychological Association notes three effects in children. They may become desensitized to the pain of others. They may become more frightened of the world they live in. They may be more aggressive and more likely to hurt others. The APA also notes, remarkably, that by the age of 13, the average child in the States has ‘witnessed’ 8,000 murders and more than 100,000 other acts of violence.
Performers like Dustin Hoffman have gone on record to criticise Hollywood’s obsession with violence (which Hoffman linked it to the Dunblane and Tasmanian mass gun killings). The late professor Andrew Sims, former-President of the Royal College of Psychiatry, commented some twenty years ago: "There is now vast anecdotal evidence associating the portrayal of violence with violent behaviour and more than one thousand papers linking violence in the media to actual behaviour". Dr Susan Bailey, a Consultant Psychiatrist, and a researcher on homicide observed that 25% of the young murderers had been exposed to cinematic film violence shortly before they killed.
So, there is a strong case that violent visual material may be an associated, if not a causal, factor in amok killing. What else might make an apparently ordinary man like Derrick Bird become unhinged? The average person in society – and Bird appears to have been a very ordinary man – may be more alienated than the average person of, say, 50 years ago. If the average position has changed, we may export more bizarre and potentially aggressive behaviour at the fringes of society, road rage at one level, amok killing with firearms and by others means at the gravest extreme.
It is significant that recent killing sprees have not just involved firearms, but knives, swords, axes even a bus. Radicalised young moslems killed more than 50 people on the London underground using bombs made from commonly available materials. Acetone Peroxide, for example, is an effective explosive that can be made from Hydrogen Peroxide as used as a hair bleach. The Provisional IRA frequently used diesel fuel as an explosive. The point is that mass killing is quite possible without guns legally, or, illegally held.
Considering the means, however, must lead on to looking at Bird’s legally owned firearms – a 12 bore shotgun, and .22 rifle with telescopic sight and sound moderator. Both are commonly used by farmers and pest controllers. It may have been the case, as if common in the country, that Bird may have been assisting local farmers with pest control. We also know that he shot clay pigeons for sport on occasion (and that a clay pigeon shooter was one of his 12 victims). It is appropriate that the public should question the current firearms licensing system and consider its functionality.
To obtain either a shotgun or firearm certificate (required for rifles and large magazine shotgus) Bird would have gone through rigorous procedures involving one-to-one interview with a police enquiry officer and a criminal record check. He would have been asked what he wanted the guns for. He would have had to give information about his psychological health and his doctor’s name and address. He would also have to show that he had somewhere safe to store the guns. For a shotgun certificate he would have to supply one referee. For a firearm certificate, he would have to supply two referees and prove good reason for the guns requested, and, that he had somewhere safe to use them.
Once issued, certificates may be revoked if information comes to the attention of the Chief Constable that a licenses person might become a danger to public safety. Certificates are quite frequently revoked when holders become involved in domestic disputes, when they are convicted for some drink driving offences (usually a certificate is not revoked on a first offence if the holder was not greatly over the limit, but will be if he is convicted a second time. Certificates and guns may also be taken away if an individual show suicidal or paranoid tendencies. The normal duration of the certificate is 5 years (it used to be 3).
A past criminal record is not necessarily a barrier to being granted a certificate. The Chief Constable and his officers will take an individual view of each case. A minor, spent, conviction for a non-violent offence may be tolerated. This was obviously the view taken in the Bird case. Those who would suggest that a more draconian system might be introduced should be aware that a surprisingly large percentage of the UK population have a spent or current criminal conviction. The Home Office does not release figures in this subject (but an educated guess would something in the region of 20% including, extraordinarily, more than 1,000 serving police officers).
Could our gun laws be improved? They are already amongst the strictest in the world. Most of UK firearms law has been made reactively. Serious controls were first introduced in the 1920s when there was a fear of anarchism and the government was worried about firearms trained soldiers returning from the Great War. There was a particular concern about concealable semi-automatic pistols and their use by “the disaffected urban malcontent” - terrorists.
The Harry Roberts murders in London in 1966 – a triple police killing by a petty criminal and ex-soldier with anti-terrorist experience in Malaya – coincided with the abolition of hanging. His wicked deeds led directly to the firearms elements of the Criminal Justice Act 1967, later rationalised in the 1968 Firearms Act (the primary statutory instrument to this day). It brought in new legislation which gave the police responsibility for licensing shotguns (before this, you could buy a gun license at the Post Office).
The Hungerford in massacre of 1987 in which 14 died led to more legislation. It banned semi-automatic large bore rifles (i.e above .22), and brought in restrictions on the magazine capacity of repeating shotguns held on normal certificates. Michael Ryan, said to be a Rambo fan, had used a Chinese Type 56 semi-automatic assault rifle, visually and mechanically similar an AK47, an M1 Carbine – a compact .30 calibre American military rifle, and a Beretta 92 semi-automatic 9mm pistol).
Thomas Hamilton’s dreadful attack at Dunblane Primary school killed 16 children plus 1 adult and led to the banning of both centre fire and .22 rimfire handguns. It led to the extraordinary situation where the British Olympic pistol team had to go to Switzerland to train. It did not abolish handgun crime, however. Both handgun crime and handgun homicide rose signficantly after Dunblane. The figures have fallen back a bit since, nevertheless, last year, there were approximately 4,200 handgun crimes far more than in the mid 1990s. The legislation failed in its primary intention. You can’t legislate for lunacy and most criminal do not apply for gun licenses. The vast majority of gun crime in the UK is a connected with the illegal drugs trade and its associated turf wars.
Hand gun and other firearm crime in the UK remains relatively low when considered internationally. There are typically in the region of 50 firearms homicides per year in the UK (the great majority with illegal weapons). This compares to over 10,000 annually in the USA. It may not appear it in light of the recent tragedy, but the relative absence of gun crime in Britain is remarkable.
The severe legislation that is in place – and may or may not relate to our low gun crime rates - is bureaucratically complex and difficult to administer. Police officers and civilian support staff have to spend a great deal of time considering the minutiae of specific firearm types as they relate to certification but, of because of this, they have less than they might otherwise to consider the individual. Many police officers (not to mention members of the shooting community) find the present legislation difficult to understand. In spite of Home Office guidelines, there is much room for different interpretations by different police forces.
Should guns be banned? The simple answer is that they could not be. Apart from the infringement to liberty of the sporting community, firearms are working tools to many – farmers, forest rangers, vets and pest controllers amongst others. There is also the issue of illegal weapons (which still account for the vast amount of serious firearms crime). Most expert opinion believes that there are as many unlicensed weapons in the country as legally owned ones (the total of which is something over 1,000,000 distributed amongst 600,000 shotgun certificate and 140,000 firearms certificate holders in England and Wales. May be we just have to accept that bad stuff happens sometimes no matter that you have done everything sensible to prevent it
