Daniel Clay's Column

Hello HedgeEnders.  This week, as there’s little more than a few hundred miles separating us from Cumbria, I’m going to focus on the three occasions crimes like this have taken place in my lifetime.  

I had just turned seventeen when Michael Ryan opened fire in Hungerford.  It was 12.30 on an August afternoon.  Five hours later, he and 14 others were dead. 

Other than the unfolding sense of horror, the thing I remember most was the disbelief:  Things like this didn’t happen in Britain.  Not in the cities.  Definitely not in the towns.  This would be a one-off.  An aberration.  We’d never see anything like it again.

Nine years later, in March 1996, sixteen children and a teacher were murdered by Thomas Hamilton in the small Scottish town of Dunblane.  Unlike Michael Ryan, Hamilton didn’t start firing until he’d arrived at his destination.  Also, unlike Michael Ryan, he killed himself long before police arrived on the scene:  His spree, in contrast to the one that went before and the one that would come after, was murderously concentrated and comparatively brief. 

As with the other two occasions, though, in terms of death-count, it could have been much, much worse:  

Michael Ryan wasn’t chased into the school he eventually shot himself in – he headed there of his own accord.  If the massacre had taken place in term-time rather than school-holidays, who knows how much higher the death-toll could have been? 

Also, had he chosen to carry on seeking out new victims rather than finding a bolt-hole, again, who knows how much higher the death-toll could have been?  

In the case of Hamilton, the only thing that stopped him being able to shoot at will longer than he did was the fact he took his own life so quickly.

Now, with Derrick Bird, it seems the first calls to the police were made around 10.20 a.m.  Just over three hours and eleven deaths later, Bird’s body was found in woodland.  Despite a frantic manhunt, he remained free to continue killing until he took his own life.

These observations aren’t a criticism of the police forces involved.  The fact some sections of the media are already questioning the police reaction in Cumbria seems sickening to me – you can sense certain national papers battling to restrain themselves – and I don’t see how blame can be apportioned when one man chooses to carry out such an unfathomable act:  Even with Hungerford and Dunblane in our recent history, there could have been no profiling Bird’s intentions that morning. In many ways, the three men were totally different:

Ryan was only twenty-seven.  Although, with hindsight, it can be argued he was a loner with an unhealthy obsession with guns, the police saw no reason to question his right to a fire-arms license, and all his weapons were securely held under legal warrants in the home he shared with his mother. 

Hamilton was in his forties, a failed shop-keeper who’d had his Scout-warrant withdrawn as early as 1974.  His attitude towards young boys in his care had persistently drawn parental complaints and police suspicion.  He had also displayed paranoid behaviour, believing he was the victim of persecution over his attempts to set up a boys’ club.  Despite this, he, like the others, passed all the legal-criteria to keep guns in his home.     

Bird had been married and was the father of two children.  He had a job, a seemingly close-knit family, a place in the heart of his local community.  Despite what’s coming out in the papers – even with his ‘there’s going to be a rampage’ threat the night before the murders – I don’t believe anyone could seriously claim they would have been able to second-guess what he was about to do.    

If you put these three men in a room together, outside of their interest in guns, I don’t think you would expect them to have anything in common at all.

And so it comes down to guns:  all of them had this obsession, and all of them had the faculty to ensure they stayed the right side of the law when acquiring their weapons. What if they hadn’t been able to?  What would have taken place then?        

Maybe, in some parallel universe, on the day Bird snapped, had he not had access to guns, he would have got no further than attacking his twin and his solicitor before being caught by the police. 

Perhaps Hamilton, without guns, would have attacked those children and teachers with a knife or his bare hands, and, long before he could inflict the damage he actually managed to, found himself overpowered by the same staff who had the courage to try and shelter their charges even as he attacked with his guns. 

Ryan, who started his spree by shooting a woman enjoying a picnic at a local beauty spot, may not have had it in him to approach her had he not been armed.  Or he may have attacked her in some way, and then gone home to take his own life.

Or maybe all three would have simply punched a few walls when they woke up feeling whatever it was they were feeling those mornings, then got on with the rest of their lives, allowing forty-two other people – and that’s not including those injured – to do likewise.

The only thing that’s certain, outside of pursuing a hobby, is that none of them had any need to keep firearms at home.  Very few people in this country do.  While I don’t believe a blanket ban on ownership will ever be introduced here, I do believe, unless one is introduced, we’ll see more than three crimes like this over the next twenty-five years.  And, one day, the perpetrator won’t take a gun to himself – he’ll keep going until someone else does it for him, and maybe next time he’ll head for a supermarket, or another school, or, perhaps, a busy High Street.  And that, for me, is the most frightening ‘what if’ of all.