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Cumbria shootings
Sun, 06/06/2010 - 01:02
As a Cumbrian, it's very sobering to have a tragedy like this occuring so close to home. The organisation I work for are based in West Cumbria - it's a very small, close-knit community and a lot of my colleagues know - or are even related to - some of the people who were killed and injured. My thoughts and sympathies are with them.
Boot Village where the gunman shot himself, is just down the road from a campsite I frequent when I go fellwalking in the Eskdale Valley.
I feel sorry for people who live those innercity areas where gun crime is a regular ocurrence - it's not something I'd want to have to get used to.
I wish I knew something more appropriate to say. Nonetheless, I live in a place that’s neither a concrete jungle, nor a country village. It was designed that way. This isn’t the kind of environment that spawns the rat-in-a-maze syndrome. But I know that there are pockets of trouble here, especially having previously experienced the delights of living two doors down from a drug dealer who had a record for offences such as GBH.
Unfortunate negative psychological variables exist in any large group, and it only takes 0.1% of the population to spoil things for everybody else. This has nothing to do with environment; some people are simply nasty. Most people wouldn’t take a gun and shoot people, just because they’re unhappy with their lives. It takes just one loony with a handgun; just one in millions of people to bring terror to the streets of a quiet little village.