It’s an odd world when Coronation Street is postponed because it may upset people who were digesting the impact of the recent Cumbrian killings. This type of nonsense only increases the blur between reality and soap life as too many people already think that the characters in soap-land are real. Television schedulers postponing Coronation Street forget the three hundred channels and movies that can be accessed by satellite viewers with content that is much more violent than the pantomime villianary that takes place in soapville.
Following the Cumbrian murders there was the ritual outcry about gun control. Yet there is little proof that any tighter gun controls would have prevented the atrocity of last week; though an obvious starting point would be the outright prohibition of anyone with a criminal record being allowed to hold weapons. A blanket ban would at least ensure that those of criminal intent are not able to progress their unlawful activities by the use of firearms.
Murder most foul was back on the streets of Belfast last week with the shooting of Mr Moffett on the Shankill Road. This is apparently was internal UVF housekeeping. This of course would be the same UVF that successive British and Irish administrations have been wining and dining as the acceptable face of loyalist thuggery. This would be the same UVF that has allegedly decommissioned all their weaponry –at least that’s what those nodding donkeys on the Decommissioning Body would have you believe.
It’s clear that the structures and command units of these loyalist murder gangs are very much in place and despite the public out-pouring onto the streets of the Shankill Road –there in full view of the media were the shadowy figures of the loyalist underworld replete with their bling jewellery, designer jackets and tattoos – more Popeye than Don Corleone. As repulsive as these characters are there is something almost comical about them with their dyed locks and their gay sounding nicknames- though there is nothing comical about their vice like grip in working class loyalist areas.
Surprise, surprise it took the peace time murder of a loyalist to finally awaken the former Leader of the PUP, Dawn Purvis from her dreamy slumber to the nightmare reality of loyalist paramilitarism. This writer was never that taken with her much feted predecessor, David Ervine, who just because he was moderately articulate enough to string a sentence together was never really pressed to tackle his backroom thugs in the UVF. Ms Purvis has now faced up to the grim realities of paramilitarism though in fairness, she does deserve credit for her openness about her departure.
A Belfast councillor last week stated that there had been fourteen punishment beatings involving firearms over the past few months. – Twelve of them were believed to have been dealt out by republicans. Clearly they have n’t gone way and neither have their guns. Much more worryingly there are a further 200,000 legally held guns in Northern Ireland and with that type of armoury we are more ‘tooled up’ than a Texan back-water town or an average Afghani tribe!
The DUP MP for Strangford says it’s not a reason to be concerned. But he is wrong. We actually have more legally held guns per head of population than Scotland, Wales or the Republic of Ireland. In fact the latter has roughly the same amount of legally held guns as Northern Ireland despite having three times the population. The time has come to tighten our gun laws even more. It’s a strange anomaly that we have nearly thirty thousand more legally held firearms than we did ten years ago. It seems having decommissioned for war; we have an armed peace.
With a combination of God knows how many illegally retained guns being held by ‘resting’ paramilitaries and some two hundred thousand licensed gun holders; its only a matter of time before we have a Cumbrian incident. Put quite simply we are a firearms powder keg just waiting to be ignited.
Incidences of armed robberies are on the increase and drug-land crime goes hand in hand with firearms. More concerning given Northern Ireland’s disproportionate number of people who suffer from mental health issues- easy access to legally or illegal firearms can only increase the risk of self harm or harm to others. Charlton Heston once held a rifle at an NRA conference defiantly saying ‘from my cold dead hand’’. Where there’s a gun involved- a cold dead hand is usually involved too.
Well written post as always!
During a not so recent act of gun violence in yet another school in America I heard a Charlton Heston type quote from a gun slinger – he stated that if all kids had guns they would have been able to defend themselves against the attackers – madness.