Guns

Robin Agnew

I'm about finished with the new Peter Robinson book, Bad Boy, which, along with the usual excellent writing includes a slice of British law I wasn't so familiar with.  The opening sequence of the book involves a mother turning in her daughter for possessing a hand gun, something which is completely illegal in the U.K. The mother's action will probably result in the daughter's doing time in jail.  The daughter is a young woman, not a teenager.

The stark contrast to the U.S. really got me thinking.  I've recently been re-watching NYPD Blue (did you know only 6 seasons are available on DVD?  But that's another story)and in one of the episodes an old neighbor of Bobby's (played so entrancingly by Jimmy Smits) comes to him in anguish: she's found a gun in her son's room.  It's really the same situation, but the results are far different.

Bobby, whose dead wife was a friend of the woman's, agrees to talk to her son who is all of 11 or 12.  The woman is divorced or widowed, I can't remember which one, but in any case Bobby steps in as a strong male figure.  And in the U.S. merely being in possession of a handgun won't put you in prison.

The boy (who I mentioned was on the cusp of 12) just won't listen to Bobby, and naturally nothing good comes of it.  It "ends in tears", you might say, or in this case with a schoolyard shooting.  In Robinson's book it doesn't end well either, with an accidental death, a kidnapping and the shooting of a police officer.  Despite the different laws the results are still catastrophic.

I'm a pretty firm advocate of gun control myself but these two thoughtful sources made me think about it from several points of view.  Either way though, possessing the gun ended in tears.  I liked considering the British law; on the one hand, it seems reasonable, on another, several incidents in the book are practically precipitated because the officers involved don't have guns.  I'm not sure I have a point, or even a conclusion, but I appreciated Robinson's thoughtful story and insight into a way of doing things that's a little bit different.

Comments

[DeadlyAccurate]

Sounds like a plot hole in the episode. I don't know of any state where it's legal for a 12yo to purchase a handgun. Why didn't she turn it in to the police? Or if the episode made it clear the gun was a legal purchase (like it had belonged to the dead father), why didn't she sell it, give it to Smits' character, or have him disassemble it (assuming she didn't know how to do it herself) if she had reason to worry her son would use it inappropriately (which she obviously did)?

[Dorte H]

Well, if I found a gun in my daughter´s room, I hope I could persuade her to part with it without involving the police!

In Denmark, gun laws are strict and I have never met anyone with weapons - apart from policemen and hunters. I don´t think Danish teenagers are necessarily more peaceful than American youth, but as they don´t have access to guns, they just can´t shoot each other.

[Robin Agnew]

She was approaching him as a friend as well as a cop (much like the Robinson book, actually). Apparently he would have really only been given a citation or something - the law may have changed since the 90's.

[Lartonmedia]

Gun laws in the UK are -- rightly in my view -- very strict. Knife crime, though, appears to be a growing problem.

The differences between the US and the UK were really brought home to me a few months back when a US university professor (who also used to be a cop) came to talk to our research group. He'd asked for a show of hands from his new undergraduates (I think his uni was in Florida) and a very high proportion of them (90% springs to mind) had guns. We all just gaped at him in disbelief!

[Robin Agnew]

I live here and I think that's shocking!