Gun Law

Looking down the muzzle: keep your head...and keep it down

I see no justification for suggestions, stated or implied, that three unarmed police officers, confronted by Derrick Bird, who had already shot a number of people, acted in any way less than duty demanded.

I have, instructing recruits in shooting with military .22 rifles, found myself looking down the muzzle of a loaded weapon while the idiot holding it repeatedly squeezed the trigger and said: "Bombardier, it won't fire".

Staying coolly cautious was the only option until I had taken the weapon from the lad, opened the breach, turned the cartridge a fraction and fired the bullet towards the target end of the range.

Naturally, that recruit learned a number of new words soon afterwards, when I realised how dangerous his disregard of instructions always to point his rifle down the range, away from the firing point, had been.

He didn't intend killing me or his mates, but killing anyone who crossed his path was clearly already on Derrick Bird's mind, and for those officers to have attempted to detain or disarm him would have been dangerously reckless. In such circumstances the only sensible thing to do is keep your head ... and keep it down.