And this is why he chose a 22. pistol?
(Sir Philip glances at his
CZ 52 on the desk, a battle implement designed to penetrate body armor at beyond 100 yards, curious at never having the thought arise..)
Even a .22 pistol (especially one styled like a larger calibre weapon) ticks all the looney boxes. For all I know he would have preferred something more impressive to the average rational gun-owner, but equally he might not even have considered that .22 might either be perceived as, or actually be, a weak cartridge. Your CZ 52, whilst effective against body armour, will be somewhat less effective once through that armour, than a .45 or 9mm round. It's a tradeoff, as was this guy's choice of what was available and what would fulfil his "needs".
They require, unlike rifles, hits to vital areas to "drop" someone. The other terminal effect is slow blood loss.
I wouldn't say that rifles don't require critical hits to drop a person, but that's steering us off into a derail I fear. Of course blood loss is a serious effect, I wouldn't dispute that .22 can be quite lethal. I possibly applied some confirmation bias to what seemed like a low bodycount, but on the other hand as you go on to say, .22 really can be quite survivable. One other nutcase, Nico Claux, had to shoot his victim multiple times in the head, and then crush his skull with a blunt object, because the .22 rounds weren't penetrating.
Completely the opposite, even with trained, psychologically prepared military snipers. Close quarter firefights are very violent affairs.
You know that. I know that (if only from a civvie museum curator's reading of accounts and other sources). Your average gun-crazed nutjob, not necessarily - gunfights are not typically depicted this way in popular culture, which is your average teenager's only exposure to violence. But I am only speculating here, and generalising too. I am attempting to explain the
fact that spree killings are executed using firearms, typically handguns.
Clearly the shooter was motivated by the same reasons the Columbine assailants were.
It's reality theater, they want attention and controversy along with their passing. But only a juvenile fool would think it enables him a degree of omnipotence, and learn very quickly the opposite.
But we
are talking about juvenile fools. Even the older men who carry out such acts are emotionally, if not psychologically, "backward" in terms of social awkwardness and self-esteem problems. Again, it's not what rational folk think, it's the twisted perception of people who abuse guns to harm innocent people.
A vehicle on the other hand..
Don't make me CFL you with a request for "Evidence?"
I'm not aware of any spree-style killings using motor vehicles as a weapon. The closest parallel would seem to be some of the more "theatrical" highway chases, but casualties are pretty low in those cases. Seriously, if I'm wrong, let me know. I won't ever be able to own handguns or semi-automatic rifles, but I'd like to be able to argue against the existing legislation here. As it is, it seems to be an entirely rational, and so far (since 1997 in the UK) quite effective at preventing these crimes.
