Cardiff - 13 hospitalized, 1 dead. Weapon= van

[madd0ct0r]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-20020991

A 31-year-old man is being questioned on suspicion of murder.

Thirteen people were injured in a series of hit-and-runs in Ely and Leckwith in the west of Cardiff, which happened on Friday afternoon as children were walking home from school.

Seven of those hurt were aged under 12, including two of Ms Menzies' daughters, aged 23 months and eight.

Nine people remain in hospital, with two adults in intensive care.

Friends of Ms Menzies staged the informal tribute to her outside Ely fire station on Cowbridge Road West from 14:00 BST.

Some of those attending were in tears as a song, Tarrus Riley's She's Royal, was played and dedicated to her and her family.

It was followed by a minute's silence.

It was also announced that trust funds would be set up for the hit-and-run victims.

Meanwhile, Welsh Secretary David Jones, on a visit to police in Cardiff, said he wanted to pass on the thanks of the prime minister to emergency and health services as well as his sympathies to those affected by the events.

Mr Jones said: "The incidents that took place in Cardiff on Friday were tragic and unprecedented.

"They have shocked not only the local community, but the whole country."

The van's two-mile journey came to the police's attention at around 15:30 BST on Friday when there were reports of an incident at Crossways Road in Ely.

There were chaotic scenes around the city as it soon became clear many other people had been injured elsewhere.

A white van was stopped by police on the outskirts of the city

Police revealed on Saturday that people were also assaulted outside the van, possibly with a weapon.

And they want anyone who saw a black Renault Clio being driven on the wrong side of Western Avenue, near the Tesco Extra store, at around 15:25 BST on Friday to get in touch.

The guy seemed to be targeting women with children. The woman who died was crossing the road with her two kids. She threw them to safety.

1) It's fucking tragedy, and one that happened just up the road from me

2) It's a pretty clear undermining of the 'public murder sprees are an American lack of gun control thing'.

At this moment, no motive or explanation is known.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

2) It's a pretty clear undermining of the 'public murder sprees are an American lack of gun control thing'.

Wrong.

American public killing sprees:
Aurora, CO shooting - 12 dead, 58 injured.
Minneapolis, MN workplace shooting - 7 dead, 2 injured.
Seattle, WA cafe shooting - 6 dead, 1 injured.
Oak Creek, WI Sikh temple shooting - 7 dead, 4 injured.

All within the last year. Going back to 2011:

Copely Township, OH shooting - 8 dead, 1 injured.
Grand Rapids, MI shooting - 8 dead, 2 injured.
Carson City, NV restaurant shooting - 5 dead, 7 injured.
Yuma, AZ shooting - 6 dead, 1 injured.
Tucson, AZ attempted assassination of a US Congressperson - 6 dead, 14 injured.

This incident: Carried out with a van, leaving one dead, twelve injured. In a quick search, I can't find anything comparable in the UK to the sordid list above in either this year or last year.

tl;dr - Hyperventilate less, plz.

[madd0ct0r]

USA has five times the population. Having 4-5 times as many incidents looks about 'right'.

or do you mean each shooting is far more deadly due the available weapon being machine guns instead of a van? - becuase I'll concede that point.

[Irbis]

2) It's a pretty clear undermining of the 'public murder sprees are an American lack of gun control thing'.

According to this logic, that Japanese terror attack using Sarin gas was also undermining and all bans to private possession of nerve gases should be instantly ended, am I right? Why bother, [Insert Gun Propaganda Mantra #1] Responsible Citizen Given Vials Of Sarin Wouldn't Murder With It And There Is Slight But Not Insignificant Chance He Could Somehow Defend Himself With It

If you really don't understand difference between banning something critical to economy (and much harder to use in terror attack unless you really try) and superfluous, dangerous luxury that can (and was) forbidden without any issues I sadly can't help you. In a day where possession of simple fertilizers can land you in jail, I see zero reason to make exception for something much less useful to society (hint - world would notice if tomorrow all cars or fertilizer would disappear, while 99% of humans wouldn't give a flying fuck if all guns disappeared).

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

USA has five times the population. Having 4-5 times as many incidents looks about 'right'.

It also has fifty times the land area. The UK's population density is over 7.5x what the US's is. By that metric, the average citizen in the UK is far more likely to have a mentally deranged individual living in their immediate vicinity than someone in the US.

or do you mean each shooting is far more deadly due the available weapon being machine guns instead of a van? - becuase I'll concede that point.

Most of the killings I listed were carried out with semi-automatic handguns. Hardly 'machine guns.' In fact, only two of them were carried out with rifles at all, and they were semi-automatic rifles.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh for goodness sake. This is a tragic event that has nothing to do with America, gun control or mass shootings. Why must you people turn so many threads into gun control threads?

Can a mod please split this stuff somewhere else?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The guy went all Grand Theft Auto, I think we all want to know what motivated him into doing it. You hear of hit and runs, you don't hear of multiple ones by the same vehicle, especially not like this

[Eternal_Freedom]

The guy went all Grand Theft Auto, I think we all want to know what motivated him into doing it. You hear of hit and runs, you don't hear of multiple ones by the same vehicle, especially not like this

Yeah. I'd lay odds that it was something to do with booze or drugs (the medicinal kind). THat's assuming of course he had a motivation and didn't just totally lose his shit. At least the body count is still at 1 so far.

[madd0ct0r]

2) It's a pretty clear undermining of the 'public murder sprees are an American lack of gun control thing'.

According to this logic, that Japanese terror attack using Sarin gas was also undermining and all bans to private possession of nerve gases should be instantly ended, am I right? Why bother, [Insert Gun Propaganda Mantra #1] Responsible Citizen Given Vials Of Sarin Wouldn't Murder With It And There Is Slight But Not Insignificant Chance He Could Somehow Defend Himself With It

If you really don't understand difference between banning something critical to economy (and much harder to use in terror attack unless you really try) and superfluous, dangerous luxury that can (and was) forbidden without any issues I sadly can't help you. In a day where possession of simple fertilizers can land you in jail, I see zero reason to make exception for something much less useful to society (hint - world would notice if tomorrow all cars or fertilizer would disappear, while 99% of humans wouldn't give a flying fuck if all guns disappeared).

Were you chuckling when you wrote this out?

Where the fuck did I say 'Ban the Van' or the other extreme of 'Sarin for all?' Really?

I guess a nuanced, not-cartoonishly-extreme-position might be harder for you to understand, but please, do try. It'll be much more productive for the two of us.

My position, which perhaps I should have spelled out in big letters in the OP, is that the 'gun-control' debate in America is a distraction. Decent provision of mental health support, a decent welfare net and relatively lower inequality are what are important.

Britain suffers from similar problems there (although our welfare net is hugely better, inequality is rising, and mental health support is inadequate). Britain also has strict gun control. It doesn't stop people going postal, but means they're not using guns - cue the OP.

The thing is, in America gun-ownership is entrenched. Have you tried forming an argument against gun ownership n America using the the core right wing principles? It's damn near impossible. (The argument must cover all these EQUALLY: care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. )

So banning gun-ownership in America is a huge uphill, divisive battle that would take huge amounts of energy and campaigning from the left to complete. It also dosen't solve the underlying causes and I'd rather see the left's energy being poured into those, since that way lies the greater net benefit.


GrandMasterTerwynn - your point about population density is intresting, but I'm not sure mean density is the key here. Is there anyway we can find the mode? % urbanised?
(Part of the reason the Uk's pop density is higher on average is we don't have any huge deserts or enormous mountain ranges to bring down the average. I'd argue that a lot of americans live in areas with population density much higher then the average. It'll still be lower then Uk's but maybe not as much as you think)






(I know fuck all about gun types, so by machine gun I mean 'one that fires lots of bullets quickly and isn't a pistol or a long rifle'. If it was mostly pistols used then feel free to change the wording. It's irrelevant to the point)