Police hunt suspect after wife and two daughters of BBC commentator killed
- Thread starter Ayahuasca
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SkodaMart
S
SkodaMart
There won’t be many 10 year olds that can shoot a 100lb+ bow.
You are mistaking a weapon of war with a toy.
Some of these crossbows are double that power.
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Soldato
Why does it need to be a 100lb+ bow? Most people walking down the street aren't wearing body armour, a cheap 20lb recurve bow with field tip arrows may not be designed for killing when compared to a 100lb English longbow firing broadheads, but it can still do plenty of damage, even in the hands of a relatively unskilled user
Soldato
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This is true... my 8 year old did it in cubs a few weeks back as well as various times on holiday at center parcs and the like..... it wasnt a high power one of course but it had a metal tip and would have been deadly if it hit someone in the wrong place.
it would be a shame if it were banned imo, Archery is quite a common hobby, and one i would be keen for my lad to get into so we can do it together. Back to crossbows..... i would be interested to know what, if any history the killer has.
I would have no problem at all if crossbows needed to be registered and those with a criminal record not allowed them (similar to a shotgun).
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Soldato
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Theres an epidemic of knife crime in the capital but I don't see politicians rushing to do anything about that I guess its easy to pick the low hanging fruit though always good for a photo op/sound bite.
Soldato
I don't dispute that it's easy to make an improvised weapon, but I imagine that making a crossbow that fires fairly consistently and accurately with a reliable trigger mechanism to hold a powerful string would be quite difficult.
It would certainly be harder than clicking the buy now option online.
Knowledge is power and with power comes responsibility.
Take martial arts, for example. It takes many years of dedication to become an expert. Once an expert, they do everything the can to avoid using their skills out of the ring because they know the damage they can do.
If there was a martial arts pill that could be bought over the counter, it would be chaos!
If we banned all weapons designed to kill, at least we'd make it more difficult for people to get their hands on one.
SkodaMart
S
SkodaMart
A 20lb bow isn’t going to be fatal.
Blind you yes.
Ban everything?
Archery is a very well respected hobby & sport and has literally nothing at all to do with illegal crossbow use by chavs.
Edit: a motor vehicle makes a far more effective weapon than a target archery bow.
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Soldato
Man police want to speak to over suitcases with human remains pictured
A man police want to speak to after two suitcases containing human remains were found on Clifton Suspension Bridge has been pictured for the first time.
Soldato
It's being said that his brother is also a killer.
news.sky.com
What a pair!
Kyle Clifford's brother, Bradley, is convicted murderer serving life sentence
Bradley Clifford, 30, is the older brother of Kyle Clifford, 26, who was found in Enfield, north London, following a massive manhunt sparked after three women were killed with a crossbow at their home in Bushey.
What a pair!
Soldato
I shoot recurve at a club and the vast majority shoot recurve there, only a few shoot compound. A compound bow, although it has a “let off” you still have to hold a certain poundage on your fingers whereas a crossbow you don’t have to hold any poundage at all
Soldato
Title change.
Associate
That's a Populist's simple solution to a complex problem! Crossbows are over 2,500 year old technology. They were invented by the Ancient Chinese, then used by the Ancient Greeks and the Romans. Anyone could make a deadly crossbow today with a bit of skill and intelligence (I did when I was 13-years-old). Someone intent on murder would simply make one if they couldn't buy one. And do you really think that a violent criminal or someone planning a murder is just going to hand in their crossbow to the Police after the government ban them?
Yes, he must be a gutless coward to shoot 2 young women and an elderly woman with a ranged weapon like a crossbow. It's not as if he (a former soldier and pro-security guard) who had the advantage of surprise, could not have overpowered them, or they were armed so he couldn't attack them any other way. The crossbow didn't make the crime possible, he could just have used a kitchen knife. The reloading time for a crossbow would make killing a group of 3 people with just one of them impossible, so he must have picked them off one-by-one while they were apart (if he used the crossbow to kill all of them) unless he also had other weapons.
It has averaged one case a year over the last 10 years, so hardly common. More people die after being hit by cyclists and a similar number die after being struck by lightening, but of course the tabloids will never tell you that.
The Police must be dreading adding crossbows to the existing shotgun/firearm certification system. There are millions of them already owned and unregistered across the country and the paperwork required to register and background check all their owners would be absolutely enormous and extremely costly. It will cost millions and won't prevent murders like this in the future.
Yes, we agree on that. He had all the time in the world to stalk and kill them with a knife etc.
That's an emotional response. Doing that won't remove the threat from violent criminals who ignore the weapons possession laws and laugh at amnesties.
What about machetes? The government said it wanted to ban those in its manifesto due to a small number of violent drug dealers in the inner cities. However, they are very useful gardening tools for clearing dense undergrowth/cutting up huge bushes and trees etc.
They were very useful for deer and wild boar hunting until the government made bow hunting illegal (for emotional not factual reasons). They are still used for that purpose in many countries, including the USA. For sure, if you restrict something's use to just target shooting for leisure you can later make an argument for banning it.
Not sure the crossbow is the issue here, the chap is a nutcase and would have still killed them. If he had used a kitchen knife we wouldn't be talking about banning these. Yes it seems gruesome the whole crossbow thing but answers are needed to how we can stop this kind of thing happening and not what weapon was used and if it needs banning. He probably would have used his hands if thats all he had.
Soldato
So sad, and what an awful end those three must had had. Can't bear to think what was going through their minds.
People like this should rot in a cell with the bare minimum for survival to suffer for the rest of their life. I was genuinely surprised that they found him alive.
People like this should rot in a cell with the bare minimum for survival to suffer for the rest of their life. I was genuinely surprised that they found him alive.
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Associate
Absolutely right. He sounds like another one of these pathetic incels. The crossbow is just a diversion from the main issue, which of course the media and politicians will concentrate on to the exclusion of everything else (high ratings and an easy vote winner for them).
The real issue is finding a way to stop inadequate young men from murdering their ex-girlfriends/wives because they were dumped by them, or from doing likewise to women they have been stalking who have never even been in a relationship with them.
The fact that the last government slashed the budget of Mental Health Services and created a waiting list to see a Psychiatrist of over a year in many areas hardly helps to prevent this kind of thing.
Soldato
It is a legal loophole that a crossbow isn't classed as an offensive weapon. But a pepper spray is.
Associate
If that's true then using a crossbow to kill one, or more of them, was irrelevant. He could have used any legal weapon/tool or just his bare hands.
Unless the crossbow made the crime possible on its own, for example: if someone used one to kill a guarded VIP (like a politician) at long range because they could not get a rifle, then banning it would not have changed the outcome.
Associate
A pepper spray is very easy to conceal. A deadly (>150 lb draw weight) crossbow is about 2.5 feet wide by 3 feet long, so far from easy to conceal.
Also, its reloading time can be as long as 50 seconds (even for an experienced person) if it needs a windlass. You are already looking at 4 years in prison if you get caught with one in a public place.
Soldato
@Maple Leaf The point I was trying to make was about banning weapons designed to kill.
A machete would undoubtedly kill someone but it isn't designed to kill.
A machete would undoubtedly kill someone but it isn't designed to kill.
Soldato
I fired a friends hand crossbow in the early 90s, the bolt went straight through a shed, quite alarming at the time. I bought a LARP crossbow from a Lorien Trust - Gathering event market stall trader in Derby in the early 90s, the crossbows were hand made and the string was either the same or similar to bungee string, very safe, they didn't fire that far put it that way, and the quarrels we used had a big bulbous padded tip, just bounced off people even direct to the facial area, perfectly safe.
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