THEY SHOOT 11 YEAR OLDS, DON'T THEY?
Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 09:17AM 
Let's deal with the shocking murder of an 11 year old boy shot on his way back home from playing football with his friends in Liverpool. A witness said three shots were fired by a youth, with his face covered by a hood, who rode past on a BMX bicycle. Just think instead of a drive by we have a pedal-by - resulting in this child's death.
I notice the local Chief Constable has asked those "in local gangs" to come forward with whatever information they may, and I see that a 14yr old and an 18yr old have been arrested. But what sort of culture produces teenage assassins? What sort of society tolerates armed teen-age gangs? I know we've been covering quite a few of these stories on ATW and it may seem perhaps a bit repetitious but the harsh truth is that the feral brutality that now rules our streets has to confronted and beaten down. Parents need to be made to assume full legal responsibility for their children and we need to reassert the rule of law everywhere. This will not happen without momentous political change and we live in a current era where rather like the 1970's there is little will from the political class to do anything. But out of the depths of the 1970's came Margaret Thatcher and we must hope that the time is now ready for a new political leader with vision and determination to emerge who wants to make our streets safe again for 11 year olds to play football without the fear of being shot dead.
David Vance
Following on from this post which I wrote this morning, I have since been listening to a local guy from Liverpool being interviewed on the radio and he talked extraordinary common sense on the matter. He has written a book about the local gangs and was able to inform listeners that there is a strong drugs related element to much of this feral crime. He said that there are kids in the early teens dealing heroin on the streets and making good money from it. Their parents have been corrupted and enjoy the wealth this creates and they don't ask too many questions about where it comes from. His view was that the Chief Constable should be sacked for his gross incompetency as the culprits are all very well known to the Police and there is enough man power to deal with them. But there has been little if any desire to smash the gangs and lock up the dealers. And so the whole rotten business gets worse. The BBC seemed horrified at this ordinary man's view of what needed done - (no mention of additional "Yoof centres" for some odd reason) - just a merciless crackdown on the gangs. I guess the man on the street knows more than the elite.
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Reader Comments (27)
Obviously this story was concocted by the pro-gun lobby so that they can more easily devour young babies (yes, that's what they do at NRA meetings). Everyone knows guns are illegal in Britain.
Also, "local gangs"? Will we be told to "get mugged locally" rather than "importing muggings from other counties" now as it reduces our carbon footprint?
No matter how awful the circumstances I think it is a mistake to appeal to the local criminal fraternity as if they are an accepted part of the landscape.
It legitimises them in the eyes of young people.
Henry,
I fully agree, it is entirely degrading.
'Obviously this story was concocted by the pro-gun lobby so that they can more easily devour young babies (yes, that's what they do at NRA meetings). Everyone knows guns are illegal in Britain.'
In the UK shootings still make the news, if the same was applied in the US I doubt if there would be any other news reported.
Dare I suggest that instead of appealing to local gangs, the police should be raiding their members' homes to establish where the guns are and where they came from?
The appeal is effectively another admission that there are no go areas where the gangs hold sway and terrorise the local communities. This is a national scandal and requires a political will thus far absent to get tough on crime with all that entails starting with greater resources for the police. As a friend said last night, it all went pear-shaped when the police became a service instead of a force
Henry94 - excellent point. Over here we have cops who specialize in Gangs and it often seems like they are lending credibility to the gangs and their structure.
Good point as well Sara. I hate it when we hear calls for "talking to the community" because it really means ignore the law abidding community and pretend that violent crime is representative of the people's wishes.
Thatcher destroyed the communities of the north of England in particular and Britain is now reaping what was sown.
I don't think a new Thatcher is what is needed. I'm a little surprised at David suggesting that when Thatcher signed an accord with Garret Fitzgerald that the unionist people didn't seem to want. But maybe she was good for Britain, in that during the war with the Argentinians her govt were discussing getting out while their army were in combat. And then of course what of the mining communities, not exactly success there, but its always comforting to look back and reminisce about what might have been.
We do need safer streets, but calling on parents while the state has removed parental authority, and any kind of authority over the young is a bit misplaced. There are laws there, but I wuold agree that the will isn't there to enforce them.
'It legitimises them in the eyes of young people'
The other thing that does precisely that is our deference to LA gun-ridden gang culture. Films, games, music, speech. But we mustnt do or say anything about that eh. Bit like raunch culture. At one stage culture meant imparting something valuable, something to aspire to through various media. Since the 1930s and spurred on in the 70s all we ever seem to do culturally is celebrate goddamn gangs. Now it simply means every other other word is fuck, macho posturing and gun obessession is the b all end all. With nothing to counter those influences and parenting skills across all classes and across all ages at absolute rock bottom its not surprising. Its not up to the political classes its up to all of us and always has been.
The average inner-city gang member is paid $3.50 an hour. Less than minimum wage. He has a 7% chance of a violent death each year. That works out at 25% over four years. On death row, the chance of dying in a given year, from all causes, is a mere 2%. For soldiers in Iraq it is 0.5%. You can see why working for a gang is the worst job in America and that the glamorisation of gangs is largely the result of the leaders of the gangs themselves.
See, if these kids knew that they'd end up earning crappy money for the rest of their very short lives, and that they'd be safer on death row, they would never join the gang. The gang leaders can only recruit workers by creating a fantasy whereby, you start at the bottom, and work your way up to be the big daddy with fast cars, gold jewlerry and women. The cars are leased, the jewlerry is gold plated, the women are escorts. It's all a scam, but it is attractive. It got picked up by rappers and became more mainstream and the rest is history. The rap music is just a result of the gangs, not the cause, though there is something of a loop going on. I think if you look at inner-city areas in Britain there has been a lot of success from charities working with gangs. When I say gangs I don't mean the lesser-spotted hooded youth chucking stones at cars, I mean the people dealing crack and shooting up the neighbourhood. People have seen what happens to cities like Chicago when gangs take over, and with that knowledge we're starting to put a stop to it simply by giving these people a way out and taking away the percieved glamour and acceptability. It dosn't take censorship. Nobody joins a gang because they played Grand Theft Auto. Most of these kids can't even afford a Playstation. I don't think gangs are Britain's problem. They're there, and always will be a bit, but it's not gonna mushroom any time soon. It's the casual violence of ordinary thugs that worries me. No movie told them it was cool to beat up old men, they have no morals, they know they can get away with it and they find it amusing.
There is a huge problem with casual thuggery as CL says but gun crime is gang-related - they don't sell them in Tesco's. Most of the fatal stabbings in S London were gang-related too
CL - culturally we have glamourised gangs. Weve de-sensitised ourselves to violence and the act of killing. Guns are handed around like status symbols. The expression i heard the other day 'youre going back in a body bag mate' didnt come from Mary Poppins.
That's a shame. Poor kid.
Monica - good reminder of the human tragedy here. I read your comment and went back to the post. The child died in his mother's arms when she rushed to the scene. A total horror, I can't imagine the grief.
It is truly shocking. I hope Brown sticks by his promises.
I heard about this last night on BBC, and one man interviewed said he wanted to emigrated to bring up his children. Reminded me of the previous thread.
We have always had gangs in the UK. whether it be London, Manchester, Liverpool, or wherever, and they were always reallly nasty, psychotic,'pieces of work'. Do you remember the Crays?
We also had capital punishment, which if nothing else, restricted much of the gang related violence to the gangs themselves, rarely did the general public get accidentally involved.
There was very little gratuitous violence of the kind we are now seeing, which as had been said earlier, is the really scary part, - and from teenagers!
This new pattern of behaviour could only happen in a fundamentally depraved society. and that applies not just to those teens and gang members involved, but to those involved in dispensing such a perverted form of 'justice'.
There has been a collapse in the idea of adult authority over children as a concept that enveloped society as a whole. The net result which I'm sure we have all seen is situations where aggresive youngsters behave with menace and selfishness secure in the knowledge that the adults around are more than likely to keep their heads down and say nothing out of fear. It's an upside down ethos in our modern society that has to be challenged and reversed.
Ernest Young.
There is an added dimension to all this: Has no-one noticed that while gangs and gang-deaths were confined to inner city ghettos, the chattering middle class and their media bedfellows only gave it cursory coverage.
But NOW it is spreading ever out-wards to the Metropolitan and Suburban areas....and boy, are they now sitting up and starting to look frightened! Hence the massive coverage of this boys' death.
It gives me no uncertain glee to witness that the very people that promoted the 'permissive society' are finding it a double-edged sword, and that they and their own children are now in the firing line.
The only way things are going to change is when these comfortable arseholes themselves, start to get badly hurt.
Bernard,
one major reason there is massive coverage of this boy's death: He is white.
Garfield,
That is just mischievious nonsense, - and you know it!
Garfield,
And you can be damn sure that if the perpetrator wasnt, the coverage would be non-existent.
Ernest,
>>There was very little gratuitous violence of the kind we are now seeing, which as had been said earlier, is the really scary part, - and from teenagers!
This new pattern of behaviour could only happen in a fundamentally depraved society.<<
I doubt if there is much that is qualitatively new now.
I've just checked and in the year 1952 there were 23 executions for the murder of 26 people in England and Wales alone. When you remember that even then most murderers didn't get a death sentence, you'll realise that there was a lot of murder going on in the good old days. Also, it was IMO that decade that saw the start of the collapse of parental control and of the kind of identification with a larger social or national society that makes people generally law-abiding. The many gangs and gangsters that were emerging at the time were a symptom of the problem that was already well on its way.
Noel,
But the difference then was that the murders were very infrequently of the gratuitous variety, gangland killings, crimes of passion, most definitely yes, and all with a serious intent to do the victim harm, but this random shooting and knifing of complete strangers is something new and very sick.
Another point, it was around about this time that the definition of murder was changed, and the crime of manslaughter became the judiciary fashion. All in preparation for the abolition of capital punishment in 1964. Even so, it was generally felt that total abolition was a serious mistake. Yes, there used to be lot of 'murder', now there is just a lot more killing! - it doesn't really matter what you call it.
As far as I know the percentage of the population in favour of capital punishment has always been around the 60-70% mark. Could the abolition mark the start of the general decline in judiciary standards, with a general weakening of sentencing?
Somehow, someone getting a prison sentence for manslaughter, did not seem quite so lenient, as that person getting the same sentence for murder.
The reasonableness of someone getting a prison term for the unintentional killing of another, seems to be passably correct, accidents do happen! The same sentence for someone intentionally killing another, especially while administering a 'good beating', is a travesty.
Re your comment about the decline of parental standards, I would have put the start of the trend as more in the mid 1960's, although it is difficult to actually pinpoint the legislation that triggered the decline.
I firmly believe that such changes in societal attitude come more from changes in the law than from within society itself, and happen, more as an unintended consequence, - that politicians nightmare!
Ernest Young.
Your letter sort of asks questions, but the true answer is that Abolition in 1964 badly skewed the law in a way few realised.
For example, a man contemplates raping a woman. He knows that (without capital punishment)it could mean a 'life' sentence if he is caught. Then again, if he kills the woman, thereby silencing the only witness, he will still get the same 'life' sentence. What's he got to lose? He's shortened the odds of getting caught.
And this is just what has happened after 1964.
The murder rate, prorata, gradually went up, especially in bank robbery where firearms became increasingly used to shoot their way out and get away, as to get caught would entail roughly the same sentence if they wounded or even killed someone, than if NO firearm was used.
Criminality and social breakdown that result in such evil acts are legacies of Thatcher, not things that will be corrected by one of her intellectual heirs.