A "Lovely Man"

I'll guarantee you, you have never heard of this guy. His name is Derrick Bird. Or was, I should say. He's dead now. And so are twelve other people in northern England (Cumbria) because he blew them away with a shotgun. And he hurt 25 others, some critically.

A couple of things to notice: first of all, this is England we're talking about here. These are the people who are only supposed to get violent at really meaningful events in life, like soccer games. Don't know about you, but I'm always jolted when something like this happens in England. According to all witnesses, Derrick Bird was what they would call here "a good guy." Over there somebody who knew him said he was "a lovely man." Another guy said he "was the nicest bloke you would want to meet." From the sketchy information so far, it appears that only the first victim might have known this sweet bloke. The rest were strangers he just rode around the countryside killing. Apparently, Mr. Bird was considerably upset about something. But it's not clear what was bugging him at this point. I'll update this when more information is available.

Other thing to notice: England has strict gun control laws. Handguns are verboten. So Mr. Bird uses a "sporting weapon." The kind that nobody bats an eye at being legal. And I suppose if one gets one's jollies by shooting dead some bird or mammal, then the tools they use should be legal.

Finally, it's not really hard to notice that mass killing of other people because things are not lovely for you anymore or even at the moment, well, that's a good example of globalization. Happens everywhere.