Lofty Matters: Gangs, Guns And The British Army

By Felix Columbidae

There was a shocking event this week in London. A five year old girl was shot in the chest by a gang member as she stood in a shop with her family. Apparently, according to The Independent:

'Up to 50 violent gangs could be operating in the area where five-year-old Thursha Kamaleswaran was caught in the crossfire of a feud, sources said yesterday.'

source: The Independent

No doubt we have all been shaken by this event but life goes on, doesn´t it! The police carry on trying to stem the gaping wound of gangs in society by dabbing at it with a sticking plaster. The politicians talk, posture and pronounce, they promote citizen campaigns, they claim everything and anything but the essential truth; they have not the first clue about what they are dealing with. And five year old girls get shot.

We all hope that this is a remote occurence, something not likely to be visited on our loved ones, a matter of urban criminality rife in an underclass of society. Unfortunately, for me at least, this simply isn´t the case.

'AN appeal for witnesses has been launched after two masked men armed with pistols forced their way into a Buckhurst Hill home and threatened those inside.'

source: The Buckhurst Hill Gazette

Map by Google

As we can see from the map above, Buckhurst Hill sits in the rural outskirts of London. The attack quoted above happened in a house that faces directly onto the forest, a quiet road in a quiet respectable neighbourhood. I can say this for certain because when two young black men burst in waving pistols they were pointing them at my sister and her daughter, my 8 year old neice. The police said it was 'mistaken identity', well that is deductive reasoning par excellence! My sister said it was terrifying and that the lads fled once they realised they had the wrong house. They were looking for a man who had owed them money for a drug deal. Well that is what my sister said.

She also said that a couple of days later the gunboys burst into another woman´s house locally and then later on shot a man who lived somewhere in Loughton (further out than Buckhurst Hill). So obviously the forces of law and order are now hot on their trail and about to bring the culprits to justice any moment now. Somewhere at the back of my brain I feel a nagging doubt about all of this, a sort of itchy reaction to what is going on but accompanied by an inability to put my finger on the irritation.

Step forward Darryl James from Hackney. Mr James was a gang member, Mr James was just interviewed on Radio 5 Live´s Breakfast show and I listened to that interview. My opinion on Mr James; a man who knows exactly what is going on and articulates the problem with stunning insight and perception. Not only does he tell it like it is but he even hints at the solution. This man should be in government but, unfortunately, he is a black ex-gang member so the probability of his experience and insight informing policy is shockingly low.

Low probability though is what Mr James identified as the main driving influence in the lives of many of those who enter gangs, low probability of chances in life. Let´s be serious, if the chances in your life are to work flipping burgers or being a 'security guard' standing in a supermarket all day OR to drive around in a flash car with smoked out windows and handle large bundles of cash each week, well, what would you choose? Rightly or wrongly the choice of 'career path' for young black men in many parts of our society is shockingly constrained.

source: BBC Web Site

Clearly many people would question such claims but then they probably are not young black men born into areas of depravation. Darryl James´s view was that many of these young men were intelligent and able entrepreneurs in the drugs culture. He talked about his experiences and claimed that the gang he was in was known from London to Birmingham. James describes a world where everything is peaceful and structured until one person fails to pay another person and then violence is the only consequence possible. After all this is not a world of contract law, this is not a business which can be referred to other authorities, if someone refuses to pay you £80,000 for 'services rendered' what can you do? James tells us that you kidnap someone and that they 'don´t go back' unless the money is paid.

Hmmmm, what if you de-criminalised drugs? What if you made this trade a legitimate trade and overnight made these 'talented' young men not gang leaders but entrepreneurs? What if you collected taxes on this trade rather than pay tax payer cash to police it? What if they had access to other means than guns to settle their disputes?

Oh yes, guns, you know, those things which kill people. I have always wondered where on earth these gangs get their weaponary. Hand guns are one thing but every now and again powerful automatic machine guns surface in the media reports. My guess is that we never ever see anything but the tip of the iceberg here. Mr James had an outrageous claim which he made live on air. So outrageous was it that the journalists quickly ran in the other direction rather than risk their pensions.

Mr James said that some of the weapons bought by gangs are supplied by British soldiers who are or were serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hold on a moment there! Surely he can´t be saying that the troops the tax payer funds to 'Fight the War on Terror' are arming the gangs which shoot five year old girls on our streets?

'Where do your guns come from?' asked the interviewer. 'They come in a box.' replies James. 'They are wrapped in plastic and stamped U.S. Military.' Darryl explains that you simply cannot buy machine guns still in their manufacturer´s vacuum packed packaging, complete with two magazines of amunition unless it comes from British soldiers. Now correct me if I am wrong about this but I would say that such a claim is political dynamite and any journalist worth their salt would be following that up even as all of the politicians are denying it out of hand.

Hold on, there is a knocking at my front door. I´ll just go and see who it is and be back in a minute.....................

Article Source: http://interpret.zar.vg