Previous Post
Next Post

Bullet found in garden, Worksop, UK courtesy worksopguardian.co.uk

In an incident that I can find no other word to describe besides “pathetic,” a single round of ammunition led to the complete stoppage of repair work at a home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, a small town in central England. Workmen were replacing a fence panel, but “had to abandon their work after discovering a bullet in the garden.” The workers knocked on the door and told the homeowner, a pregnant mother of three, that they were calling the police because they’d found the live ammunition. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said. . .

“I’ve got to keep the kids out of the garden until it is removed. I’m worried what else could be there.” Not so much for the mom-to-be, but for the workmen, I have no words. That not a one of them would take it upon themselves to move a single cartridge so they could get on with the job absolutely dumbfounds me. Once upon a time the men of England were some of the most adventurous and daring on the globe. Not so much anymore, it seems.

Your Lockdown of the Day™ comes from Lockport [HA!], New York. An empty ankle holster was found inside Starpoint High School just after 7 a.m. on Wednesday, leading to a two hour lockdown (before students were even there) and a search of the entire building. It turns out that an off-duty police officer dropped the empty holster in the parking lot after a school event Tuesday night. Another parent, thinking it was sports equipment, left it on a ledge just inside the door so the owner could reclaim it. “The decision was made to keep the students out of the school, on the buses, until the entire building was searched and was determined to be safe,” Starpoint Superintendent Dr. C. Douglas Whelan said. Parents were notified by phone and email that school would be delayed, but no explanation was given as to why. The lockdown was lifted and students were let into school just after 9am.

Joe Nocera at the NY Times started writing The Gun Report just over a year ago. A few days back, he published a brief one-year analysis. I’ll let you read the whole thing if you want (it’s only about 8 paragraphs), but here’s his conclusion: “The idea that guns, on balance, save lives — which is one of the most common sentiments expressed in the pro-gun comments posted to The Gun Report — is ludicrous. On the contrary: The clearest message The Gun Report sends is the most obvious. Guns make killing way too easy.”

GodKiller D.O.S. from ftf-comics.comIn the aftermath of R.I.P. ammo, click to see the rest of the cartoon.

Long Mountain Outfitters is cramped. The sales staff is on top of you. It’s also visibly armed. The customers are focused on the stock. There is very little eye contact. The store is functional, almost sterile. And in that way it’s just like every other gun shop in the U.S. But once you step behind the counter it’s clear this is no ordinary retail store. What truly separates LMO from the average gun shop is Dan Shea’s reference collection. He’s been building it for 35 years. Shea’s library contains over 4,000 weapons. It is one of the most diverse collections in the world, and you would never expect to find it here in a drab complex of low-slung commercial buildings just outside of Las Vegas. Read the rest over at www.polygon.com. [h/t Pascal]

ShootingTheBull410 previously gave G2 Industries’ R.I.P. ammo the thorough going-over that he’s known for in a two-part series. (Part 2) Now Richard Ryan gives it his world-class high-speed slow-mo treatment.

I think the best part was watching the drywall dust come blasting back out of the block as the expansion cavity collapsed. I haven’t checked out his extra footage from the R.I.P. tests, so if you do, let us know what’s worth seeing.

Previous Post
Next Post

132 COMMENTS

    • They’re probably just terrified at the thought of being charged with touching ammunition which is probably a punishable offense in Britain by now. Muggers are are doing pretty well it seems since you get a harsher punishment for trying to defend yourself than robbing people.

    • Imagine if you taped BB’s over hte primer and attached a strip of cloth to keep them falling ass down. Can a nation be conquered harder than a normal conquering?

    • Great Britain 2014: “We shall demit our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fret on the beaches, we shall fret on the landing grounds, we shall fret in the fields and in the streets, we shall fret in the hills, we shall fret in the gardens of pregnant mothers of three; we shall pre- surrender.”

    • Sorry, ST. There may’ve been a time we could do that, but no longer possible at all.
      Last week one of the schools in my area called the cops and went on lockdown because a teacher saw- not touched- a loaded round in the hallway. Kids lost half a day of school because someone had the audacity to- GASP!- bring a real bullet to school and lose it.

    • Once upon a time the men of England were some of the most adventurous and daring on the globe. Not so much anymore, it seems.

      I’ll bet they were when they were telling their HSLD Operator stories in the Pub that afternoon.

  1. 1 round of ammo that could have been there for decades? Did they change their panties before or after they called the cops.

  2. It’s funny, they’re still finding live ordinance in much of Europe from WWI and a single rifle round in an English garden prompts that sort of reaction?

  3. James Bond movies have always been full of unbelievable things, but the most unbelievable thing now is that a tough guy could be British.

  4. Unexploded German ordnance is discovered in England every year, including some huge bombs. Maybe that’s why the workers were concerned. Then again, maybe England has turned into a nation of pussies. Your guess is as good as mine.

    • No reason to freak out like that. My mother found an unexploded mortar round in her garden, know what she did? She walked calmly into the house and called the police to dispose of it (the way she did it you would think she was throwing out the trash or something).

      So I would daresay that most of them are weaklings (except for the old timers I guess).

  5. “Guns make killing way too easy.” You wouldn’t believe how many people you can run over with a SUV in the fashion district of Downtown LA. Especially on Saturdays.

    • Aren’t most gunshots survied? If guns make killing so damned easy, why do most folks shot with them survive? Besides that, the barrier to killing someone has never been the available tools, it is the mind of the killer.

      Guns are not the boogieman, er…boogie-item.

    • Or anything else but guns make killing easier. I have a vehicle and I carry a gun… the two are not redundant. I am not only willing to concede this point to the antis but I insist upon it; otherwise the 2nd Amendment is meaningless and we might as well all be sport shooters only.

    • Not that I’m a sociopath or anything, but…
      I bet I could run over a dozen pedestrians in downtown Chicago during a summer lunch rush, drive two blocks, jack a taxi, do it again, and jack another taxi; all before a call to the cops was even completed, let alone them show up on the scene. Drop taxi off in an alley, catch a train, and be gone and done in 5 minutes, no gun needed.
      Psychopaths kill people, not inanimate objects.

  6. I had the garbage company write me a nasty gram after I threw away some ruined brass. They threatened to cancel me.
    You can’t argue with or fix ‘stupid’.

  7. One round – one lockdown. One empty holster – one lockdown. It seems as if we have enough morons in the world to think that a worn out rifle round or vacant holster can kill a mass of people.

    • I’m really tempted to, the next time i’m forced to visit a police state, take a couple of .22 casings along to drop at random.

      • Don’t do this in DC, it’s considered reloading components and you could be spending some cell time with Bubba!

        • It’s possible (maybe) that even in D.C. they would recognize that a once used .22 rimfire cartridge cannot be reloaded. Wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to lock you up for it anyway.

      • 1+ and some languages don’t have a word for the entire assembly. My native tongue has a word for casing, bullet, primer, powder, jacket etc. but no word for the entire assembly. So we either call them bullets or casings.

        • It has a very inventive word for “banana.” I’m sure Norway can come up with a word for cartridge.

        • I wasn’t refering to Norwegian. Just because I live there doesn’t mean I am Norwegian. Norwegian has actually a word for banana it is “banan” and a word for cartridge which is “patron”.

          My native tongue is Bosnian (or should I say mother tongue?).

  8. From what I have seen and heard on the RIP ammo is, it really works well in gel, Outside of that it really doesn’t do anything. As far as the “saw” effect. No not at all. It seems regular hollow points does just as well if not better.

  9. Oh my stars! The Gun Report proves that there’s a gun-violence epidemic! Concealed carry = blood in the streets! Everyone, shelter in place until it’s over!

  10. Well… that cinches it. They aren’t worth going to the aid of anymore. Any nation (Liechtenstein?) that conquers Britain the far more worthy than they are. Have away, Vatican!

      • Well, still according to ShootingTheBull, he had a failure to feed with a Glock 19 at some point. He mentions it on a second test video he made.

      • I’ll stick to Remington 167gr JHPs, thank you very much, even though they are hard as hell to find anymore. Carefully hoarding what I have.

  11. From the original article: She added that police had been called twice about the bullet, but no-one has yet been to remove it.

    Wow.

    • “Three of the officers were treated and released at Maimonides Hospital for minor injuries following the incident, the department said…”

      I have a feeling there was more going on there than her story. Interesting how people will launch a civil suit instead of making a criminal complaint first…

      • Pretty. simple, a settled civil case helps make the victim whole again. The criminal case does nothing but give more power to the state.

  12. You might be misinterpreting the reason for the reaction. Picking up the ammo could get you charged with illegal possession.

  13. Damn, I remember when kids used get caught calling in bomb threats. Now they could avoid the trip to juvie hall if they drop an empty holster in a random place on campus. And thus the chicken littles invent a new way to skip a test day.

    • Due to it’s concealablity single round of .22LR would make more sense, although perhaps harder to acquire.

  14. I get the idea of how ridiculous it seems to be worried about a single cartridge, but remember that there are scads of unexploded ordnance buried in the UK from WWII. People still find bombs in their gardens or construction sites.

  15. What a surprise. Joe Nocera spends a year compiling cases of gun misuse, then comes to the conclusion that guns are bad.

    I wonder how The Doctor Report would look like after year one. If you compiled every case of malpractice and clear preventable error that harmed a patient, would you come to the conclusion that doctors are dangerous?

  16. In what language does “Nocera” mean “bad science.” He’d be thrown out of school if he tried to hand that crap in as a term paper.

    • Naaa.. more college professors would give him an A+ because it matched their ideological bias. Facts, logical arguments, and the scientific method don’t get top grades in college. Ask me how I know.

  17. In fairness to the British, it seems the police were not quite so panicked over the one round of ammunition. After being called twice and taking their sweet time to remove it, here’s what a spokesman for the police had to say,

    “A bullet is not an explosive device and does not pose an immediate danger to the public unless loaded into a gun, which was not the case here.”

    “The force control room receives in excess of 1,000 calls from the public every day, which range from threats to kill to armed robberies and assaults.”

    “We have a limited amount of police officers to attend incidents and our resources have to be deployed to the most serious and urgent incidents.”

    The most daring thing here was that the Worksop Guardian reported described the woman as ‘heavily pregnant’.

    • True. The police were quite laid back about the whole thing. Still, when I think of workmen, I think of them in the American style, salt of the earth, who in this country would just make the round disappear and get on with the task at hand, because they don’t have the time to mess about.

        • Forgetting the beyond-pussified firefighters for a moment, how does someone drown in waist-deep water? Had he never been in water before?

          MAN! Britain is BEYOND GONE.

        • William: epileptic seizure.

          But, seriously, the firefighters don’t go in because of their training rules. Fine, but how about the ninnies who called 999 (their 911)? Just wade your sorry lazy asses 20ft into a man made lake and bring him in yourselves. Holy shit.

          I’ll take my infinitesimally small chance of being a victim of “gun violence” to live in a country where people would still try to help each other. I mean, if you told your boss that you ruined your business suit rescuing a man who was drowning after he had a seizure, your boss would give you the rest of the day off. Hell, I’m pretty sure mine would buy me a new suit. And these people wonder why we blow them off when they try to tell us how to be civilized.

          Seriously, you can all eat a bag of d!cks. The British, that is. Oh, and this is what happens when unions and OSHA-like entities go way too far.

        • Hell yea. Here in the States people risk their lives on broken ice on rivers and ponds to save dogs, and DEER, and in most EUturd countries the emergency services people are not allowed to do that for people without filing all the “proper” paperwork 6 months in advance. And even then they will most likely be ordered not to do it.

    • Meh.. lived in England for a few years and have to say the work ethic of the average laborer left much to be desired. Most acted like they were owed a living, didn’t give the hindquarters of feral rodent about the job and looked for any excuse for a break or delay.

      I suspect that the desire for a quick trip to the pub for a pint had more to do with this than any actual concern over the ammo.

  18. I think next time I go to pick up a kid at school I’ll carry an empty holster…leave the gun at home but just carry the holster to mess with them. Nothing illegal about a piece of plastic…

  19. So in effect Joe is demanding we revert to a time when killing was harder and could only be accomplished by the physically dominant or those wealthy enough to afford life long training, prohibitively expensive equipment, and family connections to legitimize their actions after the fact. Is that about the long and the short of it?

    • You got it. All these gungrabbers have armed security guards and razorwire topped walls behind which they party away their useless lives.

  20. A complete lack of morals and being a Godless animal make killing way to easy. It boggles the mind that that the collective “they” argue over efficiency of method vs making any attempt to correct the root cause. Reducing the efficiency of a killer is great unless its you, your spouse, or your children, that they still manages to kill. Its like they are saying that some number of murders per unit time should be accepted and ignored.

  21. That high-speed camera video is awesome!

    I know people are now really dissing the round, but after watching that gel take that round, I know I sure as heck would not want to be hit by it.

  22. Thanks all for a good laugh this morning. Particularly the Brits and the rifle cartridge and the empty holster and the school lock-down. You can’t make this kind of stuff up.

  23. Hey, Matt, gots a link for y’all, http://www.thedissidentfrogman.com/blog/link/like-a-suppository-only-stronger/

    Froggy has been a bit inactive for a year but don’t let that stop you from checking out his blog. Lots of things to love there and he is all about sharing with his American cousins(he is the non-surrendering type Frenchman).

    And as for the English lockdown, pretty sure the property owner will get into more trouble for that improperly disposed alkaline battery. Or they might make it co-equal! Never can tell with leftards.

  24. How do you search an entire high school thoroughly enough to confirm the non existence of a handgun in 2 hours? Thinking of my the average-sized high school I attended I can’t see how you’d do it in less than 2 days.

    Off the top of my head:
    -Open every locker
    -leaf through every book in the library that’s bigger than a gun
    -probe every container in maintenance and the kitchen
    -inspect every space’s drop ceiling
    -open every music case
    -inspect every ball in the gym
    -inspect every desk and filing cabinet drawer, every cabinet

    (probably on some list now, feel free to add your own)

    • And the thing is that this guy really does it well.

      A high-speed camera is SUPER expensive and nobody can do this kind of thing with regular video cameras, no matter what kind of equipment or software magic you think you might have. You have to use a super high-end high speed camera and they cost tens of thousands of dollars!

      Then…the thing many people using high speed cameras do not realize is that you have to have a LOT of light for them to work well and really capture the super-high def high speed video we all love. A LOT of light. FPS Russia has tried it, but is not quite getting there.

      Kudos to this guy.

      • In the background of Richard Ryan’s videos you can often see a big reflective sheet, like 4′ x 8′, that he uses to reflect the light of the sun onto his subjects, and sometimes even that’s not enough.

  25. Man, it’s pretty sad when an American 12 year old girl with a hunting license has more stones than a bunch of British construction workers.

    • Man, it’s pretty sad when an American 12 year old girl with a hunting license has more stones than a bunch of British construction workers.
      Fixed it for ya.

  26. “Once upon a time the men of England were some of the most adventurous and daring on the globe. Not so much anymore, it seems.”

    It appears that the deaths of so many young British men in WWI and WWII effectively removed the warrior gene from their population. Unfortunately, it is now being supplied by the large numbers of young Muslim males moving into the island. Goodbye, Britain.

  27. “Guns make killing way too easy.”
    Sigh. The entire point of firearms is that it makes killing easier…killing a deer for dinner, kiling a hog or chipmunk to protect your fields, killing a murderous rapist to protect your family. Killing drug cartel members and the corrupt police and feds who help them, to protect the security of a free state. If it weren’t for guns, people this short-sighted statist would say things like “long pointy knives make killing too easy”.

  28. Idahopete said: “It appears that the deaths of so many young British men in WWI and WWII effectively removed the warrior gene from their population”…

    I say: I don’t know about that. UK “Soccer Hooligans” are the most feared in Europe, LOL. It is just that the aggression is not organized and channeled properly. Brit Paras and commandos still have the spirit, may in fact be the last bastion. Like in the USA, it is the testosterone lacking politicians that are running down the “hero gene”, while other countries encourage it in their “youts”…

  29. “Once upon a time the men of England were some of the most adventurous and daring on the globe. Not so much anymore, it seems.”…

    I say: Remember that comment the next time you want to badmouth the French warrior. Their performance in WW2 was a direct result of the losses, battle fatigue they suffered in WW1, and suffer they did right up there an beyond British casualty lists, and that is saying something, after battles like the Somme(!), even to the point of French mutiny in the trenches. Now, the French regained some balls fighting in Vietnam/Indochina and later in Algeria, but again, it was in the special units (Paras, Legion) where most of that resided (and I know, the Legion were mostly non-French born, especially the ex-Nazi SS units that were drafted into the Legion after WW2, but that was an anomaly). Like all good troops, the French can be deadly when properly led and trained…

    • People laugh and joke about Mexicans, when the fact is you put adequate weapons in their hands, give them a basic level of training, and LEADERS who are not pieces of sh*t and they are excellent soldiers. As are others from Central and South America. In the end it always comes down to leadership.

  30. Maybe the person who dropped the cartridge should be gone after for, “Abuse or Improper Disposal, of an Unspent Cartridge”.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here