British MP shot dead

FluffyMcDeath said:
Weird. Mair had a brush with US law enforcement? Interesting. An FBI informant arranging White Supremacist meetings in London.
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He's just been sentenced to life. Seems to be a seriously unhinged nutjob:
An extreme rightwing terrorist has been sentenced to prison for the rest of his life for the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox after a seven-day Old Bailey trial in which he made no effort to defend himself.

Thomas Mair repeatedly shot and stabbed Cox in an attack during the EU referendum campaign in June. While attacking her he was saying “this is for Britain”, “keep Britain independent”, and “Britain first”, the court heard.

The judge said Mair would have to serve a whole-life sentence due to the “exceptional seriousness” of the offence.

Mr Justice Wilkie refused a request from Mair for an opportunity to address the court, saying he had already plenty of chances to explain himself, and had not done so.

Cox, the judge told Mair, was not only a “passionate, open-hearted, inclusive and generous” person, but a true patriot. He, on the other hand “affected patriotism” and admired the Nazis.

“It is evident from your internet searches that your inspiration is not love of country, it is an admiration for Nazis and similar anti-democratic white supremacist creeds,” Wilkie said.
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Wayne said:
. You've got strict anti-gun laws..
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Here's the gun (a sawn-off hunting rifle):
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FluffyMcDeath said:
The article says "terrorist"
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Indeed and this was stated in court but, as ever, the definition of "terrorist" seems to be a little confused.
From the article:
Following the verdicts, Richard Whittam QC, prosecuting, told the court that Mair had committed a terrorism offence when he murdered Cox, but added that it had not been necessary to prosecute him as a terrorist.

There were two reasons for this. Mair was charged with murder, which is a crime under common law and not an offence under counter-terrorism legislation; and the jury was only to be asked to decide whether or not Mair had committed the crime of murder. It was not asked to consider his motivation.

Prosecutors acknowledge privately that the febrile atmosphere in which the EU referendum campaign was waged appears certain to have contributed to Mair’s decision to murder his MP, but this played no part in their case.
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Having said that, politically motivated murder is usually referred to as terrorism in the UK so I don't have much problem with him being described as such. It was a good enough description for countless Irish republicans behaving somewhat similarly.

Either way, it's seems he's a very dangerous man.
 
Wayne said:
I was honestly surprised to hear about a gun crime happening in the U.K. at all.
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Only covers Scotland but figures released today show:
The number of recorded crimes involving firearms has fallen by nearly three-quarters in ten years to its lowest-ever level.
Firearms were used in 332 recorded crimes in 2015/16, according to new figures released today.

The number of crimes where a person was killed or injured by a firearm fell by over a quarter, from 48 in 2014/15 to 35 the following year.

Robberies saw the largest drop in crimes where firearms were involved, with 40 per cent fewer in 2015/16 compared with the year before.
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An important part of these statistics is that air rifles are considered firearms:
An air weapon was the main firearm in nearly half (48 per cent) of all offences involving a firearm in 2015/16.
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So you can probably reduce these figures by almost 50% if you're talking about what most people think of when the term 'firearm' is used.

Having said all of that, a young man was shot dead in his car about half a mile from my house last week.
 
Robert said:
From today's edition of the same paper:
Should Thomas Mair be considered a terrorist?
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I'm late to this conversation. Has your mainstream media been blaming the incident on Brexit? On Trump? If this happened in the US, there would be 24/7 nonstop coverage with the narrative that Trump himself might as well have pulled the trigger. Facts be damned, before any facts even came out the narrative would be crafted and repeated word for word in each of the major media outlets. It would almost be as if they wrote the stories before the event, but we know that is impossible...
 
I think it's ridiculous to call him a terrorist. The general population has nothing to fear from him. It was a political attack.The politicians themselves may feel fearful but that is not the same as the doctrine of terrorism wherein a wide scale campaign of random violence is used to undermine the political authority of the rulers by making the ruled public feel that they cannot rely on the authority for security.
I can't speak for other times in history but during the last decade or so there has been a pernicious expansion of activities covered by some of the most emotive and negative terms - perhaps at the pushing of PR companies to grab attention for issues - but now everyone who copies something is a thief, any man is a rapist, any criticism of the banking industry is anti-semitism and any political or violent act against the ruling classes is terrorism.

Thomas Mair is a murderer as correctly determined - not a terrorist.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
I think it's ridiculous to call him a terrorist. The general population has nothing to fear from him.
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By that measure, many Irish republican "terrorists" have been mislabelled for decades.

It was a political attack.The politicians themselves may feel fearful but that is not the same as the doctrine of terrorism wherein a wide scale campaign of random violence is used to undermine the political authority of the rulers by making the ruled public feel that they cannot rely on the authority for security.
I can't speak for other times in history but during the last decade or so there has been a pernicious expansion of activities covered by some of the most emotive and negative terms - perhaps at the pushing of PR companies to grab attention for issues - but now everyone who copies something is a thief, any man is a rapist, any criticism of the banking industry is anti-semitism and any political or violent act against the ruling classes is terrorism.

Thomas Mair is a murderer as correctly determined - not a terrorist.
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In your opinion.

There is more than one definition of terrorist and Mair certainly qualifies for the OED definition so, whilst I would probably call him a psychotic, murderous arsehole rather than a terrorist, I don't find it even mildly ridiculous that he is being referred to as such by others.

That said, I do agree that emotive words seem to be co-opted more and more.

-EDIT-
It should probably be pointed out that Mair generally isn't referred to as a terrorist. The prosecution labelled him such during his trial and that led to this discussion. He's normally described as a murderer.
 
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Robert said:
By that measure, many Irish republican "terrorists" have been mislabelled for decades.
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Blowing up pubs where the general public gathers - terrorism. Blowing up soldiers - warfare.

In your opinion.
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As opposed to the OED's opinion which is an opinion about how the word is currently used especially in print.

There is more than one definition of terrorist and Mair certainly qualifies for the OED definition
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which is not a definition accepted by most governments in the world because it covers their war fighting as well.

That said, I do agree that emotive words seem to be co-opted more and more.
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Perhaps in the end they will have as little emotive impact as words like terrific and awesome and damn.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Blowing up pubs where the general public gathers - terrorism. Blowing up soldiers - warfare.
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I'm not sure why you'd bring up either of those two things, other than to throw up a straw man. I was talking about your reason for it not qualifying as terrorism being "the general public has nothing to fear". This applies to any politically motivated, targeted murder of individuals and plenty of that went on during 'the troubles' and was often referred to as terrorism. Pubs and bombs aren't needed.

And rightly or wrongly, politically motivated murder of soldiers is usually labelled as terrorism by the UK government, courts and media, regardless of the manner of their murder.

For a more recent example, the two men who killed Lee Rigby were and still are referred to as terrorists. Another politically motivated murder carried out in broad daylight on an English street. I don't see big enough differences in the circumstances that labelling one terrorism is fair enough but doing so in the other case is ridiculous.

Again, I wouldn't generally refer to any of the above as terrorism but UK 'society' has for as long as I can remember.
 
Robert said:
I'm not sure why you'd bring up either of those two things, other than to throw up a straw man.
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Stawman? How so? I'm just trying to draw the borders where I see them.

This applies to any politically motivated, targeted murder of individuals and plenty of that went on during 'the troubles' and was often referred to as terrorism.
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Right, they were referred to as - but that wasn't and isn't universal. Certainly the ruling classes and the BBC had that bent, but I don't think they get to define things.I'm not the only one to see a distinction between terrorism and assassination.
And rightly or wrongly, politically motivated murder of soldiers is usually labelled as terrorism by the UK government, courts and media, regardless of the manner of their murder.
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Just saying, in my opinion (and I know there are others who share it), I disagree. Those that refer to it as such have their reasons but I am not one of them.

Again, I wouldn't generally refer to any of the above as terrorism but UK 'society' has for as long as I can remember.
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I think that is my point.
 
Her husband has published an op-ed:
By retweeting Britain First, Trump offends a decency he cannot understand
Brendan Cox

Britain First is one such group of hate preachers, in this case dedicated to driving hatred chiefly against the Muslim community of our country. It was Jayda Fransen, its deputy leader, whose tweets of inflammatory videos were conveyed by the president to his 43.6m Twitter followers. Fransen, as we know, as a figure more responsible than Trump would have found out, is facing charges of religiously aggravated harassment. We know how divisive that group has been, preying on vulnerable communities. We also know where that kind of poison can lead.
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"Britain First" was what her murderer is alleged to have shouted as he attacked her.
Whether he was referring to the organisation or just making a statement of his opinion is debatable.
 
Robert said:
That's almost as shark-jumpy as when Amber Rudd said Trump was too right wing (the first time - I see she's jumped on the bandwagon this time too, although hopefully not by quoting Mein Kampf).
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As Metalman posted in the other thread, the contents of the tweets don't seem to be the issue only the person he retweeted from. I had no idea who Jayda Fransen was, but I am not the president of the USA. Whoever is running Trump Twitter page I am sure is getting paid enough to do a little Googling.
 
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