Yeovil cyclist shot with an airifle

[wurly]

Hi everyone

I thought you all might like to hear what happened to a work colleague of mine yesterday.

http://www.yeovilexp...Yeovil/?ref=rss

Hopefully someone will know the culprits involved and let the police deal with them?

 

[Gasman]

Also reported on that page.

 

[campbellab]

1st article: Snowballs not enough nowadays?

2nd article: Travelling alongside.... Interesting way of putting it.

 

[downfader]

Some people dont realise how powerful an air rifle can be. Used to have this argument with people back in the days when I had a G10 air pistol. That was like an ant blowing on a boulder compared to the rifle my Uncle used to kill rats when I was a lad. IIRC some air rifles require a gun license too.

That particular rifle would just pop a rat into bits, killed instantly.

I did read of a First bus that lost a window to an air rifle about a year back too.

That second story - if the driver came by close enough to be kicked then it was too close.

 

[fossyant]

Air rifle's are nasty.........

I used my mates air rifle in the garden shooting tin cans - yep that's it - no where else............ his dad would have battered us both if we started being idiots..... was great fun, but they rip a can to bits......... skin isn't as tough............

 

[campbellab]

I got the sight in my forehead when I tried my mates air rifle. I wasn't much better when they handed me an SA-80 either.

 

[ColinJ]

Some people dont realise how powerful an air rifle can be.

My mate used to have a .22 air rifle when we were 12 years old. We used the rifle in his gran's back garden which was about 30 metres long - it could shatter milk bottles into small pieces at that range. (Great fun, until his gran made us pick up all the broken glass!) 

 

[downfader]

Air rifle's are nasty.........

I used my mates air rifle in the garden shooting tin cans - yep that's it - no where else............ his dad would have battered us both if we started being idiots..... was great fun, but they rip a can to bits......... skin isn't as tough............

I used to shoot myself in the leg or foot with the G10 as a party trick. Wouldnt recommend it, even though it was a pretty unpowerful airgun.

My Brother had a 10-pump mini-rifle and that would kill a rabbit. Do the above with that and the pellet would have been lodged deep in the skin. Trouble is people assume they're all the same and that it would just be harmless fun to fire them around.

 

[Bollo]

Some people dont realise how powerful an air rifle can be. Used to have this argument with people back in the days when I had a G10 air pistol. That was like an ant blowing on a boulder compared to the rifle my Uncle used to kill rats when I was a lad. IIRC some air rifles require a gun license too.

That particular rifle would just pop a rat into bits, killed instantly.

I did read of a First bus that lost a window to an air rifle about a year back too.

I've an air rifle to deal with squirrels in the loft (too canny for traps and poison) and super rats (gobble poison for laughs) that cause problems at the bottom of the garden. The legals are quite involved - an air rifle over 16.2J energy requires a firearms certificate; you'd struggle to buy an air rifle from a reputable UK dealer over this limit and justify the requirements to plod. A rifle at the legal limit will still send a .177 pellet at close to the speed of sound, and a .22 will be slower but tends to carry more energy. If I'm plinking in the garden, .177 pest control pellets will go a cm or so into solid wood at 10m. The recommended maximum range for a kill is about 30m if your aim is good enough (mine isn't).

In England it's illegal to use an air rifle within 50ft of the centre of a public highway, which includes footpaths. Also, it's illegal for a pellet to cross into a property where you don't have permission to shoot, accidental or not. Scarier still, if you enter private property without permission carrying an air rifle then you can be guilty of armed trespass, a very heavy criminal offence. In this instance, the law makes no distinction between air weapons and full-blown guns. There are also rules about supervision for under 18's.

 

[PBancroft]

I've an air rifle to deal with squirrels in the loft (too canny for traps and poison) and super rats (gobble poison for laughs) that cause problems at the bottom of the garden. The legals are quite involved - an air rifle over 16.2J energy requires a firearms certificate; you'd struggle to buy an air rifle from a reputable UK dealer over this limit and justify the requirements to plod. A rifle at the legal limit will still send a .177 pellet at close to the speed of sound, and a .22 will be slower but tends to carry more energy. If I'm plinking in the garden, .177 pest control pellets will go a cm or so into solid wood at 10m. The recommended maximum range for a kill is about 30m if your aim is good enough (mine isn't).

In England it's illegal to use an air rifle within 50ft of the centre of a public highway, which includes footpaths. Also, it's illegal for a pellet to cross into a property where you don't have permission to shoot, accidental or not. Scarier still, if you enter private property without permission carrying an air rifle then you can be guilty of armed trespass, a very heavy criminal offence. In this instance, the law makes no distinction between air weapons and full-blown guns. There are also rules about supervision for under 18's.

Hang on... isn't your house within 50ft of a highway?

 

[Cubist]

Hang on... isn't your house within 50ft of a highway?

It may well be, but the offence is only half described.

The actual offence is to discharge any firework or firearm within fifty feet of the centre of any highway, thereby endangering any user of that highway.
So, in order for it to be an offence, someone actually needs to be endangered.

I still use an air rifle for rabitting. They are deadly, no doubt about it. I had a precharged pneumatic .177 rifle that would leave an exit wound on a headshot at 40 yards. I once tracked a pellet through a rabbit that had entered its chest, travelled though its heart, into its flank, exited and then went back into its hind leg where it lodged against the bone.
The spring powered .22 that Cubester uses is every bit as effective at up to 40 yards with head and neck shots, but doesn't overpenetrate like the .177

 

[wurly]

I've an air rifle to deal with squirrels in the loft (too canny for traps and poison) and super rats (gobble poison for laughs) that cause problems at the bottom of the garden. The legals are quite involved - an air rifle over 16.2J energy requires a firearms certificate; you'd struggle to buy an air rifle from a reputable UK dealer over this limit and justify the requirements to plod. A rifle at the legal limit will still send a .177 pellet at close to the speed of sound, and a .22 will be slower but tends to carry more energy. If I'm plinking in the garden, .177 pest control pellets will go a cm or so into solid wood at 10m. The recommended maximum range for a kill is about 30m if your aim is good enough (mine isn't).

In England it's illegal to use an air rifle within 50ft of the centre of a public highway, which includes footpaths. Also, it's illegal for a pellet to cross into a property where you don't have permission to shoot, accidental or not. Scarier still, if you enter private property without permission carrying an air rifle then you can be guilty of armed trespass, a very heavy criminal offence. In this instance, the law makes no distinction between air weapons and full-blown guns. There are also rules about supervision for under 18's.

Interesting information that.
From what you are saying it probably wasn't a high powered air rifle of the type you are describing, if it were youths involved they probably couldn't have bought such a weapon. I wasn't there and can't say from what range it was fired. The pellet certainly stopped at the bone of his knee joint (i saw the wound). There is no permenant damage as far as i can tell.
My thoughts are that is was a youth probably 'egged on' by another who thought it would be funny to try to hit his tyres....but missed.

In hindsight, i guess he should have possibly followed them and to try and get a positive description of them, but i think it was only after he carried on home the seriousness of what happened sunk in. By that time they had gone. There were more than a few people around at the time and yes, it's a public place. I know it's a rare thing to happen, but i doubt i'll be cycling around that area again.

Should have called 999 and said he'd been shot.....then wait for the armed response team to arrive....lol
Anyhow, i'll see him Monday and find out the latest.

 

[NormanD]

It happend to me last year Here  ... They were never officially caught, but the police had a good idea of who they were (CCTV footage) and since each gave the other an alibi (as well as their parents protecting their little darlings with "He was with me that day"), no charges were brought.

 

[Bman]

[snip]
Should have called 999 and said he'd been shot.....then wait for the armed response team to arrive....lol
Anyhow, i'll see him Monday and find out the latest.
[/snip]

You joke, but this happened to a friend of mine. As far as I recall they were shooting (legally) in a farmers field somewhere. Someone must have called 999 as armed response turned up with full air support pointing lasersights at their chest/s.

As you can imagine, he complied with all their instructions

 

[garrilla]

1st article: Snowballs not enough nowadays?

2nd article: Travelling alongside.... Interesting way of putting it.

If the cyclist can kick the car, the car is too close.