Friday, 8 July 2022

Better Go Back To The Range...

A driver was left "appalled" by the way that a wounded deer was put down by firearms officers on the M5 this morning.
The deer was reportedly shot by police on a motorway slip road at junction 11 in Gloucestershire today (Friday, June 10), after it had been hit by a vehicle.

Oh. Typical townie snowflake, I suppose..? 

According to a witness, police blocked off the junction at around 7am before a firearms officer fired his weapon five times over a period of several minutes to put down the animal.

Five times..?! 


 "Gloucestershire Police Fireams officer at your service, ma'am...."

A spokesperson for Gloucestershire Police said that the animal was "put down in the most humane way possible".

Here. Think you might need this:


 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's not that they can't shoot straight, I think it's more that their weapons don't work against deer...

Standard issue police gear will probably still be the H&K MP7, chambered for 4.6x30mm. This is great for short range, mainly urban confrontations where the idea is to make the average human stop what they're doing and have a bit of a lie down (with a very good chance of getting them patched up and back on their feet for a trial later on), with minimum damage to the surroundings. It's not a good round *at all* for deer, and falls far short of the lowest calibre and muzzle energy that a civilian hunter would be legally obliged to deploy (https://www.countydeerstalking.co.uk/deer-stalking-uk-legislation).

So plod takes shot #1, generously assuming that they know *where* to shoot a deer correctly for a clean kill, and the deer just says "ow, that really hurts - why did you do that?". Repeat until it's had enough and croaks.

Anonymous said...

I've never trusted the police to have guns. Seems like my suspicions were correct

decnine said...

Maybe they had to complete a risk assessment in case they failed to miss their own feet.

Anonymous said...

Who could ever forget the time that plod bunglers were called to humanely dispose of that horse in a field? And these 'marksmen' running out of ammunition whilst the poor creature still had three legs that persistently defied amputation by shotgun?

Ben said...

"a firearms officer fired his weapon five times over a period of several minutes"...and is now looking for a career in the adult industry...

Northish said...

Someone I know was there when a critically injured horse was put out of its misery by one of the local hunting and fishing types. The bloke said anything less than a range of 100 yards would make the possibility of a richochet too dangerous. One shot and the horse lay down and never moved again. There weren't even any nerve twitches or spasms. I don't know what type of rifle it was, but a few years before the same guy was called to a lurcher that was ripping the throats out of sheep. The farmer said there was a hole in the dog big enough that you could have put your hand through.

JuliaM said...

"I think it's not that they can't shoot straight, I think it's more that their weapons don't work against deer..."

Agreed. But as it's such an important part of motorway policing, why don't they have the tools to do it right?

"Maybe they had to complete a risk assessment in case they failed to miss their own feet."

😂

"Who could ever forget the time that plod bunglers were called to humanely dispose of that horse in a field?"

Certainly not me, though the RSPCA seems to have conveniently not noticed...

"I don't know what type of rifle it was, but a few years before the same guy was called to a lurcher that was ripping the throats out of sheep. The farmer said there was a hole in the dog big enough that you could have put your hand through."

Pity he didn't reload and do the owner too!

Northish said...

There was someone with the dog, the conversation went:-

Is that your dog?

No.

Bang.