Epsom College tragedy

[Bambala]

I was horrified to read the story about the headteacher and family dying this morning, this poor family and I can't stop thinking about how the children at school must feel learning about this tragedy. I am sure the staff there are being brilliant at supporting them. I remember hearing that my old headteacher had died after I left school and even then being really shocked and upset.

Well simple jealousy seems unlikely in this case, unfortunately we will find out in the inquest but it maybe that as in similar cases, there was domestic abuse, self harm or suicidal ideation on the part of the man.

@LexMitior i wouldn’t say jealousy is simple. It can run very deep for some men who have their masculinity at stake. Yes there may be mental health issues there but don’t underestimate the complexity of jealousy and feeling emasculated.

I would expect schools to check whether guns are kept in proper storage in staff accommodation

I can’t be arsed to argue with the naive anti gun knee jerk reactions on here.

It will have been stored properly! He was the licence holder so obviously had the keys!!

Who is saying that the gun was not stored properly? He had a license, if there was a gun safe, he would have set it up and had access as the owner.

@Ndd135632 - these things feed into each other I think . A well adjusted person does not kill his child or wife out of jealousy alone. There will have been a domestic issue some time before that. There are similar cases where men have killed their families and these factors I mention were already there.

Don’t then. Fact is he had a licence and was deemed an appropriate person to have a gun. Which proves even people who pass all the checks can flip and use them to kill people. Some people seeing them as fun ‘hobbies’ doesn’t justify the lives they take.

Just because it is legal to keep a gun in your house because you have the necessary certificate doesn't mean the school has to allow it. It could easily be a condition of the school's employment that staff do not keep personal firearms in their home at school. It would be a perfectly reasonable expectation.

Much less likely to have been able to kill them (if not pre-meditated) if gun had to be kept offsite (especially school premises)

But surely you shouldn't be able to keep that licence whilst living on site at a school.

It’s not just fun hobbies, although his reason for owning was likely recreational. I grew up in a rural community there were there were friends from farming families whose fathers killed themselves with their shotguns. It’s not new and if they hadn’t had access to a gun they would have chosen another method. The licensing laws are strict in U.K. so the answer is ban all guns (unrealistic) or accept from time to time tragedies will happen and would still happen via a different method anyway even if guns were banned.

Sadly what I expected from the moment I first heard the news. The husband fitted a classic UK family annihilator profile:

www.wired.co.uk/article/family-killers

The question is which of the four reasons was it? I suspect a pending separation and divorce, but if he has ended up with lots of debt it could have been financial. Mental illness may have played a role, don't think it was an honour killing.

What OTHER METHODS could cause as much damage as quickly and easily as a gun?!?

Killing yourself is one thing, murdering two others is another.

Much more difficult to contemplate or do without access to a gun, simply because of its clean, deadly efficiency in non-pre-meditated situations, by comparison with any other method you could think of.

Because of course, guns are designed to make it easy to kill things.

She didn't say he had lost his job; she said he had started a new one.....

I work in a boarding school. When I first started here (more than 15 years ago), the boarding housemaster had rifles and there was a small shooting range. He was ex army. I really hope there was no ammunition in school but I can't say for sure. And I would imagine he would have been able to access some had he suddenly flipped. An (empty!) rifle of his was used in a school play under his supervision. I remember being uncomfortable looking at the gun but didn't think much of it beyond that. Now it horrifies me. Okay, the chances of someone going mad and killing a load of children are infinitesimally small. But it shouldn't have been allowed to be there as a possible risk in the first place. There was no reason for the guns to be on the school site. At all. It was just sport. The boarding master, his guns and the range are long gone, thankfully.

Reading that article makes me feel physically ill. He didn't kill them in their sleep, the head was aware, frightened and phoned for help. Just sickening. Poor, poor woman and little girl. I know most people who do these things have literally lost their minds but still. Really hard not to be angry.

Well in this example a knife. It’s apparently relatively easy to get guns on dark web anyway I’ve just been reading, so personally I think the current system works better than pushing everything underground.

@Minteraye has it spot on.

Pro gun Americans being up the 'they would just use something else' argument regularly along with pointing out the issues the UK has with knife crime, however the fact of the matter is it's much harder to kill several people with a knife/other weapon than a gun.

And I’ll add – I grew up in a non-rural community where access to guns is not the norm, and I don’t have a single friend from school whose parent took their own life. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen (obviously) but I don’t think multiple gun-related suicides in a small community is a ringing endorsement for firearm possession.

Good God why didn't he just top himself and have done with it? I have no sympathy for him, none at all. Only for his wife and child and their extended family (and the school).

Most people don’t want access to guns.

Are you saying that the people who currently have firearms licenses would all go and source weapons illegally on the dark web? And that any significant number of licence holders source guns with the intention of killing humans?

In which case, licences are meaningless in restricting gun possession to responsible people.

Unfortunately it sounds like they've had issues for a while. In 2016, George contacted the police as Emma had 'struck him'. He withdrew his complaint shortly after.

Source?

Reading that article makes me feel physically ill. He didn't kill them in their sleep, the head was aware, frightened and phoned for help.

When I read about this shocking case one of my thoughts was what other people living close by had been exposed to. No, no one else had been injured as far as we know, but clearly someone heard shots and had phoned the police. What else had staff or children living nearby also been exposed to - noise of shooting, shouting, cries of distress? It would be incredibly distressing to be witness to it.