back to article Armed cops contain Wild West Leicestershire toy gun menace

A Leicestershire couple who decided it would be a wheeze to celebrate renewing their wedding vows with a Wild West-themed party got a bit of a shock when armed police backed by a helicopter descended on the bash. According to the Telegraph, Roy and Val Worthington were "targeted" by law enforcement operatives as they left the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All fun and games

    until the first one gets killed by someone wielding a pink G11.

    AC

    Obviously

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!

    Our chief weapon is surprise! ...Surprise and fear...fear and surprise....

    Never underestimate the power of the curtain twitchers...

    Does the British attitude to guns qualify as hysteria yet?

  3. Danny

    get a good lawyer

    "In fact, police had previously been warned of the shindig, as Mrs Worthington explained: "Because of the gun laws, I phoned them in November to tell them we were having this themed do. I didn't think any more about it."

    Then i'd be having nightmares and the such. Get them sued for being stupid and spend the money on another bash.

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Lionel Baden

    what a plonker

    I mean really if you cant figure out 80ppl in fancy dress !

    good on the police they did the right thing

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Investigate"

    Yes. Why not send a couple of officers in a car to see if they can see anyone with a gun? Y'know, rather than wasting xtythousand pounds mobilising a whole swat team and a helicopter?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    WOW!

    So every supposed gun sighting reported to the police by the public gets armed officers everytime? what a fantastic waste of resources. what if someone then sees the police armed response unit and reports them to the police, do you get a second armed response unit called out to deal with the first one? If someone sees a group of cowboys and indians with plastic guns and that sets alarm bells ringing, how about seeing armed police on combat gear (ring, ring: hello, i've just seen some men in combat gear, bullet proof jackets, all armed, I need the police fast!)

    yes officer, I do have a license for this supersoaker, it's in the coat hanging up over there....

  8. Cameron Colley

    It's the wall!!!!!!!

    Sounds like an unusually happy ending -- was nobody shot or arrested? Surely this was a terrorist act?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Jesus wept...

    Sometimes I'm embarrassed to be British.

    I live in the US and have a large number of firearms, including an L1A1 and an AR15 (I compete in 3-gun events, among other things) and often take ribbing from my US counterparts who can't believe that the once-proud nation they used to admire has become a country of wimps.

  10. Mart

    Too early in the week for a playmobil mock-up?

    see title :-(

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    I don't believe any of it

    Without the playmobil version....Why no piccys?

  12. Hollerith

    You judge the police too harshly

    The wedding and costumed revelers *could* have been a fiendishly clever cover-up for a terrorist attack. After all, the Purloined Letter suggests the efficacy of burying a real gun with a party of squirt-gun-totin' hombres. Just what those diabolical cads of terrorsts would think of...

  13. jake Silver badge

    @Mark_T

    "Does the British attitude to guns qualify as hysteria yet?"

    Waddayamean"yet"?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    People are getting stupider

    Now, time to send the police around to the location of the 999 call to arrest the person who called it in for being criminally stupid...

  15. Jerome

    Poor guy

    " A Leicestershire police spokesman offered: "We have a duty to treat all reports of firearms as genuine." "

    Why does this sentence conjure up an image of an embarrassed looking constable, shuffling uncomfortably and staring at his feet as he mumbles the above sentence, the mother of all piss-poor brush-off excuses that his superiors have ordered him to parrot for our benefit?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    It's an old story, but relevant (From a David Davis speech)

    There was a story of an elderly lady who lived alone in a remote house in Yorkshire.

    She wakes up in the middle of the night and hears someone moving around downstairs.

    Realising she has a burglar in the house, she calls the police.

    "I'm sorry, madam," says the officer. "We have no spare police cars at the moment. Just lock your bedroom door .......and wait for him to leave."

    Now this does not please our little old lady at all. So ten minutes later she rings back.

    "It's all right officer," she said, "You needn't bother any more. Problem's solved. I've shot him."

    Well, inside five minutes 6 police cars arrive, sirens wailing and blue lights flashing and an armed response team crash through the front door-to find our burglar, safe and sound, who they duly arrest.

    The chief superintendent storms up the stairs to confront our old lady.

    "I thought you said you'd shot him," he said. "Really," she replied, "I thought you said you had no police cars."

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    plod stikes for once

    i informed the police about two morons with unlicensed shotguns and got told to stop spreading fairy tales.

    not a squeak from plod when one of them handed in a sawn off gun in full working order.

    they gave it him back and said "come back when its got a longer barrel.

    1st attempt; a maglite torch body taped to the barrel stump = no good.

    go away and try again.

    2nd attempt; a lenth of copper pie hammered on to the end of the barrel = ok, that'll do.

    no charges, no bollocking even.

    cops, useless flesh in a crappy suit.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    No need to worry about British gun hysteria

    Besides, the pharmacist all have some lovely pills they just love to sell you to take care of the societal state Brits are defending into. *shivers* flashes of 1984

    Happy face because he's so drugged up you'll never wipe that smile off his face.

  19. JimC

    > old story but relevant

    Wouldn't it be nice if that story was amusing...

  20. William Old
    Flame

    @AC "plod stikes for once"

    Not true... not even remotely true... anyone involved in dealing with a surrendered unlicensed firearm is not, repeat not, going to deal with this situation as described, because he/she knows full well that in a very short space of time, the said firearm will travel down the administrative chain towards its destruction and reach someone who might not agree with such a liberal response to the person handing it in... irrespective of whether it has copper piping hammered on to the barrel, or not.

    And if you are such a numpty that you can't spot your typo in the title of your posting, why would we believe you anyway?

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Joyriding police

    "We have a duty to treat all reports of firearms as a good excuse for a free joyride on a helicopter."

  22. Wayland Sothcott
    Black Helicopters

    Sending a message

    This looks like and example of police "Sending gthe right message".

    The message is obviously, we will not tollerate any form of gun culture, we have a zero tollerance policy.

    Pretty soon this sort of thing won't be news. We will instead think anyone with a toy gun is an irrisponsible idiot asking for trouble. Like street hocky in the middle of the motorway is irrisponsible. We are being trained to accept this.

  23. Steve Sutton

    @Roger Pearce

    "... is to bombard them with obvious fakes until they get the message. ... Can anyone find out whether protesting this nonsense in this way is legal?"

    I've not looked, but I believe that deliberately wasting police time is an offence

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Re: Jesus Wept

    "I ... have a large number of firearms"

    Gosh. You are big and strong and clever aren't you. I wish I had a big weapon.

    "...become a country of wimps"

    Because we are not interested in playing cowboys and indians with Real Guns like Real Men?

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ By William Old Posted Wednesday 11th February 2009 23:36 GMT (2nd attempt)

    typo, that all you got, bill?

    you don't mind me calling you bill, do you, bill?

    i can name all the cops involved and the cop from the fire-arms licensing dept. that i reported the lack of action to.

    the same officer that checked my gun security.

    also, the gunsmith from which one of them tried to buy a replacement barrel.

    also two independent witnesses, one of which witnessed a gun being carried in the street, uncovered and closed.

    i also went to school with both of the bad uns.

    sorry old, bill, you don't have to believe it, but i could prove it if necessary.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why oh why?

    Does every gun related story have to bring out all the loonies making a fuss about British gun laws? It's really damned tiresome.

    Laugh at the story if you like... but let us do our thing our way, and do your thing your way. If you're in the US then our laws don't mean anything to you and you've no reason to complain as much, frankly it's really repetitive. Get a friggin' life.

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