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Copyright 2003 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd.
Daily Record
January 22, 2003, Wednesday
SECTION: VITAL; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 1682 words
HEADLINE: FIRST PERSON: LINDA MITCHELL, 38, & MICAH MITCHELL, 12;
BOY TRICKED ME INTO HIS HOUSE, NEXT THING I WAS STARING DOWN THE BARREL AND HE SHOT ME IN FACE
BYLINE: Linda Watson-Brown
BODY:
EARLIER this month, the Government announced a series of measures to tackle gun crime. However, many campaigners for air gun control are less than happy with the plans.
They say the proposals don't go far enough to make any real difference.
Home Secretary David Blunkett said that replica guns and air weapons will no longer be able to be carried "in a public place without good reason".
The legislation will also raise the age limit for acquiring and using an air weapon without adult supervision from 14 to 17 years old. Linda Mitchell, whose 11-year-old son Micah was shot in the face by a 10-year -old with an air gun last year, has vowed to continue her fight for more effective controls and education.
Here, she and Micah tell their stories - and why they think David Blunkett hasn't gone far enough.
Micah's story
I WAS having a really brilliant day when it all happened. I had gone to my friend's house because he said I could have a go on his bike.
He was having his dinner, but he said he wouldn't be long and I could take his bike while he finished up. So I did.
When I was about halfway up the street an older boy called me over. "Someone's been hurt!" he shouted at me. I honestly thought another kid had been injured, so I ran to the house with him.
I thought if something had happened to me and I needed help, I would hope that it would come quickly. So that's what I tried to do.
I just didn't expect to go into a house and get shot.
When I got to there, the door was open and I started running up the stairs. I could hear someone moaning, like they had been hurt.
But then the lad jumped up at me. I saw straight away that he had a rifle in his hands. I was shocked, just shocked and I froze.
This lad fired the gun into the ceiling and then he turned it on me. I could see down the barrel.
I was just thinking, Why? Why is he pointing a gun at me?' It didn't make sense.
He fired again - at me this time - and I knew my face had been hit. He was dead calm. It didn't seem to bother him in the slightest.
I could feel the blood on my face, but I didn't know whether it was serious. I shouted at him that I'd need to use his phone, I had to call an ambulance.
He just looked at me and said: "No. You can't." The blood was pouring out and I ran to the call box outside. But when I was dialling, the lad's mum was walking past with their dog and she said that there was nothing really wrong, that I wasn't to call anyone and that she'd fix me up.
She was shouting and screaming at me. I kept dialling and the woman on the other end kept me talking until the ambulance got there.
I find it hard to believe this happened to me. I knew the boy who shot me, but he wasn't a friend because he was really mean and horrible to people. I think him and the other lad picked me because I wasn't a friend.
It's evil that anyone can get their hands on any gun and just ruin lives. I know we're in a gun culture and boys my age think it's cool, but what happened to me should never happen to anyone, should it?
Kids my age, and younger, can get anything they want on the Internet - but they aren't old enough to choose whether someone lives or dies. No one is, really.
I still feel shaky about it all, especially when I see guns on telly or I hear people talk about them as if they're great.
Anyone can have one - anyone - and that still terrifies me.
Linda's story
JUST over a year ago, my husband Ian and I decided that Micah could finally be allowed out to play on his own.
It's not that we were over-protective or that Micah was a difficult child - far from it - but we had always tried to do the best for our only child, and if that meant not allowing him to wander the streets like lots of lads his age, so be it.
I rue the day we decided things were now safe - for at 6 o'clock one September evening, a woman from a few streets away came screaming to our door. "Quick!" she yelled. "Micah's been hurt!"
I assumed it was a bike accident. "Oh God," I thought. "He's broken his arm."
But then the mum of the boy who had shot him screamed that he had been shot.
Shot. I had no other details. You can't take that in. Guns. Shooting. Your son. It flashed across my mind: "Micah's dead."
What I would find out during what seemed like the longest 10 minutes of my life was that her 10-year-old son had blasted my boy full in the face with an air rifle, and an ambulance was on the way.
I knew this family. Everyone knew they had shotguns in their house, that the father called himself a hunter-gatherer and they regularly ate whatever he killed.
The father had three licensed shotguns. The police Armed Response Unit had been there on previous occasions.
If she was saying Micah had been shot, I had to think it was by a gun that had killed him. You do equate the word shot' with dead'. I thought we'd lost him.
I rushed round and saw him in the ambulance. The mother was shouting that there was no need to report this to the police and that her husband would get his guns taken off him - as if that was all that mattered.
At hospital, Micah was told he was very lucky. He didn't look lucky as he lay there, shaking and covered in blood.
His top lip had been pierced and the impact had shattered his top teeth. If he hadn't kept his mouth closed, it would have gone into his throat and killed him.
A 10-year-old boy in a house alone with an air gun - and the keys to three weapons in a kitchen drawer - had almost killed my son and we were meant to feel lucky.
We were allowed home and told to come back after the weekend when the wound had settled. He clung to me all that weekend and was shaky. He wept all the time. He was playing it back in his mind and saying he couldn't believe what had happened. Neither could I.
The nightmares started then and they are still going on. There are times when he just won't talk about it, other times when he has to get it all out. He must have told his story 100 times and he has never once deviated from what happened.
After eight months, the case against the boy was finally heard in our local magistrate's court in Sunderland.
The police were very supportive from the beginning and they said they had a good case.
You don't know exactly what you want in a situation like that, but you do want - or need - something that feels like justice. By this time, no- one had even apologised to my son.
Micah had to stand in court with the boy watching him and say what happened. He had to sit there while the air gun which had been used to shoot him was brought out and the 10-year-old was asked to lift it and hold it as he had that day.
And then their barrister turned round and said Micah had concocted it all. Micah was basically called a liar.
The boy was found not guilty.
By this time, the police were sick. Two months earlier, I had started a campaign, with their support, to try and get some sort of licensing and restrictions for air gun ownership. I had to do something.
I couldn't believe the response I got. People were calling, writing, responding to anything I said in public.
It's a huge problem. There are still around five million unregistered air weapons in circulation. They're seen as toys, but they can hurt and they can kill.
We had heard through the Campaign for Air Gun Control that the Home Office had been looking at things, but that nothing would be done in a kneejerk way.
But after the shootings in Birmingham at New Year, the announcement came out. I couldn't understand why it was made to look like it was in response to those girls getting killed. And it's not enough.
What they are proposing wouldn't stop what happened to Micah. It won't stop kids thinking air guns are cool. It won't stop them accessing their parents' weapons, and it won't stop them being able to buy on the Internet.
The legislation before didn't stop those under 14 from accessing the guns, so why will raising the minimum age to 17 change that? And what will be a good' reason for having an air gun?
We need strict licensing. We need secure storage and transportation protocol to prevent children getting hold of guns.
Even pro-shooting groups support my views - they are tired of being tarnished by the irresponsible attitudes of others.
What happened to Micah knocked us sideways. We've been threatened more times than I can count. We've been intimidated and harassed. My father had a heart attack, which we didn't even notice because of all the strain.
Micah has had to change schools. He still can't face guns in any context, he will always need work on his teeth and mouth and he has a phobia about anyone - even dentists - asking him to open his mouth, because he knows that keeping it shut that day was what saved his life.
The situation in Scotland is even more difficult because of two things.
Firstly, there is some apathy, because after Dunblane people think things have been sorted. Well, they haven't. And if you don't believe me, ask your kids. They'll know how easy it is to get access, they'll know who in their school has them.
When Micah went back to his class, he was taunted and bullied about what had happened. One boy was allowed to look for cartridges for his air gun on the Internet during IT lessons, and he teased Micah about this.
Secondly, when I tried to hold a public meeting in Scotland with the support of politicians, only one MSP got behind me.
I would urge anyone who thinks this is a disgrace to contact their MSP and ask what they are going to do about it.
I get no funding for my campaign, but I'm more than happy to bring it to Scotland if that's what people want.
If Micah's ordeal can achieve anything, it's that no other child goes through this torture. If this can happen to us, it can happen to anyone.
Scotland has to realise this is a constant danger - don't wait for a tragedy to happen before you do something about it.
The Campaign for Air Gun Control can be contacted on 07967-869974.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, Micah was 11 before his parents let him start playing with the other lads?
Daily Record
January 22, 2003, Wednesday
SECTION: VITAL; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 1682 words
HEADLINE: FIRST PERSON: LINDA MITCHELL, 38, & MICAH MITCHELL, 12;
BOY TRICKED ME INTO HIS HOUSE, NEXT THING I WAS STARING DOWN THE BARREL AND HE SHOT ME IN FACE
BYLINE: Linda Watson-Brown
BODY:
EARLIER this month, the Government announced a series of measures to tackle gun crime. However, many campaigners for air gun control are less than happy with the plans.
They say the proposals don't go far enough to make any real difference.
Home Secretary David Blunkett said that replica guns and air weapons will no longer be able to be carried "in a public place without good reason".
The legislation will also raise the age limit for acquiring and using an air weapon without adult supervision from 14 to 17 years old. Linda Mitchell, whose 11-year-old son Micah was shot in the face by a 10-year -old with an air gun last year, has vowed to continue her fight for more effective controls and education.
Here, she and Micah tell their stories - and why they think David Blunkett hasn't gone far enough.
Micah's story
I WAS having a really brilliant day when it all happened. I had gone to my friend's house because he said I could have a go on his bike.
He was having his dinner, but he said he wouldn't be long and I could take his bike while he finished up. So I did.
When I was about halfway up the street an older boy called me over. "Someone's been hurt!" he shouted at me. I honestly thought another kid had been injured, so I ran to the house with him.
I thought if something had happened to me and I needed help, I would hope that it would come quickly. So that's what I tried to do.
I just didn't expect to go into a house and get shot.
When I got to there, the door was open and I started running up the stairs. I could hear someone moaning, like they had been hurt.
But then the lad jumped up at me. I saw straight away that he had a rifle in his hands. I was shocked, just shocked and I froze.
This lad fired the gun into the ceiling and then he turned it on me. I could see down the barrel.
I was just thinking, Why? Why is he pointing a gun at me?' It didn't make sense.
He fired again - at me this time - and I knew my face had been hit. He was dead calm. It didn't seem to bother him in the slightest.
I could feel the blood on my face, but I didn't know whether it was serious. I shouted at him that I'd need to use his phone, I had to call an ambulance.
He just looked at me and said: "No. You can't." The blood was pouring out and I ran to the call box outside. But when I was dialling, the lad's mum was walking past with their dog and she said that there was nothing really wrong, that I wasn't to call anyone and that she'd fix me up.
She was shouting and screaming at me. I kept dialling and the woman on the other end kept me talking until the ambulance got there.
I find it hard to believe this happened to me. I knew the boy who shot me, but he wasn't a friend because he was really mean and horrible to people. I think him and the other lad picked me because I wasn't a friend.
It's evil that anyone can get their hands on any gun and just ruin lives. I know we're in a gun culture and boys my age think it's cool, but what happened to me should never happen to anyone, should it?
Kids my age, and younger, can get anything they want on the Internet - but they aren't old enough to choose whether someone lives or dies. No one is, really.
I still feel shaky about it all, especially when I see guns on telly or I hear people talk about them as if they're great.
Anyone can have one - anyone - and that still terrifies me.
Linda's story
JUST over a year ago, my husband Ian and I decided that Micah could finally be allowed out to play on his own.
It's not that we were over-protective or that Micah was a difficult child - far from it - but we had always tried to do the best for our only child, and if that meant not allowing him to wander the streets like lots of lads his age, so be it.
I rue the day we decided things were now safe - for at 6 o'clock one September evening, a woman from a few streets away came screaming to our door. "Quick!" she yelled. "Micah's been hurt!"
I assumed it was a bike accident. "Oh God," I thought. "He's broken his arm."
But then the mum of the boy who had shot him screamed that he had been shot.
Shot. I had no other details. You can't take that in. Guns. Shooting. Your son. It flashed across my mind: "Micah's dead."
What I would find out during what seemed like the longest 10 minutes of my life was that her 10-year-old son had blasted my boy full in the face with an air rifle, and an ambulance was on the way.
I knew this family. Everyone knew they had shotguns in their house, that the father called himself a hunter-gatherer and they regularly ate whatever he killed.
The father had three licensed shotguns. The police Armed Response Unit had been there on previous occasions.
If she was saying Micah had been shot, I had to think it was by a gun that had killed him. You do equate the word shot' with dead'. I thought we'd lost him.
I rushed round and saw him in the ambulance. The mother was shouting that there was no need to report this to the police and that her husband would get his guns taken off him - as if that was all that mattered.
At hospital, Micah was told he was very lucky. He didn't look lucky as he lay there, shaking and covered in blood.
His top lip had been pierced and the impact had shattered his top teeth. If he hadn't kept his mouth closed, it would have gone into his throat and killed him.
A 10-year-old boy in a house alone with an air gun - and the keys to three weapons in a kitchen drawer - had almost killed my son and we were meant to feel lucky.
We were allowed home and told to come back after the weekend when the wound had settled. He clung to me all that weekend and was shaky. He wept all the time. He was playing it back in his mind and saying he couldn't believe what had happened. Neither could I.
The nightmares started then and they are still going on. There are times when he just won't talk about it, other times when he has to get it all out. He must have told his story 100 times and he has never once deviated from what happened.
After eight months, the case against the boy was finally heard in our local magistrate's court in Sunderland.
The police were very supportive from the beginning and they said they had a good case.
You don't know exactly what you want in a situation like that, but you do want - or need - something that feels like justice. By this time, no- one had even apologised to my son.
Micah had to stand in court with the boy watching him and say what happened. He had to sit there while the air gun which had been used to shoot him was brought out and the 10-year-old was asked to lift it and hold it as he had that day.
And then their barrister turned round and said Micah had concocted it all. Micah was basically called a liar.
The boy was found not guilty.
By this time, the police were sick. Two months earlier, I had started a campaign, with their support, to try and get some sort of licensing and restrictions for air gun ownership. I had to do something.
I couldn't believe the response I got. People were calling, writing, responding to anything I said in public.
It's a huge problem. There are still around five million unregistered air weapons in circulation. They're seen as toys, but they can hurt and they can kill.
We had heard through the Campaign for Air Gun Control that the Home Office had been looking at things, but that nothing would be done in a kneejerk way.
But after the shootings in Birmingham at New Year, the announcement came out. I couldn't understand why it was made to look like it was in response to those girls getting killed. And it's not enough.
What they are proposing wouldn't stop what happened to Micah. It won't stop kids thinking air guns are cool. It won't stop them accessing their parents' weapons, and it won't stop them being able to buy on the Internet.
The legislation before didn't stop those under 14 from accessing the guns, so why will raising the minimum age to 17 change that? And what will be a good' reason for having an air gun?
We need strict licensing. We need secure storage and transportation protocol to prevent children getting hold of guns.
Even pro-shooting groups support my views - they are tired of being tarnished by the irresponsible attitudes of others.
What happened to Micah knocked us sideways. We've been threatened more times than I can count. We've been intimidated and harassed. My father had a heart attack, which we didn't even notice because of all the strain.
Micah has had to change schools. He still can't face guns in any context, he will always need work on his teeth and mouth and he has a phobia about anyone - even dentists - asking him to open his mouth, because he knows that keeping it shut that day was what saved his life.
The situation in Scotland is even more difficult because of two things.
Firstly, there is some apathy, because after Dunblane people think things have been sorted. Well, they haven't. And if you don't believe me, ask your kids. They'll know how easy it is to get access, they'll know who in their school has them.
When Micah went back to his class, he was taunted and bullied about what had happened. One boy was allowed to look for cartridges for his air gun on the Internet during IT lessons, and he teased Micah about this.
Secondly, when I tried to hold a public meeting in Scotland with the support of politicians, only one MSP got behind me.
I would urge anyone who thinks this is a disgrace to contact their MSP and ask what they are going to do about it.
I get no funding for my campaign, but I'm more than happy to bring it to Scotland if that's what people want.
If Micah's ordeal can achieve anything, it's that no other child goes through this torture. If this can happen to us, it can happen to anyone.
Scotland has to realise this is a constant danger - don't wait for a tragedy to happen before you do something about it.
The Campaign for Air Gun Control can be contacted on 07967-869974.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, Micah was 11 before his parents let him start playing with the other lads?
