British lawmaker dies following shooting and stabbing attack that stuns nation
LONDON — A member of Britain’s Parliament was shot and stabbed to death Thursday in an attack that stunned the nation and brought to an immediate halt the country's European Union referendum campaign just a week before the vote.
Police did not provide a motive for the killing. But British media organizations including the Guardian and Sky News quoted witnesses as saying that the assailant shouted "Britain First!" during and after the attack — a slogan linked to anti-immigrant groups.
Police officials in the northern English region of West Yorkshire said Jo Cox, a 41-year-old member of the center-left Labour Party who has been outspoken in advocating for civilian victims in Syria, was pronounced dead an hour after she was assaulted outside a library near the city of Leeds.
Police said they think that a 52-year-old man who was taken into custody was responsible for the attack, and they did not think there were accomplices.
Britain First is the name of a far-right group that stages provocative anti-Muslim demonstrations . Following Thursday's attack, the organization posted a statement on its website denying involvement, and saying it "would never encourage behavior of this sort."
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Britain’s Press Association quoted witnesses in reporting that a man who works at a nearby dry cleaners initially tried to stop the assailant. The attacker, who was wearing a white baseball cap, then scuffled with Cox before shooting her at least twice and lunging at her with a knife.
“He was fighting with her and wrestling with her and then the gun went off twice and then she fell between two cars and I came and saw her bleeding on the floor,” the Press Association quoted a man named Hithem Ben Abdallah, who claimed to have witnessed the attack, as saying.
Poor woman! May she rest in peace!
Terrible to see these things-I wonder what the 'reason' is.
The story says he shouted "Britain First" as he attacked her, which is a slogan used by anti-immigration rightists in England.
I have no doubt that this will have some effect of the June 23rd vote, in that the voters will become concerned about leaving the EU. I think that the motive of the shooter will have the opposite effect of what he wanted.
Sure throws a monkey-wrench into the referendum campaign; as well, how this affects that dynamic, is actually fairly scary.
Right wing maniac.
In Britain public ownership of guns is illegal . That didn't stop the assailant from having one though ...
Can it fire dozens of rounds in under a minute? I'll take my chances with a gun that is "either homemade or an antique" over what any psycho can buy here in the US any day.
News has actually reported that it was an "old fashioned" gun that was used.
old fashioned could mean a revolver made in the mid 1800s , generally anything over 100 years old is considered an antique.
I'll take my chances with a gun that is "either homemade or an antique" over what any psycho can buy here in the US any day.
Why ?
Either that isn't a serious question, or you are even dumber than anyone thought.
Translating your snark into English : I don't have any reason but I like being insulting
You seem to believe you are more intelligent than anyone else here . Newsflash : you got nuthin' . The proof is simple . You are afraid to answer my one word question .
I don't think that I'm the most intelligent, but I would have to dumb myself down to answer your question. A lot.
You've already dumbed yourself down by replying with meaningless snark and shown fear about defending your own prior words . Your present a bluff by snarking my question pretending you are so f'in smart no one would dare to challenge you . But I challenged you & you are too cowardly to respond . You still got nuthin' .
Ild be careful with such a statement , my AR is home made , hand built , same as my replica hawkens , both the pistol and the rifle , on the antique patent and all 3 are accurate at the ranges they should be, and extremely accurate compared to factory made commercial made ones.
Maybe you should go murder some people with them! Just think of how you will stand out amongst the landscape of mass murderers, being almost the only one who used an antique to shoot 100+/- people.
You are truly worthless. You lost another argument and respond by suggesting another member commit murder. Why even come here among decent folk?
Omg ... the stupid - MAKE IT STOP!
I'm arguing with trolls who pretend to think an antique pistol (per eye witness discription) is as lethal as any other modern weapon.
ask the british parliament member how lethal an antique pistol is , better yet , go stand 20 yards down range and catch bullets and find out yourself ...
Better yet, I'll ask the nearest hundred people to the incident, who weren't murdered by a mass murderer with an antique. I bet they would agree with me, as any person with half a brain would.
Duh. It was an assassination not a mass murder.
Oh, well then I guess the fact that it could have been a mass murder means nothing at all. I'll just have to wait until a mass murderer shoots 100+/- people with an antique for my insight to be relevent.
Newstalkers - get dumber here.
Timothy McVeigh killed more, without firing a shot.
9/11 Hijackers killed far more...with box cutters.
Your angst against semi-automatic firearms is misplaced, unfounded, and frankly, boring.
Firearm-related death rate per 100,000 population per year
Your comments are becoming increasingly incoherent. Are you drunk?
You congratulate yourself on every lame comment you make with a thumbs up. Are you lonely?
Hal and if you remove , Los Angeles , Chicago , Washington DC, Baltimore , New Orleans and NYC from the tallies , those 6 cities , the rest of the country has a rate comparable to that of the EU , where they have strict gun control. those cities have the same type of gun control as the EU , and they have something else in common all liberal controlled , and just those 6 cities has a higher rate than the EU even with those types of controls. Its not a gun problem , its a people problem its a political leaning problem.
Guess what - there's big cities in the UK too. I know, crazy right? How can gun control possibly have worked in a big city?
Hal , that's the question I have been asking you and every other anti 2nd person because that's the solution you ALL profess, gun control and bans, so you just admitted that gun control and bans doesn't work.
Guess what - there's big cities in the UK too. I know, crazy right? How can gun control possibly have worked in a big city?
Thank you for being honest at least one time in your life. you are dismissed.
HAHAHA...... must be a bitch to not be able to win an argument without having to revert to ad honem attack and even then know you have nothing anyway, because nothing has to be given to you..... buh bye Felicia....
could always make myself a puckle gun( look it up it existed before the revolutionary war) and shoot square bullets at em , round ones are for Christians and their sympathizers , square ones are for moooslims and their sympathizers .....
That's some knee slappin gun nerd humor, I bet.
I was going to ask him to explain to us what that means in English.
John the Puckle gun was designed by an English doctor , it had a single barrel but was one of the first firearms with a cylinder that revolved by use of a crank, it was created around the 1760s or so, it never caught on because the crank was , well crancky and delicate, it was said to have 2 types of bullets made for it , the normal round ones that is said was to be used on other Christians , and yes square ones for use on those not of the Christian faith , mainly stemming from the erroneous belief it created more devastating wounds.
gun nerd , guilty
history nerd , guilty
law abiding gun owner , for now
psychotic maniacal murderer, nope you cockslobbering chicken dick lickers....
nobody , writ large, cares about the history of guns, anymore than they care about the history of bee keeping or home brewing. I will say though that you are more entertaining and sound more educated than some of the people here. You should come around more often.
john , I will take that as a compliment . I am a firm believer that in order not to repeat history , one must study history, its where many of my personal beliefs origionate, as for the page , I read it every day , I just don't usually have much to say , I think the last 3 days has been the most I have posted , than since my father passed awayin 2014 and the entire time that has elapsed since then.
to me the history of gun development is important because one argument I often hear is that the writers of the constitution couldn't have envisioned the technological advances , I say bullshit , the puckle gun existed in their time as did the volley gun , they knew someone would come along tinkering and solve the problems with the timing and all , they also had a breech loading rifle at the time , the british used it ( the Anderson gun I think) it wasn't practicle because the mechanism was weak, and it was expensive with a minimal increase in rate of fire,it took about 40 more years of tinkering to make it both stronger and practicle , they knew flintlocks were going to be obsolete . that's why they did make the constitution changeable , but I have to wonder , why did they make the second , so straight forward ( even though today its argued that it isn't) , and so hard to change? they knew these things would happen , but wrote things the way they did , and they made it difficult to change the very basic essence of what they wanted to protect.
Hell Eli Whitney, the one who made slavery pay with his cotton Gin?
He is also famous for introducing mass production/parts interchangeability to the firearms of the time. Greatly easing the difficult job of hand making each and every firearm.
Was a HUGE leap forward in technology that went way farther and had much more impact on society than just gun making. (or the cotton gin)
pete you have a point , the only way gun bans work is if everyone obeys the law.
and the only way a gun ban total or by specific make would work in this country is if everyone obeyed the law voluntarily, it cant be forced because there is no way to prove or disprove compliance until after the fact.
Call me crazy, but I don't see that happening even in my wildest dreams.
Left-wing lawmaker shot dead by nationalist shouting “Britain first!”, as far-right is on rise in Europe
A left-wing lawmaker was fatally shot and stabbed by a British nationalist on Thursday, reports say, as tensions flare mere days before the U.K. votes on whether or not to leave the European Union.
This attack comes at a time when the far-right is on the rise throughout Europe, fueling extremist violence.
Labour Party MP Jo Cox, who opposes an exit from the E.U., was slain outside of a library in Birstall, West Yorkshire on Thursday afternoon. Eyewitnesses, according to reports, say she was shot three times and stabbed several times.
Multiple witnesses say the alleged killer repeatedly shouted “Britain first!” as he attacked her. This could potentially be a reference to Britain First, a far-right, anti-immigrant party that supports Brexit, a British exit from the E.U.
Britain First, however, strongly denies any involvement, and issued a statement saying it “could have been a slogan rather than a reference to our party.” The far-right party’s leader, Paul Golding, condemned the attack and said the shooter could have actually shouted, “It’s time to put Britain first!”
Four hours after the attack, Cox was declared dead.
British officials arrested the suspected attacker, 52-year-old Tommy Mair .
Cox, 41, was a mother of two children, ages 3 and 5.
The U.K. will vote on Brexit on June 23. Polls show that Britons will likely vote to remain in the E.U.
The Labour Party, led by insurgent, longtime socialist activist Jeremy Corbyn — who has been described as the British Bernie Sanders — opposes Brexit.
Far-right political parties such as Britain First and the U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP, hope to leave in order to cut down on immigration and push back against refugees. They see the E.U. as a bureaucracy that curtails the sovereignty of their country.
Britain First insists it is not a racist party, instead identifying itself as “loyalist.” Its founder, Jim Dowson, left the party 2014, however, warning that it was full of “racists and extremists.”
The extreme anti-Muslim party has “Christian patrols” that stage “ invasions ” of British mosques. It has applauded Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for proposing a ban on Muslims from entering the U.S.
Salon as your source????? C'mon John - you've got more intelligence than that.
1st, you are not allowed to question John's sources. ALL of John's sources are impeccable, unimpeachable, and of the highest caliber of integrity. Only he is allowed to question sources.