British prime minister David Cameron visited Cumbria today to offer government support to local communities reeling after a quiet taxi-driver gunned down 12 people in one of the worst shooting rampage for years.
Derrick Bird's three-hour killing spree on Wednesday through towns, villages and countryside in west Cumbria and the Lake District stunned the country and has left authorities struggling to determine his motives.
Mr Cameron and home secretary Theresa May visited a hospital where most of the 11 people wounded in the attacks were treated before meeting Cumbria's chief constable and other police officers who dealt with the aftermath of the shootings.
"Obviously, people here in west Cumbria have suffered the most appalling tragedy and it will have a huge impact on the community," Mr Cameron said after the meeting.
"I wanted to come here to show the government wanted to listen, wanted to show how much it cares about what has happened here."
He repeated his view that, while there should be a full debate about Britain's tough gun control laws, there should not be a knee-jerk response to the tragedy.
Bird, who used a shotgun and a .22 calibre rifle with a telescopic sight in the shootings, had been licensed to own both firearms.
Detectives have said the motive for the rampage appeared to be a mixture of grudges and simply random attacks.
The 52-year-old, later found dead in the remote Eskdale valley after apparently turning one of his guns on himself, knew some of his victims while others appeared to be strangers.
"There will be some parts of this we will never understand," Mr Cameron said. There were some random acts of killing and people who will have lost loved ones will ask why it happened to them."
Cumbrian chief constable Craig Mackey said the killings began in the early hours of Wednesday when Bird murdered his twin brother David. He then drove to his lawyer Kevin Commons's home and shot him before embarking on a 45-mile rampage.
"From what we know at no stage did any police officer have the chance to end this any sooner," Mr Mackey told reporters. There has been some local criticism that Bird should have been stopped sooner.
More than 100 detectives are now working to piece together what prompted Britain's worst multiple shooting since the 1996 massacre in Dunblane, Scotland.
"I am 100 percent committed to getting to the bottom of this investigation and trying to find out why this happened," Mr Mackey told reporters.
Officers said they would be looking into whether Bird had financial and domestic problems. But they said there was no evidence that Bird, who had previous convictions for theft, had any mental health problems.
Bird's friends have told the media that he feared going to jail after tax authorities discovered he had about £60,000 in undeclared earnings in his bank account.
There have also been reports of a growing feud with other taxi drivers in Whitehaven.
Another explanation is that a dispute over a family will might have pushed him over the edge, explaining was why he killed his brother and lawyer. However David Bird's three daughters have denied any falling out.
Reuters