Speaker 1: This is the seventy seven WABC Mini cast.
Speaker 2: Eddie Dragon in New Mexico owns a radio station even
Speaker 2: though it was attacked by terrorists, his tower was attacked,
Speaker 2: and yet he pursues, He continues because he is a capitalist.
Speaker 2: Eddie Dragon, are you in Idaho, Iowa? Where are you today?
Speaker 1: I'm in New Mexico. And never say quit. You never
Speaker 1: quit capitalists, never quit. I love the hour. What an
Speaker 1: education on strip clubs though I had no idea, Walter
Speaker 1: fascinating business persistence. And then you have that wonderful man
Speaker 1: who has staying with his wife after all that time,
Speaker 1: his second wife, and I got a full education on
Speaker 1: car sterios. Who knew they should get it could get
Speaker 1: so profitable.
Speaker 2: Well to prevent them, to create the sleeve that enabled
Speaker 2: you to just take it out when you left the car.
Speaker 2: That was a very important device in the late nineties
Speaker 2: because those car radios were being stolen like crazy, and
Speaker 2: because they could come out, and so he had. What
Speaker 2: he did was he ran a business that enabled you
Speaker 2: to manage that and not have your car radio stolen.
Speaker 2: It was a big problem. It was a big problem. Now,
Speaker 2: Eddie Dragon, New Mexico, what do you have to report,
Speaker 2: bring us up to date on conspiracies, mysteries, everything you're an.
Speaker 1: Expert on well England. On August nineteenth ninety, nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: Walter is literally at the forefront of the biggest gun
Speaker 1: control of all of Europe. And it happened on this
Speaker 1: day back in nineteen eighty seven. You're in Hungerford. There's
Speaker 1: actually a song about this by the great band called Radiohead.
Speaker 1: It's called Sulk and it's a fascinating story because this
Speaker 1: is the beginning of massive gun control in the UK.
Speaker 1: So you're back in Hungerford, which is a quiet market
Speaker 1: town in Berkshire, about seventy miles west of London. And
Speaker 1: it's the kind of place, Walter, where the biggest emergency
Speaker 1: might be a fire or wreck, or you know, some
Speaker 1: fight the pub or something. But it's a town of
Speaker 1: small shops, country lanes, familiar faces and people who believe
Speaker 1: they were removed from the kind of violence scene in
Speaker 1: big cities or here in America. Then the gun fire
Speaker 1: started and by the time the day was over, sixteen
Speaker 1: innocent people are dead, another fifteen are wounded, and the
Speaker 1: killer is dead too, or is he by his own hand?
Speaker 1: His name was Michael Robert Ryan, twenty seven years of age, quiet, isolated,
Speaker 1: fascinated by firearms, and according to the law at the time,
Speaker 1: entitled to own them, though not today because Ryan possessed
Speaker 1: certificates for shotguns and firearms, and in the months before
Speaker 1: the attack, he legally bought three shotguns and five firearms,
Speaker 1: and on the day he launched his rampage he had
Speaker 1: a Burretta nine milimeters pistol, a Chinese type fifty six
Speaker 1: semi automatic rifle no longer legal than England, and an
Speaker 1: Underwood thirty caliber car. Buy no stolen weapons, no black
Speaker 1: market cachet. It's just a you know, no exposure to
Speaker 1: criminal gang pipelines. This guy was a legal weapons owner
Speaker 1: in the hands the man that authorities had you know,
Speaker 1: completely illegally allowed to own them. Now. The killing began
Speaker 1: outside the town, then it moved into Hungerford itself. Ryan
Speaker 1: shot people right in the open on streets in near homes.
Speaker 1: He returned to his family house and then murdered his
Speaker 1: own mother, Dorothy. He killed an unarmed police officer. D. C.
Speaker 1: Roger Barrenton was responding to all the case, and he
Speaker 1: fired at least one hundred and nineteen rounds during that rampage,
Speaker 1: eighty four from that Chinese type fifty six rifle, thirty
Speaker 1: four from the Barretta pistol, and one from the carbine.
Speaker 1: So for the people of Hungerford, this was not a
Speaker 1: distant breaking news story. This is nineteen eighty seven, right,
Speaker 1: This wasn't playing on television like the way it would,
Speaker 1: you know, just six years and seven years later to
Speaker 1: o the case of Oj, it was immediate. The danger
Speaker 1: was outside their very doors. Sirens racing to the town
Speaker 1: were you know, whirling, and you know, everything just kind
Speaker 1: of complete untilal chaos and residents had to like hide
Speaker 1: in their homes while the police tried to understand whether
Speaker 1: they faced one shooter or ten shooters or something worse.
Speaker 1: Because this man Ryan eventually entered the local school called
Speaker 1: John o'gaunt. Police surrounded the building, the attempted to negotiate
Speaker 1: with him, but the crisis ended without an arrest, the
Speaker 1: satisfying arrest, without a trial, the satisfying trial, without a
Speaker 1: complete explanation, in fact, no explanations, because Ryan died by
Speaker 1: suicide inside the school, and that missing explanation is where
Speaker 1: the whole mystery begins, because when the killer dies as
Speaker 1: in any case, and the case dies with him. It
Speaker 1: doesn't die in any court rooms where it should happen.
Speaker 1: There was no confession. This man has no manifesto, no
Speaker 1: final statement laying out political causes, a grudge lists, you know, motives. Nothing.
Speaker 1: Investigators could reconstruct what Ryan did. They could count the rounds,
Speaker 1: they could trace his legally acquired weapons, but they could
Speaker 1: not answer the question that people always ask after an
Speaker 1: apparently senseless mass killing. Why That vacuum created an entire
Speaker 1: ecosystem of speculation in Britain. One theory claim that Ryan
Speaker 1: had help another gunman accomplish you know, perhaps a criminal network,
Speaker 1: and other suggested he was tied to an international arms dealer.
Speaker 1: Still others pointed to supposed secret relationships, claims about his
Speaker 1: private life, the unseen motive, and biling his first victim,
Speaker 1: who was Susan Godfrey. They thought she was the target.
Speaker 1: There's also cultural explanations Ryan was acting out some sort
Speaker 1: of weird fantasy inspired by violent movies military imagery. Remember
Speaker 1: this is nineteen eighty seven. This is like the beginning
Speaker 1: of all these mass shootings, or back in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: a fascination with some sort of lone wolf action heroes.
Speaker 1: But here is the crucial line. For the record, none
Speaker 1: of the series were established as fact. Never nothing, not
Speaker 1: one investigation identified him as a soul attacker. That's it
Speaker 1: could put end the story. No evidence, no credible evidence
Speaker 1: surfaced of an accomplice, the secret organization of political plot
Speaker 1: or coordinator operation, no manifesto, nothing, But that does not
Speaker 1: make the unanswered questions disappear In all this, Walter, it
Speaker 1: simply means that unanswered is not the same as proven.
Speaker 1: And in a world that creates clean explanations like we
Speaker 1: have with Charlie Kirk right, there's so much dissemination, of
Speaker 1: so much misinformation. All of this gifts fits very uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and everything since this inception back in eighty seven until today,
Speaker 1: with these mass shootings, has led to the very same
Speaker 1: type of speculation, and in this case massive gun control,
Speaker 1: and every time you see a mass shooting here in
Speaker 1: the United States, massive more gun control that is on
Speaker 1: the table again. People want to believe that there must
Speaker 1: be some sort of hidden cause, and all this conspiracy,
Speaker 1: a handler, a secret life, you know, some messages, a manifesto,
Speaker 1: and sometimes there is right, But sometimes the most unsettling
Speaker 1: answer is that the killers, you know, wounds is mental state,
Speaker 1: what have you, is just completely inaccessible. And that's the
Speaker 1: worst mystery of all. His victims paid the price for it.
Speaker 1: Hungerford did not produce, you know, any sort of visible
Speaker 1: consequences in this case, but it did have one and
Speaker 1: that is a complete and total radical shift in British
Speaker 1: firearms policy. And this has become the blueprint there in
Speaker 1: America and everywhere else. In Britain is the worst walter
Speaker 1: or gun control before the massacre, and had gun licensing
Speaker 1: everywhere Ryan had passed through the system. After the killings,
Speaker 1: the public in Parliament demanded the answers. It's always fun
Speaker 1: to watch them go after at each other. The Firearms
Speaker 1: Amendment Act nineteen eighty eight banned most of the automatic
Speaker 1: pump action rifles, Restrictaturton's shotguns ammunition, required shotgun owners to
Speaker 1: register their weapons and keep them stored, and then came
Speaker 1: the full surrender. This is where it gets even weirder.
Speaker 1: Just this one gun incident. There was no amnesty. The
Speaker 1: law took effect. It brought in nearly forty eight thousand
Speaker 1: firearms immediately, lawful owners of newly prohibited weapons had to
Speaker 1: hand them over, dispose of them legally, or face possessing
Speaker 1: prohibited gun. And then the dark legacy just continues. Massacres
Speaker 1: carried out with guns ahead been legally acquired, a killer
Speaker 1: who left no credible final explanation, and then you have
Speaker 1: all these guns being taken back, and this town permanently
Speaker 1: branded by one afternoon of terror, thirty one victims, all
Speaker 1: sixteen died, and an age that basically just responded by
Speaker 1: deciding that every category of firearm would no longer be
Speaker 1: left in private hands. So on this day, forty years ago,
Speaker 1: Walter remember Hungerford, not for his mythology, not for the
Speaker 1: conspiracy claims that flourished afterread, but for the sixteen people
Speaker 1: who were actually murdered. In the moment, Britain actually realized
Speaker 1: that its gun laws had failed to prevent catastrophe. And
Speaker 1: I've gone through all of the massive gun laws of
Speaker 1: Walter Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland at the very top of
Speaker 1: the list, very worst. England. Private ownership of virtually all
Speaker 1: cartridge handguns prohibited, along with automatic weapons, every self loading
Speaker 1: center fire rifle, firearmy shotgun ownership requires police certification, lawful purpose,
Speaker 1: complete and total background check, and they have to scan
Speaker 1: the weapon, They have to scan the firearm, suitability checks,
Speaker 1: mental suitability checks. By the way, secure storage meaning you
Speaker 1: can't have it exposed anywhere. How are you going to
Speaker 1: get to it self? Defense is generally not accepted as
Speaker 1: a reason to acquire a gun.
Speaker 2: And how many people who want to go How many
Speaker 2: people were murdered in this mass murder event.
Speaker 1: Sixteen with fifteen additional victims, so thirty one total victims
Speaker 1: but sixteen actually actual fatalities.
Speaker 2: Eddie Dragon, an amazing story. Even the police in England
Speaker 2: don't carry firearms. That's how controlled it is. And there
Speaker 2: it is. It didn't make any difference at all. Somebody
Speaker 2: wants to be a psycho. If somebody is a psycho,
Speaker 2: they're going to go ahead and figure out a way
Speaker 2: to do it. Eddie Dragon, thank you very much for
Speaker 2: being on the other side of midnight.