An “armed response” officer from Scotland—that is, the kind of elite cop who actually gets to carry a gun—posted a picture on social media of his children holding firearms and is now being pilloried in the press. The Daily Record screams of “KIDS posing with weapons” in its attention-grabbing headline.
Now politicians are getting in on the action, too. Labour MSP Graeme Pearson was quoted as saying that, “If this officer has allowed children to handle firearms and then put pictures of that on the Internet, he has acted in a thoroughly unprofessional manner.” It must be important to send a strong message that educating your children about firearms will make you a social pariah in the UK.