I responded to a crime scene once where a lady had been killed by a single round close quarter from an AK47 rifle. The bullet had literally cut her head in half. I had never seen a bullet do that to a human being. I found myself asking a slew of questions. I was so confused and tormented by it.

This often occurs when the victim is a female, and it always happens when the victim is innocent. So, I will share the questions in my head with you, because I don’t have the answers myself.

First question, why would Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov go in a lab to invent a round to do this much damage to a human being? What was his plan?

I get that bullets must be designed to have an effect from the maximum distance possible, but this round is not significantly different from the round used in an M16 rifle. In fact, the M16 has a superior effective range. The round, to me, just seems to do more damage to the person than the M16 round does. This is likely because of the fragmentation effect of the round once it comes in contact with a human body.

A bullet should be designed to stop the attacker, not to do as much destruction as possible. It doesn’t necessarily contribute to stopping power. I have never used hollow-point rounds in my weapon because I have always been concerned with the issue that they create for surgeons who have to locate the warheads in the body after it fragments.

Accidents happen. What if it’s a family member that I injure or some other innocent human being?

Then there is the man who believes it is okay, in the consideration and sanctity of his own soul, to turn a weapon with that destructive ability on a female at close range. What moved that man from an innocent baby to the animal he has become? What happened to the justice systems on planet Earth that stopped instituting penal solutions on the basis of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?

Why is it that the man who just removed the face of this woman with a rifle is more important to good citizens in human rights organisations than police officers or orphaned children? When did women become acceptable targets to settle scores among men? What does this man see in his vulnerable moments — the act he did, or the man who is going to settle the score for this abomination? Has this man done this before? Is he as horrified as I am by the sight, by what he made me see?

The above are the unanswered questions. Maybe you can answer them. I can’t. Sometimes you will have an honest, off-the-record conversation with a criminal, but it never happens with murders like this. The reason for this is that it’s too reprehensible an act for him to admit, man to man, that he did it.

Yet, in his circle there is no such value system. Around his peers this heinous act is acceptable! Do you realise now how much trouble we are in? Do you understand why we need laws that treat that person in a different legal category from everyone else? Strip him of the legal protection! Rather like what the Homeland Security Act did to terrorists.

There is no rehabilitative process that will fix a man who has carried out an act like turning a machine gun on a woman or an innocent gathering of people like at Cherry Tree Lane. Unless we acknowledge that we are in the danger we are in, and the extremity of that danger, we can’t begin the process of reaching a solution, one that fits the depth of the crisis we face.

An election is pending. We have great, intelligent people on both sides who will be asking for our support. I want to see them present their respective solutions for the killers with the character I have described, the one who turned an AK47 rifle close range at a woman’s head. The one that will do the same to your children.

I want tangible, real solutions in keeping with fighting an evil that I have described, solutions that will involve constitutional change, stripping the rights of that previously described man.

I don’t want to hear about rehabilitating that man. I want to hear about caging him. I don’t want to hear about bringing back love to the offender because this man is not deserving of it. Nor do the thousands like him who prey on the rest of us. I want a solution that does what is necessary to defeat a man of this character and a Government that will stand behind that solution.

The solutions are not going to be pretty, they will not speak of a society of love and consideration. This man is not worthy of words like that. The solutions required are in keeping with a society facing a similar fate to this lady whose life was ended by this man. We also have to consider the implications of fighting a war like this and the short- and long-term impact on our society.

This is what our inner-city poor face everyday. This is their reality. We have fought them like like they are a law enforcement threat. We need to now fight them like they are beasts.

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