ABSTRACT
On 19 August 1987 Michael Ryan shot sixteen people in the small town of Hungerford in the south-east of England, and then turned one of his many guns on himself. The event seemed so shocking not just because of the scale of the slaughter and the number of guns legally owned by Ryan, but also due to a feeling that such random shootings were unprecedented in Britain. When Margaret Thatcher visited the town, the day after the massacre, she remarked, ‘I feel rather like most people, there are no words in the English language which could adequately describe what happened.’ Calling the killings ‘an evil crime’, she repeated ‘We have never had anything like it in this country, and there must be people like me who cannot find the words’ (Guardian, 21 August 1987:1). However, a word swiftly filled this gapRambo. My analysis centres on the role of the term ‘Rambo’ in commentaries on the Hungerford massacre, and the possible reasons for its use.
