Dumdum

The Metropolitan Firearms and Headbangers' Club is to issue hollow-point ammunition as standard from this week. Hollow-point ammunition expands (or, when used by law enforcement officers, "petals") on impact and causes greater internal injury, or "increases the chance of maximum incapacitation of the target", as Britain's leading liberal newspaper puts it. The commander of the Met's unit for doing a wonderful job under difficult circumstances said that the bullets "should never be referred to as dumdum", and claimed that the term was thieves' slang for ammunition which has been altered to increase the chance of maximum incapacitation of the target. In fact, the term dumdum has a somewhat more respectable background, having originated during Britain's mission to civilise India; this is rather apt considering that the last occasion when such bullets were used by the Metropolitan Firearms and Headbangers' Club was the execution of a dusky foreigner, Jean Charles de Menezes. The commander of the firearms unit referred to that incident as "a very difficult milestone in the Met's history", possibly because the lessons learned from it resulted in the Met's demonstrable passion for truth, justice and public safety at Forest Gate and the G20 protests; but he defended the ammunition on the grounds that it poses less risk to innocent members of the public, such as Jean Charles de Menezes.