Whats going on in Canada?

[Toad]

A relative handful of lives lost to abuse of legally held handguns and you support the ban.

~33,000 lives lost per year to alcohol abuse (BBC:  Science of Alcohol ) and you see no point in a ban.

Just wanted you to know that we both realize you're not being honest with yourself.

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by beet1e
The royal assent is not part of the formulation of a new law. In other words *she* did not create that law, parliament did. Besides, she signs anything.

The law doesn't exist if she doesn't sign it.  Her authority is essential to it being created.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by Toad
A relative handful of lives lost to abuse of legally held handguns and you support the ban.

~33,000 lives lost per year to alcohol abuse (BBC:  Science of Alcohol ) and you see no point in a ban.

Just wanted you to know that we both realize you're not being honest with yourself.

Nope. You still don't get it. I know that there are alcohol problems - both here and in the US. But banning alcohol in Britain wouldn't work, and would be electoral suicide. I'm NOT typing it all again. Read what I said in earlier posts.

And in the US, there's a huge obesity crisis. I had a friend over from Arkansas this week, and he's bigger than me - about your size - 230lb and about 6-2 in height. And he was telling me that all three of the main guys he works with are at least 42lb (he said 3 stone because he was talking to me) heavier than he is. Many lives will be lost to heart disease because of the way people overeat - digging their graves with a knife and fork. Probably even more people that will be killed by guns. But before you ask, the answer is no - I do not support a ban on food. Does that make me a hypocrite too?

Now, I don't know where your analysis of my beliefs is leading, as what I think makes bugger all difference to whether guns are legal or not. And I don't see why if one thing is banned, we need to ban something else. Guns are banned. Alcohol isn't. So freaking what? That's the way 99.5% of the British electorate wants it. What's that NY expression... no need to go "busting my chops" about it - or something like that.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by Thrawn
The law doesn't exist if she doesn't sign it.  Her authority is essential to it being created.

Thrawn, I'm aware of the process involved in which a government bill becomes an act of parliament. The Royal Assent is just a rubber stamping process. The Queen does not make any laws of her own, and she never refuses to sign a bill which has passed through the house of lords.. I'll make a bet with you: You Google your way through British parliamentary history since 1952, the year the current queen became queen. Find me a bill that was prevented from becoming law because the Queen refused to give it the Royal Assent, and I'll donate $50 to a charity of your choosing.

[Toad]

Originally posted by beet1e
No, I'd move to France. Or Spain. Or Italy. Or...

Your position is just "whose ox is being gored".

Guns are banned. Alcohol isn't. So freaking what?

So it's clearly not about saving lives at all.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by Toad
So it's clearly not about saving lives at all.

Of course it is. Look, we've never had a gun culture here. You know that, I know that, the rest of the world knows that. And everyone can see that the countries which allow the free distribution of handguns have the highest homicide rates - eg. USA, South Africa. It's not just Britain that doesn't allow handguns. It's many other countries around the world as well. And why is that? Think of it - if unarmed countries around the world suddenly decided to make handguns available, we could have a gun tax - the government(s) could raise billions of £ in gun tax revenues. But none of this is happening. Why's that then? 1) It's not what the public at large wants; 2) There would be an enormous surge in the number of deaths.

There is no public outcry at the fact that guns are not available.  I have seen great protest about the ban on foxhunting, and widespread, well publicised defiance of same in the time since. There was also a large demonstration in London against going to war in Iraq. But I've yet to see folks parading down Whitehall with banners stating "We want guns. Give us our handguns."

There's no way to ban alcohol. That suggestion is as fatuous as your earlier suggestion to ban cars. The outcry and turmoil that would arise from that would be akin to the outcry in the US if your government were to ban guns.

Still waiting to hear why your government bans heroin but not alcohol which, according to data you yourself have submitted, causes far more deaths than heroin.

[Suave]

LOUD NOISES!

[Toad]

Originally posted by beet1e
There's no way to ban alcohol. That suggestion is as fatuous as your earlier suggestion to ban cars. The outcry and turmoil that would arise from that would be akin to the outcry in the US if your government were to ban guns.

[/b]

Again you merely show it's not about lives. When you're not on "whose ox is being gored" you switch over to "it would be too hard".

Still waiting to hear why your government bans heroin but not alcohol  

Because I am not the Emperor of the United States?

[lazs2]

yep... It is allways about whose ox is being gored with the ban everything crowd.  

Booze could be successfully banned in england.   It was tried in the U.S. but.... as many have pointed out.... we just don't respect our government of the nannying of our neighbors enough... we are a lawless people compared to the japs and the brits who worship their "betters".

You could eaisily ban alcohol in japan and england and.... unlike banning firearms... it would save lives.

No one has proved that banning guns saves any lives at all but no one would disagree that banning booze would not save lives.

probly some "sensible" controls at first like....one glass of wine per day but no more than a weeks supply ever in possession..... maybe 10 years in prison for possesion (like handguns) of more.   5 years for drunk.  Little things like that...

All drinkers would have to be regestered and the booze locked in a safe place where the cops could search without warrant...  maybe a $300 a year regestration..

It would be simple and....It would save thousands of lives a year.

lazs

[mora]

Why would banning booze save lives? It didn't during the prohibition. The only ones who would lower their alcohol consumption is the most law respecting citizens, who are the least likely to develop problems with alcohol anyway. In the group most prone to alcohol related problems it would have have a negative effect. It was tried here from 1919-1932 with disasterous results, alcohol related deaths rose significantly as people started drinking smuggled 96% spirit. It didn't work because we had an "alcohol culture". There was a significant demand for alcohol, even if a portion of the people decided to abide the law, and a criminal underworld developed. In some Islamic countries alcohol prohibtion works because there's no "alcohol culture" to begin with.

In America there is a significant "drug culture", and I doubt many people here agree that the drug prohibition is working well? You have higher levels of drug use than in countries with a more liberal approach, and proportionally higher numbers of drug related death and crime. Then again it works better in some countries where there's no significant drug culture and the people are more law abiding.

I think that Beetle's "culture" theory is viable, and historically proven. OTOH the workability of a prohibition has a lot to do with the general respect for higher authority and law aswell. I don't personally support any prohibition as I believe they are bound to develop more problems than they solve, and they also reduce the general respect for the laws. No victimless "crimes" like owning a gun or drinking alcohol should be outlawed. Neither alcohol or guns kill people, it's the lack of personal responsibility that does.

[lazs2]

mora... I agree... no victimless crime like owning or bearing arms or drinking booze or using drugs should be banned.

using guns or booze or drugs in such a way that it injures or endangers others should be punished tho.

I am saying that we do have different cultures in england and the U.S.

In the U.S. we have little respect for authority ("who made you my boss?")

Even with "good" laws... we all routinely break laws... Prohibition made booze a fun thing in the U.S.  it was even more fun to break the law.

That would not happen in england... they would obey and lives would be saved.   No drunk drivers etc.

I don't drink but I know how harmful drugs and booze can be and are.   I have no desire to tell people they can't tho... that is the difference.

I don't feel that I have the right... even if "most" of my countrymen feel that they would like these things to be banned.

lazs

[beet1e]

Originally posted by Toad
Again you merely show it's not about lives. When you're not on "whose ox is being gored" you switch over to "it would be too hard".

I think you're full of ***t on this point. As I have already shown, there was NO protest when any UK gun legislation was passed - in the years 1903-1997. There has been NO parade through Whitehall demanding that we be given the right to possess guns. NO person has ever chained themselves to the gates of Buckingham Palace, demanding the right to own a handgun.

So just eaxctly WHOSE ox is being gored as a result of our laws which prohibit possession of handguns? Are you saying that the new policy should be a gun shop on every corner, to facilitate a handful of people whose hobby is pistol shooting, at the same time creating a huge increase in the number of gun homicides? Few people believe that would not happen - that's why there's no protest with regard to gun laws.

Too bad if you find gun prohibition to be immoral. My utopia might result in a handful of people giving up a hobby. Your utopia results in thousands of people giving up their lives. But what do you care? Most of those deaths occur in black ghettos, and not in the prairie land of the midwest. In other words it's OK - because it's not YOUR ox that's being gored.

[lazs2]

I say that at least a few million gun owners ox is being gored... You don't need a gun shop on every corner to accomadate them..  let supply and demand take care of it...  they can also buy from the internet like a lot of us do...  Most of us buy surplus guns and ammo off the internet or.... FFL dealers who will come right to your home.

Not really a problem.  Let the brits who want to own firearms buy them.

lazs

[beet1e]

Originally posted by lazs2
I say that at least a few million gun owners ox is being gored...

Unlikely. There would have been protests over the anti-gun legislation if it affected as many as that - just as there were riots over the poll tax in 1989, and just as there was the march on London by the Countryside Alliance in protest at the proposed ban (now in effect) on hunting foxes with hounds. Even though only a small minority of people participate in foxhunting, the wave of protest saw scenes like this.



Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2274129.stm

Now, if you can find me any pictures of folks protesting at the introduction of the 1997 gun "ban", post them here. I'd be very interested to see them.

[ASTAC]