England and crime

[Chairboy]

Of interest:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-5784491,00.html

Despite increasingly stringent laws banning weapons, increasing video surveillance ("If you have nothing to hide....") and so on, violent crime seems to be mysteriously increasing.

Seems to suggest that there's a point where added restrictions start to harm.  I'm thinking we've passed that point in the US a couple decades ago.  England's ramp-up to authoritarianism seems to have taken place over a shorter time period, making it more noticable (boiling a frog and whatnot) to my uneducated eye.  Is this an accurate assessment?

Consequently, is this a model that we can apply to the US?

Talk amongst yourselves....

[Curval]

Oh goody.  Another gun thread in the making.

[moot]

o/t
 Curval, gun debates will keep getting more and more fundamental until they get down to the bottom of the disagreement between those discussing it.
Isn't that as good as it gets?

[lazs2]

chair... not sure how you feel about guns but I think you like socialism..

The british model is one that we need to watch... they took away firearms rights at an alarming rate... all the arguements the gun grabbers here use today were tested in england with the results you see.... the boiling frog idea...

First you regester then you ban certain unfriendly looking types of firearms... along with selling the idea that guns are useful only for hunting and that your government is much better at protecting you than you are..

once that happens... you can pretty much ban all firearms as the people of the gun culture are more and more harrassed and then... because of regestration.... you can round em all up.

Why anyone would trust or want their government to have that much power is so alien a thought to me that I can't even picture such folks as being human.

lazs

[moot]

Lazs, I said something similar to certain people, and their implicit bottom line (as far as I could tell) was that one shouldn't be able to harm anyone else, and it was the responsibility of society as a whole to remove anything furthering that ability.
That it was a selfish and utopic idea that government could be kept small enough that people could defend themselves and keep the government respectful of them.
And that anyway, odds of situations where people truly have to have lethal defense are small enough.

[Furball]

i am english and the thought of not being able to leave the house without being violently attacked because i do not have the right to bear arms leaves me hugging myself and shaking in the corner.

i get robbed every night, and all i can do is stand there and watch because my government took my guns away and told me i cannot defend myself.

what i cannot understand is that every criminal seems to have a gun, and shootings happen every day, it seems like thousands of people are killed every year by guns.

all of my country's problems could be solved by giving everyone AK47's, then i could shoot that CCTV camera that keeps looking through my window.

[lazs2]

moot...  did you mention to these people that if the government has that right then the government has to enforce it by some means... the means would be.... violence against it's citizens.   If the government has that power then would not the government itself be the largest threat to freedom and safety?

Has this not been proven true throughout history in that governments allways kill many times more citizens than citizens do each other?  Are you not safer, historicaly, when your neighbors are armed than when your government is?

furbie.... You are young and strong and male and do not live around the people who would be a threat to you.   I think that you would be in more danger if you were elderly or infirm or a small woman living in a high crime area...

That being the case.... what would you suggest that those people do to protect themselves?   Call a cop? make their wheelchair or walker go really really fast?

Luckily it hasn't happened to you but what would you do if three big guys with knives or clubs wanted your money and said you had a pretty mouth?

What would you do if your government got more and more authoritarian every year until one day..... even you noticed it?

lazs

[Chairboy]

Originally posted by lazs2
chair... not sure how you feel about guns but I think you like socialism..

Where the hell does this crap come from?  You know what?  Piss off.  Socialism SUCKS.  Communism is proof that socialism is an inherently flawed and EVIL system that will only benefit the people who claw their way into power.  I don't know where the )(@#&$()@#$ you get off saying that I like socialism, but you need to consider pulling your head out of wherever it is that keeps it from getting a tan, because you couldn't be further from the truth.

You know what else?  I own 5 guns, my wife and I are both avid shooters, and both of my boys are being raised to appreciate the rights and responsibilities that the 2nd amendment gives us.   We're both getting our concealed carries (which are one of many stupid results of well meaning but idiotic anti-gun sentiments creeping through our country like a rash) and are both ready and able to defend our family from external threats.

I think that england is screwing itself, and that we'd be blind to ignore the lessons that THEY are learning the hard way.  I posted my original message as politely as possible because I thought it would be good to have a discussion about this without being labelled a troll or scaring off people with opposing viewpoints that could contribute, but your damn preconceptions just pissed me the hell off.  You are your worst enemy Lazs, and maybe you should take a moment to stop and think about who else you might be putting into some convenient box without knowing the facts.

You're not man enough to apologize, and some MP might end up deleting this message because I used a bad word like "piss", but I don't care.  Skuzzy & friends have made an area for us to have civil off-topic discussions, but when you ignore the message and go after the poster, you're part of the reason we almost lost this board last year and why they might lose patience and yank it once and for all.  

I've gotta walk away from this before I say something REALLY stupid, but for someone who claims to hold most of the safe beliefs I do about our country and the role of government in our personal lives, you're no better than- no, not gonna finish it.  I'm steaming.

[Furball]

Originally posted by Chairboy
I think that england is screwing itself

no, the labour government has screwed england up already.

[lasersailor184]

I don't necessarily think this is only stemming from the lack of guns.  I believe it has more to do with the mentality of "Someone else will help me."  Be it the police, the government...


This mentality isn't localized in Britain.  You can see it all across the world.  A perfect example would be those staying in New Orleans through Katrina.

[Shuckins]

I sense another thread lock approaching.

Before that happens, just let me state to our British compatriots the following:

You won't need them until you need them...at which point, you won't have them.  Thereupon, you will convince yourselves that the need wasn't really as pressing as you at first thought.

Regards, Shuckins

[Vudak]

Originally posted by lazs2
moot...  did you mention to these people that if the government has that right then the government has to enforce it by some means... the means would be.... violence against it's citizens.   If the government has that power then would not the government itself be the largest threat to freedom and safety?

Has this not been proven true throughout history in that governments allways kill many times more citizens than citizens do each other?  Are you not safer, historicaly, when your neighbors are armed than when your government is?

I agree with you here.  I'd add to it that our Founding Fathers were heavily influenced by Rome, and the 2nd Amendment, IMO, was put in place in large part to protect the Republic from itself.  They weren't keen on having little Sulla's and Caesars running around.  The 2nd Amendment ensures that, should our Republic ever fall, the people have the means to restore it.

What I find interesting, is that many of the people who are so against guns (at least where I live) are also the people who would be against any attempt by the government to censor, survey, or restrict us and our civil rights.  What they don't seem to get, is that without an armed populace, the government can do pretty much whatever they want.  So, taking away guns from the citizens will essentially be a direct path to everything else they abhor.

I don't know if I made any sense there, but that's my take.

[moot]

And if you were told that it's society's role, not any individual's, to make life or death decisions, and therefore that guns, being by design objects of killing, do not have their place in individuals' hands?

On topic, I don't know what to suggest.. You get what you deserve, and the people of the UK are getting it.  Even if it's only because they're effectively agreeing to something they don't want only by inability to get their government to do what they wish it did.

[Vudak]

Originally posted by moot
And if you were told that it's society's role, not any individual's, to make life or death decisions, and therefore that guns, being by design objects of killing, do not have their place in individuals' hands?

That's an argument, but I'd say individuals make up society, or are an agent of society, whatever fits best, and to be able to make and enact those decisions as a society, the individual must therefore be trained and capable?

I'm starting to really confuse the hell out of myself and have some term papers to write.  This is not a good mix.

[lazs2]

chair.... as I said in private.... if I am wrong about your supporting socialism and it's candidates then I apologize.

I will say tho that anyone who get's that angry at being called a socialist is either a dishonest liberal or a man after my own heart.... I believe you are probly the latter so...

sorry chair.

moot....  that is pretty good but sorta circular...If only society has the right to kill.... then does only society have the right to defend?  Is it societies stance that the strongest and most vile amoung us should be able to terriorize so long as they do it with either weapons  that are legal or brute strength or.... with illegal weapons?

You might ask them then if it is their opinion that governmment be the sole protector that..... anyone whom the government fails to protect that could have done so if society had not disarmed them.... are these victims due a settlement.... a monetary rembursement for the failure of said society to protect them?

or... back to the beggining.... simply say that society cannot guarentee your safety from violence and that you are on your own?

I find that most people who have been put in the position of having to defend themselves against overwhelming odds see the folly of any societal means of protecting them on a personal basis.   Those who are young and strong and live realtively comfortably.... they seem to be the most blind to these facts.

lazs