New gun thread hehehe (sorry)

[Kats]

I hope you aren't reffering to my statistics as "snippets on the net".

April 1, 1996 edition of London's Daily Telegraph:

 

An unnamed retired senior officer at Scotland Yard revealed that "there are a series of tricks that render the [crime] figures a sham." As an example he noted that "where a series of homes in a block of flats were burgled they were regularily recorded as one crime"

Guns & Violence: The debate before Lord Cullen. By Richard Munday & Jan Stevenson.

 

The true British homocide rate has been camouflaged. The figures have been pruned by using the final disposition of cases rather than the arrest data.....reducing recorded homocides by as much as 25%

My other quote about the 3 million guns illegally entering Britain is from the January 16th edition of the London Times

My points regarding preventive detention come from a consultation paper issued by the Home Office in July of 1999 entitled Managing Dangerous People with Severe Personality Disorder: Proposals for Policy Development

The October 20, 1999 edition of the British Medical Journal denounced these proposals by saying it would create:

 

a system of locking up men and women who frighten officials. The governments proposals masquerade as extentions to mental health services. They are in fact proposals for preventive detention...They aim to make judges more amendable to imposing discretionary life sentences. They are intended...to circumvent the European Convention on Human Rights.

The rest of my comments are referenced as to the source.


[This message has been edited by Kats (edited 10-24-2000).]

[Kats]

I have one more question, after reading through this thread it came to me. Our countries in NATO spent trillions of dollars in the cold war creating weaponry of mass destruction that could reduce our world to rubble many times over, all in the name of detante.

Isn't this really the same issue? Do you think it would have been a good idea for NATO to disarm in the interest of safety?

[This message has been edited by Kats (edited 10-24-2000).]

[Dowding]

Kats - you prove my point about statitics - they have to be looked at critically rather than taking them as gospel truth.

Regarding gun-related crime in Britain, it has long been a problem that there has been some 'manipulating' of data for political reasons. You're naive if you think it doen't occur in this US or anywhere else. Also consider that 59% of incidents involve air-weapons. They are still treated the same as crimes that involve a rifle or semi-automatic pistol or any other gun.

I really think only a very tenuous comparison can be made between the nuclear 'deterrent' and the view that guns in the home somehow disuade a potential burglar. Both cases are superficially similar, but that's about as far as you can take it.

[This message has been edited by Dowding (edited 10-25-2000).]

[Gunthr]

"I think gun laws should be geared towards saftey and storage. This is sorely lacking IMO, yet no one ever talks about this in the media"

I agree. Where there are guns, safety has to be hammered on constantly because where there are guns, there are accidents.

I carry a gun every day, but I never bring it into the house. It stays locked in the trunk of my car. I know enough about me to know that I couldn't live with myself if one of my kids got hurt or killed with it.

BTW, I heard that recently, for the first time ever, police in Nottingham? England are now carrying guns. If this is true, I wonder what that portends?

[Dowding]

Gunthr - I haven't heard anything about that, and I would think it would make all the news services if it was true. I think you refer to the Armed Response Units that we've had for decades.

[Gunthr]

Good!   I'm glad isn't true. <S>