Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Stringer on December 23, 2004, 10:43:44 AM
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One killed in London stabbing rampage
December 23, 2004
LONDON -- An armed man went on a stabbing rampage in north London Thursday, killing one person and critically injuring at least five others, police said.
Metropolitan Police said they began receiving reports of stabbings outside train stations and on streets in the Edmonton, Enfield and Harringay areas starting around 8:20 a.m.
A 29-year-old man, a 30-year-old woman, 40-year-old man and 30-year-old man were among those targeted by the man, who police believe was driving a car and pulling off the road to stab his victims.
One man died at Whipps Cross hospital in Leytonstone, and North Middlesex Hospital said it was treating five people for critical injuries.
Police arrested a male suspect in the area where the stabbings occurred.
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Get down! It's a drive by knifing!
-SW
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Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
Get down! It's a drive by knifing!
-SW
those can be dangerous.
You might spill your beer!
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It`s quite evident more regulations are needed. :D
Customer : Waiter may I have some butter for my roll?
Waiter: Sir we will have to see your butter knife user permit before we are allowed to fill your request.
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It's the sharp instruments, I tell ya. Not the person holding it.
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toad has again been redeeemed in calling for a knife ban.. I believe also that my suggestion that only allowing knives in resteraunts would make sense in a country that has this problem. After all... what does a normal person need a knife for? no reason at all I say. sure... it is a little inconvienent to eat certain foods by picking them up and biteing off chunks but....
if it saved just one life!
Think of the children!
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
sure... it is a little inconvienent to eat certain foods by picking them up and biteing off chunks but....
if it saved just one life!
Think of the children!
lazs
Think of it as getting back to our "roots", tearing off a chunk of mammoth haunch with your teeth and bare hands. It's a valid, traditional and authentic way to eat.
Our long ago ancestors didn't need steel knives to feed themselves and neither do we.
I often think some people console their egos by owning several sharp shiny butter knives, table knives and even kitchen knives to make up for their dull, non-shiny short little....
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If you can't cut your steak with a cricket paddle or nine iron then you need to simply give up steak.
how many more of these attacks do we need to be sujected to before the government steps in and protects us????
lazs
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Yup, real laugh a minute stuff...wheee, someone died and 5 others injured, chuckle chuckle. The amazing thing is that anyone actually picked that story up over there.
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No one is laughing at the loss of life or the sorrow caused by the nut-case perpetrator. Murder is murder, wherever and however it's done.
However, if you've been around this board longer than a month or so and you've followed the various gun control debates one would see there are some positons that have been supported and some that have been undermined by this incident. I think it's normal that there would be some "ribbing" about that.
You see recent incidents support the case that's been made that it's the person not the inanimate object. There's also support for the idea that if you ban one inanimate object, criminals will simply use a different inanimate object.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1271498.htm
The attack was the second fatal stabbing in two days in north London.
On Wednesday a shop keeper was knifed to death in Wood Green after he chased two thieves who stole two bottles of spirits from his shop.
Knife crime is rising sharply across the country, prompting the Government to consider new laws raising the minimum age of knife ownership and extending the range of banned weapons.
Last year 272 people were knifed to death nationwide, an increase of 35 per cent in five years, while at the same time 80 people were shot dead.
You see these things were predicted in numerous gun control threads. Now those predictions are being validated. There's inevitably going to be some good natured commentary.
I can see where some might confuse that for laughing about the incident itself, which I certainly am not. But I tend to believe it's only a newer person to this BBS that would actually believe that is what is going on in this thread.
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My theory is that most people will turn to knives, hammers, and other "tools" if guns are banned, but a few will turn to making bombs in their kitchen. If some one really wants to kill some one else, they will always find a way.
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Originally posted by medicboy
My theory is that most people will turn to knives, hammers, and other "tools" if guns are banned, but a few will turn to making bombs in their kitchen. If some one really wants to kill some one else, they will always find a way.
I think you nailed it Medic.
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Toad, it seems to me positions certainly have been vindicated.
A nutter runs amok in London armed with a knife, and manages to kill 1 person.
How many would be dead if he'd had a
gun?
Don't spree killers usually manage better than that?
The 2 most famous in Britain were Michael Ryan in Hungerford (14 dead) and Thomas Hamilton (17 dead). Both had guns, not knives.
You see recent incidents support the case that's been made that it's the person not the inanimate object. There's also support for the idea that if you ban one inanimate object, criminals will simply use a different inanimate object.
Would you say all inanimate objects are equally effective at killing?
Honestly, if you wanted to go out on the streets and kill as many people as possible, would you take a knife or a gun?
Armies certainly seem to have come to the conclusion that guns are more effective; when I see soldiers on the streets of Iraq, for example, they are invariably carrying rifles, not knives.
My theory is that most people will turn to knives, hammers, and other "tools" if guns are banned, but a few will turn to making bombs in their kitchen. If some one really wants to kill some one else, they will always find a way.
Again, presupposes that either all ways are equally easy, or that making it more difficult to carry out murder will not result in less murders.
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"However, if you've been around this board longer than a month or so and you've followed the various gun control debates one would see there are some positons that have been supported and some that have been undermined by this incident. I think it's normal that there would be some "ribbing" about that.
"
He would have killed dozens with a gun.
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Originally posted by Pongo
"However, if you've been around this board longer than a month or so and you've followed the various gun control debates one would see there are some positons that have been supported and some that have been undermined by this incident. I think it's normal that there would be some "ribbing" about that.
"
He would have killed dozens with a gun.
and if someone else had a gun, they coulda shot him before he got to many...since there certainly wasnt any chance that someone else could be hit.
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Every focuses on a different part of the elephant. Here's what jumped out at me:
Knife crime is rising sharply across the country, prompting the Government to consider new laws raising the minimum age of knife ownership and extending the range of banned weapons.
More attempts at government control that won't bother the criminal element one bit. Once again, only the folks that are not the problem will comply.
Last year 272 people were knifed to death nationwide, an increase of 35 per cent in five years, while at the same time 80 people were shot dead.
Without checking stats, I'll bet that the total of knifed + shot in the "last year" is essentially unchanged from previous years. In other words, the gun ban didn't significantly decrease the total number of homicides. Rather, there was a change in modality with roughly equal numbers. Nashwan, you seem to have easy access to official stats... is that about right?
Also, if knife homicides increased 35% in five years, what was the increase or decrease in gun homicides in that same period?
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Originally posted by Toad
More attempts at government control that won't bother the criminal element one bit. Once again, only the folks that are not the problem will comply.
Im not being funny, but you have got no idea of the youth culture in the UK as far as knives are concerned. Most of these 'criminals' are young people with no criminal record, they have jobs, houses, some even have kids. But they carry a knife for 'protection'.
There are hundreds caught on the streets of the UK every week, and most of them are first offenders.
As someone else said, if it was a gun there woulda been a helluva lot more than one dead. Still one too many, but better than a dozen.
So controlling the use of knives is the only option imo. And in most of the adult population of the UK's opinion I would think.
Get over it, we have a different culture here. Your way works for you, our way works for us. Simple as that.
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Originally posted by Glas
Get over it, we have a different culture here. Your way works for you, our way works for us. Simple as that.
LOL. Now, if you guys just take the same approach towards our ways, eh?
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Originally posted by Glas
So controlling the use of knives is the only option imo. And in most of the adult population of the UK's opinion I would think.
Get over it, we have a different culture here. Your way works for you, our way works for us. Simple as that.
After you "control" knives, what will be next?
The UK banned handguns even though there never was a problem with gun related homicides. In fact, post ban aren't the number of gun deaths about the same as they have always been?
I assume that murder and assault are currenty "banned". Doesn't that cover all the bases? The answer is NO, because people who want to kill other people will always kill other people regardless of any law.
The ban on guns is a failure and banning knives will be even more of a failure.
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Originally posted by Toad
LOL. Now, if you guys just take the same approach towards our ways, eh?
Ehhh, what did I just say? Our way works for us, your way works for you.
No arguments from me about gun control in the US. You all need them as a deterrent to stop you from shooting each other.
;)
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Break out the cricket bats!!! There are maniacs on the loose!
dago
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Originally posted by Dago
cricket bats!!!
are those like vampires? yanno bloodsucker type bats?
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Originally posted by vorticon
and if someone else had a gun, they coulda shot him before he got to many...since there certainly wasnt any chance that someone else could be hit.
why didnt someone else with a butter knife stop him then.
why didnt someone else with a gun stop the DC snipers...no one with guns ever seems to stop these guys.
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Originally posted by Glas
Im not being funny, but you have got no idea of the youth culture in the UK as far as knives are concerned. Most of these 'criminals' are young people with no criminal record, they have jobs, houses, some even have kids. But they carry a knife for 'protection'.
There are hundreds caught on the streets of the UK every week, and most of them are first offenders.
ROFL Here in Texas,unless you have been born and raised as a "concrete pounder" in the city, leaving the house without your trusty knife in your pocket or a belt sheath is like walking outside without your pants on. It`s considered more of a day to day tool than anything.
I have a pretty fair sized collection of knives. One I`m really fond of. A Franklin Mint collector with the old Easyrider in the handle and etched into the blade. A totaly useless piece with the exception of eye candy.
Carrying a knife here is totaly legal,but on the other hand, it`s still illegal to carry a set of wire cutters in your pocket. :D
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Did you guys find 9/11 just as amuzing ?
:rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Pongo
why didnt someone else with a butter knife stop him then.
why didnt someone else with a gun stop the DC snipers...no one with guns ever seems to stop these guys.
They do get stopped in that manner. It just doesn't tickle the medias fancy to report such things. :mad:
For just a little while someone was pasting such info on this board.
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Originally posted by NUKE
After you "control" knives, what will be next?
The UK banned handguns even though there never was a problem with gun related homicides. In fact, post ban aren't the number of gun deaths about the same as they have always been?
I assume that murder and assault are currenty "banned". Doesn't that cover all the bases? The answer is NO, because people who want to kill other people will always kill other people regardless of any law.
The ban on guns is a failure and banning knives will be even more of a failure.
Frankly, im all for the control of any implements which have no other use, under the given circumstances, than to hurt someone. In the UK, if you walk along the street with a knife and no obvious reason for carrying it, you will be jailed and deservedly so. If you walk along the street with a cricket bat for no obvious reason, you will be jailed and deservedly so.
If you are in your garden having a BBQ and your using a knife to cuut your meat or whatever, nothing will happen to you. If your out on a playing field with your mates and you have a cricket bat, nothing will happen to you.
It's that simple imo. Of course there will be the occasional case which has a grey area ('I was just taking the knife to my friends house, he doesnt have a decent one officer' or 'im just on my way to the park to play cricket officer') but in cases like that it wouldnt be too difficult for the police to separate the liars from those telling the truth.
So, in answer to your question, I wouldnt let it stop. All implements which can cause harm, and where there is no obvious reason for it being carried than to cause harm, should be considered as potentially murderous weapons and confiscated, with the owner charged.
Thats the way our country works, thats the way we like to control things. Does it stop all murders from happening? Nope. But it does make it easy for the police to tell who has the intent of hurting someone.
If you dont like our controls, tough. Your laws would never work here, ours wouldnt work over at your place. Its that simple really.
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Originally posted by vorticon
and if someone else had a gun, they coulda shot him before he got to many...since there certainly wasnt any chance that someone else could be hit.
if i were a pink pig i could be happy.
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Originally posted by Pongo
why didnt someone else with a gun stop the DC snipers...no one with guns ever seems to stop these guys.
Because they had to catch them. Not like they were just sitting around in the open shooting, nor like they stayed around after shooting. And it WAS guys with guns who caught/arrested them.
dago
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"When butter knives are outlawed, only Outlaws will have butter knives"
dago
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Thank goodness this nutcase could not get ahold of a gun.
Gee...wonder why that is?
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Originally posted by Glas
Frankly, im all for the control of any implements which have no other use, under the given circumstances, than to hurt someone. In the UK, if you walk along the street with a knife and no obvious reason for carrying it, you will be jailed and deservedly so. If you walk along the street with a cricket bat for no obvious reason, you will be jailed and deservedly so.
If you are in your garden having a BBQ and your using a knife to cuut your meat or whatever, nothing will happen to you. If your out on a playing field with your mates and you have a cricket bat, nothing will happen to you.
It's that simple imo. Of course there will be the occasional case which has a grey area ('I was just taking the knife to my friends house, he doesnt have a decent one officer' or 'im just on my way to the park to play cricket officer') but in cases like that it wouldnt be too difficult for the police to separate the liars from those telling the truth.
So, in answer to your question, I wouldnt let it stop. All implements which can cause harm, and where there is no obvious reason for it being carried than to cause harm, should be considered as potentially murderous weapons and confiscated, with the owner charged.
Thats the way our country works, thats the way we like to control things. Does it stop all murders from happening? Nope. But it does make it easy for the police to tell who has the intent of hurting someone.
If you dont like our controls, tough. Your laws would never work here, ours wouldnt work over at your place. Its that simple really.
Errrrr ummmmm ,cough> sputter ...guffaw..teehee, etc. Funiest crap I`ve read in a long time.
I like the "it wouldnt be too difficult for the police to separate the liars from those telling the truth." part. You just going to turn all decisions over to "government" and trust them to have your best interests?
Then........"it wouldnt be too difficult for the police to separate the liars from those telling the truth.". Hilarious! Who is "we" and what are "we" controlling. It certainly wouldn`t be you because you have professed to waive any input on control to a higher power.
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Originally posted by lazs2
toad has again been redeeemed in calling for a knife ban..
Yes, and the airlines acted upon his suggestion after 911. Wasn't the FAA the first of the worlds aviation administrations to ban sharp objects?
By the way, Lazs. England recently beat South Africa at Cricket. South Africa put up a damn good show, I thought. Picture this: If instead of that reddish/brownish leather ball coming up against the object in Andrew Flintoff's hands (as he hit it for six) it was your head, you would never say "cricket paddle" again. As a matter of fact, I doubt you'd ever say anything again.
;)(http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/xmas.gif)
Knife crime is rising sharply
Well, no point in having a blunt knife :lol
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Without checking stats, I'll bet that the total of knifed + shot in the "last year" is essentially unchanged from previous years. In other words, the gun ban didn't significantly decrease the total number of homicides. Rather, there was a change in modality with roughly equal numbers. Nashwan, you seem to have easy access to official stats... is that about right?
The homicide figures in Britiain tend to jump around a lot, simply because there are relatively few. A statitician could probably use the proper words to explain it, but basically when numbers are low, you see large percentage flucuations.
As an example, the stabbing deaths in 2002/03 were 272, up 10 from 2001/02, but up 58 from 2000/01. However, if you go back to the early 90s, you have 219 in 92, 182 in 93, then back up to 231 in 94, 243 in 95, 197 in 96, etc.
Shooting deaths bounce around in a similar manner, 52 in 92, 73 in 93, 46 in 98/99, 98 in 01/02, 80 in 02/03, 70 in 03/04 iirc.
In other words, the gun ban didn't significantly decrease the total number of homicides.
Of course not. The gun "ban" was applied to a country that already had very strict firearms controls, that were working perfectly well.
It's rather like saying reducing the speed limit would not have any effect on fatal accidents, and using as an example a country that had gone from a 10 mph limit to a 5 mph limit. It doesn't tell you anything about what would happen going from no limit to a 50 mph limit.
Britain had strict gun laws that worked very well at stopping legally aquired guns falling into the hands of criminals. As those laws were almost 100% effective anyway, tightening them didn't make a difference.
That doesn't tell you anything about what would happen in a country like the US, where laws do nothing to prevent legally aquired guns falling into criminal's hands.
Also, if knife homicides increased 35% in five years, what was the increase or decrease in gun homicides in that same period?
Just to illustrate how much the percentages jump around, gun murders last year were up 52% on 5 years ago, 32% on 6 years ago, 14% on 4 years ago. (And down 1.5% on a decade ago)
The best illustration of the large percentage jumps is strangulation. It went up 166% in 01/02 from the previous year, then went back down 47% the next year.
As you sort of dodged the question last time, can I ask it again straight out?
1. Do you believe all methods of killing are equally effective, in particular do you think a knife is as effective a way of killing as a gun, in most circumstances? (Not under certain conditions, but on average)
2. Do you believe that making people use less effective ways of killing, ie making killing harder, will lead to less murders, or not?
To take it to it's logical conclusion, and to use Archie Bunker's example, do you think if the only way to murder someone was to push them out of a window, there would be as many murders in the US as there currently are?
It seems to me a gun is an efficient tool for killing people. In the US, it's the most efficient tool that's readily available and easy to use.
It also seems to me if you want to get more work done, you use the most efficient tool.
The only real argument, it seem to me, is if gun control results in less guns in the hands of criminals.
Arguing that guns are not the easiest way to kill people seems silly. Lazs has guns for self defence, he's not proposing to push criminals out of a window, hit them with a baseball paddle, or stab them.
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Originally posted by Glas
Thats the way our country works, thats the way we like to control things.
I'm glad it "works" for you and I certainly wouldn't interfere in how you folks want to run things over there.
However, as some of you folks feel free to comment on this issue as it is over here, I'll make one more observation.
The "control" you appear to have seems illusory at best. Despite your bannings and age limits and other (to me) overbearing attempts to "control" this problem, your homicide rate really doesn't change as the year go by. Modality may change from gun to knife but roughly the same number of folks are murdered.
So I don't really see much "control". The number seems rather impervious to the attempts at "control". So, from my point of view, it gets back to Ben Franklin's adage "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve
neither liberty nor safety."
Of course, my view of "essential liberty" is probably not the same as yours. I like being able to own a handgun for hunting or plinking and I like being able to own a knife as I choose. I sort of like government not telling me what to do in what I consider the smaller details of my life.
YMMV and I'm glad you like your system though.
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Errrrr ummmmm ,cough> sputter ...guffaw..teehee, etc. Funiest crap I`ve read in a long time.
I like the "it wouldnt be too difficult for the police to separate the liars from those telling the truth." part. You just going to turn all decisions over to "government" and trust them to have your best interests?
No, we turn decisions like that over to juries. The police can recomend prosecution, the CPS can initiate prosecution, the jury has to decide if someone is guilty of a crime.
Carrying a knife is not a crime crime in Britain. Carrying an "offensive weapon" is. The prosecution has to prove to a jury beyond reasonable doubt that what you were carrying was an offensive weapon. If it's a young man accused of carrying a machette concealed under his coat and hanging around outside a pub, he's fairly likely to get convicted. If it's a fisherman on his way to the river with his fishing rods, and a long gutting knife, he's not even going to get charged, let alone convicted.
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Originally posted by Nashwan
If it's a fisherman on his way to the river with his fishing rods, and a long gutting knife, he's not even going to get charged, let alone convicted.
What if the fisherman on the way to fish were attacked by someone on the way to the river and used his long gutting knife as a defensive weapon? What would happen to him?
He was not carrying the knife with intent to use it offensively.
Why can't a normal, sane, law abiding citizen be trusted to carry a knife for defensive reasons?
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Originally posted by Nashwan
The homicide figures in Britiain tend to jump around a lot, simply because there are relatively few. A statitician could probably use the proper words to explain it, but basically when numbers are low, you see large percentage flucuations.
I think a statistician would call it "inadequate sampling data". You'll notice that when British crime stats are being discussed, the Yanks always prefer to talk about percentages because it makes their case look stronger. For example, 68 gun murders last year in Britain - but if this were to go up by 17, it would still be under 100 but the yanks would be yelling "gun murders up 25% in Britain!!!" The really funny thing is that 17 wouldn't even register as a blip in the US stats. Even 10,000 US deaths annually has been described in this forum as "a pittance, and a price worth paying for the right to bear arms".
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Originally posted by beet1e
Even 10,000 US deaths annually has been described in this forum as "a pittance, and a price worth paying for the right to bear arms".
Your making a distingction that's entirely wrong. Guns aren't our problem, it's our society (which is worse, by the way).
At least we don't have nutsos going on butter-knife drive-by rampages...
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Originally posted by NUKE
What if the fisherman on the way to fish were attacked by someone on the way to the river and used his long gutting knife as a defensive weapon? What would happen to him?
He was not carrying the knife with intent to use it offensively.
Why can't a normal, sane, law abiding citizen be trusted to carry a knife for defensive reasons?
LOL...
That happens, like EVERY DAY Nuke, your right. We should all carry a knife for defensive reasons...you never know when those fishermen will attack or be attacked. :lol
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Originally posted by Curval
LOL...
That happens, like EVERY DAY Nuke, your right. We should all carry a knife for defensive reasons...you never know when those fishermen will attack or be attacked. :lol
I know Curval, but I like taking ideas to the extreme....sometimes it helps to illustrate a point.
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No, honestly Nuke, I appreciate the "heads up". I have to ride my bike past a number of places where fishermen gather...I will no longer slow down or even look in their direction. Dangerous stuff.
:p ;)
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beetle... if you ever seen a real bat hit a real ball then you wouldn't begin to call those cricket paddles "bats"
where to start? pongo.. yes.. allmost all of our violent sprees are stopped by a firearm. More than a third of all school shootings were stopped by a citizen with a firearm... more would if it weren't for the school ban onm firearms for conmcealed carry.
nashwan..knife can be very effiecient killer.. we do better here with some knife wielders killing more victims than shooters ... the most effective killer on a world scale is the bomb. shooters or knife wielders never even come close. next is the motor vehicle.. in several cases here derraged people (Ford and that poor old man) killed scores of people with a vehicle..
on the other side of the ledger... it is very rare for a bomb or a knife to save a life whereas in the U.S. guns are used 1.5-3 million times a year to stop a crime... if only a fraction of a percent of these crimes that were stopped would have resulted in death then firearms save thousands of lives a year plus.... they make the crime rate drop across the board. win win.
as you say... murder rates fluctuate in the UK but... as you yourself can doubtlessly see... they stay about the same no matter what tools are banned by your nanny. All you really acomplish is to make yourselves helpless to those more ruthless than you. I fear that as the haves and have nots are a wider rift in your country... you will regret losing your god given right to defend yourself.
lazs
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Originally posted by Curval
No, honestly Nuke, I appreciate the "heads up". I have to ride my bike past a number of places where fishermen gather...I will no longer slow down or even look in their direction. Dangerous stuff.
:p ;)
The point being that a fisherman, simply because he is a fisherman, is trusted to carry a knife and it would not be considered an offensive weapon. Why is the fisherman trusted above any other normal person who feels like carrying a knife for whatever reason? I carry a small knife and I use it sometimes to cut open packages and such.
Carrying a knife is not a crime crime in Britain. Carrying an "offensive weapon" is. The prosecution has to prove to a jury beyond reasonable doubt that what you were carrying was an offensive weapon. If it's a young man accused of carrying a machette concealed under his coat and hanging around outside a pub, he's fairly likely to get convicted. If it's a fisherman on his way to the river with his fishing rods, and a long gutting knife, he's not even going to get charged, let alone convicted.
There is quite a bit of grey area between hanging out with a machette at a pub and carrying a fishing knife to go fishing.
So, since the fisherman is trusted to carry a knife, what would happen in the RARE case that he used it on someone trying to do him harm? Would they accept that he was not intending to use it on someone and not prosecute ?
If you take the time to think about it as an example, you would might see were I am going. If it was ruled the fisherman acted in self defense, wouldn't that be an interesting thing to debate?
I'd be willing to bet that they would prosecute the guy no matter if he was defending his life or not.
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Originally posted by lazs2
beetle... if you ever seen a real bat hit a real ball then you wouldn't begin to call those cricket paddles "bats"
Lazs
A cricket ball is bigger than a baseball, and the distance from a cricket batsman's crease to the boundary is not much different from the distance from a baseball batter to the crowd sitting in line with him and second base.
Gonzo said "Your making a distingction that's entirely wrong. Guns aren't our problem, it's our society (which is worse, by the way). " Sounds like the NRA kneejerk response, ie. it's never the gun's fault. But that stance is like letting a 3 year old play with a book of matches, and claiming "it's not the matches' fault" when the house gets burned down, as if to say it's OK to let 3 year olds play with matches. It's really not so different from what you're saying, which is "it's OK to let nutjobs play with guns". We do not agree, and address the problem by targeting supply. That's why we've never had more than 100 gun homicides in any calendar year and that's why you have 10,000 or more every year. I think most people can see those figures for what they are, and deduce which system works best.
:aok
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Originally posted by Gonzo
Your making a distingction that's entirely wrong. Guns aren't our problem, it's our society (which is worse, by the way).
At least we don't have nutsos going on butter-knife drive-by rampages...
Hehe that's right - you can take pride in the fact that your nutsos are properly equipped with AKs and Mac-10s for their drive-by rampages. :D
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beetle... we don't let three year olds play with matches or guns but it does happen.. we don't blame the matches or the guns or the 3 year old when it does happen tho. Our per capita gun homicide rate for whites is about the same as canadas. This sounds a lot less evil than "10000 gun homicides a year" many of those are justified and... fireams prevent other homicides and crime in general.
It is all in how you want to live. If you want to be tyranized by the criminal or the government then by all means... give up your human rights one at a time. I prefer to be in charge of my own defense against tyranny. It would appear, from another thread that you may be considering taking charge of your own defense also.
lazs
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Originally posted by beet1e
Lazs It's really not so different from what you're saying, which is "it's OK to let nutjobs play with guns". We do not agree, and address the problem by targeting supply. That's why we've never had more than 100 gun homicides in any calendar year and that's why you have 10,000 or more every year. I think most people can see those figures for what they are, and deduce which system works best.
:aok
By no means am I expressing that our system of gun supply and distribution is good in any world. However, I am expressing my opinion that the good American should not be restricted from owning a firearm. It's the 'nutjobs' that need to be restricted. Our system needs reform, but it shouldn't come in the "less supply" manner, but rather the "don't let nutjobs buy from the supply we have" solution.
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Originally posted by Gonzo
By no means am I expressing that our system of gun supply and distribution is good in any world. However, I am expressing my opinion that the good American should not be restricted from owning a firearm. It's the 'nutjobs' that need to be restricted. Our system needs reform, but it shouldn't come in the "less supply" manner, but rather the "don't let nutjobs buy from the supply we have" solution.
I actually agree with you that you should not be restricted from owning a firearm for defence, if that's what you want. I've never said that Americans should give up their guns, and I challenge anyone to find a thread where I did. It's too late for that - your criminals are fully armed, and what you don't seem to grasp is that there's no way to have a society in which the law abiding have guns and the criminals have none.
Way back in 1920 which wasn't long after the end of WW1, it was decided here that the calamity that would result from unfettered gun ownership was obvious. I can dig out that reference, but not just now. We had the benefit of looking across the Atlantic to see where that would lead...
Lazs said "It is all in how you want to live. If you want to be tyranized by the criminal or the government then by all means... give up your human rights one at a time."" One thing I do know - and many in this country would share my view - is that I don't want to see a guns free for all, and the skyrocketing homicide rate that would result from that. Just imagine if, instead of butter knives, the local nutjobs had .44 Magnums. :eek:
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gonzo... that is a pretty good start but the real damage is done by those who are greedy... the criminal. It can be assumed that criminals are pretty much insane and it is a given that they should not be sold firearms but... they can obtain them through other means so...
What is needed is very strict penalties for commiting crimes using a gun. if the gun is primary in commiting the crime then stiff mandatory sentances are needed. This has the effect of making the typical criminal shy away from fireams and at the same time fear the possibility of running into an armed citizen.
Three stikes laws also help by getting the career criminal off the street.. violent or not, he is responsible for the majority of crime.
and... end womens suffrage..
all those things will help but... there will allways be bad men who look for someone weaker than themselves.
lazs
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Originally posted by beet1e
Just imagine if, instead of butter knives, the local nutjobs had .44 Magnums. :eek:
Damn, I thought you might catch that, and I thought you had missed it in your first response. I can tell you, the story would at that point lose all humor.
And as to the serious gun control stuff: criminals will always find a way to get the weapons they want, on the black market, from other countries, whatever. Gun control restricts the defensive weaponry the average citizen wants, not the criminal. The criminals get the weapons we have restricted already...
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does anyone here think that if I wanted a gun in england to go on a suicidal shooting spree that I couldn't get one?
lazs
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Nashwan:
As you sort of dodged the question last time, can I ask it again straight out?
I'd be suprised if I dodged it, but then I don't really remember "last time" specifically.
1. Do you believe all methods of killing are equally effective, in particular do you think a knife is as effective a way of killing as a gun, in most circumstances? (Not under certain conditions, but on average)
For the "average" person, a gun would be more effective as a killing tool than a knife. We all know, however, that dead is dead and either tool can make you dead in a hurry.
2. Do you believe that making people use less effective ways of killing, ie making killing harder, will lead to less murders, or not?
There are several assumptions here and more than one question.
The first assumption is that you can "make people use less effective ways of killing". How do you do that exactly? Ban guns? You folks tried that and apparently assumed that would make killing harder. However, it's clear that not everyone gave up their guns (you still have gun homicides).
It's also clear that while you may believe you have made it harder, the killers apparently switched modalities without any problems; the rate of knife murders went up to compensate.
Finally, the overall murder rate remains about the same pre-ban and post-ban.
So, to directly answer your question using the UK stats, it might make killing a little harder but I'm not certain that inescapably leads to "less murders".
I think here in the US there might be an initial drop in the murder rate IF you could confiscate ALL guns but obviously that's as impossible for us as it has been for you. Further, I certainly believe that the criminals deprived of guns would switch modalities as necessary in any event.
The end result? I think the US homicide rate would stay stable, just as your has done.
To take it to it's logical conclusion, and to use Archie Bunker's example, do you think if the only way to murder someone was to push them out of a window, there would be as many murders in the US as there currently are?
Without delving into this particular scenario, I think that each society has a decades old "societal norm" for homicide.
England has had essentially the same homicide rate, with minor fluctuations for decades, hasn't it? Both BEFORE and AFTER the gun ban and despite restrictions on "sharp instruments". Seems clear to me that the changes in your laws did not affect your homicide rate.
I think we a similar situation here but ours is improving somewhat. Our homicide rate has been high, higher than the world "norm" for decades. We added LOTS fo gun control law without any real affect on lowering homicide rates. OTOH, when we added laws that severely punished criminals using guns in crime, our rates dropped. Further, our rates are continuing to slowly drop without denying law-abiding citizens the right to own handguns or other firearms or knives.
From the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, January-June 2004
Collectively, law enforc ement agencies throughout the United States reported a decrease of 2.0 percent in the number of violent crimes brought to their attention in the first 6 months of 2004 when compared to figures reported for the first half of 2003. The violent crime category includes murder, forcible rape,
robbery, and aggravated assault.
This report shows murder down 5.7%.
Now, I have ask you again:
Considering that your gun homicide rate is really essentially unchanged despite all of your draconian confiscations, bans and prohibitions, what was the point of denying all the law-abiding folks the right to have handguns?
The post-Hungerford and Dunblane laws did essentially nothing. How do you justify all the expense, paperwork and denial of shooting sports to law-abiding folks based on the total lack of results?
Why do you feel that FURTHER bans/restrictions/confiscations will have a different result?
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If I could be so bold... for the average person at close range a knife has been proven to be more effective in causing injury than firearms. No one misses with a knife. people frequently... well trained people even... frequently empty fireams at others and never hit anyone. even drive by shootings rarely hit the target but often kill or injure bystanders.
lazs
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Originally posted by beet1e
Way back in 1920 which wasn't long after the end of WW1, it was decided here that the calamity that would result from unfettered gun ownership was obvious. I can dig out that reference, but not just now. We had the benefit of looking across the Atlantic to see where that would lead...
Actually, you were looking the other way, towards Bolshevik Russia.
I believe I posted some links to documents from your politicians expressing fear of armed Bolsheviks in Jolly Old and that's what started you folks down the gun control path in the '20's.
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Originally posted by Gonzo
Gun control restricts the defensive weaponry the average citizen wants
That's a very US-centric statement. You see, despite what Google throws up, I can tell you that Britain has never been a society in which the average citizen wants weaponry, ie. guns.
Toad, yes I was quoting from a source which you posted.
As unflattering as my opinion of Blair's government is, I don't think there's any plot being masterminded to have us all exterminated. Now, where's that dalek picture I did...
...ah yes, here it is. I'm using my Mum's laptop
The Ultimate Objective of Nanny Blair's Gun Laws
(http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/dalek.jpg)
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One problem we have had over here for MANY years is an insane knee-jerk reaction...one 'bad' crime of a certain type and the country goes nuts and the 'item' connected with the crime becomes the subject of new restrictive laws. This is even worse with the current control freaky government we have and I would not at all be surprised to see new knife regulations made into law..not just made into law, but more significantly, RUSHED into law...without proper consideration and proper anaylysis of the legal text..thus making things even more foggy, or heavy handed, or both..of course I don't expect the sorry excuse of an opposition party to be effective in it's job.
Of course a linked issue that is being considered here is to reduce the possibilites of a homeowner being taken to court for 'excesive use of force' against an intruder, which as far as I understand it over there is not an issue...if someone breaks into your home there he has given up any and all rights..something I do thorougly agree with. At the moment even 'detaining' someone by use/threat of force that has intruded into your home is very dodgy for you legaly.
That said, the current statistics that an intruder has a gun is about 1% here, something that reducing the gun laws here would be bound to change....nevertheless I would assume if woken up at night that any intruder was armed in some way, and act accordingly..i.e. until they have either fled, left or are lying fairly still on the floor, I am entitled to do whatever I can to defend me and mine...I have a metal tipped wooden pole for opening the loft door and would use it without restraint..as such I would quite possibly be in trouble with the law...then again if guns were legal rather than breaking someone's leg or arm at worst, I would probably kill an intruder....so in a strong way I am glad I don't have that option, and that the chances of the intruder likewise having a gun are very low. *shrug*
And you maybe right, I haven't been reading the boards here long, but the comedy value of a 'knife-by stabbing' did seem to be rather large to me reading it cold on the day it happened....but remember that such violent crimes are still so rare here that they make national headlines, and often first item too, above 'important' news (awful though it is, a stabbing even of several people is imho a MUCH smaller news stroy than political events, international events and such...but I know I am in a minority there)
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tali... the tactic of using one event as an excuse to take away peoples rights is by no means a british only thing... it is the main tactic of the liberal in our country. They are forever using one trajedy or another to enact very restrictive laws... you are considered heartless if you don't go along with thier "for your own good" program.
as for your metal tipped rod. That is nice.. I am gald you have one and are in good enough shape to defend yourself with it. Is your grandfather? How bout the parapaligic? the single women?
Apparently the crooks in your country count on running into your grandpa or sister a lot more than they do a metal tipped rod weilder in the prime of hios life as your "hot burglary" rate is ove 50%... more often than not.... your countrymen are home when the burglar breaks in.
In the U.S.... It is more like 10% and the burglars are seldom armed with guns. the penhalties are too high for commiting crimes with guns... but... they don't go into occuopied houses because.. the weak, the people they like to prey on.... may not be so weak... they may, and have numerous times a year, pulled out pistols and shot intruders. lose lose for burglars in our country.
What you seem to be advocating is that the strongest person deserves to win. That is how your system works right now,
lazs
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Lazs,
One of the mistakes you sometimes make is the same mistake that Ripsnort and Joyce Lee Malcolm make. You look at two sets of stats - burglaries (in US and UK) and gun ownership (in US and UK) and draw the erroneous conclusion that one is directly related to the other.
The reasons for the burglary rate in Britain are manifold, and I will come back to these in a moment. But before that, let's consider another unarmed European country - Italy. I don't know what Italy's gun history is, and although it has armed police, I doubt that there's any significant gun ownership amongst the civilian population...
...and yet, I was reading just the other day that the burglary rate is lower than in Britain, and is about the same as in the US. This demonstrates that guns do not enter the equation regarding the influence of their ownership on burglary rates.
Britain's burglary rate is as high as it - not because of guns or their absence, but because of many other factors: Inadequate sentencing of burglars (which also gives green light to nasent burglars), crowded prisons, a government that thinks we "won't mind" if burglars are not jailed, more people in a smaller space (ie greater population density), and juvenile delinquency as a result of the collapse in discipline in schools which stemmed from the abolition of corporal punishment in 1986.
Despite what you'd like to think (that more guns = the panacea to all of a society's social ills) the actual equation is rather more complicated.
Hope you had a good Christmas! :D
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People in the UK should be able to kill anyone who breaks into their home and threatens them in any way. That would curb a lot of the BS that's going on in the UK right now in regards to home robberies.
The UK should allow people to keep guns in the home imho.
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Hi NUKE!
Don't worry, it's fairly peaceful where I live. But spare a thought for Chortle - he's in SE London!
BTW NUKE, I stood guard at the front door of my brother's house yesterday as he was carving the Christmas turkey with his electric carving knife. I wanted to be sure that no burglar would burst into the house, confront my brother and accuse him of carrying an offensive weapon. I don't want to see my brother jailed for possession of electric carving knife, which would no doubt lead to Nanny Blair banning electric carving knives.
Our plan was that if a burglar did get past me, I would call out and my brother would drop it to save himself facing a jail sentence. ;) Maybe brandish a turkey drumstick instead? :lol
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For the "average" person, a gun would be more effective as a killing tool than a knife. We all know, however, that dead is dead and either tool can make you dead in a hurry.
For sure, for sure... but you'll have to really go at it hammer and tongs to a get a decent body count with a violin, for instance, compared to an automatic pistol.
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Au contraire....
Violins... great as they are... have probably led to more deaths than guns.
Suicides. Or motivational soundtracks for a mass murder suicide.
There's something cool about that though.
None of this brute El Kabong smashing over the head stuff.
Pure violin violence, by extension.
Art can kill.
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Originally posted by fd ski
Did you guys find 9/11 just as amuzing ?
:rolleyes:
Not really....but Polacko jokes crack us up! :)
culero
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No, I am not at all saying the strongest should be 'in charge' but that given the reasons for the high burglary rate here, as already given by Beet, the often pathetic sentinces handed down EVEN if the guy gets convicted being a big one imho, a positive move that assumes an intruder by the act of breaking in has forfited his/her basic rights and thus IF they are delt 'harshly' with by a house owner, that was part and parcel of the risk of their crime and turning around to sue the householder is not going to happen except in the worse possible cases, and even then the case would have to be pretty good.
And I am a single woman, thankfully I don't live in SE London or I think I'd have sharpened the wooden end of my pole years ago, added barbed wire to my front door and a ten foot high bramble hedge around my garden.
I don't doubt the knee-jerk reaction isn't only a British thing, but it isn't a 'liberal' thing here, it is often a cross party issue and the general media hype comes from most corners. Dunblane and Hungerford happened under a Conservative government while we now have one of the most illiberal Labour goverments since the year dot. In 'our' case it is much more of a public reviling after such an event, and right now what passes for the offiial opposition as well as the 'civil liberties' lobby has showen themselves to be laughably weak...(ID cards, but that's a whole other can of worms). What it comes down to is that one off events such as this are NOT a basis for charging around and changing the law at warp speed snot, but as a society that seems to be exactly what the 'vocal' (and yeesh are they vocal sometimes) outraged sections call for, and because nobody is going to stand up against them (cos defending Hungerford's Micheal Ryan would be akin to saying that you like to shoot childern in the eyes of such people), so the 'we shout loudest' folks win.....not rule by the strongest, rule by the most obnoxiously loud, hooray, we have come a long way haven't we. :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Tali
And I am a single woman...
Are you hot? 'Cuz I'm lookin' for a date.
er... damn that was awful, sorry. To be honest I couldn't figure out what you were saying. So I made like an arrow. An arrow of love.... straight to your heart.
Are you feeling it? That's right - don't fight it.
You and me.... Because together? We matter.
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tali.. beet points out that there are other factors but... I am not pointing to the hgh burglary rate so much as to the high "hot" burglary rate..in the U.S. we have a lot of burglaries but they are not hot (residence home) due strictly to fear of being met with a weapon. IOnterviews with convicted fellons show that getting shot is a bigger fear to them than getting caught.
We have relatively light sentances in most of our country for burglary. we have heavy sentances for any crime commited with a gun or for repeat offenders. Win win... mostly... a burglar goes in unarmed and if the people are home.... he is met with something a little more substantial than a metal tipped pole.
I am sure that you are quite fit for a woman... most are not but... even so.. most guys I know could make you eat that stick if you threatened them with it. Still... it is allways better to resist than to be passive. I believe that you deserve the best tools possible to defend yourself. and....
we here believe that the most conservative government you guys have had lately is still a bunch of flaming liberals a little left of a kerrie rally.
lazs
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Originally posted by Tali
What it comes down to is that one off events such as this are NOT a basis for charging around and changing the law at warp speed snot,
EXACTLY.
Further, they are not a basis for changing the law into something that is just a ineffective as what went before whilst denying legitimate recreational activities to law-abiding citizens.
It's lose/lose. The criminals arent' affected in the least. The law-abiding citizens are needlessly restricted. The worst of both worlds....
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I have never figured out if such laws are passed because the authors really belive that they are doing good or if the authors simply want to be in the limelight and appear to be doing something or if the author just has some deep seated neurosis that is guiding his hand. I suspect it is a bit of all of those things.
lazs
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Lazs,
OK, so you agree that our burglary rate is affected by a variety of factors.
Try looking at the rates in Italy, both for hot and cold burglaries, and compare them with the US. If what I read is true (and I cannot verify it until I get back home tomorrow) then it will demonstrate that the presence or absence of guns it not an issue, given Italy's unarmed status.
As far as I know, Italy doesn't have a major inner city drugs problem, or problems with ethnic minorities/ethnic clashes. And that's most probably the reason its burglary rate is lower than ours.
All I'm saying is, even if guns were to affect the burglary rate, it is but one single issue out of many. It is simply incorrect to say "high burglary rate and no guns - ah, THEREFORE more guns = less crime". With regard to homicides, it's patently false - as observed in my sig.
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Worth reading in full, IMO.
But here's a taste for you.
Do Guns Cause Crime? (http://hnn.us/articles/871.html)
Anti-gun advocates endlessly compare the U.S to a few European nations on the assumption that those nations' low murder rates stem from severe gun controls. In fact those nations' rates were lower yet (and far below ours) before WWI when controls were minimal or nonexistent. Their controls were enacted to preclude political crime in the turbulent post-WWI era. [See Beet? It was fear of Bolshevism. You guys were looking at Russia, not the US. ;)] Despite this, these nations far exceed the U.S. in political homicides -- a fact they conceal by just omitting such homicides from their murder statistics.
To determine whether severe gun controls reduce murder, the proper comparison is not to the high (apolitical)-homicide U.S., but to other European nations where firearms (especially handguns) are allowed and common. That comparison reveals that homicide rates in the latter (Austria - 1.0 per 100,000 population, Switzerland - 1.1) do not exceed those of the highly gun-restrictive surrounding nations (France and Germany, both 1.1; Hungary 3.5; Italy 1.7; Slovenia 2.4; Yugoslavia 2.0).
Thus it is not gun scarcity that keeps European homicide rates low. Indeed, analysis of data on 36 nations show "no significant (at the 5% level) association between gun ownership levels and the total homicide rate...."21
Concomitantly, the U.S. should be compared not to Western Europe but to other high-murder-rate nations such as Russia. There, severe and severely-enforced gun bans applied to a largely unarmed population succeeded in virtually eliminating gun murders -- so other weapons were substituted. In only four of the 35 years 1965-99 was Russia's murder rate (barely) lower than ours, while in another 10 the rates were almost identical. But in 21 years the Russian rate was higher, and in seven the Russian rate was more than twice the U.S. Today it is almost four times higher.22
These comparisons imply that the decisive factors in national homicide rates are socio-economic and cultural, not availability of some particular form of weaponry. Two decades ago, after evaluating the literature on gun control for the National Institute of Justice three University of Massachusetts sociologists concluded:
It is commonly hypothesized that much criminal violence, especially homicide, occurs simply because the means of lethal violence (firearms) are readily at hand, and, thus, that much homicide would not occur were firearms generally less available. There is no persuasive evidence that supports this view.23
The intervening years have only fortified that conclusion.
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I don't believe you are reading what I wrote beet... I realize that many factors affect burglary rates but I feel that the percent of "hot" burglaries... those done while the owner cowers under the bed.... are directly affected by the ability of the homeowner to put up a successful defense of his property.
As I have stated... Prison interviews with convicted felons show that they fear armed citizens more than arrest.
lazs
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Originally posted by Pongo
why didnt someone else with a butter knife stop him then.
why didnt someone else with a gun stop the DC snipers...no one with guns ever seems to stop these guys.
In DC hand guns were banned and rifles could not be carried unless you were on your way hunting or to a range, in MD it is much the same thing, you didn't think they picked the area at random did you>??????? If they had tried this in Texas, or Montana they would have never made it out of the parking lot...
they picked the area of the country with the toughest gun laws in the country.
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Toad's link said
Anti-gun advocates endlessly compare the U.S to a few European nations on the assumption that those nations' low murder rates stem from severe gun controls.
Read my sig. The stats speak for themselves.
My posts in this thread have been about Joyce Lee Malcolm - a pro gun American whose entire text looks at the gun situation in England, uses selective data to arrive at conclusions which were conceived before putting pen to paper, and completely ignores the plethora of other contributory factors. I agree, Russia is a completely different kettle of fish, quite unlike Western Europe. They had Joseph Stalin. We have been fortunate never to have a regime like that.
Lazs said I realize that many factors affect burglary rates but I feel that the percent of "hot" burglaries... those done while the owner cowers under the bed.... are directly affected by the ability of the homeowner to put up a successful defense of his property.
I don't agree. There are other factors which would make a dent in burglary (hot or cold). The main one would be if our burglars faced being banged up for 10 years if they tried to enter my house. As things stand these days, the guy will most probably walk.
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What if the fisherman on the way to fish were attacked by someone on the way to the river and used his long gutting knife as a defensive weapon? What would happen to him?
Nothing, if it were a genuine case of self defence. If it wasn't, for example if someone stole one of his fish and he threw the knife at them as they ran away, then he is open to prosecution, but the prosecution is for the act, not the possesion of the knife.
That's true no matter the reason for carrying the knife, it would be perfectly possible to be charged with carrying an offensive weapon, and at the same time not be charged with using it in a clear case of self defence. Of course, the police and a jury are likely to wonder whether there was some prior intent if you didn't have a reason for carrying a knife in the first place.
Why can't a normal, sane, law abiding citizen be trusted to carry a knife for defensive reasons?
Who's to decide who's a normal sane law-abiding citizen? What's to stop the man hanging around in a dark alley waiting for someone to rob from claiming he's a normal sane law-abiding citizen carrying a knife for self defence when the police stop him?
The point is, there are no "defensive" weapons, there are weapons which can be used for offence or defence.
where to start? pongo.. yes.. allmost all of our violent sprees are stopped by a firearm.
Usually after fairly large numbers of people have been killed.
nashwan..knife can be very effiecient killer
Of course it can be, but in most circumstances a gun is more lethal than a knife. Modern armies seem to have abandoned the use of swords, for example, and seem to use rather a lot of guns.
the most effective killer on a world scale is the bomb.
Yes, but even the US has had the good sense to restrict the sale of those.
If you wanted to go on a spree killing tomorrow, the easiest way to rack up a lot of kills would be with a gun. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous
as you say... murder rates fluctuate in the UK but... as you yourself can doubtlessly see... they stay about the same no matter what tools are banned by your nanny
Which again is ignoring the fact the "ban" is simply a tightening of already tight laws.
fear that as the haves and have nots are a wider rift in your country... you will regret losing your god given right to defend yourself.
I haven't lost the right to defend myself lazs. What I have lost is the right to defend myself with a handgun, but in return I have the "right" not to have to face a criminal with a handgun, except in extremely rare circumstances.
You on the other hand need a gun to defend yourself but the criminals sure as hell have guns.
The point being that a fisherman, simply because he is a fisherman, is trusted to carry a knife and it would not be considered an offensive weapon.
He's not "trusted", he has a valid reason for carrying a knife. Anyone with a valid reason is similarly "trusted".
There is quite a bit of grey area between hanging out with a machette at a pub and carrying a fishing knife to go fishing.
Yes, I used extreme examples at either end of the spectrum to illustrate the point.
So, since the fisherman is trusted to carry a knife, what would happen in the RARE case that he used it on someone trying to do him harm? Would they accept that he was not intending to use it on someone and not prosecute ?
He wouldn't be prosecuted for having the knife if he defended himself. Possesion of the knife and using it to attack or defend are two different things, although if he attacked someone without provocation the prosecution might claim that he carried the knife with the purpose of attacking someone.
I'd be willing to bet that they would prosecute the guy no matter if he was defending his life or not.
Not in a clear cut case of self defence. If he stabbed someone who was stealing one of his fish, for example, he would get prosecuted, if he stabbed someone who was trying to stab him he almost certainly wouldn't.
Here for example is a typical clear cut case of self defence:
Man was `justified’ in stabbing burglar - Trial.
16 July 1996
The Times
A man who came home to find a burglar ransacking his flat was fully justified in seizing a kitchen knife and stabbing him, a judge at the Old Bailey said yesterday. The burglar, Brian Firmager, 32, later died from a heart attack on the operating table at Guy’s Hospital, where his accomplice, Tony Garrard, had taken him after they fled.
Firmager had attacked John Campbell with a pepper spray and baseball paddle when he returned to his home and disturbed the burglars. “I have not the slightest doubt that, in my judgment, Mr Campbell was fully justified in what he did in lawful self defence,” Brian Higgs, QC, the Recorder, said. He jailed Garrard for six years for the aggravated burglary at Mr Campbell’s flat in Holborn, London, last January.
“Thugs like you who attack householders in this country and subject them to the violence that you two did cannot be surprised if the householders fight back in self-defence,” the judge told Garrard.
When Garrard, 34, from Lee, southeast London, heard of the death of Firmager, he went to police in tears and confessed, the court was told. “He still experiences the agony of it,” Geoffrey Cox, for the defence, said. “This man has had it brought home to him the sheer absurdity, folly and error of his ways.”
The Crown Prosecution Service had considered prosecuting Mr Campbell but decided not to take action as it was considered to be self-defence. Mr Campbell, who needed three stitches after the attack, is awaiting trial on two drug-related matters.
Or this one, where the man who defended himself was carrying a knife, and still wasn't prosecuted:
Man who killed burglar escapes prosecution.
15 June 1994
Reuters News
A British man who killed a burglar he found stealing from his parents’ home escaped prosecution on Wednesday after a coroner ruled he acted in self-defence.
Dean Davis, 33, was visiting his parents’ home to measure up their windows for curtains when he caught the burglar in the act and stabbed him after a scuffle. Police found an array of weapons including a pickaxe handle and a chisel on the dead man, 43-year-old Patrick Halcrow.
The coroner at the inquest in Essex, west of London, recorded a verdict of lawful killing.
Davis admitted carrying a knife but the state prosecutor, the Crown Prosecution Service, said it would not be taking legal action against him in light of the coroner’s verdict.
And as to the serious gun control stuff: criminals will always find a way to get the weapons they want, on the black market, from other countries, whatever.
From what I understand, the price of an illegal handgun is so high in the UK it's out of reach for most common criminals.
In the US, a crack addict can buy a gun, and use it to committ robberies. In the UK, a crack addict who came in possesion of a gun would sell it for several week's worth of crack.
By restricting supply, you price the guns out of the reach of the lowest level criminals, who prey on the public, and into the hands of the mid levels, like drug dealers who only want a gun to protect themselves from other drug dealers.
Most criminals in the UK would find it extremely difficult to get hold of a gun. So much so that many of the guns siezed recently have been air pistols converted to fire 22 LR.
does anyone here think that if I wanted a gun in england to go on a suicidal shooting spree that I couldn't get one?
lazs
Unless you are well "connected", no.
In 2003, the Metropolitan Police, who cover over 7 million Londoners, seized 385 illegaly held guns, half of which were replicas or converted air pistols.
That gives some idea of how many guns are actually in circulation amongst the criminals.
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For the "average" person, a gun would be more effective as a killing tool than a knife. We all know, however, that dead is dead and either tool can make you dead in a hurry.
So you accept that in most circumstances, having a criminal armed with a gun is more likely to be fatal than a criminal armed with a knife?
It seems common sense to me, but I'd just like to pin it down.
The first assumption is that you can "make people use less effective ways of killing". How do you do that exactly? Ban guns?
Not necessarily a ban. The UK had very good gun control laws before Dunblane, that stopped criminals getting their hands on guns aquired through the legal supply channel.
You folks tried that and apparently assumed that would make killing harder.
I don't think so. It was done because newspapers started one of their campaigns, and the problem of having such a free and irresponsible press is that they can sway politicans to an undue extent.
The first assumption is that you can "make people use less effective ways of killing".
The question was a hypothetical, so yes I'm assuming that you can make people use less efficient methods. Treat it like a hypothetical, if you could make people use less efficient means, do you think it would result in less murders?
It's also clear that while you may believe you have made it harder,
No, I don't think the current laws have made it any harder, or easier for that matter.
I've said in the past, and I'll say again, I think Britains strict licensing system prior to Hungerford and Dunblane was close to perfect, and worked extremely well.
I've been trying to find the old statistics page I used to use when I started getting involved in these arguments back in 2000, but I can't. It had a breakdown of crime committed with legally held guns in Britain in the 90s, iirc there were 48 murders with legally held firearms in a decade, which is obvioulsy so small it's not going to have any effect on the statistics.
England has had essentially the same homicide rate, with minor fluctuations for decades, hasn't it? Both BEFORE and AFTER the gun ban
Rather, both during the VERY tight regulations and after the EXTREMELY tight regulations were introduced.
That's the thing, you are talking as if it was a transition from a free for all like the US to a ban, it was actually a tightening of already strict regulations.
The end result? I think the US homicide rate would stay stable, just as your has done.
So you don't think the situation prior to the gun ban has any effect? You think switching from a free for all to a ban is the same as switching from tight regulation to a ban?
I'm sorry, but that just doesn't make sense, it defies logic.
To use another example, you could say that becase airline X saw no increase in carrying capacity when switching from 737s to A320s, airline Y will not see an increase by switching to A320s, even though they currently operate small Bombardier turboprops.
For the result to be the same, the initial circumstances must be the same. There was nothing similar about the availability of guns between Britain pre 1997 and the US currently.
If I could be so bold... for the average person at close range a knife has been proven to be more effective in causing injury than firearms. No one misses with a knife. people frequently... well trained people even... frequently empty fireams at others and never hit anyone. even drive by shootings rarely hit the target but often kill or injure bystanders.
I think your chances of hitting at up to 3ft are the same with a knife or handgun, anything over that and the handgun wins hands down.
Apparently the crooks in your country count on running into your grandpa or sister a lot more than they do a metal tipped rod weilder in the prime of hios life as your "hot burglary" rate is ove 50%... more often than not.... your countrymen are home when the burglar breaks in.
In the U.S.... It is more like 10%
The US counts differently. Quite a lot of "hot" burglaries in the US are listed as "robbery" rather than burglary.
Worth reading in full, IMO.
But here's a taste for you.
Do Guns Cause Crime?
Having seen Lee Malcolm's "interpretation" of self defence laws in the UK, I would doubt anything she comes up with.
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nashwan... you have allways had a low homicide rate compared to the U.S. even when people were allowed to go armed more easily there.
That does not mean that I want to live on a soggy little island with a queen at its head and cricket bats and fog and high priced gasoline and lukas electrics.
lots of things make up a country and its national identity.. guns are the least of it... both of our countries would have essentialy the same homicide rates than they do today no matter what the gun laws.
you just did what your women thought was the right thing to do and we havent..... our crime continues to fall and.... false or not... we feel a sense of security knowing that we are armed or... even if we aren't.... it is our choice to make not our governmets.... we had quite enough of your gentile government a while back. You will never convince us that the british government is incapable of tyranny.... or ours for that matter.... you are welcome to belive what you want.
I am curious tho... you admit that gun restrictions are pretty inefective yet.... you are the most tireless defender of gun bans. Do you hold some personal fear of firearms or have you simply bought into the "I can't prove it but common sense says that they are evil" camp?
I think that common sense is not so common.
lazs
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Originally posted by beet1e
{T}hat stance is like letting a 3 year old play with a book of matches, and claiming "it's not the matches' fault" when the house gets burned down, as if to say it's OK to let 3 year olds play with matches. It's really not so different from what you're saying, which is "it's OK to let nutjobs play with guns".
First, it is disingenuous to equate a three year old with a presumably responsible adult. British common law demands a presumption of innocence, as does American law. It also demands a presumption of competence on both sides of the legal equation, interestingly--insanity is a defense that must be proved by the defender, not disproved by the prosecution.
I digress. In the US, it is not legal for a non-competent individual to own or possess a firearm. Period. Non-competent individuals are screened by an instant check system that is supposed to catch them. Criminals that have been previously convicted of a crime are screened out by that same system.
The criminals' response has been to steal or purchase a gun from an out-of-system source or to assume a false identity for the purpose of purchasing the firearm. It turns out that the NRA is right on this issue--someone who has already decided to break the law (rob, steal, or kill) is not dissuaded from those actions by criminalizing the process of obtaining or possession of a firearm.
Putting it simply, criminals will commit crimes, no matter what we do to try to stop them. Violent criminals will obtain weapons for their use. Criminalizing the possession of firearms for defense by law-abiding citizens merely sets them up as easy victims. Live with it, those are the facts.
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Originally posted by Nashwan
So you accept that in most circumstances, having a criminal armed with a gun is more likely to be fatal than a criminal armed with a knife?
[/b]
On the surface so it would seem. Sort of depends on the criminal, doesn't it? If the intent of the crime is murder, like say a rival drug gang taking out the competitor, I think murder will be the end result.
In instances where murder isn't the original intent of the base crime, I think that would be so.
Not necessarily a ban. The UK had very good gun control laws before Dunblane, that stopped criminals getting their hands on guns aquired through the legal supply channel.
Perhaps; let's assume that. Point is your "very good gun control laws before Dunblane" did not satisfy the anti-gun forces did it? So you folks slipped down the slope into the confiscation/ban mode on handguns. Of course, THAT wasn't enough either as is shown by the recently posted calls for more restrictions, including restrictions on knives.
That is why I can't support further restrictions here in the US. No matter what new laws are added to the plethora already on the books, it will NEVER be enough.
The line is drawn.
Treat it like a hypothetical, if you could make people use less efficient means, do you think it would result in less murders?
Unfortunately, I think the hypothetical answer to that is that the difference would be statistically insignificant in the long run. I think people would change modalities, as they seem to have gone to the "sharp instrument" in England but the overall totals are much the same.
I think the real difference is in the nature of the society. Americans don't politely queue up like the English either. Despite our attempt to make evermore comfortable and efficient bus stops.
I've said in the past, and I'll say again, I think Britains strict licensing system prior to Hungerford and Dunblane was close to perfect, and worked extremely well.
But of course, those laws didnt' satisfy the antis. As a result, law-abiding citizens have had useless, needless and ineffective restrictions put upon them. What a waste; what a pointless exercise.
So you don't think the situation prior to the gun ban has any effect? You think switching from a free for all to a ban is the same as switching from tight regulation to a ban?
Ah, but it isn't a "free for all" here. We do have gun laws; bunches of them. Background checks, etc.
However, as you yourself realize and as England's example continually shows, criminals really don't follow the laws.
So the real situation is do you penalize the law-abiding citizen and pass pointless, ineffective laws that criminals ignore in order to pretend you're doing something?
For the result to be the same, the initial circumstances must be the same. There was nothing similar about the availability of guns between Britain pre 1997 and the US currently.
Those circumstances never were and never will be the same. So it's moot. I don't think your method has a snowball's chance in hell of working here. It's clear our border are open; we can't stop shiploads of marijuana from coming in and it's highly unlikely that we'd be able to stop arms smuggling either should we foolishly try to emulate your "Ban" route.
Your ban worked because the guns were low in number to begin with and mostly already registered. Had you had tons of guns and all unregistered, I think the story would be a bit different.
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Originally posted by rshubert
Violent criminals will obtain weapons for their use. Criminalizing the possession of firearms for defense by law-abiding citizens merely sets them up as easy victims. Live with it, those are the facts.
That may be the case in the US, but not here. Our gun laws target supply, and as Nashwan has been at pains to point out, they work pretty well. Time for you to read that sig text again! :aok
Lazs said "our crime continues to fall and.... " Lazs, how come you never retain data that I have so painstakingly sought for you? I will repeat what I said in an earlier thread. Your crime isn't falling. Your homicide tally has gone up every year since 1999. The only way it's "fallen" is maybe because of a mass influx of law abiding citizens from south of the border, which has skewed the per capita rate. Even then, the homicide tally has grown more quickly than the population, so you're still wrong! (http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/jester.gif)
Mr. Toad said "But of course, those laws didnt' satisfy the antis. As a result, law-abiding citizens have had useless, needless and ineffective restrictions put upon them. What a waste; what a pointless exercise. " As Dowding once said - gun ownership before ban: Sod all. Gun ownership after ban: sod all. Yeah, maybe some gun owners were affected. The rest of us couldn't give a stuff.
"So the real situation is do you penalize the law-abiding citizen and pass pointless, ineffective laws that criminals ignore in order to pretend you're doing something? "
The situation is different here. Our laws are not pointless, and are cetainly not ineffective. We have fewer than 100 gun homicides a year, you have 10,000+. I think that speaks for itself.
As for "criminals ignoring the gun laws", that doesn't really apply. The supply of guns has been targeted, and it was already very difficult for criminals to obtain guns before the mid 1990s legislation. That's why fewer than 10% of our total homicides are committed with guns, and is the reason that criminals have to resort to sharp objects etc. ;) As Nashwan has pointed out, guns are more efficient killers than swords, which is why our armies made the switch. It's also the reason that guns are used in MOST US homicides - especially handguns. But it's true - you can't have an armed society where only the law abiding had guns; they're always going to fall into criminal hands. I guess that's what was meant in that 1920 statement which said "There can surely be no question that the public interest demands that direct control shall in future be exercised in the United Kingdom . . . over the possession, manufacture, sale and import and export of firearms and ammunition; and the only practical question for consideration appears to be how this control can be most efficiently established".
"Your ban worked because the guns were low in number to begin with and mostly already registered. Had you had tons of guns and all unregistered, I think the story would be a bit different." Well that we can agree on. :aok Which is why we've never let the situation become irretrievable. They knew what they were talking about in 1920! :D:p
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(http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_17_10.gif)
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Originally posted by beet1e
That may be the case in the US, but not here. Our gun laws target supply, and as Nashwan has been at pains to point out, they work pretty well.
Actually, they pretty much do nothing. You have no "supply" to target.
I bet your laws against little green men from mars are working very well too.
As Dowding once said - gun ownership before ban: Sod all. Gun ownership after ban: sod all. Yeah, maybe some gun owners were affected. The rest of us couldn't give a stuff.
Your touching concern for the rights of the minorities is duly noted. When the nannies ban drinking, you won't mind, I'm sure. When they ban whatever is currently Politically Incorrect, I'm sure it'll be fine with you.
Our laws are not pointless, and are cetainly not ineffective. We have fewer than 100 gun homicides a year, you have 10,000+. I think that speaks for itself.
Oh, but they are! ESPECIALLY the bans since Dunblane have been absolutely ineffective. There's been no significant change in your homicide rates resulting from those laws. I think even Nashwan agress with that.
As for "criminals ignoring the gun laws", that doesn't really apply.
Wrong again. Refer to Nashwan's point about how many UK homicides used a legally held firearm. So, most of your gun homicide is done by criminals ignoring the laws.
Which is why we've never let the situation become irretrievable.
It goes way back before the '20s when your upper classes feared the Bolshies.
As we've pointed out dozens of times here, the entire history of your nation with respect to firearms is vastly different than ours. We have the history of settling a continent from coast to coast; firearms figured prominently in feeding and defending the settlers. The common man not only had a right to firearms but they were very often a necessity. Game animals belonged to the people, not some King.
England does not have that history. Your lands were settled in the age of "sharp instruments" (and you still have THAT problem, apparently :rofl ). Your game belonged to the King and they hanged commoners for poaching.
There isn't any wonder that the two nations developed differing firearms cultures. You folks basically NEVER had one and we've had one since the very beginning here.
All in all, I'm glad you enjoy being nannied. I'm glad I'm not subject to it. I think this state of affairs should continue. ;)
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Originally posted by Toad
Actually, they pretty much do nothing. You have no "supply" to target.
LOL Toad! Did you ever see that TV commercial for Head and Shoulders anti dandruff shampoo? Guy finds girl has a bottle of it and says "I didn't know you had dandruff!" - and she replies "I don't!" . I think you get my drift: Our gun laws are a preventative series of measures.
Admittedly, the 1990s legislation probably hasn't done much - I never said it had. Our gun control was already very tight, as Nashwan has shown.
Agreed, England was not "settled" in the way America was. Well, we had visitors like the Romans and the Normans and the Vikings, but as I have said before, we had no Daniel Boones or Davy Crockets....
...and my father did not have to stand on our front porch with a rifle in his hands and a raccoon hat on his head, defending our property! :lol
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Originally posted by beet1e
Admittedly, the 1990s legislation probably hasn't done much - I never said it had. Our gun control was already very tight, as Nashwan has shown.
[/b]
And yet you folks seem determined to head further down the path of do-nothing laws that only restrict the law-abiding folks. The current blather about further restricting knives as the case in point. (Or is it the "case in pointless"?)
Agreed, England was not "settled" in the way America was....and my father did not have to stand on our front porch with a rifle in his hands and a raccoon hat on his head, defending our property! :lol
But here a gun was an integral part of survival, providing food, clothing, trade items (furs, etc.) and also a means of defense.
Face it, we're just different from you folk and always will be. It's why we tossed you out of here to begin with. If we wanted a nanny, she'd be a voluptuous Swedish girl dressed in a naughty upstairs maid outfit.
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Originally posted by Toad
But here a gun was an integral part of survival, providing food, clothing, trade items (furs, etc.) and also a means of defense.
Face it, we're just different from you folk and always will be.
Indeed, indeed. Which is why the Joyce Lee Malcolms of the world should butt out!
By the way - I sold that JLM book on eBay. It fetched a whopping £2, which is a measure of what the UK eBay community thinks it's worth - or maybe a measure of how much they care?
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beet.. the latest FBI and crime stats show that crime has fallen in the U.S. in allmost every single catagory.
Why do you ignore toads obvious statement about incrementalism? You give up more each time you pass laws.
you ask why we are against "sensigble" gun restrictions... "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" well.... we have stayed pretty far from that in my opinion.... I feel pretty damn well infringed.... what citizens are saying is that nothing is ever enough so it is time to draw a line in the sand and say "no further" In point of fact, we want a lot of silly gun laws removed. We just removed som klintononian ones. Hopefully we will remove some more.
nashwan says that the laws in your country were "perfect" before yet... you now have even more restrictive ones with no possible benifiet... you didn't get any benifiet from the "perfect" laws either.
your "common sense" tells you that guns kill people and if you take away the guns the people who would only murder with a gun won't commit a murder. Who are these people? Who are these people who only contemplate murder when they own a firearm? What kind of common sense is that? Are you saying that the sociopath will not kill if he has no firearm or it is more difficult to obtain? that is your common sense?
lazs
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Lazs
beet.. the latest FBI and crime stats show that crime has fallen in the U.S. in allmost every single catagory.
But not homicide, and as we're talking about guns, it follows that the main crime under review is homicide. Your homicide tally has risen by more than the population increase every year since 1999.
(http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/lazs1.jpg)
Why do you ignore toads obvious statement about incrementalism? You give up more each time you pass laws.
First we have Toad telling us that our gun laws do nothing, and then we have you tellings us that their effect is to curtail our freedoms. I haven't given anything up. So which is it? you didn't get any benifiet from the "perfect" laws either.
We certainly did, and we continue to. That's why our gun homicide tally is less than 100, and yours is 10,000+. Are you saying that the sociopath will not kill if he has no firearm or it is more difficult to obtain? that is your common sense?
I'm saying that it makes it a damn sight harder to commit murders. We hear of drive by shootings, but we don't hear of drive-by-strangulations or drive-by-pushing-people-out-of-windows. Sure, our criminals look for alternative methods, but are often thwarted in their attempts.
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I would say that that is allmost every single category wouldn't you? the rise in homicide rate per capita is statisticly insignificant. The white murder rate (commited by whites) has fallen.
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
I would say that that is allmost every single category wouldn't you?
Don't know, Lazs. I'd have to research it if I wanted to know. But your homicide tally is headed North.
As for Brits giving up their freedoms - what has made/is making big news is the revolt at Nanny Blair's ban on fox hunting. A few years ago, we had the Countryside Alliance descend on London for a mass demonstration.
As for when new gun legislation was passed - I don't think anyone even noticed. I certainly don't remember any protests...
You have to understand that for the vast majority of Brits, guns are not an issue.
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UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/2004/6mosprelim04.pdf)
For Release December 13, 2004
UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS
January-June 2004 Collectively, law enforcement agencies throughout the United States reported a decrease of 2.0 percent in the number of violent crimes brought to their attention in the first 6 months of 2004 when compared to figures reported for the first half of 2003.
The violent crime category includes murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. The number of property crimes nationwide from January to June of 2004 decreased 1.9 percent when compared to data from the same time period in 2003.
Property crimes include burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. Because the level of participation differs among agencies reporting the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft and those also reporting arson, data for arson (also a property crime) are not included in the property crime total. Figures for the first half of 2004 indicated that arson decreased 6.8 percent when compared to 2003 figures.
{The charts show Murder down -5.7%}
You have to understand that for the vast majority of Brits, guns are not an issue.
[/b]
So, is the rest of this sentence "so we have no problem with totally ignoring the wishes of the minority"?
Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
Ben Franklin said "We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately."
Sooner or later the nannies will come knocking at your door to take things you value away from you.
For your own good, of course.
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Well Toad, it's like this. When Nanny Blair bans foxhunting, there's uproar. Big countryside alliance protest signs going up in fields which border main roads.
But if they want to ban guns, it's a bit like banning Citroen car dealerships in Dixon where Lazs lives. It might reduce Lazs's car choices, but I don't think he'd lose any sleep over it. :D
It has been said that 10,000 lives lost annually is a price worth paying for the right to bear arms. Your concern for those lives lost is, in your own words, touching.
I think of it the other way round - not having guns is a price worth paying to avoid the bloodbath which I am sure we would have if guns were to be made freely available.
I regret to say I'm not feeling very well tonight, so will have an early night.
Toodle-Pip
(http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/12/12_2_32.gif)
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Having talked with many Countryside Alliance members (have you? do you know any at all?), they had their reasons for not openly fighting the Dunblane/Hungerford knee-jerk laws. Primarily, I think that, given the political situation, they felt the situation was hopeless and fighting it would have been damaging to their overall effort.
Lately, however, I think they realize they should have fought. Why? Because there is no end to it. The antis NEVER stop. I believe that's why you see the activism over the fox hunting and you're going to see much more activism from them overall.
It has been said that 10,000 lives lost annually is a price worth paying for the right to bear arms.
Your problem here is that there is absolutely nothing to support the idea that if we had more restrictive gun laws that the total would decrease.
To the contrary, there is evidence that the opposite is the case. The cities with our strictest gun laws, including bans, have the highest gun homicide rates.
There is evidence that stricter punishment of "gun criminals" has much more of an effect on gun homicide than any restrictions on the inanimate objects themselves.
Further, we continue to see gun homicide totals decrease without passing confiscation/ban laws. As I pointed out, murder is down nearly 6% compared to the first six months of 2003.
All without denying the Constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.
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Ah, Mr. Toad.
Having talked with many Countryside Alliance members (have you? do you know any at all?),
No, not really. I don't hang out with master beaters! ;) Your problem here is that there is absolutely nothing to support the idea that if we had more restrictive gun laws that the total would decrease.
No problem here - I never said that it would. In the US, it's much too late for that - LOL. Your society is awash with guns. You've made your 2nd amendment bed, and now you must lie in it. What I will say is that you will go on paying for it with 10,000 deaths annually. And while some of those are criminals, many of them aren't, and include children from both genders.
And there is plenty to support the fact that by keeping guns out of our society, we can contain homicide to a much smaller level than if our streets were awash with guns. It never fails to surprise me that some people cannot see this. There is evidence that stricter punishment of "gun criminals" has much more of an effect on gun homicide than any restrictions on the inanimate objects themselves.
And in Britain, there is evidence that restrictions on said inanimate objects is working quite well, with only 68 gun homicides in 2003. Further, we continue to see gun homicide totals decrease without passing confiscation/ban laws. As I pointed out, murder is down nearly 6% compared to the first six months of 2003.
Can you quote a source for that? According to the FBI website, the report for 2004 is only a preliminary report. The FBI stats for the years 1999-2003 show that homicide by guns has risen every year since 1999. Source: http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/cius_03/xl/03tbl2-9.xls
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Originally posted by beet1e
Ah, Mr. Toad. No, not really. I don't hang out with master beaters! ;)
Exccedingly strange as you seem to be THE Master Beater of them all.
You've made your 2nd amendment bed, and now you must lie in it.
And so we shall; it's a mighty comfortable bed. Wouldn't trade it for anything.
And there is plenty to support the fact that by keeping guns out of our society, we can contain homicide to a much smaller level than if our streets were awash with guns.
Actually, there isn't. Your historical firearm homicide data merely says that in your English society there has always been a relatively few firearms (in comparison with say Canada, Switzerland or the US) and you've had a relatively few firearms homicides. You are merely guessing about what would happen if Englishmen had in the past (or in the future) a similar amount of firearms ownership as Canada. There's no data whatsoever.
Even Mr. Moore in BFC was unable to link the number of firearms available directly to the the firearms homicide rate. Gosh, if HE can't do it, I don't think you can either.
And in Britain, there is evidence that restrictions on said inanimate objects is working quite well, with only 68 gun homicides in 2003.
I suggest that the evidence merely supports the hypothesis that English society is not as violent as US society. Care to post a link to Britain's homicide rates over the last 80 years? I'm betting that the firearms homicides/100,000 hasn't been significantly altered despite the ever more restrictive bans/confiscations you've passed over there. I suggest that historical rates will show the laws didn't really change anything, as your society is not and never was as violent as ours.
Can you quote a source for that? According to the FBI website, the report for 2004 is only a preliminary report.
Yes, it SAYS it's a preliminary report that covers the FIRST SIX MONTHS of 2004. If you click on the link I provided, it will take you to the FBI site where said preliminary report is posted.
I think you're going to have to wait a bit for the report on the entire year, as the year isn't over yet and they'll have to crunch data a while.
The salient factor is this:
January-June 2004
Collectively, law enforcement agencies throughout the United States reported a decrease of 2.0 percent in the number of violent crimes brought to their attention in the first 6 months of 2004 when compared to figures reported for the first half of 2003.
So, 2003 Preliminary (Six Month) Report compared to 2004 Preliminary (Six Month) Report shows a clear decrease in murder.
It's apples to apples; It's the first half of the year report in both cases.
The Full Report probably won't be out till June 2005.
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beet... you are wrong about me not caring about a ban of citroen dealerships in dixon... I hate the stupid cars... never owned one and most likely never will... but. it is not my right to ban em nor is it my govenrnments.... I would do all I could to stop it.
I also realize that some day they may make one that a big block will fall into with great suspension and whatever or good looking...
I would think that you would have figured this all out given the thread you started about how you now are thinking of getting a gun to protect yourself... Can things get worse where you will yearn for a gun? certainly... only a blind man could not see the possibility... what blinds you is the fact that you think you can control people and yet still live without personal controls... this is the fault that all advocates of big government have. They feel that their fellow citizens are not to be trusted but that they can opperate with little or no control because they are.... well.... better.
I don't really feel that way.
White homicides are shrinking... gun ownership is about at a saturation point yet the gun crimes are going down... in the minority communities it will just take longer to come down... it is better to let nature take it's course and for stricter penalties to work than to punish the law abiding for the acts of a few.... no... not just punish... strip them of their human right to self defense.
lazs
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Mr. Toad
Earlier I said "You have to understand that for the vast majority of Brits, guns are not an issue." - and your response was So, is the rest of this sentence "so we have no problem with totally ignoring the wishes of the minority"?
Later, when I pointed out that you were going to have to live in the 2nd amendment bed you'd made, you said And so we shall; it's a mighty comfortable bed. Wouldn't trade it for anything.
So, is the rest of this sentence "so we have no problem with totally ignoring the wishes of the minority? In this case, the minority is the ~10,000 people annually who find themselves at the wrong end of a gun. And before someone chirps up and says those people are all criminals/blacks, so it doesn't matter, I would point out that the victims in 2003 included 66 children under the age of nine.
You chide me for not having a problem with a relative minority of people not being able to shoot certain types of guns if they wanted to, but you have no qualms with your 2nd amendment utopia whose lax attitude towards gun ownership results in the deaths of hundreds of children each year. You are merely guessing about what would happen if Englishmen had in the past (or in the future) a similar amount of firearms ownership as Canada. There's no data whatsoever.
I've never stuck my hand into a pan of boiling fat, but I've got a pretty good idea that it would not be pleasant. But I can't prove it. There's no data whatsoever. :D
Lazs, the thought of you parading past Dixon City Hall carrying a banner which reads "Save Our Citroens" is too funny to contemplate! :lol
White homicides by guns down 2%? Why, 2004 might turn out to see only 9445 gun homicides instead of 9638. WTG! :aok
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I just had me a thought.
Would it be possible for you to bold anything that hasn't been said before to make things easier for the casual lurkers to this thread?
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Originally posted by beet1e
In this case, the minority is the ~10,000 people annually who find themselves at the wrong end of a gun.
Which is a "minority" that has no direct relation to gun ownership/non-ownership, the issue under discussion. Ownership/non-ownership isn't directly linked to "finding themselves etc."
You can more correctly group your "~10,000 people annually who find themselves at the wrong end of a gun" with the "~50,000 people annually who find themselves on the wrong (dead) end of an automobile accident".
attitude towards gun ownership results in the deaths of hundreds of children each year.
There are many lax attitudes towards many things that result in the deaths of hundreds of children each year. I'll look for your posts on those.
I've never stuck my hand into a pan of boiling fat, but I've got a pretty good idea that it would not be pleasant. But I can't prove it. There's no data whatsoever.
Ah, but there is. There is ample empircal and statistical data on the results of frying human bodily appendages.
Try again.
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Originally posted by lazs2
Our per capita gun homicide rate for whites is about the same as canadas.
lazs
I've never seen you post any data to back it up. Gang warfare isn't indigenous to the states.
Can you post the links to your source, or should we start calling you michelle?
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torque... the white homicide rate in the U.S. is the same as the total homicide rate in canada. I have no idea what the breakdown in canada is. If you could find it for me we could compare but... as it is.. if only whites in America are counted then we would have about the same homicide or slightly less than canadas.
lazs
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I've never seen you post any data to back it up. Gang warfare isn't indigenous to the states.
Can you post the links to your source, or should we start calling you michelle?
Lazs follows the Goebbels school of propoganda. Tell a big lie, repeat it often enough, and people will believe it.
The homicide rate for Canada is 1.73 per 100,000 people.
The homicide rate for the US is 5.7 per 100,000 people.
There were 16,503 murders in the US in 2003, a rate of 5.7 per 100,000. Those figures are straight from the FBI uniform crime reports.
The first thing Lazs does is discard several thousand murders that the FBI doesn't have Supplemental Homicide Reports (SHRs) for. The FBI has SHRs for 14,408 murders. So Lazs reduces the number of murders to 14,408 as a first step.
The next step is to refine the murders by race.
According to the SHRs the FBI has, there were 5,132 white murderers, 5,729 black murderers, 308 "other" race murderers, and 4,874 where the race of the murderer wasn't known or wasn't specified.
So, having already removed the murders where an SHR wasn't supplied, Lazs now throws out all murders committed by black and "other" race murderers, and also throws out nearly 5000 murders where the race is unkown.
That takes you down to 5,132 white murderers, a rate of 2.27 per 100,000 population.
That's still substantially above the Canadian or British rate for all murderers, but having ignored almost half of all murders where the race of the offender isn't known or specified, another fudge of 35% or so is hardly noticeable.
What Lazs also ignores, of course, is that by throwing out all the murders committed by blacks, he is effectively removing most of the urban poor, who in most of the world commit most of the murders.
Here, for example, are the figures for Scotland, which has a very small ethnic minority population, yet still has a murder rate much higher amongst the urban poor:
(http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00290-g11.gif)
The dark area, with a murder rate several times the rest of Scotland, is Glasgow. It's overwhelmingly white, yet like all large cities has a disproportionate murder rate.
What Lazs is trying to do, is self select a richer, more law abiding segment of the population, and compare it to the average in other countries.
Even then, he has to distort the statistics to do it, and even after all the distortions, the figures still come out higher than other country's averages.
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Hey, Nashwan, my curiosity has been piqued.
Is there any UK source for homicides/100,000 that start in the early years of your gun controls and give rates by year to the present?
In short, how far back do the stats go? It'd be interesting to me to see a graph of rates with years of major gun laws delineated so I could see if they've actually changed much.
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I haven't seen stats going back very far.
You'd have to go back to the late 19th cetury to get a clear picture of the effects of changes in the law on homicide (laws changed radically in the early 20s, and I should think WW1 had a major effect on the homicide rate, removing a very large proportion of the young men during the war, many of whom never came back.)
I don't know how accurate figures going back that far would be either.
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Well, how far do they go back and where might I start looking? Any online links?
Seems to me this should be an interesting area to researchers.
I think we all agree that England is and always has been a far less violent society than the US.
Given that, it'd be mighty interesting to chart the firearms homicide rate/100,000 over the years and see it the gun laws actually DID anything other giving the populace a knee-jerk sense of "doing something".
For example, if the homicide rate has been between say 1.5 and 2.0 since before the laws were enacted, the initial conclusion would be that the laws were needless and pointless.
Much as the laws post-Dunblane/Hungerford were needless and pointless.
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Indeed Nashwan, it would seem laz indulges in the same dodge and burn tactics of which he incessantly whines about.
The whiter shade of southerness is not lost, michelle it is.
Using Toronto as a benchmark, with a population of 2.7 million it recorded 63 homicides during '03. Over 50% are non-white and are gang or drug related.
The figures drop slightly if you include all of the GTA comprising some 5.6 million people.
If the Canadian govn't painted statistics by numbers like the states, i'm quite sure the white homicide rate here would reside around .09/100 000.
The national homicide rate dropped 7% in 2003, 1.73/100 000 is the lowest in over three decades.
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Nashwan... do you realize that hispanic falls under "white" in those stats you're quoting?
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Originally posted by Toad
Ah, but there is. There is ample empircal and statistical data on the results of frying human bodily appendages.
And there is ample statistical data on the results of flooding a society with guns and noting the upward trend in homicide. Empirical? We would actually have to let that scenario play out to be sure whether the same thing would be true in Britain. But for most of us, and guys like myself, Nashwan, dowding, curval et al, the US statistical data is more than adequate. You would get it too, were it not for the opacity of your NRA-approved blinkers.
You can more correctly group your "~10,000 people annually who find themselves at the wrong end of a gun" with the "~50,000 people annually who find themselves on the wrong (dead) end of an automobile accident".
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There are many lax attitudes towards many things that result in the deaths of hundreds of children each year. I'll look for your posts on those.
Well, who would have thought it? It seems that even Mr. Toad has succumbed to the NRA brainwashing. Find yourself confronted by some uncomfortable/embarrassing gun homicide stats? Why, the answer is simple: Compare them with auto accident fatalities. But you're slipping, Mr. T - on two counts. You neglected to remind me that the guns used (in the 66 homicides in which the victim was a child under the age of nine) are inanimate objects, and you omitted to point out that in every case, it wasn't the gun's fault. I recall a scene in a documentary I once saw, in which Michael Moore presented Charlton Heston with a picture of a 6-year old female gun victim, and Mr. Heston simply turned his back and walked away...
...and yet you show such touching concern for members of Britain's worshipful company of master beaters, whose rights to shoot whatever guns they choose have been affected by British gun law legislation. Awwww, shame. My freaking heart bleeds for them. What are we talking about here - a few thousand would-be gun enthusiasts who can't get handguns? I personally believe that their sacrifice is nothing compared to the sacrifice of those 66 US children under the age of nine who became gun homicide victims last year in order to sustain your 2nd amendment utopia. Your 2nd amendment bed may be comfortable, but can you sleep in it?
Oh and by the way, an "automobile" is not designed to kill people, and has a legitimate purpose.
Nashwan - your recent post (the one with the map of Scotland) was a corker! A little long for a sig. block, but I'll print it off. :aok
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hmm... so now we are talking about unreported homicides and saying that the U.S. that has the highest convictioon rate for homicides is lax in reporting them? Yet the canadian and english systems are perfect and no murder slips through the cracks? The conviction rate for any crime in england is very low. it's like they don't even try.
Now... white murder rate is about 2.2 including hispanics and other minorities and it is not just rich... it is all whites. Canada is 1.7 I said about.. I would say 1.7 matches the description of "about".
I did not select one area... if I were to select areas I would say that rural murder rates are very low in the U.S. and that it is simply the cities that are causing the problem.. either way... it is small groups that are causing the problems and the majority should not have their rights removed because of the few.
would you agree or is your whole arguement still based on it is for our own good and that you think that murder and crime rates would drop with more intensive gun laws? would you use Washington DC as an example of how you could help us?
lazs
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Originally posted by beet1e
And there is ample statistical data on the results of flooding a society with guns and noting the upward trend in homicide.
Actually, there isn't. I refer you to the sainted Mr. Moore's BFC and his sojourn into Canada. Canada is simply flooded with guns, as many or more per capita as the US.
It isn't the quantity of firearms; there's ample evidence for that just like there's ample evidence on the results frying your head. Although in your case, it might be rendering your head.
Compare them with auto accident fatalities.
A valid comparison, chum. There's no inherent "right" not to die from any cause because there's no "right" to avoid death. Death comes to all. Automobile accidents, old age, drowning, firearms, cancer, parental abuse... children and adults die.
Your implication that automobiles are "legitimate" while "firearms" are not is laughable. The species got along just fine without automobiles for far longer than we've used them. They are no more "legitimate" than any other tool man invented. Nor or firearms any less "legitimate" than automobiles.
Your only point is that YOU find automobiles more useful than firearms. I can point out that many people will find things you like totally unnecessary without purpose. I can assure you there are anti-alcohol groups that would find your whiskey and wine to have no use and would ban them if they could. Alcohol kills probably more worldwide than firearms.
a picture of a 6-year old female gun victim,
I'm sure I could create a touching scene by showing you the picture of a dead child hit by a drunk driver and get much the same result.
Your 2nd amendment bed may be comfortable, but can you sleep in it?
Absolutely.
Oh and by the way, an "automobile" is not designed to kill people,
But it is a far more effective and efficient killing tool in our societies than the firearm. What's the English motor vehicle death rate again? Far above your firearms homicide rate, on the order fo 5X, IIRC.
Oh, wait.... you personally find autos useful, so it's ok to kill 'em on the highway.
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yep... guns have been useful a lot longer than automobiles... Automobiles kill more people than just about anything and their are alternatives. Why would anyone in england need a car for instance with all the public transportation? Just selfish... maybe a few pictures of entire families wiped out by cars exactly like the one beet drives would prove the point?
If guns prevent anything over 10,000 homicides a year then they are not just a right but a benificieal element. It is proven that in the U.S. that more guns equal less crime so.... to remove guns from our society is simply backward and tyrannical thinking.
I don't think I want the Washington DC example for the rest of the country.
if guns prevent 90% of the "hot" burglaries in this country then they are worth any homicides that are committed with them... If indeed it can be shown that homicide and guns go together.... I contend that it can't except that in areas of the U.S. that have strict gun control there is more homicides.
I am in favor of more penalties for using firearms to commit crime. This is one solution that seems to work and is based on some form of logic rather than womanly hysteria.
but beet.... what kind of gun did you finally settle on for your home defense? Did you have to get a note from the queen?
lazs
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Originally posted by Toad
Actually, there isn't. I refer you to the sainted Mr. Moore's BFC and his sojourn into Canada. Canada is simply flooded with guns, as many or more per capita as the US.
It isn't the quantity of firearms; there's ample evidence for that just like there's ample evidence on the results frying your head. Although in your case, it might be rendering your head.
Actually, there is. Like I said - there is quite enough for guys like myself, Nashwan, curval et al. OK maybe it's not enough evidence for you - but that's irrelevant. You're already swimming in your ocean of guns. But our lawmakers of 1920 were wise enough to see the folly of a guns free for all. And given that we've never had more than 100 gun homicides in any calendar year, I think they got it right.
I should also remind you of what I've said in the last 50 gun threads, and that is that there are TWO ingredients to a gun homicide. 1) The loaded gun itself; 2) The nutjob holding it. The composition of Canada's population is such that there is a much smaller black/poor/ethnic minority subset than in countries like Britain and the US. The same thing goes for places like Switzerland, Sweden, Norway etc. Britain has the problem of ethnic/poor/black but not the guns. The US has both problems, in spades. <--ooops, forgive the pun. Nashwan has done his best to get you to see the light about where murders are most prevalent, with his map of Scotland post. But that light is not strong enough to penetrate your NRA approved blinkers.
A valid comparison, chum. There's no inherent "right" not to die from any cause because there's no "right" to avoid death. Death comes to all. Automobile accidents, old age, drowning, firearms, cancer, parental abuse... children and adults die.
Don't try that "death comes to us all" card. Of course it does, but you're just being evasive. There are many different kinds of death - including premature death, avoidable death, and death by unlawful killing. Don't try to wrap 'em all in the same package. Can you imagine if, during a murder trial in a court of law, the judge acquitted the defendant on the basis that his victim would have died anyway - eventually? :rolleyes: It's rather an amusing concept, and shows that you're really scratching for some fresh dry wood before the fire goes out. The species got along just fine without automobiles for far longer than we've used them. They are no more "legitimate" than any other tool man invented. Nor or firearms any less "legitimate" than automobiles.
And in the case of Britain and many other European and non European countries, we've got along just fine without needing to arm civilians. "Automobiles" are more legitimate than firearms because they have an obvious purpose, and without them our current lifestyles would become impossible, and also because they are not designed for killing. But it is a far more effective and efficient killing tool in our societies than the firearm. What's the English motor vehicle death rate again? Far above your firearms homicide rate, on the order fo 5X, IIRC.
Absolute bollocks. Cars kill more people here because there are more of them than there are guns. What you're trying to say here is akin to saying that far more people in this world wash their crockery by hand than use a domestic dishwasher, therefore the washing by hand method is "more efficient". :lol Well of course the number of people who die on our roads is higher than the number of people killed by a gun. And the reason is quite simple: Whenever there is a commodity which is capable of being abused in such a way as to cause death, the actual number of deaths will be in direct proportion to the supply of that commodity - whether that commodity be a bottle of whisky, an "automobile", or a gun. So of course the number of deaths in Britain resulting from car (excuse me, "automobile") accidents is going to be higher than the number of deaths resulting from bullets because we don't sell many bullets in this country. If we had no alcohol (as in Muslim countries) the number of cases of cirrhosis of the liver would be much smaller than it is. And if we had no "automobiles", the number of road deaths would be slashed. Are you following this logic so far? Good, because the last point is that if there were no guns in the US/Britain/anywhere, the number of gun homicides would be a great deal less. Our lawmakers in 1920 could see this, and acted accordingly. Your only point is that YOU find automobiles more useful than firearms.
Yep, me and about 25,000,000 other motorists in Britain, plus many people who don't drive but can ride as passengers. And I would hazard a guess and say that if the US population was polled about which they found more useful - gun or automobile - automobile would win hands down.
Lazs! You're making me wince with your attempts to spell "benefit" <--please note! I know it's hard; I find typing "automobile" cumbersome! ;) Why would anyone in england need a car for instance with all the public transportation?
Because there isn't a railway station at the bottom of my garden, and there isn't a bus stop in front of my house. Come and see for yourself. If guns prevent anything over 10,000 homicides a year then they are not just a right but a benificieal element. It is proven that in the U.S. that more guns equal less crime so.... to remove guns from our society is simply backward and tyrannical thinking.
Read my sig. block -yet again. I find it funny that anyone can credit guns with preventing deaths when they are specifically designed to cause deaths - and do, with ~10,000 victims annually in the US alone. This argument smacks of spending $5000 to repair an "automobile" that's only worth $3000, but might be worth $4000 after the repair. :rolleyes: but beet.... what kind of gun did you finally settle on for your home defense? Did you have to get a note from the queen?
I decided against a gun, as I might find bloodstained carpets to be distasteful.
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beet you are again making no sense... you are claiming that even tho you never had a high homicide rate in england and that it has never really fluctuated much one way or the other.... you are still claiming some magic totem for your gun laws... this is beyond silly. You ask how a gun can p[ossibly prevent a killing.... this seems like about the dumbest question you have ever asked... you come at me attemting to injure or kill me.... I point gun at you.... you change your mind.. simple enough? Just the fact that guns in America prevent 1.5 to 3 million crimes a year is enough to justify 9,000 gun homicides a year in any sensible persons book.... not to mention.... it is a human right to defend yourself..
Yep... to defend yourself.. but... if you are weak or old or infirm or a woman... you can't really defend yourself effectively with anything except a firearm so... when you take away these peoples (who far outnumber the people who are deadly with bare hands or cricket bats against any number of adversaries) if you take firearms from these people you are in effect saying... "you have no right to defend yourself"
get it? no? Ok.. your example of decieding not to get a gun (this week) because you find bloodstained carpets distasteful... that is a very good example... .. being alive to see the bloodstains is far preferable to not being able to.
It is amusiung how as people get older and more vulnerable or are injured they find that guns are more acceptable... It is funny how a crime wave close to them or a personal crime makes them consider firearms.... It is funny but also... the kind of hypocracy that hurts their fellow man.
lazs
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Lazs!
if you take firearms from these people you are in effect saying... "you have no right to defend yourself"
get it? no? Ok..
I get it, but you're clearly not talking about Britain, because they would not have had firearms to begin with. And I have never EVER said that American citizens should have their legally held firearms confiscated.
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well... that would depend on what you consider "legally held" .... I consider that to mean "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" I have pretty much decided that there is never a sensible stopping place for the gun grabbers and that if we allow em to pass even one more restriction of any kind then we are on the path to the kind of confiscation that you have in your country. That is the ultimate goal of the likes of the liberals and the UN.
I hope that the people of england continue to live in place where they feel that the weak being able to defend themselves against the strong is not a necessary right. It is unfortunate that if you change your mind that you will be left without choices.
It all boils down to the fact that I would rather have a gun and not need it than to need it and not have it.
Other than that it is a great hobby and historical... no other item has changed the human condition as much. They are fun and usefull and historical and a human right.
Not everyone cares about them and they should have the choice to not own any but... they don't have the right to decide if I do or not.
rebecca peters told a englishman that had lost his right to own handguns that she was sorry that he lost his hobby but that was tough... "get another hobby".
I have no control over your laws but I do feel that you are violating basic human rights when you take guns away from sane mature citizen in your country.
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
we are on the path to the kind of confiscation that you have in your country.
There was never a mass confiscation in our country because the firearms weren't there to begin with. rebecca peters told a englishman that had lost his right to own handguns that she was sorry that he lost his hobby but that was tough... "get another hobby".
Sounds more than fair to me. After all, you can hardly suggest to a gun victim that he should "get another life".
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So Beetle, what you're really saying is that the average Brit has no concept of the meaning of gun ownership... is actually incapable of it since it's never been a right they've enjoyed. It's amazing how much of an expert you seem to think you are on the subject, given your "qualifications".
The core of the "debate" is simple... if gun ownership were illegal in the U.S. 300 years ago, we'd still be a British colony and England would still be ruling the world. Really... it's time to get over it.
Oh... I know... you ARE over it. That's why such stupid arguments as "guns create violence... so they should be banned" arrise. You ARE over it... that's why you completely fail to realize the relevance of the title of this thread.
Violence in America is indicative of the independance, the opportunity, and the rebellion that built this country. That has nothing to do with handguns, and everything to do with the human spirit. When you get right down to it, that is what the British government has managed to ban over the last 100 years. You just don't know any better.
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MiniD,
You've been remarkably restrained in this thread. Thought it was too good to last... Originally posted by Mini D
So Beetle, what you're really saying is that the average Brit has no concept of the meaning of gun ownership... is actually incapable of it since it's never been a right they've enjoyed. It's amazing how much of an expert you seem to think you are on the subject, given your "qualifications".
One does not need to know much about guns to observe the effects that an unbridled flood of them has on a society's homicide rate - just as one does not need to be a tobacco user to understand the dangers of smoking.
As for not being able to "enjoy" gun ownership, why don't you contact the bereaved familes of young children who have been killed with a gun, and ask them how they are enjoying American citizens' rights to own guns? There are hundreds of US families to choose from each year. "guns create violence... so they should be banned"
I have never said that guns should be banned where you live. But I am glad they are banned where I live because I can see what happens when any old nutjob can get a gun.
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Obviously beetle.. one does. But, I don't expect the inexperienced to have any notion of that. Hell, this whole subject is similar to watching a high school student argue sociology with a college sociology professor. The inexperience is only apparent to one side.
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Something i found odd, Dixon's crime rate has gone up 12% since '02, assault, burglary and theft all up double digits, arson up triple digits. Heck the homicide rate is three times that of Toronto.
Homicide is down in Toronto even with the gang and drug wars, the overall crime rate rose a whopping 0.1%.
I suppose that's not fair comparing a vibrant multicultural city of 2.7 million to a dinky town of 20k.
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beet... I don't kill children with firearms or cars. It is possible but not probable. and....
you are of course wrong again in you idea of common sense in thinking that flooding an area or saturating it with guns will cause violence and homicide to rise... we have a lot of proof that just the oppossite is true here and that when guns are denied to citizens the crime and homicide rate go up such as in new york city and washington dc.... the absolute armpits of our nation.
You have no proof whatsoever that if every gun were magicaly removed that there would be less child homicides or homicides of any type.... no proof there would be less suicide or even accidental deaths.
using ciggs is not a good example. You claim that the danger is obvious... well yeah.. it is a given that there is a danger from disease from smoking. It is also a given that being shot with a firearm can cause harm or death but the data shows that you are not more likely to die or be injured if you live in an area with a lot of firearms... the opposite is true.
lazs
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torque... where did you get the figures for dixon? we aren't 20k and haven't had a single homicide this year so we have a much lower rate than toronto. If we had a murder in 02 then that would mean we had a 100% reduction in 04. I don't think you can beat that.
but then... maybe it isn't fair to compare a small little bedroom community of 16K with a cesspool like toronto.
lazs
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By NASHWANG....
The homicide rate for Canada is 1.73 per 100,000 people.
The homicide rate for the US is 5.7 per 100,000 people.
This tells me CanNucks need to get out more...
pssst clue *NO HOCKEY THIS YEAR*
Another NASHHOLE post...
Nothing to see here, Move along.
Mac
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Back from celebrating my father's 84th birthday, a good time was had by all.
Now then.
Originally posted by beet1e
Actually, there is.
[/b]
No there isn't. Although Moore should probably have taken your approach in BFC. When Moore found that Canada had as many or more guns per capita as the US he admitted that, clearly, the number of available firearms WASN'T a key factor in the homicide rate/100,000 people. It had to be something else. And there are other national examples, like Switzerland, Israel or even Norway and Finland which have higher ownership rates than Switzerland. All have high gun ownershop and low homicide.
So, you see... even Moore can't support the erroneous contention that you blindly parrot. Nor can anyone else. Best give this one up Beet; the Canada/US comparison alone defeats you.
But our lawmakers of 1920 were wise enough to see the folly of a guns free for all. And given that we've never had more than 100 gun homicides in any calendar year, I think they got it right. [/b]
Here's another place where you either don't understand your own history or choose to ignore it.
I'll repost something for you that may clear it up, but the basics are that in the 1920's gun control laws were implemented in response to a perceived threat to your ruling class from the Bolsheviks.
At a Cabinet meeting on January 17, 1919, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff raised the threat of "Red Revolution and blood and war at home and abroad." He suggested that the government make sure of its arms.
The next month, the Prime Minister was asking which parts of the army would remain loyal. The Cabinet discussed arming university men, stockbrokers, and trusted clerks to fight any revolution.[57] The Minister of Transport, Sir Eric Geddes, predicted "a revolutionary outbreak in Glasgow, Liverpool or London in the early spring, when a definite attempt may be made to seize the reins of government." "It is not inconceivable," Geddes warned, "that a dramatic and successful coup d'etat in some large center of population might win the support of the unthinking mass of labour."
Using the Irish gun licensing system as a model, the Cabinet made plans to disarm enemies of the state and to prepare arms for distribution "to friends of the Government."[58]
So I suggest you forget trying to portray the Firearms Act as any sort of of wise foresight by your government to prevent criminal homicide. It was all about disarming the "unthinking mass of labour". Which merely reinforce Laz's point about endemic upper class elitism, something that instantly raises American hackles. And a happy Fourth of July to you too!
HOWEVER, the Firearms Act of the 1920's still considered "personal defense" a valid reason to own a handgun.
Thus the Firearms Act of 1920 sailed through Parliament. Britons who had formerly enjoyed a right to arms were now allowed to possess pistols and rifles only if they proved they had "good reason" for receiving a police permit.[60] Shotguns and airguns, which were perceived as "sporting" weapons, remained exempt from British government control....
...Wanting to possess a firearm for self-defense was considered a "good reason" for being granted a firearms certificate.
Again, your erroneous contention that the Firearms Act is some sort of wise move to prevent anyone from getting a handgun is just wrong. Until late in the century, when the intent of the law was corrupted (by folks like you, IMO), wanting a handgun for self-defense was considered a legitimate reason.
So, you'd best give up that insupportable point as well.
"Automobiles" are more legitimate than firearms because they have an obvious purpose, and without them our current lifestyles would become impossible, and also because they are not designed for killing.
[/b]
I've got a great idea for a Cable TV special! We'll invite the families of children killed by firearms and those of children killed by automobiles. There will be far, far, far more in the "auto" group.
I'll be there in a strong "shark cage" filming as you explain to the crowd that the firearms deaths are truly a great tradgedy and "something must be done" because firearms are designed for killing. Then, you can explain that the automobile deaths are sad, but nothing needs be done because autos are NOT designed for killing and we need them to live as we desire to live.
You can top it off by pointing out that although alcohol plays a major role in both types of deaths, we don't need to ban it either because, well, you personally enjoy it and it wasn't designed for killing either.
I think I'll make millions from selling the scenes of the crowd ripping you limb from limb. I'll split 50/50 with your estate, of course.
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Originally posted by AWMac
This tells me CanNucks need to get out more...
Another NASHHOLE post...
Nothing to see here, Move along.
Mac
What a dip*****.
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Originally posted by Toad
And there are other national examples, like Switzerland, Israel or even Norway and Finland which have higher ownership rates than Switzerland. All have high gun ownershop and low homicide.
Then again, there's Japan, which has low gun ownership and low crime.
So, is the argument that more guns = less crime in all cases, or not?
Cheers,
Scherf
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Originally posted by lazs2
beet... I don't kill children with firearms or cars. It is possible but not probable. and....
I know YOU don't, you mutton head! But your 2nd amendment means that any banana can obtain a firearm, and many of said bananas DO kill children - and even infants. you are of course wrong again in you idea of common sense in thinking that flooding an area or saturating it with guns will cause violence and homicide to rise... we have a lot of proof that just the oppossite is true here
(http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_1_72.gif)
Just look at what has happened to your homicide rate in the past 300 years, or in the time since guns were invented and deployed on your soil. :lol Better give my sig. another read. By the way, Lazs, I think Nashwan has you taped. :aok:cool:
Mr. Toad!!! No there isn't. Although Moore should probably have taken your approach in BFC. When Moore found that Canada had as many or more guns per capita as the US he admitted that, clearly, the number of available firearms WASN'T a key factor in the homicide rate/100,000 people. It had to be something else. And there are other national examples, like Switzerland, Israel or even Norway and Finland which have higher ownership rates than Switzerland. All have high gun ownershop and low homicide. So, you see... even Moore can't support the erroneous contention that you blindly parrot. Nor can anyone else. Best give this one up Beet; the Canada/US comparison alone defeats you.
Yes there is. Like I said, there is enough evidence for me and guys like me. The Canada/US comparison alone does NOT defeat me. The only thing that is defeated is YOU - having failed to read my earlier post, and your failure to understand that there are TWO ingredients to a gun homicide - the gun, and some nutjob holding it. Too bad for you that the US has a surfeit of ethnic poor/black/nutjobs compared to Canada - which apparently has very few - as does Sweden, Norway, Finland, and all the other European countries you named. So I suggest you forget trying to portray the Firearms Act as any sort of of wise foresight by your government to prevent criminal homicide. It was all about disarming the "unthinking mass of labour". Which merely reinforce Laz's point about endemic upper class elitism, something that instantly raises American hackles.
I hardly think so. You make it sound as if Britain was under some sort of totalitarian regime akin to that of Joseph Stalin, when clearly it wasn't. I have never been handcuffed or shackled, and at the age of 24 was able to work overseas in the USA - and could have stayed, and in all probability could have bought a gun. Your attempts to make it sound as if Britain was under the jackboot of a totalitarian regime make you sound as dumb and uneducated as the masses who flood this board with drivel spouted from their home town, from which they have have never strayed by more than 100 miles. Until late in the century, when the intent of the law was corrupted (by folks like you, IMO), wanting a handgun for self-defense was considered a legitimate reason. So, you'd best give up that insupportable point as well.
WHAT insupportable point? A gun for self defence has never been necessary in Britain. I've got a great idea for a Cable TV special! We'll invite the families of children killed by firearms and those of children killed by automobiles. There will be far, far, far more in the "auto" group.
Go right ahead, my friend. From what I hear, there are various initiatives afoot in the USA to ban guns (Klinton, Rebecca Peters) - but I am unaware of any such initiatives to ban "automobiles". I wonder who would feel the most bitter - those who were bereaved as a result of a careless act with a firearm, or those who were bereaved as a result of a genuine error which occurred on the road. You be the judge! :aok I think I'll make millions from selling the scenes of the crowd ripping you limb from limb. I'll split 50/50 with your estate, of course.
I think what you make will be worth as much as the spark plugs in my car. But you're welcome to use it to supplement your pension.
It's already 2005 here in Britain. So - Happy New Year Everyone, and I dedicate this post to the following people who will die premature and unnecessary deaths in 2005: - ~50 US Police officers
- 10,000 ordinary US civilians of various races of whom there will be
- 50-100 deaths of children aged less than nine years, and who were therefore under the age of criminal responsibility, but fell victim to a nutjob.
What a strange society, in which the individual's right to plink at tin cans with a handgun (thereby requiring retail outlets of gun and ammo sales) takes precedence over safeguarding the lives of the children who fall victim to the nutjobs who find it all too easy to acquire deadly weapons in America.
:confused:
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Originally posted by Scherf
So, is the argument that more guns = less crime in all cases, or not?
Cheers,
Scherf
No. I think that's just more evidence that the number of guns isn't a determining factor in homicide crime. Probably the only thing Moore got right in BFC.
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Originally posted by beet1e
Yes there is. Like I said, there is enough evidence for me and guys like me. The Canada/US comparison alone does NOT defeat me.
[/b]
There's plenty of other examples as I pointed out. Also, AFAIK, there's not one study the successfully correlates high gun ownership with high homicide rates as an absolute. Because, as I pointed out, there are too many exceptions.
nutjob holding it. Too bad for you that the US has a surfeit of ethnic poor/black/nutjobs compared to Canada - which apparently has very few - as does Sweden, Norway, Finland, and all the other European countries you named.
This " nutjob" is your only possible argument as I see it. I've said we have a more violent society than yours or Canada or the others mentioned.
However, it merely validates the argument that the person.. the "nutjob".... is the problem, not the firearm. So you lose again there.
We're working on the "nutjob" end of the argument with tougher prosecution. Our homicide rates are coming down too.
WHAT insupportable point?
This one:
Way back in 1920 which wasn't long after the end of WW1, it was decided here that the calamity that would result from unfettered gun ownership was obvious.
That wasn't the reasoning.
Further, I'll say your homicide rate has been essentially stable throughout the period pre-1920-2004. So, despite additional laws, nothing changed. So, again, it wasn't the availability of guns. As the studies show, there is another factor at work.
A gun for self defence has never been necessary in Britain.
That's an opinion. It's clear that nearly until Dunblane/Hungerford your police considered self-defense a valid reason to own a gun and would issue firearms certificates to those who applied using that reason.
who were bereaved as a result of a genuine error which occurred on the road.
You conveniently ignore the fact that the vast majority of our auto deaths are NOT the result of a "genuine error". For example, over half (IIRC) are judged to be alcohol related, a definite no-no. Then there's the speeding, deliberate running of red lights, etc.
When you compare our alcohol related auto deaths to gun homicide, you'll find there's nearly 2X as many of the alcohol-auto deaths.
Yet you see no need to ban alcohol or further restrict the already registered, tested, licensed autos? I suspect the situation is the same in the UK.
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Originally posted by Toad
No. I think that's just more evidence that the number of guns isn't a determining factor in homicide crime. Probably the only thing Moore got right in BFC.
More bollocks from Mr. Toad. OK, so you have what - many millions of guns in the US, and about 10,000 homicides annually committed with some of those guns. Are you trying to tell me that if there were only 1000 guns in the US, there would still be 10,000 gun homicides? Suppose there were no guns at all - would we still see 10,000 gun homicides? Erm... I don't think so. But oh - you say that this homicide rate is NOT dependent on the number of guns. Yeah, right. :rolleyes: However, it merely validates the argument that the person.. the "nutjob".... is the problem, not the firearm.
Oh brother, how many MORE times are we going to have to go over this? Read this carefully: As I have said before (many times) it does indeed take two ingredients to fulfil a gun crime. Nutjob+gun=crime. Your society is awash with guns, and it's also awash with nutjobs. Britain is also awash with nutjobs.You cannot legislate against nutjobs, but you CAN neuter them, as we have done, by denying access to guns. I would dump the NRA blinkers; they're stopping you from seeing the most elementary common sense. That wasn't the reasoning.
Yes it was. It's right there in a link which YOU provided, and it makes perfect sense.
I say again a gun has never been necessary for self defence in Britain. I had been to every county by the age of 14, and we never had any guns, or any trouble. Even Lazs would back me up on this. He has himself been to seedy areas of London - unarmed - and felt as threatened as he might feel at a Church bingo night - he said so himself. When you compare our alcohol related auto deaths to gun homicide, you'll find there's nearly 2X as many of the alcohol-auto deaths.
Hardly surprising. Like I said, the vast majority of Americans if they had to choose between gun and automobile would choose automobile. Why? More useful. Compare the number of people who drive each day with the number of people who fire a weapon each day. The answer is staring you in the face. Yet you see no need to ban alcohol or further restrict the already registered, tested, licensed autos? I suspect the situation is the same in the UK.
We have seen the folly of gun saturation in America. We have also seen what happened when you guys tried to ban alcohol - probably the biggest fillip organised crime ever had. As for cars, those over 3 years old have to pass an "MOT Test" every year - a series of safety checks on brakes, tyres, steering, lights, bodywork, windscreen wipers & washers, emissions etc... The current system seems to work fine. I was amazed at some of the junk I saw that was allowed on America's public roads.
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Originally posted by beet1e
... I have never said that guns should be banned where you live. But I am glad they are banned where I live because I can see what happens when any old nutjob can get a gun.
Originally posted by beet1e
You cannot legislate against nutjobs, but you CAN neuter them, as we have done, by denying access to guns. I would dump the NRA blinkers; they're stopping you from seeing the most elementary common sense.
So you have never said that we should ban them, only that we could. OK, got it.
You sure expend a lot of effort not advocating stuff.
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beetle... try to follow along... I do not kill children with guns or cars so showing me dead children killed by guns or cars is not gonna work... we allow just any "banana" to have a drivers licence mutton head... allmoat everyone here does... if we allowed guns to passed out as easily as cars then you would have a point... now... these millions of people with cars that are hurtling at you at a combined speed of maybe 100-200 mph in 2 ton machines... that is ok with you?
Why are these "bananas" to be trusted with such deadly weapons? especially given their penchant for driveing them skillesly and in every form of incapcitation devised by man... if they kill someone they are slapped on the wrist and put back in a car a few months or years latter and a lot of em kill again but... the right to drive is considered very important.
as for you "10,000" homicides by guns a year.... who cares? while no one likes homicide... what difference the manner? you act as tho if guns all disappeard that we would have 10,000 less deaths a year... that is stupid... guns prevent crime and crime causes death in many cases... we may not have a lot more homicides it we had no guns but we certaionly wouldn't have less.... your country proves that.... guns or not the homicide rate stays the same.
I don't care what you do but I do sympathize with the people in your country who want the right to own firearms for any reason and can't... I believe that someday fairly soon you will regret your decision to take away your means of defending yourself.
sherf... the arguement is for the U.S. with more guns in the hands of citizens there is a drop in crime. My guess is that if japan allowed every sane adult who wanted a gun to own one (typicaly 5-50% of a population) with very few restrictions.... the crime rate would stay statisticaly the same like it does in most places. just like england and Australia.
remove em or add em...it seems to make not much real difference in homicide rates while decreasing some personal crime such as burglary.
lazs
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Originally posted by beet1e
More bollocks from Mr. Toad. OK, so you have what - many millions of guns in the US, and about 10,000 homicides annually committed with some of those guns. Are you trying to tell me that if there were only 1000 guns in the US, there would still be 10,000 gun homicides? Suppose there were no guns at all - would we still see 10,000 gun homicides? Erm... I don't think so.
No he's not, you're simply being obtuse. He's saying the presence of guns is not the main contributor to homocide rate. Canada has even more guns per person than the U.S... and a lower homocide rate... aproaching the numbers in England.
You say: less guns = less gun violence (despite Canada having more guns and less gun violence)
Everyone else says: less guns = same overall violence, just with different weapons. It's not the guns causing the crime levels.
You've not shown that murder rates have gone down in England as a result of anti-gun legislation. You've not shown that a large number of guns in a country cause a large number of murders... and you still say "bullocks"?
You're go-to card seems to be the murder rate in the U.S. You keep going back to it as if it is some kind of ultimate evidence. It really does show you're simply not capable of deductive reasoning. Guns do not bring inherant violence to a society. There are too many societies out there that prove that point. Please continue ignoring that fact and stick with the go-to card.
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Originally posted by Holden McGroin
You sure expend a lot of effort not advocating stuff.
OK, I'll advocate something: It is my belief that Oregon motorists should be allowed to refuel their own cars, instead of having the nanny garage attendant to do it for them.
MiniD said You've not shown that murder rates have gone down in England as a result of anti-gun legislation.
Your logic is a bit like someone who says to me "Why bother to lock your doors? You've never been burgled, so locking your doors has not reduced the number of times your house has been burgled". Quite so, but locking my doors is a preventative measure. It was decided, quite wisely IMO, that an unfettered distribution of guns amongst the population. The wording was "There can surely be no question that the public interest demands that direct control shall in future be exercised in the United Kingdom . . . over the possession, manufacture, sale and import and export of firearms and ammunition; and the only practical question for consideration appears to be how this control can be most efficiently established". - which seems reasonable to me.
Now what Toad has tried to assert in the past is that this was the action of a government panicking at the thought of a revolt akin to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Of course, that is complete bollocks, on a number of counts.
Russia's political situation was entirely different from that of Britain. I do believe it was a totalitarian regime, both before and after the 1917 revolution. Communism became established, and the KGB shadow blighted people's lives even in the pre-Gorbachev years. Somewhere along the way came Joseph Stalin, who orchestrated the deaths of millions.
Britain was never anything like that. Britain had no political instability in those days (ie no revolution was imminent), and during the WW1 years even had a Conservative Coalition government. It was during this coalition government (1920) that the question of gun control was considered - see the blue text quote. Now, given that Britain is now, and was then, a democracy, I don't think that any government would have got away with stripping millions of people of their rights the way you guys are so fond of describing it. But I am open minded on this issue. So please, do find me an account of the protests and the civil uprising that took place. But consider this: The political party with the largest share of the vote in the 1918 General Election was the Conservative party. Then came what you guys know as the "British disarmament" in 1920. But there were further General Elections in 1922, 1923, and 1924, and in all three cases the Conservative party gained the largest share of the vote, although the result in 1923 was a hung parliament. So....
....If the 1920 issue had been so unpopular, so devastating and so unacceptable, then why didn't the electorate vote out the Conservatives when they had the chance in 1922? Maybe because the 1920 measures were not as draconian as you guys would like to think? Maybe there weren't as many gun owners as you thought? Or maybe you are simply... WRONG?
BTW - if this discussion of British the British election machinery has left you confused, or you don't understand expressions like "hung parliament", then maybe you're not qualified to pass judgement on events in British politics, in which case you should stand in the corner of the classroom with Joyce Lee Malcolm, facing the wall.
Yes I do think that the total homicide rate would be lower, if the nutjobs could not get guns. That was the subject of this thread - a guy went berserk with a knife, and stabbed a few people. But imagine if he'd had a machine gun, or any gun. Things would have been much worse.
MiniD said Guns do not bring inherant violence to a society. There are too many societies out there that prove that point. Please continue ignoring that fact and stick with the go-to card.
Like I said, 97 times, Nutjob+gun=crime. Those "other societies" of which you speak probably don't have the ethnic/black/poor social problems that the US has, and that Britain has. Everyone else says: less guns = same overall violence, just with different weapons. It's not the guns causing the crime level
I don't think so. A gun is a far more efficient and versatile killing device than a knife or sword - that's why modern armies use guns, not swords - or hadn't you noticed?
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nutjob+any weapon=crime
Any citizen + weapon = defense
The gun does not make the crime.. the nutjob does. Focusing attention on guns is not even remotely the answer. It isn't even a placebo. It's taking away the ability for the common man to defend himself. That is all.
Don't let the fact that you've accepted your station in life be a reason to impose beliefs on others. You're a subject... get over it.
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P.S. "I don't think so" is now translating to "no matter what statistics say, I'm going to stick to my own assertations based on my own inexperience with the subject at hand." There's absolutely nothing supporting your argument. Nothing.
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beet you are proof positive that common sense is not in the least common... you abuse the phrase common sense when you look at the data and then twist it.
you claim about locking doors is as spurious as all your other claims... it is more than "common sense" to lock your doors and that it will reduce burglaries.. it is a fact. It is not a fact nor common sense that taking away guns will reduce crime or homicide... all the evidense points to the fact that the oppossite is true.
Florida used to be the murder capital but now it isn't... washington dc with it's very strict gun laws is... In the U.S. the more guns you allow the citizens to have the less crime you have... I know that offends you but it is the facts. claiming that it shouldn't be true won't make it so.
lazs
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OK, let's get this "intent of the Firearms Act" thing settled.
A secret government committee on arms traffic warned of danger from two sources: the "savage or semi-civilized tribesmen in outlying parts of the British Empire" who might obtain surplus war arms, and "the anarchist or 'intellectual' malcontent of the great cities, whose weapon is the bomb and the automatic pistol."
SOURCE:Report of the Committee on the Control of Firearms 2 (1918). See also Greenwood, supra note 33, at 38; Stevenson, supra note 40, at 10. The "Blackwell Committee" was chaired by Sir Ernley Blackwell, Under Secretary of State for the Home Department. The Committee met in secret and never made a report public. The Secretary, F. J. Dryhurst, was formerly Commissioner of the Prison Service. Other members represented the Metropolitan Police, the County and Borough Police Forces, the Board of Customs, the Board of Trade, the War Office, and the Irish Office.
At a Cabinet meeting on January 17, 1919, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff raised the threat of "Red Revolution and blood and war at home and abroad." He suggested that the government make sure of its arms. The next month, the Prime Minister was asking which parts of the army would remain loyal. The Cabinet discussed arming university men, stockbrokers, and trusted clerks to fight any revolution.[57]
SOURCE: See Colin Greenwood, "The British Experience," in Gun Control Examined 31, a collection of papers presented at Conference on Gun Control, Melbourne University, Aug. 27-28, 1988.
The Minister of Transport, Sir Eric Geddes, predicted "a revolutionary outbreak in Glasgow, Liverpool or London in the early spring, when a definite attempt may be made to seize the reins of government." "It is not inconceivable," Geddes warned, "that a dramatic and successful coup d'etat in some large center of population might win the support of the unthinking mass of labour." Using the Irish gun licensing system as a model,/ the Cabinet made plans to disarm enemies of the state and to prepare arms for distribution "to friends of the Government."[58]
SOURCE: Yardley & Stevenson, supra note 40, at 42-44. See also Stevenson, supra note 40, at 9 (citing Sir Eric Geddes, Public Record Office CAB 25/20).
Although popular revolution was the motive, the Home Secretary presented the government's 1920 gun bill to Parliament as strictly a measure "to prevent criminals and persons of that description from being able to have revolvers and to use them." In fact, the problem of criminal, non-political misuse of firearms remained minuscule.[/u][59] Of course 1920 would not be the last time a government lied in order to promote gun control.
SOURCE: See Jan A. Stevenson, Firearms Legislation in Great Britain, Handgunner, Mar.-Apr. 1988, at, 7, 9; Report on the Firearms (Amendment) Bill 41 (Michael Yardley & Jan A. Stevenson, eds., 2d ed. 1998). Until recent decades, the military had the same attitude, viewing civil shooters as potential good shooters for the military, and viewing civilian target shooting facilities as good places for training regular and reserve forces. Cadmus, Ranges-Inspection and Use, 35 Guns Rev. 834 (1995). "Cadmus" is a British gun rights author. The original Cadmus, from Greek myth, slew a dragon, was the first man to combine vowels with consonants, and founded the city of Thebes.
The evidence is there, in the Cabinet archives. Additionally, the absolute FACT that "self-defense" was considered an adequate reason for getting a Firearms Certificate AND the fact that Firearms Certificates were ROUTINELY approved removes any validity from Beet's assertion that the folks that perpetrated the 1920 Firearms Act had some sort of far-seeing wisdom in restricting firearms. They were simply reacting to the "Bolshevik threat."
They even discussed ways of getting arms to the parts of the populace the elite upper class felt they could count upon.
The next month, the Prime Minister was asking which parts of the army would remain loyal. The Cabinet discussed arming university men, stockbrokers, and trusted clerks to fight any revolution.
They discussed ARMING parts of the populace they felt were friendly.
Give it up Beet.
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Originally posted by beet1e
Erm... I don't think so. But oh - you say that this homicide rate is NOT dependent on the number of guns.
MiniD explained it to you once again. I'm sure pretty much everyone else gets it. You are doing your typical refusal to admit the proven and the obvious. Can't help you, in that case, since you choose to remain blind.
Nutjob+gun=crime. Your society is awash with guns, and it's also awash with nutjobs.
MiniD covered this one as well.
I'll just that you seem to deliberately avoid the irrefutable evidence that alcohol is a key player in both firearms homicides and auto homicides/deaths. This is an item the human race can easily live without, which has no vital purpose in our present lifestyle. Yet you don't want to discuss banning/confiscating it although that one action (if it was done effectively) would do more to lower both gun and auto deaths than any other possible action.
[quoteI say again a gun has never been necessary for self defence in Britain. [/quote]
Which is a lovely red herring, if one likes herring. That has nothing, absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that self-defense was recognized as a valid reason for obtaining a Firearms Certificate until late in this century, long after the passage of the 1920's Firearms Act. Which, once again and forever, invalidates your suppostion that the Firearms Act was some sort of far-seeing wise decsion on the part of your Parliament.
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How touching to see both Toad and MiniD agreeing with each other. Worth keeping this thread going just to see that amusing spectacle. :D
Originally posted by Mini D
Any citizen + weapon = defense
Defence against WHAT? Oh wait, defence against an armed nutjob. Alrighty then. The gun does not make the crime.. the nutjob does.
The gun makes it more serious, besides - is it legal to roam around with a gun? In some US states it isn't. Besides, using a gun to commit a crime = a jail sentence in some states. In parts of SE Asia, their point of view is different from yours. In Singapore or Malaysia, carrying a gun to commit a crime = jail, and if the gun is actually fired, it's a mandatory death sentence even if no-one was hurt. Don't let the fact that you've accepted your station in life be a reason to impose beliefs on others. You're a subject... get over it.
OK let's look at this a bit more closely. What is a citizen? What is a subject? Please explain to me the difference, and explain to me what wonderful freedoms you have (besides being able to buy your favourite toys to keep at home) that I DON'T have. In my life, I can go wherever I want, whenever I want to any country in the world of my choosing, without needing to obtain government permission or an exit visa. It is my right to live in any of the other 24 EU member states without questions being asked and without any forms having to be filled. I am free to drive my car wherever I want, and I can sound the horn without threat of being tasered by the police. When I'm running low on fuel, I can refuel my own car - unlike in Oregon where the nanny attendant has to do it for me. I can combine hobbies of photography and trains, and take photographs of trains - no Homeland Security act is going to stop me from doing that. Like you, I am entitled to vote secretly in elections which decide which party will govern the country...
...so PLEASE - do tell me: What am I missing? What is this wonderful ingredient in life which you enjoy as a "citizen" which is not available to me as a British subject? Oh wait - I cant' buy a gun... No tin can plinking for me. Oh the horror! Oh the tyrrany!! Oh the oppression!!! :lol
And so to Mr. Toad! :D
I have been slow to respond, because I've had house guests. My mother is staying with me, but that has been a good thing because I've been able to ask her about this issue. We talked about various members of our Church congregation from the 1960s who were already elderly then (and would have been adults c1920) I asked Mum if she believed any of them had guns. The answer was a somewhat emphatic "no", and that's not all she said - LOL! Our Church was a humble Methodist Church attended by ordinary working class people - NOT an elitist Church attended by "university men, stockbrokers, and trusted clerks".
By 1918, all adults were entitled to vote. It was in that year that women were given the same voting rights as men (sorry Lazs!) and the enfranchisement of the population as a whole was complete.
You continue to make great play over Britain's "disarmament", and whilst you have included various quotes, you have still neglected to provide answers to three key questions: - I am still waiting to hear of the great British gun confiscation. What form did it take? Who owned all these guns? Maybe the police made door to door calls? You tell me, because I know of no such event in British history.
- You have not answered my question concerning the elected government: The Conservative coalition was in power in 1920 at the time these "draconian" measures were supposedly taken. If such measures were such a travesty, then please explain to me, given that all had the vote, why the Conservative Party was re-elected in 1922, 1923 and 1924?
- If said measures were so far reaching and bore such impact on the lives of ordinary working people, then please advise me of the civil uprising that took place in response to the "Great British Disarmament". I am unaware of any such event.
So, if you would be so kind as to provide the answers to these points, I would be most grateful.
One of the problems of Googling your way around historical encyclopaedia when you're looking to prove a point is that it's all too easy to grasp the wrong end of the stick. This is what has happened to you here. You have retrieved quotes to which you then apply your own interpretations.
Britain's Industrial Revolution took place in the reign of George III (1760-1820). Cities grew up around industries, and many people left farming to find work in new industries. Working conditions were absolutely appalling, with workers putting in 12 hour days, 7 days a week. Housing was provided by the factory owners (or mine owners/whatever) and was not much better than a garden shed. If you didn't work, you lost your house. Simple as that. And there were strikes/uprisings in protest at the appalling conditions at work and at home, the long hours and the low wages. Many protests occurred in the 19th century, ie. before the apocryphal "Great British Disarmament" - at a time when (according to Lazs) gun ownership was high! Funny that no-one got shot in those protests...
Without further research, which I don't have time for until Friday when my guests have left, I feel it is likely that in post WW1 Britain, the workers wanted a better deal. They had worked their balls off in the munitions factories in WW1, and it was then that the first alcohol licensing laws arose regulating pub opening hours - to keep the munitions workers out of the pubs and back to work. (They also weakened beer from a strength of around 10% down to about 4% :mad: ) So it seems reasonable to me that ill feeling was festering amongst the working classes in 1920 and shortly thereafter...
...In 1926, the lid finally blew off, and thus came The General Strike (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUgeneral.htm). As you will see, if you follow those links, the issues at stake were wages, hours, and working conditions. The workers' protests had nothing to do with guns. LOL! You have to remember that these were people who had worked on farms, and then long hours in conditions not so far removed from slavery. They could not afford guns, and would not have had time to go practice shooting if they had. Do a search in that article - see if you can find a reference to "gun". I couldn't.
So your quoted claims that the working classes were contemplating the idea of "seizing the reins" of government are completely wide of the mark. In Britain, the use of arms to change government policy has never been necessary. In 1924, the first Labour Government was elected and led by Ramsay MacDonald (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page136.asp). Note that his election was not the result of the oppressed working classes "seizing the reins of government" - the reason given in your quotes for the need to carry out the "Great British Disarmament" - (which probably never happened at all. :lol ) It was the result of the natural process of democracy, in which the people cast their votes in secret at the ballot box.
According to you, we were "disarmed" as of c1920. But that does not prevent strikes/civil uprising. In 1970, Edward Heath won the General Election for the Conservatives. But industrial action thoughout the 1970s caused him to call another election which he lost. The workers had brought down the government - and they did it without needing guns.
In 1989, Margaret Thatcher implemented the Poll Tax. It was hugely unpopular, and resulted in riots in the streets, a change in the law (council tax instead) and the ultimate downfall of Thatcher. This happened without the use of guns.
WW1 was the first armed conflict after which significant numbers of guns found their way back home. Legislation was needed to deal with this situation where none had been needed before. This was in no way connected with the discontent of the workers of those days, whose concerns were hours, working conditions and pay. In Britain (unlike communist Russia) it is legal to strike, and legal to demonstrate.
You may be good at Googling your way around the virtual universe, but your knowledge of British life seems confined to visits with your fellow gun enthusiats.
You have never lived here. Face it, Toad: As far as British life and politics is concerned, you don't know Jack.
BTW - my Mum has just had a good laugh about your comparison between Britain and Bolshevik Russia, and the "Great British Disarmament" :lol
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I'd respond, but I don't want to mess around with someone as tough as James Bond (Beet1e.):D
Les
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Holy crap, Lazs and Toad vs Beetle and Nashwan...take 52!
Beetle, Nashwan, who gives a ****. If they want to live that way then fine, it's their choice.
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I can only speak for myself.
Les
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Originally posted by beet1e
I am still waiting to hear of the great British gun confiscation. What form did it take? Who owned all these guns? Maybe the police made door to door calls? You tell me, because I know of no such event in British history.
I don't know how many firearms have been involuntarily confiscated by your police. Perhaps Nashwan can find some stats. I'm sure it's rather large.
At the end of 2000, 296,849 firearms and 1,320,883 shotguns were held on certificates in England and Wales. This is after your handgun ban. In 1995, there were 413,600 firearms covered by Firearms Certificates.
England has had seven national gun "amnesty" periods (that I could find data on) during which illegal firearm could be turne in without prosecution. This in in England proper; Scotland had some too.
In the four amnesties between 1946 and 1968, weapons handed
into the Police exceeded 20,000.
Three months after the Dunblane massacre in March 1996, there was a national firearms amnesty that saw nearly 23,000 firearms and 700,000 rounds of ammunition surrendered.
This was considerably less than the 48,000 weapons surrendered after the Hungerford killings nine years before.
In January 2003 the killing of teenagers Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare in Birmingham provoked another gun amnesty:
March 31 – April 30 2003
6,529 prohibited firearms (including 5,734 handguns), 10,513 shot guns, 13,974 air weapons, 9,480 imitations and 3,412 assorted rifles and other guns. In addition, a total of 7,093 other weapons, including knives, swords and crossbows, were handed in.
There is evidence that a lot if not most of the guns turned in are of the same nature as what gets "turned in" in gun buyback programs here. Junk. In the words of one commentator:
Naturally the first thing they did was to call an amnesty. No surprise there then. This is where a group of generally law abiding people hand in a bunch of old crap they’ve had lying around for ages. The media showed loads of pictures of old guns in buckets and the police and the Home Office cried success.
You have not answered my question concerning the elected government:... If said measures were so far reaching and bore such impact on the lives of ordinary working people, then please advise me of the civil uprising that took place in response to the "Great British Disarmament".
One of the problems of discussing anything with you is that you simply ignore what's posted in response.
Show me where I said a "civil uprising that took place ".
What I said was that your Firearms Act of 1920 was due to concerns (fears is probably more accurate) of your offcials with respect to Bolshevism.
YOU are the one stating this just wasn't so; it was some crystal ball act by your government, wisely preventing firearms homicide then and far into the future.
As you say: bollocks.
The discussions on firearms restrictions by the people that formulated the law are part of the record. It's clear that Bolshevism and "worker unrest" were key elements of the discussion. I gave you the footnotes that will lead to the documentation of those statements already posted in this thread.
According to you, we were "disarmed" as of c1920.
That was the beginning of the long slide into "disarmament" which was manifested in the draconian, pointless laws after Hungerford and Dunblane. I believe even Nashwan has said he feels the post-Hungerford/Dunblane laws were unnecessary.
WW1 was the first armed conflict after which significant numbers of guns found their way back home. Legislation was needed to deal with this situation where none had been needed before. This was in no way connected with the discontent of the workers of those days,
You're simply wrong for the same reasons posted above. The legislation was directly related to "armed workers" by the fears of your officials. It wasn't the workers; it was the people in power and their fear of armed workers that led to your Firearms Act of 1920.
Perception becomes reality; people like
The Minister of Transport, Sir Eric Geddes, and Sir Ernley Blackwell, Under Secretary of State for the Home Department.
You might want to do some research on the "Blackwell Committee". It should help you realize you're bailing a boat with no bottom at all.
We may here quote the following observations from the Report of the Sub-Committee on Arms Traffic:-
"3. We regard the whole position as one of considerable gravity. There are two distinct categories of person from whom danger is to be apprehended, viz., (1) the savage or semi-civilised tribesmen in outlying parts of the British Empire, whose main demand is for rifles and ammunition, and (2) the anarchist or 'intellectual' malcontent of the great cities, whose weapons are the bomb and the automatic pistol.
There is some force in the view .... that the latter will in future prove the more dangerous of the two. At any rate, his activities will call for unceasing vigilance, and very special precautions will be necessary to control the trade in automatic pistols, [/u]which, apart from their extreme deadliness, are, by reason of their size and shape, more easily smuggled than any other type of weapon.
As regards the tribesman, he already possesses rifles in abundance, and, desirable as it is to prevent him from adding to their number, it is, in our opinion, of still greater importance to check his supplies of ammunition, without which his weapons are useless to him ....
"4. Our conclusion is that the regulation of the arms traffic after the war is a matter of vital importance to the future of the British Empire, and one on which His Majesty's Government would be well advised to frame a definite and considered policy with the least possible delay. We submit below a series of recommendations indicating the lines on which such a policy should, in our opinion proceed ....
It's hardly creditable that the committee was concerned about the firearms homicide rate amongst "the savage or semi-civilised tribesmen in outlying parts of the British Empire".
It's also quite clear that the committee saw "the anarchist or 'intellectual' malcontent of the great cities" who would "prove the more dangerous of the two."
Nor is there any way to misinterpret "regulation of the arms traffic after the war is a matter of vital importance to the future of the British Empire,". There's no way the criminal firearms homicide rate would rate as a key to the future of The British Empire.
No, Beet.. you're just wrong as usual. The Firearms Act of 1920 had it's origins in the Blackwell Committee and it's clear where their concerns were.
But go ahead an persist in the idea that your government officials weren't worried primarily about Bolsheviks at that time. I have many more direct links to their statements to make you look even more Beetle-ish.
Director of Intelligence Thomson's January 9, 1920 report also warns of the growth of the National Union of Ex-Service Men.
The National Union was a radical faction of discontented veterans that was developing ties to more mainstream veterans' organizations, as well as to officials of the Police Union.[67]
The goal of the National Union, in the words of its national secretary, was to form "Sailors', Soldiers' and Workers' Councils with a view to taking over the means of production, distribution and exchange and thereby freeing the workers from wage slavery and exploitation."
or
In early January 1920, Sir Eric Geddes, Chairman of the Cabinet's Supply and Transport Committee gave an even more frightened description of the ability of police and army to protect the Government:
The Minister of Labour has reported that there is a possibility of a revolutionary outbreak in Glasgow, Liverpool, or London in the early spring, when a definite attempt may be made to seize the reins of Government.
In normal circumstances the chances of success of such an attempt would probably be small, but the danger would, in my opinion, be serious if the attempt were made when the country's resources had already been taxed by the strain of a great industrial crisis, such as a strike of coal miners.
It is not inconceivable that a dramatic and successful coup d'etat in some large center of population might win the support of the unthinking mass of labour, exasperated as the latter is by the increasing cost and difficulty of living
you don't know Jack.
Physician, heal thyself. And your Mum, I guess.
I may not know much about living and working in English cities as a day to day experience, but I'm quite confident I know more about firearms, their use and their owners in the English countryside than you ever will.
Without doubt I know more about the true origins of the 1920 Firearms Act than you and your Mum as well.
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BTW, Beet.. I see you don't want to discuss the role alcohol plays in the untimely deaths by auto and/or firearm of so many, children included.
Don't you think it'd be prudent and very wise to ban alcohol which, by design reduces man's inhibitions leading to many, many bad things for mankind? I'm sure that not only auto and firearm fatalities are linked to the misuse of alcohol. There's undoubtedly strong linkage to spousal and child abuse as well. Not to mention the health issues.
Surely you're in favor of saving/improving so many victims lives by banning alcohol production, possession and consumption?
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Originally posted by Toad
BTW, Beet.. I see you don't want to discuss the role alcohol plays in the untimely deaths by auto and/or firearm of so many, children included.
Toad, I have brought that up many times before. The answer I got was that alcohol was benificial to health ( 1 glass wine a day) and that alcohol prohibition was a failure in the US so therefore it was pointless to try to prohibit it. :)
The logic is pretty thin in either case.
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"Beetle" and "logic" have never been closely linked on this BBS. Sometimes I doubt they've ever met each other.
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thrawn... excellent point.. I have no idea why nashwan is so obsessed with U.S. firearms. I can't imagine that they have any effect on his life whatsoever.
For most of us here... england and other countries are prime examples of how you can lose you human rights by incramentalism... Granted, englands firearms rights were never as strong as ours with most of the power to decide who is armed and who is not, taken away from the people from the start.
Ours says... "shall not be infriged" Our freedom is damn well infringed and we are drawing a line in the sand. No more. I don't care how sensible a new gun law sounds to the women... we are against it unless it merely punishes criminals.
lazs
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Originally posted by medicboy
My theory is that most people will turn to knives, hammers, and other "tools" if guns are banned, but a few will turn to making bombs in their kitchen. If some one really wants to kill some one else, they will always find a way.
You are absolutely right :aok
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Mr Toad - Testy, testy! :eek::D
I don't know how many firearms have been involuntarily confiscated by your police. Perhaps Nashwan can find some stats. I'm sure it's rather large.
Well the first three words of the above quote come as no surprise at all. Yet you seem quite sure that large numbers of firearms were confiscated by the police. Given your Googling prowess on the web, would it be asking too much of you to substantiate this belief with some FACTS? Feel free to use real data, rather than data you've made up. I say again, I know of no such mass confiscation, but we'll come back to this in a moment.
You mention that there were a few amnesties. This is indeed the case, but there is a difference between "amnesty" and "confiscation". Are you aware of the difference? Yes I'm sure you are. For others there's always http://www.dictionary.com
As for your insistence that our parliament rushed the 1920 Firearms Act into law for fears of an uprising, you repeatedly cite "fears of Bolsheviks" in statements such as these: It's clear that Bolshevism and "worker unrest" were key elements of the discussion.
and What I said was that your Firearms Act of 1920 was due to concerns (fears is probably more accurate) of your offcials with respect to Bolshevism.
That, my friend, is only your assessment. I did a search on this entire thread for "bolshev", and found it several times - but only in your posts, not in your quoted sources. In other words, the comparison made with Bolshevism is simply one of your embellishments. As I said before - would it be asking too much of you to stick to the facts? Of course, if you can find an authentic report in which these fears were voiced, I will gladly read it.
And now, I would like to examine your Eric Geddes quote, and comment on it from a British perspective. In normal circumstances the chances of success of such an attempt would probably be small, but the danger would, in my opinion, be serious if the attempt were made when the country's resources had already been taxed by the strain of a great industrial crisis, such as a strike of coal miners.
It is not inconceivable that a dramatic and successful coup d'etat in some large center of population might win the support of the unthinking mass of labour, exasperated as the latter is by the increasing cost and difficulty of living
Toad, my dear Mr Toad - you are so misguided I almost feel like doing your homework for you! :lol FFS! The government wasn't in fear of an armed uprising!! They were in fear of the paralysing effect of a strike orchestrated by the miners which could, for example, deprive the nation of heating and electricity generation. Around 1920, we weren't as dependent on electricity as we are now, but reconsider what I said about the strikes in the early 1970s: First we had a strike by electricity workers in the winter of 1970/71. I had to do my school work (mock O Level revision) by candle light! The following year there were similar strikes, then there was a quiet winter, but then came a strike by the miners - who joined forced with the Transport Union. Coal output was stopped, and power stations were picketed. Britain was put on a 3-day week to save electricity on heat and light. Heath called an election with the manifesto "Who governs the country?" He lost. Victory for the workers, and socialism. (You surely remember the somewhat lively discussions I had with Dowding about this?) It is my belief that these were the concerns of the government in power c1920. Like I said all along - nothing to do with bolshevism or guns!!!!
Of 1920, you said That was the beginning of the long slide into "disarmament" which was manifested in the draconian, pointless laws after Hungerford and Dunblane. I believe even Nashwan has said he feels the post-Hungerford/Dunblane laws were unnecessary.
OK, now we know where your sympathies lie - with the workers who might have wanted to mount an uprising. Lazs has claimed that firearms ownership before 1920 was "quite high", and I haven't seen you disagree with that. According to your sources the government was considering arming certain elite groups: "The Cabinet discussed arming university men, stockbrokers, and trusted clerks to fight any revolution" - in which case it seems reasonable to assume that the perceived threat came from others in less glamourous professions - the workers...
...So please, do tell me: Where would these workers have acquired all their guns? If you followed my earlier links, you will have seen that these workers had their origins as farm hands, and migrated to the cities during the industrial revolution. Please explain to me how a worker who puts in a 12 hour day, 7 days a week, and yet could barely afford to put clothes on his back and food on the table could acquire a gun. Note that this is not the first time in this thread I have had to ask this question. - Yet again you cannot provide material to substantiate the "Great British Disarmament" - ie the mass confiscation.
- Yet again you have declined to answer my question as to why the elected government was returned to power, given that disarmament was as unpopular and draconian as you claim.
- Yet again you have declined to answer WHO had all these guns that were confiscated.
As previously stated, a government representing the interests of the workers WAS formed in 1924, and led by Ramsay MacDonald. In view of the "draconian" disarmament exacted against the workers, did this government rescind the 1920 Firearms Act? Erm... nope. When Ramsay MacDonald was re-elected to office 1929-1935, did that administration restore the workers' rights to bear arms? Erm... nope.
So what did happen? As I said, we had the General Strike of 1926 - possibly the most serious/damaging strike ever. And the issues? Working conditions, hours and pay. Now, I ask you - if the workers were indeed planning to "seize the reins of government" as your quoted sources would have us believe, why didn't it happen during the time when (Lazs tells us) firearms ownership was "quite high"? I take it you concede that there was no civil uprising in protest at the somewhat apochryphal "arms confiscation" - why's that then? Could it be that there were in fact no arms to confiscate? Could it be that the whole guns debacle was a non-issue? Could it be that you are ...WRONG?
One last question: Your quoted text suggests that "university men, stockbrokers, and trusted clerks" were to be allowed to retain their arms. Given your self proclaimed omniscience regarding the 1920 Firearms Act, please can you identify the sections and clauses within that Act which refer to exemptions by profession. I am unaware of any firearms legislation which permits possession of a firearm if the holder's profession is a stockbroker, for example.
Anyway, enough of guns. You wonder why I have not responded to your questions about alcohol, and why it has not been banned. You said I'll just that you seem to deliberately avoid the irrefutable evidence that alcohol is a key player in both firearms homicides and auto homicides/deaths. This is an item the human race can easily live without, which has no vital purpose in our present lifestyle. Yet you don't want to discuss banning/confiscating it although that one action (if it was done effectively) would do more to lower both gun and auto deaths than any other possible action.
No, I don't think alcohol should be banned. Last time I checked, it was NOT a lethal weapon, and was not designed to cause death.
Other than that, a discussion about alcohol is off topic in a thread which began as a discussion about knives as weapons, and became a generic discussion about weapons when you became the first person to mention the G-word at 10:06pm on 23rd December.
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Originally posted by beet1e
I think a statistician would call it "inadequate sampling data". You'll notice that when British crime stats are being discussed, the Yanks always prefer to talk about percentages because it makes their case look stronger. For example, 68 gun murders last year in Britain - but if this were to go up by 17, it would still be under 100 but the yanks would be yelling "gun murders up 25% in Britain!!!" The really funny thing is that 17 wouldn't even register as a blip in the US stats. Even 10,000 US deaths annually has been described in this forum as "a pittance, and a price worth paying for the right to bear arms".
Hi Beet !
Let's think more globally. The United States of America, the Great Britain, anf The Russian Federation together with some other allies are waging the war against the international terrorist network right now.
Also notable is the fact that due to the south of Russia and just across the ocean from the USA there's an old billion+++people-strong nation rejuvenated with the young blood of the new generation.
I guess that you may keep insisting that the firearms ban (or strict control) works better in reducing the number of lives lost in intentional criminal homicides. Works excellent for the British Isles. Yet, things change drastically on the geopolitical level.
In Russia young men are drafted in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Military Cosmic Forces. They get 2-year (3-year for the Navy) training
to become valuable reserve force in case of war.
In the USA young men prefer hunting the big game, and also get aquainted with the fire arms. In Britain young men choose succer hooliganism in absence of big game and presence of bans on guns and fox hunting.
Russia and the US may expect some uninvited guests knocking on their doors. And such guests can come in scores of milliones armed with good will and APS-type assault rifles. :eek: :eek: :eek:
And BTW there's guns ban in effect in Russia for many years, at least since 1922. Maybe it's more adequate to compare the homicide rates in Russia and the USA ? I gonna try to get the stats for Russia, but don't expect me to succeed in this quest.
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Originally posted by Toad
No. I think that's just more evidence that the number of guns isn't a determining factor in homicide crime. Probably the only thing Moore got right in BFC.
:( I have to agree with this opinion.
Homicide rate for Russia (firearms ban in effect since at least 1922) was higher than 41. during late 90s.
One can not rule out that these numbers include civilian loss of life during the 1st Chechen war, but still it's significantly higher than the US rate, though if we count the victims of 9\11 as homicide deaths, the numbers for both countries will get closer (for the year 2001).
A lot of other countries have the homicide rate higher than that of the USA but I don't know their gun laws.
http://www.haciendapub.com/stolinsky.html
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My, my Beetle; there you go trying to deny the obvious again.
Originally posted by beet1e
Yet you seem quite sure that large numbers of firearms were confiscated by the police... Feel free to use real data, rather than data you've made up.
[/b]
You do understand amnesty don't you? Good, follow along.
The legal firearms holders in your country all have a Firearms Certificate; it's required by law and lists the owner, guns and location.
Handguns were summarily made illegal and, according to a BBC article "The average custodial sentence was about 18 months". (There were plans for a 5 year minimum sentence which may have passed already.)
So, now you have gun owners registered with the police holding now illegal firearms. These gun owners are given an "amnesty" period to turn in the guns or be in violation facing an average term of 18 months just for possessing a handgun.
The cops know exactly who has the guns and who hasn't turned them in (if any). That's pretty much confiscation to anyone with a clue.
Beyond that, I assume your police have picked up guns from people who gave them up involuntarily. Unfortunately, according to another article I read, there are no recordkeeping requirements on the number of guns picked up in this manner. Could be one or it could be one million. Most certainly it has happened.
BEET:
As for your insistence that our parliament rushed the 1920 Firearms Act into law for fears of an uprising, you repeatedly cite "fears of Bolsheviks" in statements such as these: and That, my friend, is only your assessment. I did a search on this entire thread for "bolshev", and found it several times - but only in your posts, not in your quoted sources. In other words, the comparison made with Bolshevism is simply one of your embellishments.
[/b]
Sigh.
Report of the Sub-Committee on Arms Traffic-
...the anarchist or 'intellectual' malcontent of the great cities...
OK, Beet. Given the time, 1918, what currently notorious political movement would be the most likely? (Hint:) Oct 1917 The Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional government on the eve of the meeting of 2nd All-Russia Congress of Soviets.
In September 1917, Lord Curzon circulated to his fellow Cabinet ministers a letter from the Bishop of Oxford, warning of "Alleged Disaffection Existing Among British Troops at Home." The Bishop's letter warned that hunger, low pay, and a refusal to allow leave caused British soldiers to secretly put up a placard "to say that they were going to imitate the Russian soldiers" and that they engaged in "open sedition in speech."[44] (PRO CAB 24/25/355.
)
And what did the Russian soldiers do in 1917 Beet? Why they supported the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
Sir Basil Thomson, Scotland Yard's Director of Intelligence, wrote in late 1918 that "England would be spared the full horrors of Bolshevism" yet also believed that the nation could be severely damaged by "serious labour disturbances, carried on with the sympathy of the Police." Thomson also believed that "serious labour disturbances" were beyond the control of the police in big cities.[46]
(Andrew, Her Majesty's Secret Service, 228-229)
Is it clear enough that the Director of Scotland Yard was talking about Bolshevism?
now find myself convinced that in England Bolschevism [sic] must be faced and grappled with, the efforts of the International Jews of Russia combated and their agents eliminated from the United Kingdom. Unless some serious consideration is given to the matter, I believe that there will be some sort of Revolution in this country and that before 12 months are past....[47]
(Walter Long to Lloyd George, January 9, 1919, HLRO Lloyd George MSS F/33/2/3, quoted in Andrew, Her Majesty's Secret Service, 232)
Hmmmm. Walter Long writes to Lloyd George about Bolshevism. What was George's job at that time? He was sorta "big" in your government wasn't he?
The events of early 1919 seemed to confirm these fears of Communist revolution. A general strike in Glasgow led to the raising of the red flag over city hall. The Glasgow Herald called it a first step toward Bolshevism, and the Secretary of State for Scotland called it a Bolshevik rising. The army was mobilized, but the police restored order without the military's assistance.
(Andrew, Her Majesty's Secret Service, 233-234.)
Goodness! The Secretary of State for Scotland calling it a Bolshevik rising? Are you still going to maintain that no one was concerned about Bolshevism? Jeez, Beet... stop and think how you're making you and your Mum look. People are going to think you're both really from Arkansas.
How should the British government respond to these fears? There were differing proposals within the Cabinet. On February 27, 1919, Cabinet Secretary Thomas Jones wrote to Sir Maurice Hankey about the increasing problem of labor strife, and told how several Cabinet ministers responded to his proposals to defuse the concerns of the working classes with social policy changes.
According to Jones, his proposal drew "rather long faces" from several Cabinet ministers: "It was blank nonsense to talk of a bagatelle like [sterling]71,000,000 -- a cheap insurance against Bolshevism."[54] (Jones, Whitehall Diary, 1:79-80)
Hey Beet.. why would they consider insuring against Bolshevism?
Ok, now give it up before you make yourself look even more foolish.
It's clear Bolshevism was a major concern of the English leadership right before the Firearms Act of 1920. Further, it's clear the FA was a response driven by those fears. It's documented in your own governmental records.
BEET:
you are so misguided I almost feel like doing your homework for you! :lol FFS! The government wasn't in fear of an armed uprising!!
FFS! You haven't done any homework at all and it's YOUR history. Take your blinders off. This bears repeating:
The events of early 1919 seemed to confirm these fears of Communist revolution. A general strike in Glasgow led to the raising of the red flag over city hall. The Glasgow Herald called it a first step toward Bolshevism, and the Secretary of State for Scotland called it a Bolshevik rising. The army was mobilized, but the police restored order without the military's assistance.
(Andrew, Her Majesty's Secret Service, 233-234.)
You need to do a little research on "Bloody Friday, Jan 31, 1919. Robert Munro was Secretary of State for Scotland ; what he actually said (as reported in the paper) was:
"a misnomer to call the situation in Glasgow a strike-it was a Bolshevist rising".
Further, your government DID send troops... lots of troops and tanks to restore order. The strikers, mostly troops home from the war, beat the crap out of the Glasgow cops and ran them off. Educate yourself; you'll enjoy the story.
(http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr237/img/gr000035.jpg)
The famous image of Red Clydeside is the raising of the red flag above 35,000 striking engineering workers massed in Glasgow's George Square during the 40 hours strike that has gone down in history as Bloody Friday.
Tell me, Beet.. who used the red flag as their symbol?
Like I said all along - nothing to do with bolshevism or guns!!!!
Like I said - you simply don't know your own history.
At the same meeting, Home Secretary Shortt, Adjutant-General Sir George Macdonogh, and Robert Munro, Secretary of State for Scotland, discussed the logistics of using the air force to suppress revolution.[80] (Jones, Whitehall Diary, 1:99)
and
The following exchange between Prime Minister Lloyd George and his Cabinet ministers shows the level of fear that drove the government. It is also the only stated reason for restrictive firearms licensing in the classified documents or memoirs that predates introduction of the Bill in Parliament -- and the reason was fear of revolution:
The P.M. "You won't get sabotage at the beginning of the strike."
Roberts. "You will have to take sabotage at the beginning of the strike into account. There are large groups preparing for Soviet government."
Eric Geddes. "You have got to reckon on the electric power stations being put out of order."...
Macready. "On our information we do not run to the revolution yet. If there is an outbreak of strikes and if there is a sufficient force available, civil or military, to stop it at once, it will fizzle out. We were told today that 700 rifles were concealed in Liverpool. Supposing sabotage and violence get ahead it is very difficult to say how far they will go. We are taking private steps to secure the aid of a certain class of citizen."...
Long. "The peaceable manpower of the country is without arms. I have not a pistol less than 200 years old. A Bill is needed for licensing persons to bear arms. This has been useful in Ireland because the authorities know who were possessed of arms."
Shortt. "The Home Office has a Bill ready but in the past there have always been objections."
Bonar Law. "All weapons ought to be available for distribution to the friends of the Government."[81] (Jones, Whitehall Diary, 1:100)
It doesn't get any plainer than that Beet, but go ahead and pretend.
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BEET
...So please, do tell me: Where would these workers have acquired all their guns?
[/b]
Primarily from "war surplus" and "war booty"; that was the major concern.
New Zealand adopted a mandatory firearms registration law in 1920 because returning servicemen had brought pistols and automatic weapons back to New Zealand. "Revolution had occurred in Russia and there was a fear that large scale industrial demonstrations or even riot could occur here."[52]
(New Zealand Police Department, "Background to the Introduction of Firearms User Licensing Instead of Rifle and Shotgun Registration Under the Arms Act 1983", (Wellington, New Zealand: n.p., 1983), 2)
Your government had the same cocerns over returning war weapons that New Zealand did.
You might as well ask where the Irish Nationalists of that period were getting their arms. There were laws controlling firearms in Ireland even before England but the Irish Republicans still seemed to be able to get guns.
you cannot provide material to substantiate the "Great British Disarmament" - ie the mass confiscation.
It the government knows you have newly illegal arms and knows right where both you and the guns are and then offers amnesty... that's essentially confiscation. Deny it all you like, the stats on firearms licenses show that most legal owners complied. You can access those stats online, btw.
BEET
you have declined to answer my question as to why the elected government was returned to power, given that disarmament was as unpopular and draconian as you claim.
[/b]
Show me where I made that claim. Otherwise this is more Beetle Blather.
BEET
you have declined to answer WHO had all these guns that were confiscated.[/b]
I don't have access to your Firearms Certificate records. The totals are online, however, progressively from about '83 to 2000 IIRC. English citizens had the handguns; they don't anymore. If you want individual names, you'll have to go check your records.
BEET
Last time I checked, it was NOT a lethal weapon, and was not designed to cause death.
[/b]
So, let me give you a hypothetical.
If say 10 million sober Englishmen, driving correctly and legally, die this year in auto accidents and in every case the driver of the other vehicle.. who survives... was drunk as a Lord?
Because alcohol and autos are NOT leathal and not designed to cause death this would just be a "tsk, tsk .. too bad" event for you? You wouldn't support legislation banning alcohol?
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Originally posted by Toad
The legal firearms holders in your country all have a Firearms Certificate; it's required by law and lists the owner, guns and location.
Handguns were summarily made illegal and, according to a BBC article "The average custodial sentence was about 18 months". (There were plans for a 5 year minimum sentence which may have passed already.)
So, now you have gun owners registered with the police holding now illegal firearms. These gun owners are given an "amnesty" period to turn in the guns or be in violation facing an average term of 18 months just for possessing a handgun.
The cops know exactly who has the guns and who hasn't turned them in (if any). That's pretty much confiscation to anyone with a clue.
And how many people was that? Our police force is/was unarmed. If the workers were gathering for some sort of "Bolshevik" revolution as you suggest, how come it didn't happen? The next month, the Prime Minister was asking which parts of the army would remain loyal. The Cabinet discussed arming university men, stockbrokers, and trusted clerks to fight any revolution.[57] The Minister of Transport, Sir Eric Geddes, predicted "a revolutionary outbreak in Glasgow, Liverpool or London in the early spring, when a definite attempt may be made to seize the reins of government." "It is not inconceivable," Geddes warned, "that a dramatic and successful coup d'etat in some large center of population might win the support of the unthinking mass of labour."
I repeat: Please indicate to me the exact sections in the 1920 Firearms Act which exempted stockbrokers, "university men" and "trusted clerks". :lol
Like I said, after WW1, Britain was faced with the problem of significant numbers of weapons having found their way home from abroad. What I actually said was WW1 was the first armed conflict after which significant numbers of guns found their way back home. Legislation was needed to deal with this situation where none had been needed before. This was in no way connected with the discontent of the workers of those days, whose concerns were hours, working conditions and pay. In Britain (unlike communist Russia) it is legal to strike, and legal to demonstrate.
...to which your considered response was You're simply wrong for the same reasons posted above. The legislation was directly related to "armed workers" by the fears of your officials. It wasn't the workers; it was the people in power and their fear of armed workers that led to your Firearms Act of 1920.
But then you ended up agreeing with me by sayingYour government had the same cocerns over returning war weapons that New Zealand did.
You said Beyond that, I assume your police have picked up guns from people who gave them up involuntarily. Unfortunately, according to another article I read, there are no recordkeeping requirements on the number of guns picked up in this manner.
Awwww, shame. You assume? Naaah! Never would believe it!! :aok I'll repost something for you that may clear it up, but the basics are that in the 1920's gun control laws were implemented in response to a perceived threat to your ruling class from the Bolsheviks.
Better get with the times, Toad. In 1920, Britain was a democracy - not a totalitarian state like czarist Russia or communist Russia. Had the firearms regulations been so draconian, the Conservative government would have been voted out of office. It wasn't. It was re-elected in 1922, 1923 and 1924. OK, the majority was thin in 1923, but you have yet to respond to my question as to WHY the Conservative Party was re-elected - if their measures were so draconian. It the government knows you have newly illegal arms and knows right where both you and the guns are and then offers amnesty... that's essentially confiscation. Deny it all you like, the stats on firearms licenses show that most legal owners complied. You can access those stats online, btw.
If you finally agree with me that many of the small arms in Britain at that time were weapons that had come home from WW1, then these would have been army issue, not subject to civilian firearms permits at home, and it is unlikely that the police would have known about them. It comes as no surprise to me that many if not most of these weapons would have been turned in during an amnesty, as most holders would not have wanted to keep these weapons. Thus, in this context, amnesty DOES NOT = confiscation.
But what do you mean by the "ruling class"? In 1924, the first Labour Government (which represented the interests of the workers) was indeed elected under the leadership of Ramsay MacDonald. There was no revolution; his premiership was arrived at by the usual democratic process. ie THERE WAS NO REVOLUTION NECESSARY.
Some more of your quotes - Roberts. "You will have to take sabotage at the beginning of the strike into account. There are large groups preparing for Soviet government."
Eric Geddes. "You have got to reckon on the electric power stations being put out of order."...
Not sure who Roberts was, but politicians are renowned for talking bull! As for Geddes - yes, the power stations being put out of order. That's exactly what I was telling you about - it happened in three winters out of four in the 1970-1974 time frame. Sure, the Labour Party song is something to do with "the red flag flying", and for sure - a lot of the union militants at that time like Mick McGahey were self declared Marxists... but does this mean that there was a Bolshevik/Communist revolution imminent? Oh puhleeeezzze - quit the paranoia! :lol
You still cannot account for why the Conservative Party was returned to power in 1922, 1923 and 1924, and you still can't tell us WHO had all these weapons against which legislation was being enacted. I agree, there were returning war weapons, but there would have been no outlets selling ammunition - or do you know better?
Some other events for you to contemplate: In 1976, the leader of the Miners' Union, Arthur Scargill, was arrested for picketing the Grunwick film processing lab in North London. Holy Revolution, Batman! Another Communist takeover averted!!!
And read all about the 1984-1985 Miners' Strike - another example of workers running amok - punch ups with the police, and ooooh! - I bet they flew that naughty red flag! Margaret Thatcher was in power at that time. Was there a Communist/Bolshevik takeover? Erm.... no.
Mr. Toad, let me give you a little tip for you to bear in mind as you Google your way around the e-universe. Always beware of news reports from one country reporting the news in another country. And always be cautious about applying judgements from your own perspective when reading up on other countries. I learned this in 1981, when I was a guest in your country. Your media was reporting the imminent demise of Britain, which was "under a siege of worker unrest". I was so worried that I phoned my brother to find out what was going on. He put me at ease by advising me that there were pockets of unrest in Croxteth/Toxteth near Liverpool (mostly yobs who wanted a punch up with the police) but "otherwise, life goes on much the same". This was a useful lesson, and one I have always borne in mind when reading foreign news reports. Had you lived in any other country except your own, as I have done (two, actually) then you would know exactly what I meant.
Goodnight, Mr Toad.
And sweet dreams! (http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/jester.gif)
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Hehehe... beetle... you haven't made a single valid point in this thread. I can't help but notice how vacant your side of the argument has gotten supportwise.
I do like the "my mom said" retort. It reminded me of "The Waterboy" when Adam Sandler replied to the question "Why do crocodiles have such a mean demeanor?" with "my momma says its because they got all those teeth and no way to brush them."
Toad throws out quotes, you reply with "nuh-uh". Toad quotes more, you reply with, "huh-uh!". Damn dude... just let it go... you lost this one badly.
you poor, poor subject.
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Oh puhleeeezzze - quit the paranoia!
Paranoia is exactly what drove the British gov't to pass the FA in 1920. Paranoia about the Bolsheviks.
British homicides have basically stayed the same for well over 100 years. Britain's gun laws have not changed this.
One other thing will never change. Guns, cars, knives, baseball bats, cricket bats, cast iron skillets....they call all be used as weapons to kill another human being. Yet NONE of them can kill unless a *nutjob* picks one of them up and CHOOSES to use it as a weapon.
As long as human beings are in charge of this world we live in crime and murders will continue to happen. The best we can hope for is to minimize it.
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Originally posted by beet1e
And how many people was that? Our police force is/was unarmed. If the workers were gathering for some sort of "Bolshevik" revolution as you suggest, how come it didn't happen? I
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Been drinking Beet?
The part you quoted was in response to your question on post Hungerford/Dunblane confisications. The banning of handguns was the beginning of that and it happened far later than the '20's.
England's political leadership perceived the threat of Bolshevism and that was the driving force behind your firearms act of 1920. It is undeniable fact.
Try to get the timeline straight and then ask me what you wish to ask.
[ Beet:
repeat: Please indicate to me the exact sections in the 1920 Firearms Act which exempted stockbrokers, "university men" and "trusted clerks". :lol
[/b]
Try to read with comprehension. I never said it did.
However, in response to your ridiculous denial of the undeniable link between the Firearms Act of 1920 and the perceived the threat of Bolshevism , I posted this quotation:
At a Cabinet meeting on January 17, 1919, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff raised the threat of "Red Revolution and blood and war at home and abroad." He suggested that the government make sure of its arms.
The next month, the Prime Minister was asking which parts of the army would remain loyal. The Cabinet discussed arming university men, stockbrokers, and trusted clerks to fight any revolution.[57]
The Minister of Transport, Sir Eric Geddes, predicted "a revolutionary outbreak in Glasgow, Liverpool or London in the early spring, when a definite attempt may be made to seize the reins of government." "It is not inconceivable," Geddes warned, "that a dramatic and successful coup d'etat in some large center of population might win the support of the unthinking mass of labour."
(Footnote [57]: See Colin Greenwood, "The British Experience," in Gun Control Examined 31, a collection of papers presented at Conference on Gun Control, Melbourne University, Aug. 27-28, 1988.)
The Firearms Act of 1920 didn't exempt stockholders. No one said it did.
The point, which you continually obfuscate, is that the Prime Ministers cabinet was extremely concerned about the possiblity of a Russian-style Bolshevik revolution in England. To the extent that they even considered distributing firearms to people considered "trustworty" by the ruling class. Stockbrokers were in that group considered trustworthy. It's in the Cabinet meeting records; it's undeniable.
More proof?
To reinforce a weak and perhaps untrustworthy police force and army, Cabinet ministers had previously proposed a "citizen guard" of politically reliable men to fight against a Bolshevik revolution.
Thomas Jones' notes from the February 2, 1920 conference tell us:
During the discussion Bonar Law so often referred to the stockbrokers as a loyal and fighting class until one felt that potential battalions of stockbrokers were to be found in every town.[76] (Jones, Whitehall Diary, 1:101)
As I'm sure you know, the Prime Minister's Cabinet Secretary was Thomas Jones; the quotes are from his records of the Cabinet meetings.
Beet:
Like I said, after WW1, Britain was faced with the problem of significant numbers of weapons having found their way home from abroad. What I actually said was
[/b]
The part you actually said that was totally wrong was this:
BEET:
Legislation was needed to deal with this situation where none had been needed before. This was in no way connected with the discontent of the workers of those days
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The legislation was clearly and unmistakably "connected with the discontent of the workers of those days".
The fear of Bolshevism in England by those from the Prime Minister on down through his government has been undeniably documented in this thread. To the point that there's no need to belabor it further; unless you want to look even more silly.
Beet:
...But then you ended up agreeing with me by saying You said Awwww, shame.
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Hardly. What I said was the English government had the same fear of Bolshevism that the rulers in New Zealand demonstrated. The weapons were only a concern because of the fear of Bolshevism. Without that, I doubt there would have been any Firearms Acts in either country in all probability.
It's all documented in the records Beet. The fear of Bolshevism was the driving force behind the laws in England and New Zealand. Again, you're just making yourself look silly.
Are you saying that your police don't presently confiscate illegal weapons whenever they stumble upon them? No, of course you're not. So what I said is correct. As far as I can determine, published records are not available that tally those confiscations.
Beet
In 1920, Britain was a democracy - not a totalitarian state like czarist Russia or communist Russia.
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Which has does nothing to disprove the fact that George's government passed the Firearms Act in response to its fear of Bolshevism.
Beet:
but you have yet to respond to my question as to WHY the Conservative Party was re-elected
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Because that question has no bearing on the reasoning behind the Firearms Act.
Beet:
Thus, in his context, amnesty DOES NOT = confiscation.
Check your Home Office stats on the number of Firearms Certificate holders and the number of guns covered by those Certificates 1995. Then compare the same things in 2000. The number of firearms covered by the certificate has fallen by about half. I'm sure you know which types of firearms required a Certificate in 1995. That's confiscation, amenesty or not.
Beet:
but does this mean that there was a Bolshevik/Communist revolution imminent? Oh puhleeeezzze - quit the paranoia! :lol
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I did not say a revolution was imminent.
However, you've essentially said there was no fear of Bolshevism in your government in the period just prior to and immediately after the Firearms Act of 1920; that fear of Bolshevism was in no way related to the passing of the Firearms Act.
You are simply wrong.
I've given you far more than enough quotes to prove your wrong as well.
BTW, Roberts was the Food Controller in George's Cabinet at that time.
Pretty amazing about Minister of Transport Eric Geddes' prediction in early January 1920, eh?
"a revolutionary outbreak in Glasgow, Liverpool or London in the early spring, when a definite attempt may be made to seize the reins of government."
Then you have the Glasgow Bloody Friday, an event described by Robert Munro, Secretary of State for Scotland:
"a misnomer to call the situation in Glasgow a strike-it was a Bolshevist rising".
Yah, right Beet... they weren't worred about Bolshevism. :rofl
Beet: I agree, there were returning war weapons, but there would have been no outlets selling ammunition - or do you know better?
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I know two things. One, prior to and after the Firearms Act I'm sure there were gun shops in England selling common calibers, particularly English military pistol and rifle cartridges. No doubt they sold the more popular calibers from overseas as well. Secondly, apparently the Irish Republicans weren't having too much trouble getting ammo; the Irish experience is mentioned several times in the Cabinet's deliberations over the Bolshevik threat.
Besides, once again you're merely trying to obfuscate. The legislation was directly related to "armed workers" by the fears of your officials. It wasn't the workers; it was the people in power and their fear of armed workers that led to your Firearms Act of 1920. Your ammunition ploy is merely a smoke screen; it's clear what the government feared. Bolshevism.
Mr. Toad, let me give you a little tip for you
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Here's one for you Beet. If you desire to continue this discussion, you'll have to use your intellect and not your ego.
I'm quite familar with your ego; I'd like to see you use your intellect in this debate however.
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Originally posted by Mini D
Hehehe... beetle... you haven't made a single valid point in this thread. I can't help but notice how vacant your side of the argument has gotten supportwise.
I do like the "my mom said" retort. It reminded me of "The Waterboy" when Adam Sandler replied to the question "Why do crocodiles have such a mean demeanor?" with "my momma says its because they got all those teeth and no way to brush them."
Toad throws out quotes, you reply with "nuh-uh". Toad quotes more, you reply with, "huh-uh!". Damn dude... just let it go... you lost this one badly.
you poor, poor subject.
LOL MiniD! And here I was, expecting you to enlighten me on the difference between a "citizen" and a "subject". You haven't. Could it be that.... you don't know? :aok
I don't need any support in this thread, though all are welcome. What support does your side have - Toad... and you? Forgive me for feeling underwhelmed.
Mr. Toad! Yes, I had a glass of wine - note that it did not cause me to drive my car and cause a fatality.
Ah the perceived threat of Bolshevism - not necessarily a real threat then? I have to hand it to you - nice Googling, but...
...perhaps it would help if we could stick to actual facts and actual events? We all know that politicians have to allow for eventualities. And we all know that politicians/presidents get worked up about perceived threats when none exists at all. Look at your own president - mounted a war against Iraq whose initial cost was some $180bn on the strength that there were WMD in Iraq. None has been found, so was this perceived threat real? Lots of people think that it wasn't, and I think you could be one of them.
And according to your sources, the British govt. was paranoid about the possibility of a "Bolshevik Revolution" on British soil. It never happened. Why is that then? Well, unlike totalitarian Russia, our enfranchisement of the electorate extended to all persons aged 21 and over as of 1918. That was the year that Emily Pankhurst succeeded in getting votes for women. Why would the "potential Bolshevik revolutionaries" in Britain attempt to "seize the reins of government" when an electoral process existed in which they themselves could participate?
And assuming it went ahead, what form could this "Bolshevik Revolution" take? A march on Whitehall? The industrial North is some 150-200 miles away from London for one thing. How would they get there? But can you imagine a coordinated army of cloth capped workers marching up Whitehall, brandishing rusting relics brought home from where they were dropped in the Somme mud? The point, which you continually obfuscate, is that the Prime Ministers cabinet was extremely concerned about the possiblity of a Russian-style Bolshevik revolution in England. To the extent that they even considered distributing firearms to people considered "trustworty" by the ruling class. Stockbrokers were in that group considered trustworthy. It's in the Cabinet meeting records; it's undeniable.
And did this distribution ever take place? Did the "Bolshevik Revolutionaries" ever look like they were capable of mounting a coordinated armed uprising? Even if it was a perceived potential threat, I VERY much doubt it was a real threat. Do you agree? I did not say a revolution was imminent.
Alrighty, I'll take that as a YES then - or a MAYBE? I know two things. One, prior to and after the Firearms Act I'm sure there were gun shops in England selling common calibers, particularly English military pistol and rifle cartridges. No doubt they sold the more popular calibers from overseas as well. Secondly, apparently the Irish Republicans weren't having too much trouble getting ammo; the Irish experience is mentioned several times in the Cabinet's deliberations over the Bolshevik threat.
As I said before, the workers of that era were impoverished, and worked long hours for low pay in crappy conditions. You can't come up with official gun ownership records amongst the working classes of that era and neither can I. But it seems highly unlikely that we had a society of gun enthusiasts who would go tin can plinking on a Saturday morning. Life was work and sleep for those workers.
Earlier you quoted thus: A general strike in Glasgow led to the raising of the red flag over city hall. The Glasgow Herald called it a first step toward Bolshevism, and the Secretary of State for Scotland called it a Bolshevik rising.
First step towards Bolshevism? LOL! :lol It's the freaking Labour Party anthem, my friend! That was the party that came to power in 1924 under the leadership of Ramsay MacDonald - the result of a democratic electoral process which we know as a General Election! Here is some info - The Red Flag soon became the anthem of the International Labour Party and it echoed around the world, sung with fire and fervour. Ramsay MacDonald tried to have it replaced as the Labour Party Anthem in 1925 but even though there were over three hundred entries in a competition he was unsuccessful. However Tony Blair and 'New Labour' decided in 1999 the stirring old socialist anthem would no longer be sung to close the Labour Party Conferences but it will continue to be sung 'no matter what Blair or New Labour might think.'.
Bolshevism indeed!!! Source: http://www.wcml.org.uk/culture/songs_redflag.htm
So the 1920 Firearms Act did not exempt stockbrokers and their ilk? Funny that. I was led to believe that our firearms legislation of that time was part of a government orchestrated persecution and seizure of the people's rights. Looks like it applied to everyone then? Well that's no surprise. We never had a 2nd amendment, and were therefore never beholden to the ridiculous belief that flooding our society with guns would reduce crime. The people who would have been able to afford guns/ammo and had to time to use them for practice shooting, if that's what they chose to do, would have been the more affluent segments of society, and natural Conservative voters. So IF they gave up their rights against their wishes in accordance with some draconian government mandate, and IF it was so devastating, and IF there were so many of them, then how come the Conservative Party was re-elected in 1922? (and 1923, and 1924)
Ah yes, the Irish question. In Ireland there was the 1916 Uprising - Michael Collins and all that. They did have guns... I wonder where they got them from.
The IRA was a bloody nuisance to us through the 70s and beyond. There was a lot of talk about them disarming, but quite where it has got to I don't know. The IRA is an illegal terrorist organisation in Britain. As you know, the political wing is known as Sinn Fein. I did a bit of Googling and came up with this photo. It shows the two Sinn Fein leaders Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams. See if you recognise the guy in the middle of this cosy tete a tete.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1065000/images/_1069002_clinadams300.jpg)
Well, who would have thought that flying the red flag could have been the first stages of a Bolshevik Rebellion! As I have explained earlier, Eric Geddes' concern regarding the workers' targeting of our power stations was close to the mark. This did indeed happen - not in 1920 perhaps, but in the 1970s. The end result was that the government WAS brought down - but I hardly think of this as a "Bolshevik Rebellion", which is what you're talking about. It was the result of an election, in which Labour presided over a hung parliament.
10 years later, the tables turned. There was a massive miners' strike that lasted a year, with scenes as ugly as the pic you posted about Glasgow. Thatcher crushed it. The power stations were well stocked. The perceived threat was indeed real.
BOLSHEVIK ALERT!!
NUM pickets clash with police in the 1984-1985 miners' strike.
(http://www.aslef.org.uk/news/miners/miners_running.jpg )
(http://www.aslef.org.uk/news/miners/police_outside_house.jpg)
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Beet... you still haven't made a single relevant point. The only thing you've managed to do is to seize on obscure points (red flag?) and throw a wall of text at them.
Your fundamental reply to Toad's quotes from your parliament was "I don't think so." Nothing else. You're whole argument in this thread has been the same. The quotes you post actually do more to support Toad's argument than your own... and you don't even realize it.
Let's see... someone claiming to stick to actuall facts has used:
I don't think so
Nuh-uh
My mother said...
in this thread.
You really do need to wake up and come up with a point beet.
You do know that you talking about the working class not needing guns and being disgruntled because of long hours basically supports toad's argument... right?
Damn man... what is it with people sticking to such fundamentally flawed arguments out of shear ignorance these days?
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well... despite all the BS beet is throwing around I think all of us here can see that "sensible" gun laws and regestration and "amnesty" simply mean confiscation.l
If you are an American and value your right to keep and bear arms then you should read this thread and see what has happened in most of the UK.
George soros and rebecca peters and the UN and finestein won't give up on their plan to confiscate all useful arms from Americans until they are dead.
If they achive it... we will have American apologists like beetle. they will be touting the reduction in gun homicides while homicides themselves will have gone up and riots and crime through the roof... that is... unless we have a strong socialist government to protect us.... like the old soviet russia for instance.
lazs
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Well then, I guess this debate has reached it's end.
I told you I would not continue unless you used your intellect.
You've been proven wrong yet again Beetle; you ignored direct evidence from Parliamentary records and direct quotes of office holders.
Your red herrings, though numerous, are easily seen for what they are.
It is beyond all doubt to any rational reader of this thread that potential Bolshevism was the key factor in England's Firearms Act of 1920.
That you refuse to admit that is your problem, not mine. You're merely validating the image of you that Tomato attested to herself. You are incapable of admitting you're wrong in any situation. (Tomato must be quite a woman to put up with that.)
In that case, I'll close and let the readers decide. I feel I've more than made my case and you've shown absolutely nothing but that famous inability to admit you're simply wrong.
I'm guessing you may have got that from your Mum.
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course boshevism wasn't allways the excuse......
"St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries (1803)
19
[Annotation to Blackstone's discussion of the right to have arms as the fifth and last auxiliary right:]
The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence [fn40] suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. [fn41]
[fn40] The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government.
[fn41] Whoever examines the forest, and game laws in the British code, will readily perceive that the right of keeping arms is effectually taken away from the people of England. The commentator himself informs us, "that the prevention of popular insurrections and resistence [sic] to government by disarming the bulk of the people, is a reason oftener meant than avowed by the makers of the forest and game laws."
[A separate discussion in an Appendix, specifically about the Second Amendment.]
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep, and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty . . . . The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms, is under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty. [Editorial note: I understand that this last sentence is considered by some historians to be an exaggeration. 20]
when you have no rights save what your politicians allow you.... then any excuse is good enough to take then away.
let england be our example of what not to do.... just as it has allways been.
lazs
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Well OK then.
MiniD - I guess I'm never going to know the difference between a citizen and a subject then, huh? ;) "The only thing you've managed to do is to seize on obscure points (red flag?) and throw a wall of text at them. " I wasn't the one who made first mention of the red flag. One of Toad's quotes said "red flag over city hall. The Glasgow Herald called it a first step toward Bolshevism,". I don't agree. As of 1918, there were already 57 Labour MPs sitting in the House of Commons - you know, the party whose anthem is "The Red Flag".
"You do know that you talking about the working class not needing guns and being disgruntled because of long hours basically supports toad's argument... right?" And what argument is that? According to Toad's sources, the 1920 Act "sailed through parliament" - ie no resistance from His Majesty's Opposition, and no protest/demonstration that I am aware of by any group from any social class. I'm sure Toad would have Googled the source - if there was one. Furthermore, when the British Prime Minister himself belonged to the "Red Flag" party (Ramsay MacDonald, 1924 and 1929-1935) I know of no attempts to repeal the 1920 Act in deference to the needs of the workers. There was a major revolt - the 1926 General Strike, but I am unaware of any armed uprising in the course of this event or of any shots being fired at all. Again, if there had been, I'm sure Mr. Toad would have Googled it. He didn't.
Even if we accept Toad's sources - that the reasoning for the 1920 law was the perceived threat of of an armed uprising, do we necessarily believe it? Even if some politicians said that, it doesn't mean they believed it themselves. That's why I threw in that reference to Iraq. Your pres. said that the real reason for the Iraq war was WMD in Iraq, but there are many people who never believed there were WMD in Iraq and many who didn't believe the pres. believed it himself. "All about oil" is what I heard - though I don't necessarily agree myself.
Mr. Toad! :) How nice to be able to agree with you wholeheartedly at the end of a thread: You're right - Tomato is a hell of a woman. :cool:
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yes... tomato is a hell of a woman. It was all I could do to let you keep her.. the begging helped.
lazs
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Yes, perhaps her only fault is her choice in men.
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Originally posted by lazs2
yes... tomato is a hell of a woman. It was all I could do to let you keep her.. the begging helped.
lazs
:rofl Told Tomato you said that! We had a laugh. ;)
Mr. Toad! I'm looking forward to the next one already. :aok
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Beet, I relish an honest discussion with intelligent people.
I know you're intelligent but your posts in this thread have certainly cast doubt on your honesty. There's only so much unmitigated ego I can stomach.
There may or may not be a "next one". That depends on you.
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Beet1l you remind me of some Americans who when presented with evidence refuse to believe it. And people call Americans ignorant heh.
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Originally posted by Toad
Beet, I relish an honest discussion with intelligent people.
I know you're intelligent but your posts in this thread have certainly cast doubt on your honesty. There's only so much unmitigated ego I can stomach.
There may or may not be a "next one". That depends on you.
Toad - thank you for those few kind words.
FWIW I don't think I was being disingenuous. In my heart of hearts I really do believe that there was absolutely NO actual threat of an armed uprising of the British working classes, and the events after 1920 support my belief.
I then provided a somewhat obvious example (Iraq) to illustrate that the perceived threat (or at least the declared perceived threat) is sometimes out of all proportion to the actual threat.
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This is absolutely my last word on this.
No one in this thread, certainly not myself, made the case that there was an actual threat of an armed uprising of the British working classes.
What I said was George's government perceived a major threat of Bolshevism in England and the Firearms Act of 1920 was the direct result of the government's perception. This is indisputable, considering the wealth of historical data that supports this position.
In order to avoid admitting that you're mistaken, you continually twisted this (amongst other points you twisted) into NO actual threat of an armed uprising of the British working classes, which was not in the least germane to the discussion of the point.
Your Iraq example is another red herring that merely blows more smoke. It's easily turned around. Whether or not the WMD threat was there is immaterial when considering WHY the government decided to act. They decided to act because they perceived the threat. This is EXACTLY why George's government passed the Firearms Act of 1920, the perceived threat of Bolshevism. So, you merely agree that governments act on perceived threats.
Bottom line is that there is irrefutable documented evidence in the records of the Cabinet meetings, in the press, in historical research and in private memoirs that the Firearms Act of 1920 was passed due to a perceived threat of Bolshevism.
Now, I can either assume you are intelligent enough to understand that but that your ego prevents you from admitting you were mistaken. And, as I said, I've had about enough ego, to the point that future discussions are rather pointless.
Or I can assume you are simply not that intelligent which makes further discussions rather pointless as well.
I would prefer that you simply drop the ego. We are all wrong at some point; its no big deal to admit it.
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Not me....I'm never wrong and you know it too!!!
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Who needs utensils anyway? What about all those hunters who woof about not needing to go to the supermarket to feed their family..yada yada yada...
I say ban all eating instruments, and we can tear the meat off the bone with our hands...you know, be real men...
In fact, ban EVERYTHING god-damnit
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I don't care what they ban so longt as there are no penalties involved for not observing the ban.
lazs
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OK, Mr. Toad. I'm getting rather tired of it too. I have a visitor here from America (I'll come back to this) , and don't want to spend a long time on this post.
Actually what pisses me off about your analysis of British firearms laws is the way you depict us as a nation of sheep, powerless to protest about legislation that was passed. We had the 1920 Firearms Act, and as your earlier quoted sources have said, it "sailed through parliament". Now to me, this comes as no surprise for the simple reason that no-one here (apart from pockets of special interest groups like your beaters) gives a fork about guns, and therefore it comes as no surprise to me that there was no opposition to this legislation. Points to note are that the Conservative government that passed it was re-elected, and that there was no opposition from any social class (natural Conservative supporter or natural Labour supporter). Indeed, when Ramsay MacDonald was elected (in 1924 and 1929-1935) I am unaware of any attempts to repeal this legislation. Guns were not an issue, and whatever conversations and other banter wafted around Whitehall at that time, there was never any actual threat of an armed proletarian uprising. However, don't think that as "British subjects" (as some people are fond of reminding us) that the people were not prepared to stand up to fight on issues which were important to them: Wages, hours and working conditions were the primary issues, and the workers did indeed protest in the 1926 General Strike. But I haven't heard of the workers protesting about any gun rights being taken away.
And yet you seem unable to grasp the fact that maybe - just maybe - any surplus arms were handed in voluntarily. You saidOriginally posted by Toad
So, now you have gun owners registered with the police holding now illegal firearms. These gun owners are given an "amnesty" period to turn in the guns or be in violation facing an average term of 18 months just for possessing a handgun.
The cops know exactly who has the guns and who hasn't turned them in (if any). That's pretty much confiscation to anyone with a clue.
How would the cops know who had guns and who didn't after WW1? What police records would have existed? How could they know if a returning soldier had picked up a weapon dropped on the battlefield by a dead soldier or even an enemy soldier? In the chaos following the war, the cops wouldn't have known who had what - especially as guns for the war would have been tracked by military records, not police records - if they were tracked at all. Even if they did - how could they deal with it? Are you suggesting they searched every working man's home in the land? - there would have been millions. Hardly seems plausible. Besides, if they were that worried, all they had to do was to cut off the supplies of ammunition and/or examine records of ammo sales...
For me, however, it's much easier to accept the scenario of weapons being handed in voluntarily. We were never an armed society as yours has been since Day1. We were never a nation of frontiersmen. We never had to have our menfolk defending the property by standing on the stoop with a rifle.
But for you (and other American gun enthusiasts consumed with the rights conferred upon them by your 2nd amendment) the notion of voluntarily handing in a weapon to the authorities because it is no longer wanted or needed is inconceivable. So for you, any such amnesty is tantamount to confiscation.
As for how disinterested our country is about guns, you only have to look at the low rate of UK participation in these gun threads. Apart from me (and I have a special interest having lived in the US) we have maybe one or two others - that's all. And as I said before, when I came to sell my Joyce Lee Malcolm book about guns in Britain, the eBay ad attracted just a single bid of £2 - that's how much interest there is in guns here.
My visitor here is an English friend - a mere subject - who has lived in Arkansas for about 4 years. We were talking this morning about the process of applying for US citizenship - something he doesn't intend to do. He's happy with his green card. I asked him if there's anything he cannot do as a non-citizen. The only thing he knows about is not being able to vote. I asked him if he could buy a gun - yes he can. The only stipulation is that he be a resident of the state...
...so is he going to buy one, given that about 60-70% of the people he knows out there have guns? Nope... why not? He doesn't see the need for one. In a way, it would be neat if he did - think of it - a British "subject", owning a gun legally in the US. :lol
By the way, Toad, I think you'll find that our PM, David Lloyd George, had a double barrelled surname even if it wasn't hyphenated. Hence, his surname was Lloyd George, not simply George.
Toodle-Pip
Beet.
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Actually beetle, voluntary would have involved the people turning in the surplus weapons before ligislation mandated it. You don't voluntarily do something after being told to do it, you comply.
Not a very strong argument on the "we aren't sheep" side of hte fence.
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As you seem convinced about Bolshevism, and have googled the references, I have to ask myself - did the government really believe it themselves, or was it smoke and mirrors to galvinise the commons into action and pass the new law?
I brought up Iraq because there are plenty of people who do not believe there was ever any threat of WMD in Iraq, and do not believe that even your government believed it.
As for Britain, you point out that stockbrokers/trusted clerks were being considered for being armed by the government, and yet you have agreed that they were not granted exemption from the 1920 Act. Can you explain?
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Originally posted by Mini D
You don't voluntarily do something after being told to do it, you comply.
Oh yeah? So what were all those "when guns are outlawed, then I'll be an outlaw" bumper stickers I see in the US? And do you assume that all British people do what they're told? The law says "do not burgle". I guess some people just cannot read. :aok
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Once again, the word volunteer does not apply to a mandated action. The term "amnesty" does not equate to "volunteer". There is a very specific statement being made with both: Turn in your guns or go to jail.
Oh yeah... they "volunteered". No... they complied in order to avoid jail.
But... feel free to bring up the U.S. philosophy on it Beetle. Just don't try to pretend you aren't saying that brit's are sheep when you use that one. It won't wash.
Your government has you convinced that as long as you do what they say you'll be just fine. That's cool. It will stay cool until you actually come to terms with the fact that when it isn't just fine, you'll be absolutely powerless to do anything about it. Our country operates under the philosophy that no branch of government is to be trusted completely and the voters themselves are never in a position where they are powerless to defend themselves from either individuals or government action.
It might seem odd, but a system built on distrusting any branch of government seems to make a hell of a lot more sense to me.
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Originally posted by beet1e
And yet you seem unable to grasp the fact that maybe - just maybe - any surplus arms were handed in voluntarily. You said How would the cops know who had guns and who didn't after WW1? What police records would have existed?
[/b]
Are you really that obtuse? I've previously pointed out that my statement you quoted refers to the post-Dunblane/Hungerford amnesties. Obviously you're not really reading what I post.
For the rest of it, you'll have to wait. I could explain... again... but since you aren't reading what I write I see no purpose. I think if you reread the posts you'll find your answers already there.
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Originally posted by beet1e
As you seem convinced about Bolshevism, and have googled the references, I have to ask myself - did the government really believe it themselves, or was it smoke and mirrors to galvinise the commons into action and pass the new law?
I brought up Iraq because there are plenty of people who do not believe there was ever any threat of WMD in Iraq, and do not believe that even your government believed it.
As for Britain, you point out that stockbrokers/trusted clerks were being considered for being armed by the government, and yet you have agreed that they were not granted exemption from the 1920 Act. Can you explain?
Dear Mr Beet,
It's an odd thing to deny that in 1920 the red flag was used PRIMARILY as the flamboyant symbol of the international Soviet revolution (i.e. of Bolshevism). The red flag was the state standard of the Soviet Russia since Jan.28, 1918 till Dec.30, 1922 when it was adopted as the state standard of the USSR.
http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Russia.htm
In the early 1920s the Communist parties of several other european countries established Soviet governments (e.g. Bavarian Soviet republic in Germany, Hungarian Soviet republic). Read about the use of the red flag early in 1920 in Germany in the link below.
http://www.thedempseyarchives.com/1920.htm
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By March 20 of this year in Germany a Red Army of 50,000 workers loyal to the Communist Party has occupied a large part of the Ruhr industrial district, and on today also the Communist newspapre the Ruhr Echo announces that the red flag must fly in victory over all of Germany. "Germany must become a Republic of Soviets and, in union with Russia, the springboard for the coming victory of the World Revolution and World Socialism." (SOURCE: Quoted in ADOLF HITLER by John Toland Ballantine Books (paperback), pp. 100-101)..
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It just looks that they don't teach history of the world in the British schools.
The Red Scare of the 1920s was not connected with the proud symbol of Labour, but with the same Red Flag being used as the symbol of the "world revolution" propagated at that time by the head of the Russia's Soviet government Vladimir Lenin and the Red Army chief Lev Trotskiy.
:D :aok :rofl :cool: :rolleyes: :mad:
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Originally posted by Mini D
There is a very specific statement being made with both: Turn in your guns or go to jail.
Oh yeah... they "volunteered". No... they complied in order to avoid jail.
Oh sure. You're saying they complied in order to avoid jail, but you go along with the belief that an armed bolshevik uprising was in the works. I think they would have faced a worse punishment than jail had they gone ahead with that. If charges of treason were upheld, it could have been the gallows. By the way, still waiting for you to point out the advantages of citizen v subject. This is the third time of asking, and I don't think you have an answer. Hehe, as to your armed citizens mounting an uprising against your military, I don't think a .44 magnum is going to do you much good against cluster bombs, cruise missiles and anything else they could throw at you.
Genozaur - I'm not disputing the origins of the red flag. What I'm saying is that its use was not exclusive to Russians/Bolsheviks etc. It was then and is now used by the British Labour party, and was the party anthem sung at conferences all the way back in the 1920s. So for a newspaper to cite the flying of the red flag as the first step towards bolshevism is somewhat questionable, given that there were already 57 Red Flag singing Labour MPs sitting in the House of Commons. Not only that, the Labour Party came to power for the first time in 1924. Oh gollygosh! - Britain now had a PM who would sing the Red Flag at the end of a party conference!
Mr. Toad,
I don't feel much like arguing - I've just got back from a family funeral and I'm not feeling chirpy.
I have been looking through earlier posts, and your claim about the reality of any "bolshevist threat" seems to centre on having been able to come up with "evidence" from cabinet records.
I would have to say that this means bugger all. Tony Blair told us in the build up to the Iraq war that Iraq could strike British interests at 45 minutes notice. That was exposed as BS, and it's even questionable whether Blair believed it himself. Many believe it was just an excuse to comply with his boss in Washington to go to war. But I'm sure it's all in cabinet records.
But you seem to practise selective acceptance of quotes. For example, when the government's 1920 Bill was presented to Parliament as strictly a measure "to prevent criminals and persons of that description from being able to have revolvers and to use them", you added Of course 1920 would not be the last time a government lied in order to promote gun control.
The syntax of the vB code in that quote was incorrect, so it wasn't clear whether that was what you believe, or whether you were quoting someone else. But the fact that you included it would seem to suggest that you agree with it.
MiniD is right about one thing- we can't completely trust government/politicians. We cannot believe what they say with impunity. Clearly, if one side said the purpose of the 1920 Firearms Act was "to prevent criminals and persons of that description from being able to have revolvers and to use them", and another side said the real reason was to suppress an armed "bolshevik uprising", then someone is lying. So why don't we cast aside what people said, and look instead at the actual facts and actual events that unfolded from c1918.
- 1918 - 57 Labour MPs elected to House of Commons
- 1918 soldiers returning from WW1 bringing with them an unknown quantity of army issue weapons.
- 1920 Firearms Act "sails through parliament"
- no opposition from the aristocracy or affluent members of society to the Act
- no opposition from working classes to the Act
- 1922/23/24 Conservative Party in power in 1920 re-elected, despite having passed "draconian" gun control legislation which "stripped people of their rights".
- 1924 - Britain elects first ever Labour Government, which does not repeal the Act, despite some claims that it targeted the working people whose interests were represented by that government.
- No armed "bolshevik uprising" ever took place. No attempt was made to "seize the reins of government" because a government representing the interests of the workers was elected by democratic electoral process in 1924.
- Despite claims that the government of 1920 had secret plans to arm "stockbrokers, trusted clerks and university men" to ward off a "bolshevik threat", no evidence has been presented indicating that these groups were exempt from the 1920 Act.
- 1926 - the proletarian classes showed that they were NOT powerless to rise up and protest (whatever MiniD would have you believe) and mounted a campaign which became known as The General Strike
- No evidence of arms being used in this struggle, and no evidence of any shots being fired.
Looks pretty much to me that all segments of the population accepted gun control - I know that's hard for some people to fathom, but there it is.
When the workers protested in 1926, the issues at stake were hours, pay and conditions. Guns wasn't one of them.
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There's no point in continuing.
You either have no clue what the points of discussion are here or you are once again deliberately avoiding them. Possibly both, I guess.
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(http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Mptv/1361/9360_0101.jpg)
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LOL! beetle, your ability to adress this subject is laughable. You seem to believe what is posted when it agrees with your perceptions, and call it lies when it doesn't. Hell.. that would happen if it were two quotes from the same source.
And Beetle, and armed uprising can be stopped. But it's a hell of a lot more difficult to stop one than an unarmed uprising. Ignoring that simple concept speaks volumes.
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Originally posted by Mini D
You seem to believe what is posted when it agrees with your perceptions, and call it lies when it doesn't.
Funny that - I was thinking the same thing about Toad. That's why I said OK - let's forget about what people said, and focus on actual events. the Home Secretary presented the government's 1920 gun bill to Parliament as strictly a measure to prevent criminals and persons of that description from being able to have revolvers and to use them
Seems pretty clear to me that this statement is in keeping with events right from 1920 to the present day - and yet Toad denounced it as a lie.
Never did get that citizen/subject comparison from you. :confused:
Toad said "This is absolutely my last word on this."
"There are final hits, and then there are final hits - which kind would this one be?" - Trainspotting. ;)
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1) Actually, you believe a statement that uses the word "strictly". Blindly at that. My money says there was more to it than what you insist it "strictly" was intended to do. You're the one saying a specific thing despite being shown quotes from your own legislators saying otherwise. That's ignorance plain and simple beetle.
2) the rest of your post consists of throwing a smoke grenade and dodging alot.
You're really having a serious amount of trouble grasping simple concepts beet. That's a shame. Expected, but still a shame.
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Originally posted by Mini D
1) Actually, you believe a statement that uses the word "strictly". Blindly at that. My money says there was more to it than what you insist it "strictly" was intended to do. You're the one saying a specific thing despite being shown quotes from your own legislators saying otherwise. That's ignorance plain and simple beetle.
Like I said, selective acceptance by both you and Toad. You're quite happy to accept unconditionally quotes made by the Minister of Transport, Eric Geddes, if the content suits your point of view, but reject out of hand the home secretary's reasoning for the 1920 Firearms Act.
And WHY was doubt cast on the home secretary's statement? Because In fact, the problem of criminal, non-political misuse of firearms remained minuscule.
In other words, because gun crime was low, you had to believe that there was some other ulterior motive behind the Act. You simply cannot believe that the introduction of gun control was designed as a pre-emptive measure to contain crime. What should have happened? Should we have waited until crime was out of control before beginning to address the problem? Toad seems to think that we should. In another thread, Toad said If it makes NO DIFFERENCE in the crime rate... and it didn't... why pass the law that makes legitimate recreational shooting illegal? Why should any part of your population be subjected to that when it makes NO DIFFERENCE in the crime rate?
Thing is, I believe that our gun control laws DO make a difference. Less than 10% of our homicides are committed with guns, and potential murderers have to resort to much less efficient means, or not bother at all. That's why our homicide tally is around 750/year, and yours is around 16000.
According to one of Toad's sources, quoted earlier, the Report of the Committee on the Control of Firearms 2 (1918) stated that There can surely be no question that the public interest demands that direct control shall in future be exercised in the United Kingdom . . . over the possession, manufacture, sale and import and export of firearms and ammunition; and the only practical question for consideration appears to be how this control can be most efficiently established.
For me and the vast majority of other Brits, and anyone else who has a clue, that makes perfect sense. AFAIC, the homicide stats in the years since bear ample witness to that.
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subjects allways believe everything their government tells em to believe.... What choice do they have?
lazs
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Actually it's a good thing Brits aren't allowed to posess handguns- look at how they riot at soccer matches. Would you really want those hooligans (sorry Hooligan, no offense intended) armed?
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yep... the slaughter at the soccer matches is barbaric to most people yet.... it is tolerated because it is a small price to pay for such stirring entertainment as watching an idiotic game.... people are losing their lives over a game and yet I am being told I don't have the right to defend myself because gun deaths are somehow worse than being hit on the head or stabbed to death!
Everyone wants to be the boss and knows what is best for everyone else so they love to ban crap... till it is their ox being gored.
lazs
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Lazs & Airhead! I luv ya both! :aok
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LOL I love you too, Beet. :)
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I've done some more Googling of my own, and gone in search of data supporting Mr. Toad's case that the passing of our 1920 Firearms Act was driven by fears about a Bolshevik uprising in Britain.
Indeed, David Lloyd George disliked Bolsheviks! And I have been able to find references citing Bolshevism as the reason for the Act. But when I check out the sources, it usually turns out that the author of the source is American, viewing the issue here from an American perspective. No offence to you guys, but the laws as they are now WRT guns are pretty much the way most people want them. Sure, I saw Joyce Lee Malcolm quoted, and then an article by a guy called Clayton Cramer, who passionately agrees with Mr. Toad on this issue. But - a single Google search on this guy was all that was needed to identify him as an American gun nut.
I tried to stick to more plausible sources, and found a link to the Blackwell Committee Report on the Control of Firearms. The report is too long to post here, but I will post a couple of short excerpts. (By the way, this report makes no mention of Bolshevism. Also note that the events mentioned in the report and cited as a justification for a change in the law happened c1911-1913 - long before the Russian/Bolshevik revolution of 1917)
Blackwell Report (http://members.aol.com/gunbancon/Frames/1-blackw.htm)
(2) Grounds for strengthening the Law.-That the control of firearms should be made far more stringent than it is now is a proposition which hardly anyone could be found to question. Attention had been called to the matter in Parliament before the war, and on the 13th of March 1913, a Return was made to the House of Commons of the cases in which firearms had been used against Police Officers in England and Wales in the five years 1908-1912. The Return (Paper 188 of 1913) showed that in these five years 47 cases had occurred, in which 92 Police Officers had been shot at, 6 had been killed and 24 had been injured. In 34 of the 47 cases the weapon used was known to be a revolver or some other kind of pistol. Of the 47 cases 15 occurred in the Metropolitan Police District.
******** In October, 1912, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informed the Home Secretary that in the dock strike of that year seven cases had occurred in which men concerned in the strike came into the hands of the Police for using firearms and five others for carrying them though not actually using them; and that ten other cases of the carrying of firearms were known to the Police, although in these no offender had been actually apprehended or summoned. The Commissioner of Police has also furnished us with other figures to show the extent to which firearms were used for criminal purposes, or if not actually used, were at any rate in the possession of persons who came into the hands of police, in the three years 1911-1913 and 1915-1917 respectively. It appears that in the three years 1911-1913, firearms were used in the Metropolitan Police District by 100 persons of British nationality and by 23 aliens; while firearms were found in the possession of British subjects in 76 cases and of aliens in 27 cases. The corresponding figures in the three years 1915-1917 were 42 and 5 as regards the use of firearms by British subjects and aliens, respectively, and 44 and 10 as regards the possession of them. The decline in the latter period as compared with the three years before the war is no doubt due to the restrictions on the purchase of firearms imposed by the Regulations under the Defence of the Realm Act, and the measures taken for the internment of alien enemies during the war; but if firearms can be brought into the country or obtained here with the same ease when peace is concluded as the law at present allows, the numbers may be expected to rise to or above their former level.
******** The returns also show that in nearly half of the cases in which firearms were used, sometimes with fatal effect, in the Metropolitan Police District in the years 1910-17, they appear to have been used without any particular premeditation in the course of ordinary quarrels - in some cases in street-fights - when, but for the offender's possession of a lethal weapon, probably no serious harm would have been done or attempted. In many of these cases the Courts appear to have taken an extremely lenient view of the offence of using firearms; and the question whether it would not be to the interest of public order that more deterrent penalties should be imposed for this offence, even when no serious injury may have been inflicted, and particularly when firearms are used or carried by persons engaged in crime, is one which it seems to us might well be submitted for the consideration of judicial authorities. In any case the Returns show that there is good reason for so altering the law as to make it much more difficult to obtain firearms than it is at present.
This next excerpt bears out what I said about the significant numbers of weapons returning from WW1. I've highlighted passages of particular interest.
2. It will be seen, therefore, that prior to the war there was strong reason for amending the law, and this was recognised by the Government in 1911 when the Bill to which we shall presently refer in detail was drafted under the instructions of the Home Secretary. Strong, however, as the case was in 1911, it is immensely stronger now. We have to face the situation that the war will have added enormously to the world's stock of rifles and pistols, that large numbers of pistols, and possibly other weapons, will have come into the possession of private persons, notably discharged soldiers and their relatives, and that the number of men skilled in the use of firearms will have greatly increased. It must also be borne in mind that we can hardly hope to escape on demobilisation an increase in crime. Large numbers of the criminal classes have entered the Army, both voluntarily and under the Military Service Acts; and however effective may be the measures taken to facilitate the return of discharged soldiers to civil life and peaceful occupations, it would be unreasonable to expect that all these men will be ready to settle down at once to agricultural or industrial employment. There would be additional ground for apprehension if men of this class, and indeed discharged soldiers in general, were permitted to retain any revolvers which have come into their possession during their army service, or to procure them under the easy conditions allowed by the existing law.
Yep - pretty much as I said. It's funny, the web page from where I got this report was disdainful of the 1920 Act, adopting the Toadite stance of "If gun crime is low, why pass a law restricting guns?" The reason was, of course, as I said - a pre-emptive measure. A bit like a vaccination against a nasty disease.
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yep... wouldn't want anyone to get that nasty ol disease of personal freedom now... just wouldn't do eh what? Next the peasants will be wanting to hunt on the queens land and all that rot.
lazs
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Originally posted by beet1e
It's funny, the web page from where I got this report was disdainful of the 1920 Act, adopting the Toadite stance of "If gun crime is low, why pass a law restricting guns?" The reason was, of course, as I said - a pre-emptive measure. A bit like a vaccination against a nasty disease.
I agree Beet- your gun ban was a vaccination against those deadly "-ism" diseases- Nazism, Commiunism, Socialism, Tolitarinism...
Of course the side effects are a spiraling home invasion crime rate that's three times what we have in America, and a whole bunch of reevaluation as Britan has begun experiencing the same kinds of immigration related crimes America has had for over 200 years.
Welcome to the New Millenium Beet. :cool:
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they will get it soon enough... england is allways just a decade or two behind the U.S.
lazs