Our christmas hols

[Dagmar]

OK I’ve just come back from a few weeks working in a crappy bar over Xmas – I just needed to get a bit of cash. Believe me, if you stand behind a bar for a few nights you really do meet some tossers! More worringly you also meet some very unpleasant people too. Several nights I was quite scared to go to the car at the end of my shift because of the comments and innuendo that had been going about the bar. In France I would feel safer as I could have in my possession a pepper gas or CS spray – I can’t do that here. In the US I could go further and arm myself, subject to state law, with a firearm, I can’t here.

 

I grew up with guns all around the house, my mum would shoot rabbits out of the kitchen door with a .22. The people we knew had guns - often more than the one, and a mixture of rifles, pistols and shotguns. Never had any problems.

 

 

From time to time I hear people who think that the EU will eventually lead to more liberal gun laws here in the UK. They reason that because many of our neighbours have less strict gun control that EU law will eventually standardise to the French or German model. They are of course quite wrong. The EU is not in the business of providing freedom, it is in the business of control. What is much more likely is that the EU will at first make a minimum level of control, not restricting the big two, whilst allowing more strict control in member states. Then having established competency over that area of state law it will tighten up the screw until such time as it can outlaw guns in private ownership entirely.

 

 

 

 

Tockmal, you really are so wrong! Try and get out more………..

 

Without guns in the hands of the people, all the other freedoms are easily negated by the State. If you disagree with that statement, ask yourself if the Nazis could have gassed millions of Jews, had the Jews been armed with rifles and pistols, there weren’t enough SS troops to do the job. Lest we forget, in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, a couple of hundred Jews armed with rifles and homemade explosive devices held off two fully-equipped German divisions (actually about 8,000 men) for nearly two months. That’s why government doesn’t want you to have a gun, it means that if pushed you could fight back. It lets them get away with sloppy policing because they know that’ joe public’ is powerless

 

What is needed is a culture where guns are recognised as tools, respected but not feared. Where criminals are punished, but the ordinary citizen is trusted.

 

I want the right to protect my life and property, to any extent that I have to. I don’t see why I should pass that right over to anyone else.

 

 

And I’d quite like one of these, the Ruger Charger sporting pistol, based not on their Mark I/II/III pistol design, but on the 10/22 rifle action.

[tockmal]

Who am I to dissagree with the great Freud...?

 

Well, treebogan quoted him in the first place, so he would obviously agree with everything Freud said.

 

Ed,

 

'There were 21,521 reported crimes involving firearms in England and Wales in 2005/6, according to the Home Office.

 

That's a 55 per cent increase on a decade earlier, when there were 13,876 gun-related offences.

 

It averages 414 gun crimes every week.

 

50 of the total firearm crimes were murders.

 

7,248 were for other violent incidents against another person.

 

Gun-related incidents hit their peak in 2003/04 when there were 24,094 recorded offences.'

 

Nearly all of these stats are related to crimes within the the criminal fraternity, so they're really of little or no relevance. Like I said before, and what you fail so miserably to understand, criminals have always had the upperhand and live outwith the rules of a civilised society.

[Mr Ed]

Tim, I DONT CARE ABOUT CRIMINALS ALWAYS HAVING THE UPPER HAND!

I want the right to meet them with superior force should they threaten me...

 

Dagmar,

Thank you for your eloquent and succinct argument. you put my feelings into words. Like that Ruger too.

[TheTreeWiseMen]

Tim, I DONT CARE ABOUT CRIMINALS ALWAYS HAVING THE UPPER HAND!

I want the right to meet them with superior force should they threaten me...

 

Dagmar,

Thank you for your eloquent and succinct argument. you put my feelings into words. Like that Ruger too.

 

Hear hear!!

[tockmal]

Tockmal, you really are so wrong! Try and get out more………..

 

Without guns in the hands of the people, all the other freedoms are easily negated by the State. If you disagree with that statement, ask yourself if the Nazis could have gassed millions of Jews, had the Jews been armed with rifles and pistols, there weren’t enough SS troops to do the job. Lest we forget, in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, a couple of hundred Jews armed with rifles and homemade explosive devices held off two fully-equipped German divisions (actually about 8,000 men) for nearly two months. That’s why government doesn’t want you to have a gun, it means that if pushed you could fight back. It lets them get away with sloppy policing because they know that’ joe public’ is powerless

 

I can't accept this argument as a reason for public gun ownership.

 

What you are advocating means creating a climate of fear and distrust of your government. Cynical political questioning is fine but suspecting your government will attempt to viciously oppress you at any moment undermines trust in the community at the most basic level, your reducing democratic government to a worthless system of hollow gestures.

 

Dont forget how hard we've had to strive to live in the relatively civilised society we live in today. And now you want everyone armed?

 

The Nazi analogy is redundant as Hitler had huge support amongst the German population, he actually told the people what he planned to do. Regardless of public gun ownership nobody was really that bothered about the Jews.

 

I just can't accept that the way forward for a civilised society is public gun ownership.

 

Our level of violent crime is a lot lower than the US, I'd like to keep it that way.

[tockmal]

Tim, I DONT CARE ABOUT CRIMINALS ALWAYS HAVING THE UPPER HAND!

I want the right to meet them with superior force should they threaten me...

 

Calm down man, you sound like you live in Beirut!

[skyhuck]

Calm down man, you sound like you live in Beirut!

 

Some people feel like they do!

[Mr Ed]

.

 

Our level of violent crime is lot lower than the US, I'd like to keep it that way.

Tim, I agree with a lot of your sentiments on gun ownership, but that last statement is completly ludicrous

 

 

On the east side of the Atlantic, we have the British Home Office and the British Crime Survey for 2005/2006. The UK does not use a calendar-year reporting scheme, but reports on a September-to-September time-frame. (These figures do NOT represent two years' worth of data.) The first problem is that there appear to be two separate figures for the crime rate. If we look at the tables supporting Chapter 5, on Violent Crime, (this is an Excel Workbook) we are told that there was a total of 2,420,000 violent crimes in the time-frame covered by the report. If we take the word of the CIA Factbook the UK had a population of 60,609,153 (July 2006 est.) This gives a rate of violent crime per 100,000 inhabitants as 3992.8. However in Chapter 7, (Table 7a) of the BCS, the total violent crime rate per 1000 inhabitants is listed as 23, which is equivalent to 2300 per 100,000 inhabitants. Even this lower number is an astonishing figure when compared to the US data.

 

On the west side of the Atlantic we have the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Uniform Crime Report for 2005. (2005 is the last year for which the data are not preliminary.) In table 1, we see that in 2005, the violent crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 469.2.

 

I recently broke out some of the state-by-state numbers. I repeat them here.

 

State Violent Crime Rate

per 100,0000 murder rate per

100,000

South Dakota 175.7 2.3

California 526.3 6.9

New York 445.8 4.5

Massachusetts 456.9 2.7

Wisconsin 241.5 3.5

District of Columbia 1459.0 35.4

 

 

The UK numbers make Washington, D.C. look good.

[Dagmar]

I can't accept this argument as a reason for public gun ownership.

 

What you are advocating means creating a climate of fear and distrust of your government. Cynical political questioning is fine but suspecting your government will attempt to viciously oppress you at any moment undermines trust in the community at the most basic level, your reducing democratic government to a worthless system of hollow gestures.

 

Dont forget how hard we have had to strive to live in the relatively civilised society we live in today. And now you want everyone armed?

 

The Nazi analogy is redundant as Hitler had huge support amongst the German population, he actually told the people what he planned to do. Regardless of public gun ownership nobody was really that bothered about the Jews.

 

I just can't accept that the way forward for a civilised society is public gun ownership.

 

Our level of violent crime is lot lower than the US, I'd like to keep it that way.

 

You're missing the point. Hitler and most of the other European dictators used gun control to remove the ability of the population to resist. Quite specifically he removed weapons from groups that he was to persecute, Stalin did the same etc. etc.

 

I'm not saying that everyone should be armed, but everyone should have the right to defend themselves in a way that leaves them the least possibility of being hurt. Perhaps more importantly, those who may want to attack you need to be made to think twice, how would you do this? Shout really loudly? Do me a favour!

 

As for using US crime statistics as reasoning for gun control; you need to go back and really examine them. Pull them apart, you will see a different story. Look beyond the headline figures, you're safer armed than not

 

This right of defence of "self" extends to family. Everyone I know would cheerfully put themselves in harm’s way to protect their children it is the most basic human instinct, after sex. And of course this drives authority figures and the societal nannies crazy. "Leave that to the police," they implore, "Don’t get involved." Bullshit. Where I and my family are concerned, safety is first and foremost my own responsibility, and why should I have to abrogate that responsibility to others. From where I stand, if a criminal tries to assault me and mine, the proper role of the police is to take my statement, and because I don’t know the number, to call for the ambulance to pick up the peices.

 

 

Do you really trust the government? Do you really believe that we live in a democracy? If you do you are naive, Our EU masters are who really run us and they don't like 'democracy' - remember the EU treaty votes. If you can't get the right result just keep going, lieing a little bit until you convince enough of the sheep to follow you and you will get your result. Wonder why they don't like democracy? It was democracy that allowed Hitler to come to power and thats why referendum are banned in Germany to this day.

[Amelanchier]

I agree with you tockmal.

 

I don't like the government I voted for. But the idea that they are logistically capable of oppressing me is ridiculous.

 

History is not my subject, and I know what Santayana said about "...being condemned to relive it." but is anyone seriously suggesting that the labour government of 2008 is likely to turn on us? Or that if they did, a pump action would stop them?

 

Its not a gun you want, nor the right to use one, what you want is a life free from crime.

 

That's what I want.

 

If you really want a gun. Go buy one. What's stopping you?

Not afraid of the powers-that-be are you?