As a rebuttal to all those bloggers who think that the BBC has a left-wing bias, I refer you to this hysterical nonsense:
Gun crime is growing in the UK “like a cancer”, police chiefs were warned on Tuesday.
The Association of Chief Police Officers’ annual conference was told by the organisation’s firearms spokesman: “It’s coming your way, believe me.”
How can they possibly expect any halfway sensible person to believe rubbish like this? Don’t they realise that our government has enacted the most draconian and prohibitive anti-gun laws in the developed world? No, scrub that, the entire cosmos. So this cannot possibly be happening. It is nothing but a tissue of bald-faced lies. In fact, it’s probably a fabrication by some bunch of swivel-eyed, right-wing, warmongering lunatics intent on trying to give the completely false impression that our noble and progressive anti-self-defence laws are not working.
Do not click on the link. Do not read the article. I do not want our readers minds to be poisoned by this filthy propoganda. Go away. Move onto the next posting. Find another blog. Now!
At time of viewing, there was a link to this story on the same page. A man sentenced for killing two policemen using a car.
Ban on cars capable of killing (except for those in the hands of the state) imminent? Maybe not so far-fetched when the bus fetish of local government (particularly London local government) is taken into account.
To think, one of my husband’s favorite old guns is his ancient Enfield British 303 with bayonet. And he has to live in the US to own it…
The UK’s a crack-up… thanks for illustrating exactly our 2nd amendment defense… “take away the guns and only criminals will have guns”
Do you know why? Why we have a militia? Why we enshrined the ‘Bill of Rights’ as individual protections against the government in our Constitution? Because the right to bear arms is the last defense against tyranny… the ‘government’…
That militia allowed us to sieze our independence from King George III and it prevents another tyrant.
That’s why the leftists can’t have them… ever.
The spokesman has a point about the coming crime wave. As gun ownership for law-abiding citizens is made more difficult, the percentage of firearms owned by criminals increases.
Oh yes, it will be coming your way. But later rather than sooner.
“the right to bear arms is the last defense against tyranny. ” DANEgerus
Do people really believe this rubbish? The Iraqi’s were armed to the teeth, much good it did them as a defence against tyranny.
“That militia allowed us to sieze our independence from King George III and it prevents another tyrant.” DANEgerus.
A complete delusion, King George III taxed, regulated and oppressed the American people way less than the current US government. The American Revolution was an utter waste of blood and treasure and a disater for American liberty.
Well, obviously, the guns are flooding in to Britain from other countries with less punitive gun control measures. That just proves the point…gun control can’t work until everyone adopts it. Once every nation on earth applies sensible…errr…gun safety legislation, THEN you’ll see the reduction in crime we’ve promised. Honest.
(Eh. If you think this is sarcasm check out disarmament.un.org sometime. Their motto is “Peace and Security through Disarmament.” Don’t that just make you feel warm all over?)
Paul,
I was also thinking that the American Revolution was a mistake. But it seems in the US there is more freedom now than in Britain, including the right to own arms. so maybe, after all, it wasn’t a total waste.
Hi Paul,
As I’m mainly irreligious, the next sentence may seem a little strange, but here goes anyway:
Thank God for America.
Saved us from the National Socialists, saved us from the Communist Socialists, will probably eventually save us from the twin evils of Islamofascism and €uro Socialism. Thank God for them.
I can only speak for myself, but as a single British Tax Serf in a morass of liars, cheats, thieves, moochers, looters, knaves, and idiots, commonly known as the British Labour Movement, to all Americans reading this, Thank God for you.
Yours in Gratitude for all the blood you’ve spilt in our defence,
God Bless America.
Rgds,
AndyD
The American Revolution was an utter waste of blood and treasure and a disater for American liberty.
Paul, you are an absolute, blithering idiot. I am blown away that as a limey, you can sit there in your crime-riddled, massively taxed, anti-self-defense, written constitution-less, once great in both power and liberty (but no more) nation, and say something so stupid.
I sit here in my still-free, way-too-taxed-but-not-like-you, massively powerful nation; I can blow away a thug who invades my home, and I have the weapons to do so; and I have a written constitution that defends these rights, even though they are under attack.
The American revolution is the greatest thing that ever happened to American liberty, you ignorant fool. Just look at your other colonies–who is more free, we who fought you and won, or those who never fought at all?
I am literally stunned by how self-delusional you are.
Oh, and thanks, AndyD. That was a very nice thing to say.
Its off topic, but I ran across this during my search for the graphic I posted above:
Committee for Defense of British Marines
Was “limey” really necessary, Alfred?
Nancy: I’ve never met a Brit who found “limey” offensive. Or “Brit”, for that matter. I think for a pejorative to work properly, you have to be sincerely embarassed to be the thing it represents.
For example, the only time I find “anglo” or “gringo” offensive is if the person using the word is standing ahead of me in the grocery line paying with foodstamps. The meaning then becomes “sucker”, a title whose aptness I much resent.
S. Weasel writes:
“Nancy: I’ve never met a Brit who found “limey” offensive. Or “Brit”, for that matter…”
Speaking as one, neither have I (though I seem to recall there was a stuffy piece in the Telegraph once, objecting to ‘Brit’ on heaven knows what grounds).
With Americans, of course, the reverse isn’t exactly the case. Some of those with Confederate sensibilities seem to get quite agitated when referred to as ‘Yanks’.
Which is why, personally, I stick to rebel colonials.
“The Iraqi’s were armed to the teeth, much good it did them as a defence against tyranny.”
There is absolutely no evidence that I know of that ordinary Iraqi citizens were ‘armed to the teeth.’ Certainly the fedayeen and the various official state-sponsored terror/militia organizations were armed, but I haven’t seen anything other than one thoroughly debunked story (I think from the Beeb) about a gun shop in Baghdad that would indicate that the average Iraqi was allowed to keep and bear arms. The country seems to be awash in guns now, but the Saddamites went on a well-documented buying spree in recent years, so this doesn’t prove much about gun ownership by civilians during the Saddam years.
The stories of the fedayeen terrorizing large groups with nothiing more than a 9mm pistol makes me think that most Iraqis did not have guns, but at this point, really, I don’t know and I doubt anyone else on this thread does either.
In any event, gun rights supporters generally decline to assign magic powers to guns, unlike gun controllers who believe that the possession of a gun turns an upstanding citizen into a slavering killer. Owning a gun doesn’t make you a libertarian. The correct way to look at this issue is that a gun owning population is a necessary but not sufficient condition for long-term liberty. The other necessary conditions include a culture that is not conducive to authoritarian crapola, which the Iraqis apparently lack.
Re: Scott
That graphic exist because SA-80 is more of a hazzard to the Royal Marine using it, than the guy he’s aiming at.
Nancy, I’ve never had any redcoats tell me that limey was offensive. I could see teabag possibly being offensive (because of its recent, uh, use as a term for certain sexual acts). Lobsterback shouldn’t be a problem either, I should think. And I don’t find Yank offensive.
Did I miss any?
My first encounter with the term ‘Brit’ was at the US customs post on the Washington State border, on the road out from Vancouver. I was with a nice Canadian driver, and the bloke (with the large open-holstered gun at his side) looked at my passport, as she handed it over, and said “Hey, what you doin’ with the ‘Brit’, today?”. He seemed to make ‘Brit’ rhyme with ‘mentally-deficient ape-like creature we all feel sorry for’! 🙂
And judging by the defective state of our once-proud nation, I suppose that just about sums it up.
As for ‘limey’, it’s a strange one. I keep expecting Americans to use the same word as the Australians, ‘pom’ or ‘pommy’ (originally from pomegranate rhyming with immigrant?). So hearing ‘limey’ is a bit weird. I first heard this in Canada too, when I knocked over a bar stool. I apologised profusely, in my best deprecating Hugh Grant way, and as I left the bar heard that evocative phrase, ‘God damn limeys’. Charmed, I’m sure. But they were Canadian, people with the Queen’s head on their money, so I can’t blame you Americans.
Apparently ‘limey’ comes from the lime juice British sailors used to prevent scurvy in the 18th and 19th centuries. Just in time, of course, to get over the Atlantic and take a good look at Fort McHenry in 1814, and that large flag you nice folks put out for us to practice our naval gunnery on 🙂
And you must thank us for that, because without that regrettable incident, your national anthem would be “Born in the USA”, by Mr Bruce Springsteen, and you’d have to say “It ain’t over till the middle-aged man in the bandana sings”, at sports events.
So there’s at least one thing you can thank us for. Oh, and all the baddies in Hollywood movies! 😉
PS: I’ve been to three places in the US; the north of Washington State, Palo Alto, and San Francisco. Never felt safer. Even downtown San Francisco at night makes the streets of London feel like “Escape from New York”. Only one place matches the US level of personal safety, I’ve found, and that is Switzerland, where it is illegal for grown men to not to possess automatic assault rifles.
Oh, well, alright. “If two people say you’re sick, lie down.”
What sexual acts? Geez, I must be really out of it.
Nancy: After a moment’s reflection, I let that sex-and-teabags thing go. There are some pieces of information I can live without.
“I can blow away a thug who invades my home”
What always scared me is if the thug was a better shot than me.
Nancy and Weasel, I think you can probably figure it out, and I’m sure the internet will tell you. Google it with “Hot Carl” and “Dirty Sanchez”. And by the way, I learned all these from South Park, so don’t blame me.
David, if the thug is a better shot than you, you’re dead anyway. And besides, shotguns need very little aim. The key is practice, practice, practice. I doubt there are many robbers who get more shooting practice than me.
Nancy writes:
“What sexual acts? Geez, I must be really out of it.”
Ignore the weasel. This promises to be today’s most interesting thread.
Assuming we can ever get Mr. Neuman to explain himself…
Whenever stuff like this comes along it brings up a few delusions from across the Atlantic: things might be tough for gun-owners here, and my Series 70 .45 Colt ACP is now represented by a plastic replica in a display cabinet before me as I write, with some dummy (handloaded, natch) rounds and a photo of me firing the real one for the last time in 1997. But, Kellyds, we can still own .303 rifles, though I sold my No.4Mk1 a while back – we haven’t yet got complete prohibition…
Re Paul Coulam’s point about guns & tyranny, he’s right but with countries like Iraq (& the former Soviet Union, which in many ways had less restrictive gun laws than the UK) you have to remember that they have never known democracy: rugged individualism is an acquired habit, a state of mind dependent upon democratic traditions.
S.Weasel is right: note the vigorous attempts by Japan in recent years to extend its own extreme gun-prohibitions internationally, perhaps because of its citizens’ growing tendency to arm themselves against a perceived greater threat from crime, in the face of the most restrictive gun laws in the developed world.
As for ACPO here in the UK, they have never ceased to agitate for ever more oppressive controls on law-abiding people who want guns, and deserve to have this flung back at them now they’re whining about criminals who persist in being armed despite all the laws that “should” make this impossible. City drug dealers defending their turf with submachine guns? Impossible! These were banned in 1937…
Finally, Andy Duncan’s experience of the US is greater (just) than mine, and different: I’ve been twice to Detroit, the bleakest, nastiest, scariest place I’ve ever been… The suburbs were nice though. Hoping to go fishing in S.Carolina soon…
“David, if the thug is a better shot than you, you’re dead anyway. And besides, shotguns need very little aim. The key is practice, practice, practice. I doubt there are many robbers who get more shooting practice than me.”
I don’t know. The thug may be less inclined to shoot me if I am not presenting an immediate threat to them by firing a gun (ineptly) at them, so my chances of staying alive may be that much greater.
Call me stupid, but I don’t think I’d have time (nor the inclination) to practice firing my gun to make me a bigger and badder shot than the thug. I’d much rather pay someone else to protect me; my taxes going to the police theoretically to either stop thugs taking my stuff or to catch them and punish them if they do.
Surely making it easier for the criminals to get the guns is a bad thing? I realise they can often get them quite easily anyway, and it does mean people who wish to defend themselves cannot do so as effectively, but I wouldn’t want the petty criminal kid next door (who may not today have access to guns) who feels he wants my telly to be able to get my telly at gunpoint, turning the matter of my defence into some kind of sick competition at “who is the better killer”. That scares the shit out of me 😉
But I’d be interested to hear the opposing view. I am not well informed on the issue.
David Hall writes:
“I’d much rather pay someone else to protect me; my taxes going to the police theoretically to either stop thugs taking my stuff or to catch them and punish them if they do.”
They are doing neither. Your call.
Me? I would far rather be armed. That way I stand at least some chance.
As things stand in this country, criminals can arm themselves cheaply and easily. All gun control (for which read ‘prohibition’) has achieved in the UK is a situation in which, as police numbers and preparedness to act diminishes and as the readiness of a liberal-dominated legal establishment to treat criminals with kid gloves grows apace, the victims of crime become penalised both by the criminals and the state, which refuses to take sufficient action either to prevent or deter crime.
If you wish not to be armed, that is your choice and your right. I see no reason why you should be able to deny me the same privilege. And no: making guns harder to get does not prevent criminals from arming themselves freely. Criminals, after all, by definition do not obey laws.
David, the whole “the robber takes your gun and shoots you with it” and “the robber gets pissed and even more violent because you pointed a gun at him” are absurd fantasies created by the anti-gunners.
I’m not calling you absurd; I just think you’ve fallen for a tall tale. There’s a reason “hot” robberies (where the owner is home) are 50-60% in England and something like 10% of all robberies in America–robbers are cowards who want a soft mark. Because there is such a high chance they could get shot–whether they have their own gun or not–if they do a hot robbery in the States, they just avoid them.
Think of it this way; what if you decided to sneak into a person’s house and steal something, and you suddenly heard a shotgun racking. What would you do? Guess what–running is what the thief would do too.
Criminals are not super-villains who are master shots, who can wrestle gun-toting citizens to the ground, and who are fearless in the face of any threat. They are cowards who steal the property of others, and most importantly, they are human too; they feel fear.
Criminals don’t want victims who fight back. England is a country now filled with citizens who don’t fight back, and crime is rampant. Once it was filled with those who did fight back, and crime was incredibly low. If that doesn’t prove something to you, you’re not willing to look.
Hmm. I see your points, both of you. Just a couple more questions – if having a gun in my house would persuade robbers to stay away, surely the fact that the robber has a gun and I *might not* would encourage him? And knowing that many people wouldn’t have the skills to defend themselves in a professional manner, and the burglar is prepared in that he is the instigator of the actions and I am not, surely it gives him a significant tactical advantage over me.
Also wouldn’t the free availablility of guns allow petty criminals to obtain them more easily? The way I see it I can run away more easily from a man with a knife than from a man with a gun.
Finally there’s the whole “crime is rife” thing. I don’t claim to be an expert on crime or crime statistics, but most of what I hear in my local area does not indicate this. Perhaps where you live is different, and I accept that, but I also read in some newspaper (I really can’t remember which one) that violent crime had decreased but the perception of crime had increased. Your views on the matter would be appreciated.
Thanks for not flaming me to death anyway 😉
David, you seem to be unable to shake the image of the robber as this super-criminal. These people are just thugs, and have no desire to get shot. If you have guns, then they’d rather go to a house without them. Even if they get you, you still could wound or kill them. Why the hell would they risk that for your TV?
If you’d rather run away, that’s your choice. But I can’t express to you the liberating feeling of seeing some punks fucking around nearby and knowing tht you are armed, and if they decide to mess with you, you can defend yourself. It is amazing.
There is NO WAY you can eliminate all risk to your person. You can’t always run away; you can’t always count on a mugger not beating the shit out of you even if you give him your wallet; you can’t rely on the police. So the choice is yours: take a risk defending yourself, which deters criminals and empowers (I hate that word, but it works here) you; or be a victim, and receive whatever the criminals wish to dish out, whether letting you go or killing you.
Your choice.
David, Alfred E. Neumann (not THE A.E.N. of Mad fame?) has it dead right, as does G.Cooper. As for violence, even the police & Home Office stats (which one might expect to be somewhat laundered) show the picture: in the period spanning two of the biggest post-WW2 Firearms Acts, those of 1967 and 1988, holders of Firearm Certificates reduced in number from over 256,000 to around 175,000, while robberies in England & Wales involving firearms increased from 464 in 1969 to 5827 in 1992… By late 2002 crimes involving handguns had doubled, since Labour came to power and handguns were “banned”.
David Hall writes:
“Perhaps where you live is different, and I accept that, but I also read in some newspaper (I really can’t remember which one) that violent crime had decreased but the perception of crime had increased.”
I spend some of my time in a fairly nice part of a major English city. At least three times during the past four years I have heard gunfire, late at night. On each of those occasions murders had been committed close by. All three incidents were black-on-black crime – no doubt related to the drug dealing which you can see taking place on the streets in broad daylight.
Friends, relatives and colleagues tell me similar stories from major cities around the country.
I don’t doubt that the Guardian and the BBC wish it to be believed that violent crime is in decline, but it is not. If that is what they say, then both they and the Home Office are lying with artfully managed statistics. Everyone who spends any time at all in an inner-city area in England knows that violent crime has massively increased in recent years.
As for arguments about whether or not burglars would be encouraged to go armed if they thought householders were, I can only point to US experience. In a country where even little old ladies are armed to the dentures, burglary is far less common than it is here.
Mr. Neuman, I believe, is quite right. Burglars are usually opportunist thugs. Sadly, not all of them would turn and run away were you to stumble over them looting your house at 3 am- many (most, I’ve heard policemen say) are drugged to the gills and are inclined to lash-out.
Better, I’d suggest, to carry something small and nasty with which to settle the argument in the most final matter. If lack of profficiency worries you (and I concede that is a risk) then training and a little practice would soon overcome that.
What is so often overlooked is that, prior to WWII, it was not at all uncommon for a gentleman to keep a loaded revolver at home. Burglary was, then, a desperately dangerous game – which is why it was so rarely played.
Thank you all for your comments. They have been most interesting 🙂
David Hall, G Cooper and Alfred Neuman, Here is something I haven’t seen mentioned above. First, armed robbery is in a different criminal category and is regarded by the police as much more serious than burglary (insofar as the British police regard anything that doesn’t involve a thought crime as serious). Criminals know the degree of crime they’re committing and balance off the advantages. Second, though, if a burglar is holding a gun, how is he supposed to rifle through drawers and turn the house over in the dark? You need two hands, great speed and intense concentration for that. I would think.
BTW, Texas, where I lived, has almost no hot robberies. That’s because the police positively encourage gun ownership and you are cordially encouraged to shoot intruders. Police at my home, after I’d been suffering from the attentions of a peeping tom several times in one night, told me to keep my gun next to my bed. They also said, if he came near the house again, just to shoot him through the window. But, they cautioned me, be sure and drag him over the threshhold before you call us.
The guy never came back, but if he had, I was prepared for him. In Texas you are also encouraged to carry your gun in your car with you. It used to be you couldn’t carry a concealed weapon. In other words, you couldn’t have a gun in your purse or your glove box. You had to have it on the seat next to you, where it was fair warning. However, people complained, so they changed the law and now you can legally carry your gun in your purse. It’s also legal to shoot someone you catch trying to steal your car. This is because, 150 years ago, if someone stole your horse in a vast place like Texas, you were as good as dead. Check the stats. Texas has an enviably low crime rate. The citizenry feels safe and the police are very much on the side of the law abiding. And, if you shoot an intruder and miss, out of nerves, you can bet within 30 seconds your neighbour will have come running across the yard with his gun to help you. It works.
Oh, and never forget: guns cure crime.
Mmmm… Texas, eh?
Shame about the weather, otherwise it’d be so very tempting.
Which weather in particular? It’s a huge state. Three and a half times the size of Britain. Houston is hot and humid in July and August, but it’s air-conditioned to a faretheewell, and there are air-conditioned tunnels with shops and cafes connecting all the office towers downtown. Dallas is hot, but not humid. On the other hand, they actually get winter up there. San Antonio’s hot and dry. It’s a great state! And everybody has a gun. When I was there, the HPD was running shooting courses for members of the public.
Good discussion. I’ve linked to this.