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Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound. (hat-tip to commenter Marcy Quice) June 1st, 2006 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Driving through Adelaide this morning, I idly turned my radio on, not something I normally do. But I happened to hear the South Australian police minister explaining to a couple of bemused hosts that the government here had made the possession of crossbows illegal. The radio hosts were bemused, not so much because of yet another assault on the tattered remains of Australian liberty, but because crossbows hardly seem like a problem hereabouts. It is not like you see gangs of youths roaming the streets with crossbows, after all. The minister explained that there was a case in New South Wales a few years back and the government was keen to clear up ‘loose ends’. Apparently you can still possess one if you can prove you have a ‘lawful use’ for it; the Australian notion of liberty is that you are free as long as you enjoy the good grace of the powers that be. Youths are hardly likely to be carrying crossbows, but they may well be carrying knives. I read this morning’s Daily Telegraph and came across an op-ed calling for a crackdown on knives, which are becoming a serious problem. Going by some of the comments to that op-ed, it’s a fairly popular idea with the ‘Torygraph’s’ readers as well. To be fair, Shaun Bailey does point the finger at the weakness of the criminal justice system, which is causing young people to take to knife ownership with such enthusiasm. However, he also blames ‘culture’, which sounds to me like the old leftist excuse whenever someone did the wrong thing; that ‘society is to blame’.
I am certainly no expert on ‘popular culture’, but I would question the idea that ‘culture’ forces anything on young people. Cultural industries like magazines and music and television programs really are businesses just like any others; they have to respond to what the market is asking for. The point is that cultural industries are a lagging indicator, not a leading one. What would change the culture is a change in society so that perpetrators of criminal behaviours face the full consequence of their actions; I suspect that would have a far greater impact on ‘youth culture’ then any ‘initiative’ to meddle with our culture; or to take away from lawful citizens their legitimate right to defend themselves. Which is where sloppy thinking like Shaun Bailey’s op-ed will take us to. June 1st, 2006 | 52 comments - (Comments are closed)
It appears that so-called “animal rights” thugs’ targetting of scientists and attempted intimidation of investors has backfired, at least in terms of trying to win around public opinion to their cause. Well, it is true that the majority of Britons loathe such groups, but I don’t think these folk are really concerned about winning hearts and minds as so much working out their own damaged psychological problems through a “cause” that gives them a sense of power and fame. The sadness of it all is that the case for advancing animal welfare – hardly a trivial issue – gets lost in the noise. For all that I am an unapologetic meat-eater, I certainly think everything practical should be done to minimise suffering of animals. In fact, one of the great things about growing advances in the fields of biotech, genetic engineering and the like is that it reduces the need for animal testing, possibly removing it altogether. Green terrorism is not something cooked up by science fiction. It is all too real and threatens immense damage to our economic and material wellbeing. Maybe the famously sentimental British animal-loving public are getting the point. May 29th, 2006 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
The BBC mentioned a small section of something I said to one of their reporters on the subject of more armed police in the UK. I am somewhat bemused to find myself nominated by the Beeb as a spokesman for the Libertarian Alliance, a worthy organization for sure but although I am a member, I do not speak on behalf of it. The broader sense of my remarks to the journalist was not that I oppose the notion of armed police per se but that I supported the right of everyone to be armed. However my reservation regarding more plod with guns in the UK was that the shooting of that hapless Brazilian demonstrated that when they use force in error, far from a policy of transparency and accountability, all we will get is lies and fabricated accounts of what occured. As a result, the fact the institution which fosters and protects these liars deserves neither our support nor more guns as they clearly cannot be trusted with the ones they have. Moreover the notion of ‘what has gone wrong with society’ was referring to the idea that does not seem reasonable to leave fixing societies ills to the very people and institutions which are most responsible for those ills… i.e. the regulatory state, and that includes its armed officers. May 18th, 2006 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
The government provides free guidelines and advice which allows business to assess the risk of a terrorist attack. The website, “Continuity Central“, released a publication today entitled “Protecting Against Terrorism” summarising guidelines for businesses. This was not a public relations exercise by our political masters but a common sense response to requests from those businesses that have thought about the possibility of a terrorist attack.
Yet, the majority of small businesses must be unaware that there are free guidelines of this nature. Has this government, renowned for its expertise in public relations, promoted a booklet that would save lives? Was this a press release that the mainstream media responsibly reported because they understood that smaller enterprises do not belong to organisations with the resources to monitor such subjects? The release of relevant publications is a vital opportunity to raise awareness of the preventive actions that organisations and individuals can take to mitigate a terrorist attack. This press release sunk without trace on a day when the Home Office launched a campaign for reducing forced marriages amongst immigrant groups, announced new funding for racial equality and community cohesion and issued new regulations on the work of the Criminal Records Bureau. All admirable goals for some I am sure but I would argue that they are of less importance than raising security awareness amongst small businesses and the self-employed You may rest assured that New Labour has its priorities right: the politically correct client bank must come first. March 16th, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney wounded a fellow shooter of quail in an accident. Well, I guess it shows what a gulf now exists between the U.S. government and our own. I cannot imagine a single senior Labour politician who would spend time out shooting. (Imagine John Prescott doing it. Actually, don’t). The story reminds me of another deputy leader, the late William Whitelaw (a decorated soldier in the Normandy WW2 campaign), who managed to fire some buckshot at someone during a grouse shooting meeting in the Scottish highlands. Many politicians in the past have enjoyed the pastime of shooting game. Many MPs were landed gentry, who could not wait to get out of smelly London in the summer months and, once the game season started in August, would blast away at hapless birds, bagging them in prodigious quantities. And several paid the price. Robert Peel, Prime Minister in the 1840s, suffered a nasty buzzing in one of his ears after a gun went off too close. Salisbury and Churchill shot game, as did Macmillan and Alec Douglas Home. Across the big pond there was no greater hunter of game, of course, than Teddy Roosevelt. All that tradition is fading out. I cannot imagine Tory leader David Cameron shooting game (imagine how that would jar with his trendy image) although his ancestors probably nailed whole flocks of pheasants in their time. Anyway, the lesson of all this is that if you find yourself in the company of a politician holding a shotgun, stand well behind. February 13th, 2006 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Robert Heinlein, quoted at this excellent legal website with stacks of quotations about self defence. December 15th, 2005 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
One of our team brought this bit of aviation humour to my attention. It is guaranteed to give you a bit of a smile. December 6th, 2005 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
MP Andrew Dismore has blocked attempts to clarify the law on self defence in Britain being proposed by MP Anne McIntosh, because he thinks it would be ‘vigilante law’. Well I have thought for some time now that non-state use of force in defence of life, limb and private property is exactly what is needed in this country and to make no apology for robustly defending what is yours. Take the law into your own hands because it is indeed yours to take, not Andrew Dismore’s to deny. I realise that if you are old, infirm or a small woman living alone, the fact the state has disarmed you means you have no option whatsoever but to surrender your property and just pray the criminal(s) will not harm you, but those of us still physically able should be encouraged to use whatever weapons they can find at hand to assert some self ownership. Just do not make the mistake of calling the Police in Britain after the fact if you can possibly avoid it as they work for the likes of Andrew Dismore and are not there to serve you. You may not have the legal right to fight back effectively, but you will always have the moral right to defend yourself and what is yours. Look at it this way, if you are the only one left alive after some son of a bitch breaks into your house, well, that means it is going to be hard for him to sue you or contradict your version of events, doesn’t it. If they do make it out, then just clean up the mess and deny everything. Vigilante law? As so many members of the political class in Britain leave us with little alternative, I am all for it. When the state fails in its most fundamental duty, it is time for society to remember whose law it really is. If you are able to, fight back, just keep in mind you will be fighting back against the state as well and act accordingly when the plod turns up a few hours or days later to ‘protect’ you. December 2nd, 2005 | 78 comments - (Comments are closed)
It is not hard to understand why the government does not regard mugging as so serious a crime that it should always lead to a jail sentence, provided “minimal force” is used. As the government have long made it clear that people should not defend their property with force against people who try to take it by force, they regard just handing your money and goods over as sensible and responsible behaviour. In short, they think the way to prevent violent crime is to stop people resisting and therefore remove the need for muggers to use actual violence rather than just the threat of it. In other words, they want to make muggers more like tax collectors. Is that really so surprising? November 29th, 2005 | 33 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is controversy over the fact the Metropolitan Police are using ‘dum dum’ bullets (which is a term used by people who know nothing about firearms to describe any bullet designed to expand upon impact). The reason a police force or anyone with a legitimate need to use a weapon in self-defence (i.e. far more people than just the police) would use a handgun firing expanding bullets is to (1) prevent the bullet exiting the target’s body and thereby use all the kinetic energy to inflict a wound rather that… (2) leaving the bullet with enough energy that it goes clean through the intended target and wastes energy making a hole in a wall behind them or, much worse, making a hole in an innocent bystander. It is a scandal that the Metropolitan Police killed an innocent Brazilian man and then lied about the sequence of events that led up to that happening. It is not a scandal that they used expanding bullets to do it. Would the ignorant twits in the media and various clueless Islamic ‘spokesmen’ trying to make this into a story have preferred that the cops not only killed an innocent man but also killed or injured someone else in the train by using non-expanding military style full metal jacket ammunition? It would be a scandal if they were not using expanding bullets. The whole point of shooting someone is to cause them serious harm so that they cannot harm you or anyone else. In what way is it somehow morally preferable to use a weapon which does not cause as much harm per round-in-the-target, thereby requiring you to just shoot more bullets into them to kill or incapacitate them? The only dum(b) dum(b)s here are the various Muslim idiots quoted in the Guardian article and their friends in the media who think this should be an issue. November 17th, 2005 | 54 comments - (Comments are closed)
Despite the urging of much of Brazil’s ruling classes to support the measure, the world’s first national referendum which put the proposition to ban the sale of firearms was smashed decisively by a 2:1 margin. The people who are baffled why so many common people in a murder wracked country like Brazil would oppose such a measure need to realise that it is precisely because the country has such problems with violent crime that people need the means to protect themselves. As I have said on other occasions – the right to keep and bear arms: it’s not just for American anymore. Maybe more Brazillians in London should be armed as well… October 24th, 2005 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
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