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oh shit - here I am thinking he ran at him - yeah hed have been arrested..except in LA. where you can get away with that...
my bad
FALs?? cool Im getting one this weekend.
Consider the source first. A pro-gun site. Hardly going to be anything but supportive of the right to 'bear' arms, so you have instant bias.
But I can get past that, I love history so I am used to weighing up opinion and reports n events and I am individual enough to make up my own mind. So, having got past that, lets look at the 'evidence' to support the allegations that the Chief of Police and several senior officers were peadophiles. Purely hearsay. Not one shred that would even approach being admissible.
Now I have an open mind. I am willing to accept that Hamilton wasn't perfect, hell his actions <STRONG>prove</STRONG> that. But until you can provide <STRONG>evidence</STRONG> to support your allegations - i.e. not the ramblings of someone who is bitter because his gun got taken away - then that is what they will remain.
As for you other claims - 1,000,000 muggins in London alone..check the crime stats. Either way I don't believe that this is acceptable and I do believe that we should do something about it. Like imprisoning those who are found guilty of crime. Not killing them though.
As for criminals, lets revisit your comments about Tony Martin. Reasonable force isn't about setting your house up as a trap, hiding with a gun and then shooting someone in the back as they run away emptyhanded. His life wasn't in danger, in fact his actions were premeditated. If anything he got off lightly.
As for my situation, yes the gun was loaded and I accept that I was lucky. No I wasn't mugged becuase the man wasn't interested in anything I had. He was just a man, pissed off at the world and who happened to legally hold a gun licence. He had never been convicted and until this moment wasn't a criminal. He was just a man, who didn't like what he saw in the world, and thought he could rectify it with his gun.
Like I said, we all need protecting from people who think that other people are the problem with society. Whether they are 'pikeys', dealers or just some bloke walking to work at 3am (apparently that made me a criminal type). We need protecting from people who think that a bullet in the head is the answer.
I mentioned fear of crime because I feel that the nation's fear of crime is an important indicator of crime levels.
I do agree that people should be able to defend themselves, especially in their own homes. All I have done is state the law as bluntly and as factually as possible.
You may not see shooting someone armed with a cricket bat as excessive. The courts and the criminal justice system however do, as do the majority of people in this country.
At the same time the general population feels that you should be able to defend yourself, which is why tony martin got a lesser sentence.
One reason why he could not use self defence as a mitigating circumstance is because he shot the teen as he was coming through the door and was unable to tell if he was armed or not. He shot first and asked questions later.
In view of what he did, I feel the court was quite lenient on him, which is justifiable in this case, and that his sentence was correct. he may have been defending his property, but he still murdered a teenager. It doesn't matter what the teen did in the past, the law states that previous offences cannot be brought up in a court of law, which is something we should follow here, dont you agree?
'Fear of crime' is entirely subjective and not really that useful in assessing true crime levels. Everyone is fearful of crime to some extent - that's why we lock our cars. Actually they can nowadays.
The following is what I have found out mainly through old Usenet posts. I've labelled some of them as facts, because they can be corroberated. The rest are things that people have posted, without giving sources. Much of it was apparently reported in various papers at the time. I intend to troll through online archives of the major papers at some point.
Fact The Labour MP mentioned on the page is Frank Cook. He found out that Hamilton was initially refused a license by the police sergeant who processed his application. Strangely enough, this decision was overturned by the chief of police, with no reason given.
On this note, Michael Ryan (Hungerford) had his application for his FAC (FireArms Certificate) processed in just 48 hours, the normal time being 2 to 3 months. I won't speculate, draw your own conclusions. There is a similar 'conspiracy' page out there somewhere on the net relating to Ryan, saved to my hard drive. If you're interested, I'll dig it out.
Fact But back to Dunblane. DCC McMurdo (police chief) resigned and moved to Australia on publication of the Cullen Report in October 1996.
Fact A junior policeman (DSS Hughes) advised that Hamilton's FAC be revoked. His recommendation was ignored by McMurdo. This is taken straight out of Lord Cullen's report.
It has been claimed that Hamilton was a member of the same Masonic lodge as McMurdo.
Members of Hamiltons local gun club voiced their concerns to the police that he wasn't fit to have an FAQ.
Hamilton threatenned a group of scouts with a shotgun a few years prior to Dunblane.
I'll keep you updated on my research via this thread, if you're interested. Back to the debate:
I was not aware of this. Who's side of the story was this? Was all this proved beyond reasonable doubt in court? Incidentally, do you know if transcripts of trials are available to the general public (a totally OT question I know) after the case has concluded?
That sounds like a bad situation, you were lucky! Was it reported in any of the papers? I would be very interested to read any articles about it, so long as it doesn't infringe on your privacy. What sentence did this idiot get anyway?
Whowhere
It depends on what they're doing. If they're hitting me with that cricket bat, then I would have to do something drastic to protect myself from a cracked skull. Shooting would be perfectly justified, don't you think? But if he was simply threatenning me, then shooting him would be excessive.
I'm not supporting such people, what they do is fucked up, but I realise that the way they are brought up, they know no better. And to think that you have the right to kill someone because they are misguided (or in some cases plain stupid) is not much better.
People get addicted to drugs for all sorts of reasons. If life goes shitty for them, its one easy escape route to take for example. Some people aren't strong enough to fight through it on their own. But I don't think that just because they don't have the mental strength to cope with whatever shit life has thrown at them (I know that not all addicts are goingto have started because of a shitty life, by the way) they should be killed. Its that kind of don't-help-them-because-they-got-themselves-into-it attitude that is fucking up society as well.
Theres millinos of people dying of cancer because they smoked. Its entirely their own fault, so lets kill them instead of spending our precious earned money on them.
Or the millions of people dying of heart disease because they ate too much fatty food and didn't exersice enough. They're own fault, lets kill them.
Hey, why don't ya just kill everyone apart from the people who fit to your exact idea of living?
BTW, I've found an interesting Dunblane article on the Guardian website:
Guardian Oct 23 2000
Looks like there was (and is) a cover up.
Edit: since it's not obvious from the title and is only briefly mentioned, I'll sum up what it says.
Lord Cullen ordered that a police report into the history of Thomas Hamilton's firearms ownership be kept from the public for 100 years.
It's a pity all the papers only seem to have online archives going back to '97 at the earliest.
[ 20-04-2002: Message edited by: Apathy ]
Oh well, I guess he deserved to get shot <IMG SRC="biggrin.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Whowhere
My point is that it depends how firearms laws are implemented as to whether there will be problems.
In the US, the genie's out of the bottle. No matter what restrictions anybody may put in place in the future, there are so many guns in circulation that there will be no effect on criminal ownership.
In the UK, we've always had relatively tough gun laws, so there are a lot fewer guns available to criminals. Allowing law abiding people to have guns won't suddenly flood the black market with more illegal weapons.
Therefor, you can't point to the US as an example of what will happen if law abiding people in this country are allowed handguns and semi-automatic rifles.
The only stats people are giving seem to be from London. That's fair enough as long as you don't generalise it to the whole of England/UK.
London is rife with crime, a monkey knows that. I live the other end of the country and although I live in a fairly rough area I know the crime rates here are much lower.
I've never seen anyone be mugged, and never seen a gun apart from those in the hands of authorities (excluding air pistols and the like).
Just making a note. It would be unfair for me to get the New York crime rates and apply it to the whole of the US.
1 million muggings in London is truely shocking and a problem. But it's a problem with London, not the UK, and doesn't mean our laws on self~defence should be changed (although I agree that reform of self~defence laws should definitely be looked into).
[ 20-04-2002: Message edited by: Stracha_Khan ]
...and I have been in places in this world that to assume your actions would have led to having been fileted on the spot...
I have been in the position of standing down two car loads of Crips (do you have, or are you aware of THAT particular gang in UK?). I also had a .45acp in my left hand, and a .44Mag in my right. It it not the threat of violence, but the promise which is necessary to deter some of whom afflict us...
btw ~ inserting the barrel of a .44Magnum into the mouth of a cretin as you yank its head back by the handhold of its ponytail, breaking teeth with the muzzle of the revolver, then pulling the hammer back while suggesting that there are other places of a healthier nature which the cretin might search out, generally alters the behavioral pattern of the miscreant... <IMG SRC="rolleyes.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Again, it is not the THREAT, but the clarity of the PROMISE...
Is this a really tenous link to society (yes I read the article), or do you post anything just to see if we look at it?
But then, my "pathology" would be quite foreign to you, so how could you understand?
And... if you look back... was not I who introduced "gunz" into the discussion... merely responded to others comments.
Point taken, Sociopath seems more fitting than Psychopath..... <IMG SRC="smile.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
*** They're coming out of the woodwork, in singles, then in pairs. The subjugation and re-education are not working. Some of the species still have vestiges of spine.
Be ye ever so cautious! <IMG SRC="eek.gif" border="0" ALT="icon"> ***
TO THE CAMP WITH YOU!!! <IMG SRC="mad.gif" border="0" ALT="icon"> HOW DARE YOU HAVE COGENT THOUGHTS??? <IMG SRC="mad.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
LMFAO!!! <IMG SRC="biggrin.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Noone's going to 'the camp' (cutting satire, btw, that stuff about subjugation and reeducation) if they have cogent thoughts, thanatos, but they might be if we lived in the kind of society where we have so little respect for an individual's right to choose how they live their life we force them into the military.
As for the other point(ahem):
MORE PEOPLE GET SHOT WHEN GUNS ARE LEGAL. THERE ARE MORE SHOOTINGS IN AMERICAN STATES WHERE GUNS ARE FREELY AVAILABLE THAN IN ONES WHERE THEY AREN'T. THERE ARE FEWER SHOOTINGS IN THE UK THAN AMERICA. IT's VERY VERY SIMPLE.
Most violent places in the US are where you find the strictest gun "control"...
Where the CCW laws have been passed on a "shall grant" basis, violent crime has dropped...
In locals where MANDITORY firearms ownership legislation has been passed, homicide has ENDED...
Your delusional rhetoric hardly trumps reality. <IMG SRC="wink.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
unless you consider the American Journal of Economics and Sociology delusional.
Quote:
In the 26 states with gun-control laws, there were 19.6 gun-related deaths per 100,000 persons.
In the 24 states with no gun-control laws, there were 24.4 gun related deaths per 100,000.
So, well, you're just wrong, really. sorry not to be delusionally rhetorical.
And as for your 'facts'... 'homicide has ended?' what? seriously? in all areas where every single person owns a gun, NOONE has been murdered?
If it's true (which it may or may not be) it's remarkable. What a staggering success rate.
Some other statistics that may interest you - because in the end they are what really count:
The United States has the highest rates of childhood homicide, suicide, and firearms-related death among all of the industrialized countries
Guns kept in the home are 43 times more likely to kill a family member or friend than to kill in self-defense
On a neutral note: it appears that we have to be very careful about trusting such statistics. the ones mentioned above seem reliable, but read
here
for an analysis of how both sides distort the facts to try and win the argument. It's fascinating, and a bit sad - real zealots, the kind of people who have their point of view and don't really care about the evidence, just want to selectively quote to be right, exist on both sides and render reasonable debate difficult.
Yadda, yadda, yadda... <IMG SRC="rolleyes.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Read what John Lott has to say, then get back to me. Temper your comments and propoganda with the realization that John Lott went in as a committed gun-grabber attempting to justify his prejudices, and came out with a different perspective after getting hit in the face with reality.
Others could benefit from the same honorable actions... <IMG SRC="wink.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Thanatos, you have just proven Prufrock's point.
Only in your zealout's mind...
That Lott set out to prove that "gunz are bad", and had his perspective changed by the reality around him, should say something to a mind that isn't closed...
And yes, I have looked at the opposition perspective. Was a liberal when I was a child, and then I grew up...
Gotta say I agree with Thanatos here. Ive read Lotts book as well as Sugarmann's (Violence Policy Center Director) book, Every Handgun is Aimed at YOu... Lott did go in attempting to justify gun control, indeed several sponsors dropped off his research funding when halfway through, he presented his very pro- gun findings.
Sugarman's book is funny to me when compared to Lotts. Sure he uses stats (ie the 43x more likely line) but theyre all facts that can be proven My favorite is 13 kids are killed every day with guns. Consider the fact that VPC and others include people ages 18 - 24 in their definitions, that number drops to 7. Consider again there are several killed in gang related activity, it drops to about 5, consider once more some are killed in the commission of crime... oops we have 2!!!
Sugarmann unlike Lott, relies more on emotion (the whole platform of gun control) as opposed to facts based evidence... and we're to trust this in consideration of the abolishment of a right? I dont think so friends.
So, you've proved Prufrock's point. That makes 2 people who willingy ignore evidence that contradicts your argument.
You ignore the evidence that every European country have strict gun laws, and as a result have lower crime rates then the USA. Instead you point us towards subjective personal views, and ignore the facts.
The facts say that guns do not lead to a decrease in crime, but the opposite. The facts show that when guns are banned, crime drops, how many times do we have to tell you this before you take it in?