Discussing the Right On list: The right to bear arms.

[BTS]

Bryn Mawr;756135 wrote: You don't get it do you?



The fact that two or three store clerks managed to shoot the idiot robbing their shop means nothing against the 190,000 store clerks shot whilst working. (your figures)



You cannot argue statistics by quoting individual occurrences - you need to go to the Office of National Statistics or the National Audit Office or whatever else you want to call it and find the rates of killing of innocent citizens in gun crime versus the number of lives saved by those private citizens carrying a gun and shooting their assailants. Then you can show that the right to carry arms makes you safer.



Or find a report where the journalist has done that for you.



The sites you've been quoting do not present fact, they present propaganda. They are not there to inform opinion but to manipulate it.




Oh you are using goggles search results of 190,00 hits.

Fine, then I post only three reasons why a citizen should be protected and you reply:

"You don't get it do you?



The fact that two or three store clerks managed to shoot the idiot robbing their shop means nothing against the 190,000 store clerks shot whilst working. (your figures)"



OK.........Using the 190,000 figure vs my 2 or 3 store clerks (as you are trying to do). I did a search of robber killed............

Shazam.

Web Results 1 - 10 of about 492,000 for robber killed. (0.14 seconds)

Suspected Serial Robber Killed In Gunfire Exchange With Police ...



LOS ANGELES -- A suspected serial robber was shot to death in West Los Angeles today during a gunbattle with a police officer, authorities said.

www.knbc.com/news/14977794/detail.html?rss=la&psp=news - 57k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

cbs2.com - Suspected Serial Robber Fatally Wounded By Los Angeles ...



A suspected serial robber was killed in a gunfight with police. (File). A suspected serial robber was killed in a gunfight with police. (File) ...

cbs2.com/local/Serial.Robber.gunfight.2.623025.html - 41k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Teen mother, suspected robber killed in Concord home robbery ...



Teen mother, suspected robber killed in Concord home robbery, CONCORD, Calif.

www.examiner.com/a-1122776~Teen_mother_ ... bbery.html - 76k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

WTIC News/Talk 1080 - Hartford Police: Would-be Robber Killed ...



Alleged robber Trevon Mauldin was killed when a gun discharged in the ensuing struggle. The 22 year-old was pronounced dead at St. Francis Hospital. ...

www.wtic.com/Hartford-Police:-Would-be- ... ce/1351259 - 97k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Mother, Suspected Robber Killed In Concord - Sacramento News Story ...



CONCORD, Calif. -- Concord police are trying to piece things together after 17-year-old mother and a suspected robber were killed in an apparent home ...

www.kcra.com/news/14918446/detail.html - 65k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Radiojamaica.com... today's news... today | Killed, Westmoreland ...



Last Sunday four alleged gunmen were killed by the police in Westmoreland, while a few days before another was killed during a robbery attempt. ...

www.radiojamaica.com/content/view/4053/26/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Robber Killed by Home Owner's Son | | News, Weather and Sports for ...



Authorities in Baldwin County are investigating an attempted home invasion and robbery today, after a man was shot and killed while trying to rob a family. ...

www.wmgt.com/node/5636 - 18k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

St. Louis Robber Killed By Ccw Permit Holder - Trib Board



What I like is how media types try to get across that the surviving robber is on trial for murder, "even though he didn't pull the trigger." ...

board.columbiatribune.com/index.php?showtopic=5753 - 63k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

CHICAGO ROBBER KILLED.; Patrick Gannon Shot Dead by Two Men He ...



CHICAGO ROBBER KILLED. Patrick Gannon Shot Dead by Two Men He Tried to Hold Up in a Saloon -- Wore Fifth Avenue Clothes. Special to The New York Times. ...

query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F6071EFA3E5911738DDDA90994DA405B808CF1D3 - 4k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Suspected Serial Robber Killed In Police Shootout - Truveo Video ...



A man was shot and killed after he allegedly pointed a handgun at a police officer. Mia Lee reports.

www.truveo.com/Suspected-Serial-Robber- ... 3854080975 - 82k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this



I say.........



492,000 vs 190,00 speaks volumes .



Also you say

"The sites you've been quoting do not present fact, they present propaganda. They are not there to inform opinion but to manipulate it."



Show us all these so called propaganda sites I linked to........

[Bryn Mawr]

BTS;756639 wrote: Oh you are using goggles search results of 190,00 hits.

Fine, then I post only three reasons why a citizen should be protected and you reply:

"You don't get it do you?



The fact that two or three store clerks managed to shoot the idiot robbing their shop means nothing against the 190,000 store clerks shot whilst working. (your figures)"



OK.........Using the 190,000 figure vs my 2 or 3 store clerks (as you are trying to do). I did a search of robber killed............

Shazam.

Web Results 1 - 10 of about 492,000 for robber killed. (0.14 seconds)

Suspected Serial Robber Killed In Gunfire Exchange With Police ...



LOS ANGELES -- A suspected serial robber was shot to death in West Los Angeles today during a gunbattle with a police officer, authorities said.

www.knbc.com/news/14977794/detail.html?rss=la&psp=news - 57k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

cbs2.com - Suspected Serial Robber Fatally Wounded By Los Angeles ...



A suspected serial robber was killed in a gunfight with police. (File). A suspected serial robber was killed in a gunfight with police. (File) ...

cbs2.com/local/Serial.Robber.gunfight.2.623025.html - 41k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Teen mother, suspected robber killed in Concord home robbery ...



Teen mother, suspected robber killed in Concord home robbery, CONCORD, Calif.

www.examiner.com/a-1122776~Teen_mother_ ... bbery.html - 76k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

WTIC News/Talk 1080 - Hartford Police: Would-be Robber Killed ...



Alleged robber Trevon Mauldin was killed when a gun discharged in the ensuing struggle. The 22 year-old was pronounced dead at St. Francis Hospital. ...

www.wtic.com/Hartford-Police:-Would-be- ... ce/1351259 - 97k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Mother, Suspected Robber Killed In Concord - Sacramento News Story ...



CONCORD, Calif. -- Concord police are trying to piece things together after 17-year-old mother and a suspected robber were killed in an apparent home ...

www.kcra.com/news/14918446/detail.html - 65k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Radiojamaica.com... today's news... today | Killed, Westmoreland ...



Last Sunday four alleged gunmen were killed by the police in Westmoreland, while a few days before another was killed during a robbery attempt. ...

www.radiojamaica.com/content/view/4053/26/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Robber Killed by Home Owner's Son | | News, Weather and Sports for ...



Authorities in Baldwin County are investigating an attempted home invasion and robbery today, after a man was shot and killed while trying to rob a family. ...

www.wmgt.com/node/5636 - 18k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

St. Louis Robber Killed By Ccw Permit Holder - Trib Board



What I like is how media types try to get across that the surviving robber is on trial for murder, "even though he didn't pull the trigger." ...

board.columbiatribune.com/index.php?showtopic=5753 - 63k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

CHICAGO ROBBER KILLED.; Patrick Gannon Shot Dead by Two Men He ...



CHICAGO ROBBER KILLED. Patrick Gannon Shot Dead by Two Men He Tried to Hold Up in a Saloon -- Wore Fifth Avenue Clothes. Special to The New York Times. ...

query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F6071EFA3E5911738DDDA90994DA405B808CF1D3 - 4k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Suspected Serial Robber Killed In Police Shootout - Truveo Video ...



A man was shot and killed after he allegedly pointed a handgun at a police officer. Mia Lee reports.

www.truveo.com/Suspected-Serial-Robber- ... 3854080975 - 82k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this



I say.........



492,000 vs 190,00 speaks volumes .



Also you say

"The sites you've been quoting do not present fact, they present propaganda. They are not there to inform opinion but to manipulate it."



Show us all these so called propaganda sites I linked to........


This is a joke.

As I quite clearly said in my post, the 190,000 was quoting back to you your own figures.

I said, very specifically, that using google hits is totally irrelevant in putting up a point of view.

I suggested a way that you might do it and make a valid point.

Either you do not read posts directed at you or you are extracting the urine.

If you want an example of a propaganda site that you have posted try :-

http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html

No facts, no attribution, nothing but spin.

[BTS]

Bryn Mawr;756680 wrote: This is a joke.



As I quite clearly said in my post, the 190,000 was quoting back to you your own figures.



I said, very specifically, that using google hits is totally irrelevant in putting up a point of view.



I suggested a way that you might do it and make a valid point.



Either you do not read posts directed at you or you are extracting the urine.



If you want an example of a propaganda site that you have posted try :-



http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html



No facts, no attribution, nothing but spin.






Darn you don't read the links, just condemn them, forcing me post the WHOLE enchilada:



I challenge all gardeners reading this thread, to read this and show me (us all) the propaganda from this article as BM is claiming.........



IMO...Bryn Mawr.....I see no propaganda only facts that you refuse to address. Show us all the propaganda's you are referring to .........BM



http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html



On a June evening two years ago, Dan Rather made many stiff British upper lips quiver by reporting that England had a crime problem and that, apart from murder, "theirs is worse than ours." The response was swift and sharp. "Have a Nice Daydream," The Mirror, a London daily, shot back, reporting: "Britain reacted with fury and disbelief last night to claims by American newsmen that crime and violence are worse here than in the US." But sandwiched between the article's battery of official denials -- "totally misleading," "a huge over-simplification," "astounding and outrageous" -- and a compilation of lurid crimes from "the wild west culture on the other side of the Atlantic where every other car is carrying a gun," The Mirror conceded that the CBS anchorman was correct. Except for murder and rape, it admitted, "Britain has overtaken the US for all major crimes."





In the two years since Dan Rather was so roundly rebuked, violence in England has gotten markedly worse. Over the course of a few days in the summer of 2001, gun-toting men burst into an English court and freed two defendants; a shooting outside a London nightclub left five women and three men wounded; and two men were machine-gunned to death in a residential neighborhood of north London. And on New Year's Day this year a 19-year-old girl walking on a main street in east London was shot in the head by a thief who wanted her mobile phone. London police are now looking to New York City police for advice.





None of this was supposed to happen in the country whose stringent gun laws and 1997 ban on handguns have been hailed as the "gold standard" of gun control. For the better part of a century, British governments have pursued a strategy for domestic safety that a 1992 Economist article characterized as requiring "a restraint on personal liberty that seems, in most civilised countries, essential to the happiness of others," a policy the magazine found at odds with "America's Vigilante Values." The safety of English people has been staked on the thesis that fewer private guns means less crime. The government believes that any weapons in the hands of men and women, however law-abiding, pose a danger, and that disarming them lessens the chance that criminals will get or use weapons.

The results -- the toughest firearm restrictions of any democracy -- are credited by the world's gun control advocates with producing a low rate of violent crime. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell reflected this conventional wisdom when, in a 1988 speech to the American Bar Association, he attributed England's low rates of violent crime to the fact that "private ownership of guns is strictly controlled."





In reality, the English approach has not re-duced violent crime. Instead it has left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who are confident that their victims have neither the means nor the legal right to resist them. Imitating this model would be a public safety disaster for the United States.

The illusion that the English government had protected its citizens by disarming them seemed credible because few realized the country had an astonishingly low level of armed crime even before guns were restricted. A government study for the years 1890-92, for example, found only three handgun homicides, an average of one a year, in a population of 30 million. In 1904 there were only four armed robberies in London, then the largest city in the world. A hundred years and many gun laws later, the BBC reported that England's firearms restrictions "seem to have had little impact in the criminal underworld." Guns are virtually outlawed, and, as the old slogan predicted, only outlaws have guns. Worse, they are increasingly ready to use them.

Nearly five centuries of growing civility ended in 1954. Violent crime has been climbing ever since. Last December, London's Evening Standard reported that armed crime, with banned handguns the weapon of choice, was "rocketing." In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent.



Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England's inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America's, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world's crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.

This sea change in English crime followed a sea change in government policies. Gun regulations have been part of a more general disarmament based on the proposition that people don't need to protect themselves because society will protect them. It also will protect their neighbors: Police advise those who witness a crime to "walk on by" and let the professionals handle it.





This is a reversal of centuries of common law that not only permitted but expected individuals to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors when other help was not available. It was a legal tradition passed on to Americans. Personal security was ranked first among an individual's rights by William Blackstone, the great 18th-century exponent of the common law. It was a right, he argued, that no government could take away, since no government could protect the individual in his moment of need. A century later Blackstone's illustrious successor, A.V. Dicey, cautioned, "discourage self-help and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians."

But modern English governments have put public order ahead of the individual's right to personal safety. First the government clamped down on private possession of guns; then it forbade people to carry any article that might be used for self-defense; finally, the vigor of that self-defense was to be judged by what, in hindsight, seemed "reasonable in the circumstances."

The 1920 Firearms Act was the first serious British restriction on guns.



Although crime was low in England in 1920, the government feared massive labor disruption and a Bolshevik revolution. In the circumstances, permitting the people to remain armed must have seemed an unnecessary risk. And so the new policy of disarming the public began. The Firearms Act required a would-be gun owner to obtain a certificate from the local chief of police, who was charged with determining whether the applicant had a good reason for possessing a weapon and was fit to do so. All very sensible. Parliament was assured that the intention was to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and other dangerous persons. Yet from the start the law's enforcement was far more restrictive, and Home Office instructions to police -- classified until 1989 -- periodically narrowed the criteria.





At first police were instructed that it would be a good reason to have a revolver if a person "lives in a solitary house, where protection against thieves and burglars is essential, or has been exposed to definite threats to life on account of his performance of some public duty." By 1937 police were to discourage applications to possess firearms for house or personal protection. In 1964 they were told "it should hardly ever be necessary to anyone to possess a firearm for the protection of his house or person" and that "this principle should hold good even in the case of banks and firms who desire to protect valuables or large quantities of money."

In 1969 police were informed "it should never be necessary for anyone to possess a firearm for the protection of his house or person." These changes were made without public knowledge or debate. Their enforcement has consumed hundreds of thousands of police hours. Finally, in 1997 handguns were banned. Proposed exemptions for handicapped shooters and the British Olympic team were rejected.

Even more sweeping was the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act, which made it illegal to carry in a public place any article "made, adapted, or intended" for an offensive purpose "without lawful authority or excuse." Carrying something to protect yourself was branded antisocial. Any item carried for possible defense automatically became an offensive weapon. Police were given extensive power to stop and search everyone. Individuals found with offensive items were guilty until proven innocent.

During the debate over the Prevention of Crime Act in the House of Commons, a member from Northern Ireland told his colleagues of a woman employed by Parliament who had to cross a lonely heath on her route home and had armed herself with a knitting needle. A month earlier, she had driven off a youth who tried to snatch her handbag by jabbing him "on a tender part of his body." Was it to be an offense to carry a knitting needle? The attorney general assured the M.P. that the woman might be found to have a reasonable excuse but added that the public should be discouraged "from going about with offensive weapons in their pockets; it is the duty of society to protect them."

Another M.P. pointed out that while "society ought to undertake the defense of its members, nevertheless one has to remember that there are many places where society cannot get, or cannot get there in time. On those occasions a man has to defend himself and those whom he is escorting. It is not very much consolation that society will come forward a great deal later, pick up the bits, and punish the violent offender."





In the House of Lords, Lord Saltoun argued: "The object of a weapon was to assist weakness to cope with strength and it is this ability that the bill was framed to destroy. I do not think any government has the right, though they may very well have the power, to deprive people for whom they are responsible of the right to defend themselves." But he added: "Unless there is not only a right but also a fundamental willingness amongst the people to defend themselves, no police force, however large, can do it."

That willingness was further undermined by a broad revision of criminal law in 1967 that altered the legal standard for self-defense. Now everything turns on what seems to be "reasonable" force against an assailant, considered after the fact. As Glanville Williams notes in his Textbook of Criminal Law, that requirement is "now stated in such mitigated terms as to cast doubt on whether it [self-defense] still forms part of the law."





The original common law standard was similar to what still prevails in the U.S. Americans are free to carry articles for their protection, and in 33 states law-abiding citizens may carry concealed guns. Americans may defend themselves with deadly force if they believe that an attacker is about to kill or seriously injure them, or to prevent a violent crime. Our courts are mindful that, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, "detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an upraised knife."

But English courts have interpreted the 1953 act strictly and zealously. Among articles found illegally carried with offensive intentions are a sandbag, a pickaxe handle, a stone, and a drum of pepper. "Any article is capable of being an offensive weapon," concede the authors of Smith and Hogan Criminal Law, a popular legal text, although they add that if the article is unlikely to cause an injury the onus of proving intent to do so would be "very heavy."





The 1967 act has not been helpful to those obliged to defend themselves either. Granville Williams points out: "For some reason that is not clear, the courts occasionally seem to regard the scandal of the killing of a robber as of greater moment than the safety of the robber's victim in respect of his person and property."





A sampling of cases illustrates the impact of these measures:



In 1973 a young man running on a road at night was stopped by the police and found to be carrying a length of steel, a cycle chain, and a metal clock weight. He explained that a gang of youths had been after him. At his hearing it was found he had been threatened and had previously notified the police. The justices agreed he had a valid reason to carry the weapons. Indeed, 16 days later he was attacked and beaten so badly he was hospitalized. But the prosecutor appealed the ruling, and the appellate judges insisted that carrying a weapon must be related to an imminent and immediate threat. They sent the case back to the lower court with directions to convict.



In 1987 two men assaulted Eric Butler, a 56-year-old British Petroleum executive, in a London subway car, trying to strangle him and smashing his head against the door. No one came to his aid. He later testified, "My air supply was being cut off, my eyes became blurred, and I feared for my life." In desperation he unsheathed an ornamental sword blade in his walking stick and slashed at one of his attackers, stabbing the man in the stomach. The assailants were charged with wounding. Butler was tried and convicted of carrying an offensive weapon.



In 1994 an English homeowner, armed with a toy gun, managed to detain two burglars who had broken into his house while he called the police. When the officers arrived, they arrested the homeowner for using an imitation gun to threaten or intimidate. In a similar incident the following year, when an elderly woman fired a toy cap pistol to drive off a group of youths who were threatening her, she was arrested for putting someone in fear. Now the police are pressing Parliament to make imitation guns illegal.

In 1999 Tony Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone in a shabby farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass as two burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his home. He had been robbed six times before, and his village, like 70 percent of rural English communities, had no police presence. He sneaked downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. Martin received life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar, having served 18 months of a three-year sentence, is now free and has been granted �5,000 of legal assistance to sue Martin.

The failure of English policy to produce a safer society is clear, but what of British jibes about "America's vigilante values" and our much higher murder rate?





Historically, America has had a high homicide rate and England a low one. In a comparison of New York and London over a 200-year period, during most of which both populations had unrestricted access to firearms, historian Eric Monkkonen found New York's homicide rate consistently about five times London's. Monkkonen pointed out that even without guns, "the United States would still be out of step, just as it has been for two hundred years."

Legal historian Richard Maxwell Brown has argued that Americans have more homicides because English law insists an individual should retreat when attacked, whereas Americans believe they have the right to stand their ground and kill in self-defense. Americans do have more latitude to protect themselves, in keeping with traditional common law standards, but that would have had less significance before England's more restrictive policy was established in 1967.

The murder rates of the U.S. and U.K. are also affected by differences in the way each counts homicides. The FBI asks police to list every homicide as murder, even if the case isn't subsequently prosecuted or proceeds on a lesser charge, making the U.S. numbers as high as possible. By contrast, the English police "massage down" the homicide statistics, tracking each case through the courts and removing it if it is reduced to a lesser charge or determined to be an accident or self-defense, making the English numbers as low as possible.





The London-based Office of Health Economics, after a careful international study, found that while "one reason often given for the high numbers of murders and manslaughters in the United States is the easy availability of firearms...the strong correlation with racial and socio-economic variables suggests that the underlying determinants of the homicide rate are related to particular cultural factors."



Cultural differences and more-permissive legal standards notwithstanding, the English rate of violent crime has been soaring since 1991. Over the same period, America's has been falling dramatically. In 1999 The Boston Globe reported that the American murder rate, which had fluctuated by about 20 percent between 1974 and 1991, was "in startling free-fall." We have had nine consecutive years of sharply declining violent crime. As a result the English and American murder rates are converging. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and the latest study puts it at 3.5 times.

Preliminary figures for the U.S. this year show an increase, although of less than 1 percent, in the overall number of violent crimes, with homicide increases in certain cities, which criminologists attribute to gang violence, the poor economy, and the release from prison of many offenders. Yet Americans still enjoy a substantially lower rate of violent crime than England, without the "restraint on personal liberty" English governments have seen as necessary. Rather than permit individuals more scope to defend themselves, Prime Minister Tony Blair's government plans to combat crime by extending those "restraints on personal liberty": removing the prohibition against double jeopardy so people can be tried twice for the same crime, making hearsay evidence admissible in court, and letting jurors know of a suspect's previous crimes.





This is a cautionary tale. America's founders, like their English forebears, regarded personal security as first of the three primary rights of mankind. That was the main reason for including a right for individuals to be armed in the U.S. Constitution. Not everyone needs to avail himself or herself of that right. It is a dangerous right. But leaving personal protection to the police is also dangerous.





The English government has effectively abolished the right of Englishmen, confirmed in their 1689 Bill of Rights, to "have arms for their defence," insisting upon a monopoly of force it can succeed in imposing only on law-abiding citizens. It has come perilously close to depriving its people of the ability to protect themselves at all, and the result is a more, not less, dangerous society. Despite the English tendency to decry America's "vigilante values," English policy makers would do well to consider a return to these crucial common law values, which stood them so well in the past.

[gmc]

posted by BTS

Darn you don't read the links, just condemn them, forcing me post the WHOLE enchilada:

I challenge all gardeners reading this thread, to read this and show me (us all) the propaganda from this article as BM is claiming.........

IMO...Bryn Mawr.....I see no propaganda only facts that you refuse to address. Show us all the propaganda's you are referring to .........BM






No Bryn mawr is right it's propaganda. Or to use a common colloquialism a load of bollocks.

Yes we do have a problem with gun violence but only the more extreme edges of UK society see having guns of their own as a solution. That's why we have the police and the courts to deal with this kind of thing. Violent crime with guns tends to still be a very rare occurrence which is why it hits the headlines in the UK.

What we don't have is teenagers running around with machine guns slaughtering everybody they don't like.

Selective reporting of the facts to back up a point of view.the arguments have been stated umpteen times on this forum so I see little point in repeating them all in detail. But

The illusion that the English government had protected its citizens by disarming them seemed credible because few realized the country had an astonishingly low level of armed crime even before guns were restricted. A government study for the years 1890-92, for example, found only three handgun homicides, an average of one a year, in a population of 30 million. In 1904 there were only four armed robberies in London, then the largest city in the world.




Ever bother looking at the stats for the states for the same period?



In reality, the English approach has not re-duced violent crime. Instead it has left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who are confident that their victims have neither the means nor the legal right to resist


Bollocks. In reality you can use reasonable force to defend yourself.

n 1999 Tony Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone in a shabby farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass as two burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his home. He had been robbed six times before, and his village, like 70 percent of rural English communities, had no police presence. He sneaked downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. Martin received life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar, having served 18 months of a three-year sentence, is now free and has been granted �5,000 of legal assistance to sue Martin.

The failure of English policy to produce a safer society is clear, but what of British jibes about "America's vigilante values" and our much higher murder rate?


Such cases are jury trials in England. A JURY found him guilty not some big brother type of court. I don't know if you are aware of the reason for a jury but the basic idea is that a jury of an accused's peers is in the best position to decide if someone's action was criminal and worthy of sanction or not.

You may find the following facts disturbing because they are facts as opposed to propaganda.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressrelease ... 06_05.html

"It is only in the most extreme circumstances that householders are prosecuted for violence against burglars. Prosecutors recognise that householders confronted by intruders are entitled to use violence to protect themselves, their families and their property.

"Furthermore the law understands that when people are under attack in their own homes they cannot judge precisely the level of their response. They are not expected to do so. So long as they do no more than they honestly and instinctively feel is necessary in the heat of the moment, that will be the strongest evidence that the householder has acted lawfully.

"Indeed we routinely refuse to prosecute those reacting in the heat of the moment to finding intruders within their homes. So householders who have killed burglars in this situation have not been prosecuted. Householders who have shot burglars have not been prosecuted. Householders who have stabbed burglars have not been prosecuted. Householders who have struck burglars on the head, fracturing their skulls, have not been not prosecuted.

"On an informal trawl the CPS has only been able to find 11 cases in the last 15 years where people have been prosecuted for attacking intruders into houses, commercial premises or private land. Only 7 of these appear to have resulted from domestic household burglaries."




hardly the situation as portrayed. As an American you view things differently and if I were American I might see things differently as well but try and understand that the rest of the world and the UK in particular is not like america except with funny accents. We do niot have the same kind of gun culture as you and don't want it either.

To be blunt usually those in the UK that advocate we all go around armed are on the extreme right wing of British politics and are exactly the kind of paranoid nutter you don't want to have a weapon of any kind.

The English government has effectively abolished the right of Englishmen, confirmed in their 1689 Bill of Rights, to "have arms for their defence," insisting upon a monopoly of force it can succeed in imposing only on law-abiding citizens. It has come perilously close to depriving its people of the ability to protect themselves at all, and the result is a more, not less, dangerous society. Despite the English tendency to decry America's "vigilante values," English policy makers would do well to consider a return to these crucial common law values, which stood them so well in the past.


This one always makes me laugh. Have you ever read the 1689 so called bill of rights? Clearly this author hasn't.

Apart from that you may or not be aware (clearly this author knows bugger all about the UK) that there is actually no English government. Although we sots are considering letting them have their independence since we are fed up subsidising them as well as running the place for them. poor dears might struggle on their own.

http://www.webmesh.co.uk/englishbillofrights1689.htm

# That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law;

# That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;


I know a few orangemen who heartily agree with that idea.

Course the other take on it that is usually ignored is that we by and large don't allow a large standing army in times of peace lest it be used against the populace. Never mind Royalty not having control of the army it wasn't too brilliant when the Christian fundamentalists did either. I have seen it suggested that the experience is burned in to the british psyche to such an extent we have abhorred extremists ever since.

It's the same reason we don't arm the police-so that they cannot be used by government as a means of oppression. Wonder how many in US inner cities like that idea?

Never mind having guns to keep you free. Keep the army small so it can't be used against the population, Don't allow private armies for any reason whatsoever, don't allow the police to be armed and don't let the right to a fair trial be abrogated whatever the excuse.

[Bryn Mawr]

BTS;756995 wrote: Darn you don't read the links, just condemn them, forcing me post the WHOLE enchilada:








Of course i read the damn'd thing - I wouldn't have used it as an example if I hadn't.

As twisted a tissue of half truths, supposition and spin as I've seen in a long time.

In the mean time, you've used your little diversionary tactic to totally avoid answering any of the points I raised. Ho-hum.

[RedGlitter]

There's nothing insane about it. It's the country we live in. Other countries seem to not have any understanding of why we keep guns and even some Americans see the US as being rosier than it really is. But the guns are here to stay.

[Accountable]

rjwould;860368 wrote: Its a pitiful argument then. When we begin to see these and these stockpiled in your garage, then I will know you have a small chance of a military uprising or resistance to the American Government. Until then, please spare me this insane argument.
And your argument for removing our constitutional right to bear arms would be ................ ?

[Accountable]

rjwould;860491 wrote: Its outdated if nothing else...
Being outdated may be a reason to ignore or neglect something, but it's not a reason for prohibition.

[Accountable]

rjwould;860507 wrote: Its a reason for societal change. The safety of Americas people is in jeopardy more because of guns...Thats a good enough reason for me.
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

Benjamin Franklin

[Accountable]

rjwould;860515 wrote: Fine, then you give me a better way to disarm the police...BTW, Franklin is part of the same past..
I don't want the police disarmed. :-2

[Accountable]

rjwould;860526 wrote: Thats a problem...
Why? For whom?

[RedGlitter]

rjwould;860557 wrote: I don't need to, I've never owned any. Never felt that fearful in life.


That may be the very difference between you and the ones who support gun ownership. There's a big difference between fear and wariness.

[Accountable]

Jester;860555 wrote: So surrender your guns RJ. and let us simple minded folks carry on with ours.


rjwould;860557 wrote: I don't need to, I've never owned any.
Me either, but that fact never prompted me to want everyone else's right taken away.

[Grizzled_Bear]

Accountable;860500 wrote: Being outdated may be a reason to ignore or neglect something, but it's not a reason for prohibition.


The third amendment seems anachronistic at this point, but I couldn't see doing away with it.

[gmc]

Who do you fear is going to oppress you? Why not disarm the state? Take away it's ability to use force against it's people. You have enough nuclear weapons to wipe any country attacking you off the face off the earth all any potential enemy needs to know is that you would use them-which you have proved you will if needed. The likelihood of an invasion of the US by a conventional army is so remote as to make large standing army unnecessary-think what you would save. . terrorist can't be defeated by conventional warfare So what's the point of massive conventional forces unless it's to impose your will on weaker countries by force.

Criminals are just that and you don't need massive armies to deal with them just enough armed forces in case they are needed. You have militias that can be used in extreme circumstances. You might occasionally need riot police but you certainly don't want them thinking they can pen fire on unarmed demonstrators with impunity Make it an offence to own a gun so you can disarm all the nutters that think they have god given right to kill whenever they want and carry deadly weapons in public can be disarmed with the consent of their fellow citizens.