The British have something to say to us Americans!

reply to post by ChocoTaco369


You probably ought to start a thread of your own to go over the subtle distinctions between moderate liberals and fringe nut job liberals and the like. A few examples of the opposite end of the spectrum would be helpful too, so that I can understand the difference between fringe nut job conservatives, and moderate conservatives. It really does get quite confusing.

I just think it is a little off topic to go into too much detail about the proper use of the terms here on this thread.

Originally posted by optyk phyba
reply to post by Tentickles

 

you only have the rights your government allow you to have.
if they decide to take away that right then you no longer have it.
regardless of your own thoughts on the matter, those in power can give them to you or take them away. if you loose that right then it is gone.

If your government starts to take away your rights like that then it is time to replace the government. And if you just roll over and let them abuse you you are no more than their slave.

Originally posted by ConservativeJack
Britain Gun Crimes up 40 percent since the weapon ban?

that sounds counter productive

Think about it

If I am a robber and I know the other guy doesn't have a gun, I'm feeling good.

This is my point. As gun crimes have gone up since they took our guns away doesn't it show that having no guns doesn't work. It should have people thinking since crime went up when they were taken away it will go up if people have them back to protect themselves with.

And I don't mean hand them out to all and sundry, it shouldn't be too easy to get a license but it should be possible. And right now it isn't.

reply to post by Cauch1


The guy makes a valid point. I live in a society where firearms are illegal I don't feel especially safe. I went to America and didn't feel that I was in any more danger. In fact it seemed to me to be if anything a nicer and safer place than the UK.
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Spot on my friend. I visit New York quite often and there you can walk around in the early hours and feel safe and protected. If you went wandering around my home town, or most British cities for that matter, during the early hours you would more than likely end up being mugged or beaten up.
That nagging doubt that any would be mugger or murderer would have that just perhaps his potential victim is carrying a gun and could, if provoked, use it, is a great deterent. When will people learn that here in the UK you cannot rely on the police for protection.

reply to post by Mintwithahole.

It is illegal to carry a concealed fire arm in NY and I lived there for many years and mostly felt safe without one. Once I was trying to break up a robbery and a young teenager pulled a handgun on me and put it in my face. I was lucky!

In fact many of the gangs have kids carry the guns because they will not do serious jail time.

The NYC laws are so strict I had to dismantle a shotgun to drive it through NYC for fear of a federal charge and mandatory sentence.

But I support those laws in the city for quality of life reasons. I do not support those laws out of major urban areas.

Hope you get your guns back!

Originally posted by Leo Strauss
reply to post by Mintwithahole.

 

It is illegal to carry a concealed fire arm in NY and I lived there for many years and mostly felt safe without one. Once I was trying to break up a robbery and a young teenager pulled a handgun on me and put it in my face. I was lucky!

In fact many of the gangs have kids carry the guns because they will not do serious jail time.

The NYC laws are so strict I had to dismantle a shotgun to drive it through NYC for fear of a federal charge and mandatory sentence.

But I support those laws in the city for quality of life reasons. I do not support those laws out of major urban areas.

Hope you get your guns back!

I was listening to a woman on an American radio show and she was saying that she had a license to carry a concealed firearm due to her job which was something to do with buying and selling homes in Brooklyn. She described a few hairy moments she had experienced and described how it was that that had caused her to start carrying a gun. Admittedly this was quite some time ago and the laws, as you say, must have changed. As far as I'm concerned I never thought I would see the day when American cities were safer than the UK's! But having visited the States many times this is the picture I'm getting. I believe this is partly down to the fact that Americans are not treated like children by their government and are given the right to arm and protect themselves. You think twice about pulling a gun on someone when you realise they may shoot back.

reply to post by THELONIO


Ok, I'll concede the point partly...

The statistics are from an anti-gun organization, so they are a bit biased.

Considering how much of the population is armed (27.2% according to this study) and the types of weapons they are allowed to own, compared to the UK they still have a relatively low death rate due to firearms.

The fact still remains that the UK gun banns have done nothing to prevent illegal firearms falling into the wrong hands, and I believe legitimate and law abiding sportsmen and women were made the scapegoat for the tragedies that occurred.

Either way, I think I've got across my point that contrary to popular UK belief there are positives to firearms ownership, and just banning them is not necessarily the best solution.

In an ideal world, nothing would be dangerous, and there would be no risk... but that world would also be an extremely boring world.

[edit on 28-1-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

TRUE STORY.................
While I was at work, some SOB was in my house taking my stuff. Got home at about 5:15 PM and all house doors were wide open.
Went to the house next door....called 911....cops are on their way, she said.....

35 min later... they drive up. I almost said some smart comment about time but didn't. They never found him or them. Cops did say a Pro was working the area.

The point I'm making is they took their good old sweet time to get my place.
Took the report and left.

see ya

Originally posted by optyk phyba
if some one is breaking into your home you dont shoot them you call the police. your tax dollars pay for them remember ?

Seems our tax dollars are going to bailout the rich bankers if you ask me.

A couple of years ago I was assaulted in my Mom's home by my brothers girlfriend. (the lease had my mom as the lessee and my brother as secondary) I was part way under a desk on my knees unhooking the phone while assisting my Mom in a move to a new place, my brothers girlfriend picked up a chair and hit me in the back and I was not even aware that the woman was in the house. She then threatened to "kick my *butt* as well as my Mom's, who is a disabled senior citizen, if we did not immediately leave "her house". Seems she was confused over the lease being in my Mom's name. (sarcasm)

We called the police, they complained about having to come out telling me this was a "family issue" and they did not want to get involved. Took them 45 minutes to finally show up, and then I was treated like the criminal, my Mom completely ignored and my brothers girlfriend treated with kid gloves. They actually forced my Mom and I to LEAVE my MOMS house supposedly for our safety instead of forcing my brothers girlfriend who was not on the lease to leave. Yep, I trust the police soooooo much.

Come to find out (recently) my brother and his girlfriend were involved in the drug scene in town, and they were being used by the police as informants. They had a choice it seems, snitch and work with the police, or have felony drug charges and go to prison for a very long time. The police did not want to arrest my brothers girlfriend for assaulting me because then she would not be out on the streets snitching for the police.

I guess her assaulting me and threatening my Mom was trumped by her being their nice little snitch.

Now, being that this was my Mom's house, legally she could have shot and killed this woman in self defense. Go figure.

Interesting you should bring up paintball guns. Back in the day, paintball teams used the Nelspot paint pistol, used for marking trees and cattle, because that was all that was available. The local team here was pretty bad, beating Tennessee, Canada, and won the finals against New York. They were always trying to modify the pistols to make them go farther, hit harder, etc. They opened up the gas storage chamber inner diameter, etc., but it always resulted in a ball bobbling in the gun and breaking, throwing just liquid paint out the barrel. After looking at the problem, a modification was done to the physical design of the gas tube. In its original form the gas came out at two holes, set at 90 degree angles to the path of the barrel. A modification to this tube (home manufatured tube required) put these two holes now damn near parallel to the path in the barrel, they ended up being an oblong hole instead of round because they were machined to be 1 deg. off of parallel to the barrel path that they injected the gas into. Smoke blown into the old tube (Thanks, ciggies!) showed almost immediate turbulence as the stream exited the holes, while on the modified the streams came out smooth until ambient air breezes caused wavering turbulence about 2 ft out from the exit holes. This caused the ball to be trapped in the gas stream so it could not hit the inner sides of the barrel, and it was virtually frictionless, like a ping-pong ball floating in a vacuum cleaner air stream. One player fired it over a rifle radar and clocked the paintballs at a little over 800 fps! They took them to game play, and the paintballs fired from these modified guns put saucer-size bruises on those they hit; in fact, one guy got hit in the temple and it flat knocked him out. There was so much bitching by opposing teams that the people who ran the local game took one of the guns apart after testing it and made that particular design of gas tube ILLEGAL for game play.
Don't underestimate a paintball gun. With this tube installed in an old Nelspot, and a marble or right size ball bearing in it, one could theoretically f*** someone up big time, if not permanently. How do I know this? I'm the designer, no brag, just fact. My machinist buddy still has a plaque from the team that they gave us for "HOT GUNS". FYI

Ah, the 80's were so much more fun........

[edit on 28-1-2009 by ibgrimme]

Guns are not dangerous, people are.
If I could count on the police to protect me I wouldn't feel the need to carry a weapon, but police won't protect me instantly when I need it. It's going to be too late. I want to take care of my personal security.

In the UK, you can be shot by a policeman for carrying a table leg in a brown paper bag, a Scotsman has been so shot. this is on record

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
In the UK, you can be shot by a policeman for carrying a table leg in a brown paper bag, a Scotsman has been so shot. this is on record

That's true.

You can also be shot for calmly walking onto an underground carriage and sitting down.

Let's also not forget Stephen Waldorf.

What was your point again?

to tell you the truth guys, criminals over here in Britain have more rights than we do. There's actually been a court case where a criminal broke into a man's home, injured himself upon entry and actually sued the man he was breaking into and won!

There are more laws supporting criminals than the innocent citizen, and those that do support the citizen criminals don't care about anyway. It's very much a lose-lose situation here at the moment, but people have put up with it for so long not having the option of a new election that they don't care, they get on with it and hope for the best.. which never comes.

reply to post by Longy4eva


I don't think anyone disputes what you have said.
Thing's in this country have gone tits up thanks to the PC Brigade etc.
But more guns?

The vast majority of criminals don't have guns.
The vast majority of burglars / joy riders etc are out of their minds on White Star or are in dire need for their next jab or toot of heroin.
The possesion of a gun won't discourage them unfortunately.

Most acts of violence occur on a weekkend when people are pissed.
More guns will only result in more shootings!

It is completely different in the USA where the right to bear arms is part of The Constitution, if I lived there I would probably own a firearm of some sort, (probably the biggest, baddest one I could get my hands on), and not because I would be scared but simply because I could and for the other reasons outlined here in this thread.

But we don't need them here.
What we need is responsible parenting and effective and open government addressing the many serious issues which face British society today.

Anything else is only papering over the cracks and will come back to bite us in the arse.

reply to post by Longy4eva


You're so right about the crims having more rights than us law abiding citizens. I heard a story the other week about an old guy who was so fed up with being broken into that he sat up all night with a hammer waiting for the thieves to break in. They had already cleared him out of most of his possessions but kept returning to vandalise his home. Even so, the rozzers said that it was the work of experts!!!
Anyway, at four in the morning he hears the old sash window open and sees a hand come through the curtains and without giving it a second thought brings the hammer down on the scumbags hand. I believe the screams woke the neighbourhood and brought the police to the house who immediately arrested the old guy and took him to the station. At no point did they accept the guy's argument that if the thief hadn't been breaking into his house he couldn't have hit him in the first place. And as for the police assessment that the thieves were experts. . . They were the local druggies who the police said they knew about but couldn't touch after one had put in an harrassment claim against the police.

This case proves without doubt that the whole system is fatally flawed. Police scared to do their job, the victims of crime being arrested for daring to fight back, and criminals who have the law on their side and are even given legal aid to sue their victims!!!
The UK has gone mad. . .

reply to post by SLAYER69


this was a 16 year old child for gods sake while i agree guns are a efective deterrent against NWO nazi state police at ones door , i think killingl school boys is way over the top

fox hunting is a nasty little pass time, that elitist masonic scumbags naturally gravitate towards In this happy land of england, where our rights of free assembly have been viciously and sometimes violently oppressed [remember the beanfield] we can at least take comfort in the knowledge that blood thisty sickos are also having their fun stopped

The right to keep and bear arms isn't about hunting, nor is it about protecting yourself from muggers or robbers. It was written by men who, having fled the internecine struggles of Europe and having inherited the totality of the western renaissance culture, understood with the acumen of a Machiavelli the very real and omnipresent need for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government.

The right of the people to Keep and Bear arms shall not be infringed. It is sad to see that people must occasionally be utterly ruled to the extent of their own mortal peril in order to understand the importance of such a provision.

Good , guns should be banned in the USA. I live in London and feel absolutly safe. Guns are disgusting. So what its in your constitution...that was written ages ago. Guns are dangerous weapons and no one should be allowed to own them, apart from armys and the police. honestly...your all proud of te fact that your allowed guns, its sickening. Guns are scary evil objects of violence and death. BAN THEM !!!

Originally posted by Longy4eva
to tell you the truth guys, criminals over here in Britain have more rights than we do. There's actually been a court case where a criminal broke into a man's home, injured himself upon entry and actually sued the man he was breaking into and won!

I know what you mean. There is very little deterrent for criminals left. In what sort of society do the criminals come before the law-abiding citizens.

Originally posted by crowkey
fox hunting is a nasty little pass time, that elitist masonic scumbags naturally gravitate towards In this happy land of england, where our rights of free assembly have been viciously and sometimes violently oppressed [remember the beanfield] we can at least take comfort in the knowledge that blood thisty sickos are also having their fun stopped

I am becoming sick of people like you on this thread who are simply venting their uneducated prejudice about a sport and people they know nothing about. Have you ever met these "elitist masonic scumbags" as you call them these "blood thirsty sickos". Have you ever tried talking to some even about just normal topics. They are just people you know. Fox hunting is a necessity for farmers and even if it is used as a sport it is still a lot less humane then many other sports that go on in the world these days.

I can see where you are coming from about freedom of assembly but I think you chose a very poor example to prove your point.