water cannon

[MD_Titus]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

yes they are, it just has nothing to do with criminals, since they already have firearms. What did they find on the scum that was killed by the police in London?

I agree, and firearms are already accessible by the public, albeit in a restricted form.

hang on.

the criminals have guns, yes, a lot are reactivated firearms or eastern european. but it's the bullets that they find in short supply. rounds go for £50-100+ each. they tend to just shoot each other because it's difficult and expensive to get rounds for anything other than settling scores or sorting territory.

second, it appears and according to the IPCC, that the guy who got shot hadn't fired at police, and reports suggest it was still in his sock when they shot him. if he is brandishing the thing then fine - danger to life is obvious. if not the police ballsed it up. not helped by a bunch of them battering a 16 year old girl on the floor outside the station when the family turn up wanting to know what happened.

[Ploughman]

Nice thread.

Car = transport. Not a weapon.

Gun = Weapon. A weapon.

SternjagerII left his guns in Italy but wants to shoot guns = GO BACK TO ITALY.

We sorted?

Really, it's that simple. This is the UK, we don't do guns. Perhaps one day you'll be dancing on our national grave saying "I told you so" but I don't think so. If you want to own and shoot an arsenal of guns there's loads of places to do it, just not here. If you came here loving guns and are upset you don't get to go full-auto, it's this simple.

Leave.

The exits are clearly marked.

Go.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by Ploughman

Nice thread.

Car = transport. Not a weapon.

Gun = Weapon. A weapon.

SternjagerII left his guns in Italy but wants to shoot guns = GO BACK TO ITALY.

We sorted?

Really, it's that simple. This is the UK, we don't do guns. Perhaps one day you'll be dancing on our national grave saying "I told you so" but I don't think so. If you want to own and shoot an arsenal of guns there's loads of places to do it, just not here. If you came here loving guns and are upset you don't get to go full-auto, it's this simple.

Leave.

The exits are clearly marked.

Go.

Uhmmmm a very refined thinking,did u write it yourself or got help from the BNP?

You completely missed the point of what I was saying,whenever mentioning firearms some people here get their knickers in a twist. What you don't seem to understand that apart for most semi-autos and pistols you can have other firearms in this country,it's the attitude of public opinion and the lack of armed police officers that I find ridiculous.

You think firearms should be used against firearms,but it's not the case.

What leaves me utterly amazed is that the police here behaves like Dad's Army, whenever they screw up (Cumbria, riots) their answer is "we didn't expect that".. seriously?! You're a police force,you need to be able to deliver an ultimate strength service wherever necessary on the spot,not sit and look people commit crimes. A swifter and more decisive intervention in Bidmingham could have saved the lives of those guys.

[baronWastelan]

would've been carnage

and would've ended in 1 day, but perhaps you prefer the alternative which is for the UK to be bled to death slowly?

[Ploughman]

Originally Posted by baronWastelan

and would've ended in 1 day, but perhaps you prefer the alternative which is for the UK to be bled to death slowly?

Four dead ( is that how many the cops shot to death without reason on that bridge in New Orleans?), probably 2,000 going through the courts, about £100 million of damage, a national debate, some macro-economic and social changes. Hardly being bled to death slowly is it? And while we're at it this was exsclusively English rather than a UK event.

[baronWastelan]

Originally Posted by Ploughman

Four dead ( is that how many the cops shot to death without reason on that bridge in New Orleans?), probably 2,000 going through the courts, about £100 million of damage, a national debate, some macro-economic and social changes. Hardly being bled to death slowly is it? And while we're at it this was exsclusively English rather than a UK event.

Classic "frog placed in pot of cold water on the stove". The water is just starting to get warm. Relax and enjoy the spa.

[unreasonable]

Well I will eat my hat!

From NRA-ILA website (must be accurate, right?):

"The firearm accident death rate is*at an all-time annual low, 0.2 per 100,000 population, down 94% since the all-time high in 1904."

Meanwhile across the Pond...

Most recent murder rate UK = 1.28 per 100,000 pop (2009)

Actually until sometime in the seventies, I would have been right, but the gun accident rate has kept on dropping fast. Credit due to better gun design, improved safety awareness or stricter gun controls, take your pick.

Personally I do not believe that the level of crime in total is related to gun ownership - there are countries with high gun ownership levels and low crime rates (Switzerland), high guns + high crime (US), low guns + high crime (UK), and low guns +low crime (Japan?).

But the expression of crime in terms of gun related murder does seem to correlate with gun ownership - hence is my arms race argument, which is a classic prisoners' dilemma problem where the optimum solution can only be achieved through the use of an outside arbitrator, ie the state.

The overall crime rate is clearly a cultural matter: not primarily economic, as the left-liberals claim, although demographics and the business cycle clearly have an incremental effect.

Meanwhile the way in which yanks and limeys talk past each other on this issue is also cultural, and down to the different ways in which each views the role of the state.

Yanks, at least of the Red State variety, view liberty as something that is threatened by a strong state. With a weak state they feel free - to keep slaves, massacre red indians, invade Mexico etc

Guns are a totem of this freedom. Hence the rather silly arguments about how we are all doomed to end up under Nazi rule unless we have the right to bear arms. (Which ignores the fact that the Weimar republic fell because it did not control a monopoly of force, not because citizens were disempowered by gun laws).

For the British a strong centralized state has historically been the source of rights and freedoms. The main threat to liberty the individual faced was not from the sovereign, but from ruthless and greedy oligarchs, whether the traditional landed aristocracy or rapacious industrialists. The state, through the mechanisms of the Crown Courts, ameliorated the depredations of the locally powerful.

Indeed the recent riots in England can be seen as parallel to the American Revolution:

- A section of the population feels that it lives long way away from the centre of power.

- They believe that the forces of the state are biased against them and give them insufficient "respect".

- The state has been attempting to prevent them from victimizing other subjects (albeit with little success).

- When they are required to contribute to the finances of the state from which they have been major beneficiaries they claim they are over taxed and under represented.

- When some spark ignite the flames a few opportunists organize the rest through the social media of the day and start an insurrection.

- Rival militias form.

- While the forces of the crown struggle to reimpose order the politicians leap at an opportunity to settle old scores....

- Civil war?

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

hang on.

the criminals have guns, yes, a lot are reactivated firearms or eastern european. but it's the bullets that they find in short supply. rounds go for £50-100+ each. they tend to just shoot each other because it's difficult and expensive to get rounds for anything other than settling scores or sorting territory.

second, it appears and according to the IPCC, that the guy who got shot hadn't fired at police, and reports suggest it was still in his sock when they shot him. if he is brandishing the thing then fine - danger to life is obvious. if not the police ballsed it up. not helped by a bunch of them battering a 16 year old girl on the floor outside the station when the family turn up wanting to know what happened.

The ones with reactivated guns are petty criminals,I'm talking about the real ones,do you really think there's no stacks of assault rifles from former eastern block arsenals? Smuggling stuff in this country is still incredibly easy,get a ferry to the continent and see how many controls you go through,I was shocked the first time I crossed the Channel: NO control whatsoever,no police presence,nothing!

[Sternjaeger II]

you know what, I find it frankly disturbing that in front of such massive police fails people still believe they can be protected by them. People love digging their heads in the sand here, hoping that it's never gonna happen to them.

I've heard conversation where some pride themselves with the fact that there is no need for brutal police force here..in a village in Devon though..

It's this obstinate attitude that causes what happened with the riots, if police is not a lethal threat, people will simply ignore them.

And yes, there's insurances and what not to repay the damage, but for some of the damage there's no compensation that will fill the void.

Do you really think that in the end, once this is over, the minority of people which will be charged with some offence will actually make things better? This lot had nothing to lose..

[Lixma]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots

Widespread looting, assault, arson and murder occurred, and property damages topped roughly $1 billion. In all, 53 people died during the riots and thousands more were injured.

If only the police were armed none of this would have happened!

Oh, wait...