gareth
Established
Yup, we've already had that one. And the Scotsman has long since ceased to be any sort of quality paper. But whatever. Note what it says, "according to official government figures". Now they wouldn't lying would they. They wouldn't be biased in any way, would they? Look up those 30 year old documents, this is the same crap all over again.
It's up to the people come May 2007. Stay with the UK, a dead political system, watch our money and economy drain away, our sons dying in stupid illegal wars, or move forward and take care of ourselves.
Anyway I guess we should be discussing photography.
Sparrow
Veteran
gareth said:
Yes you are probably correct
John Camp
Well-known
dreilly said:
Yeah, but that's statistics for you. Of the 30,000, 18,000 are suicides, ~12,000 are murders, accidents, or legal shooting. You also have to remember that the US has 300,000,000 people, so the non-suicides represent something like .0004 percent of the population...the line about more people are killed every two years by guns than in 8 years of Vietnam is true, but only if you include suicides. So everybody messes with stats, including the CDC. When concealed carry was made legal in Florida...there was a slight decline in gun-related murders. In Switzerland, there are more guns per capita than in the US, but fewer gun-murders than in Britain. The reason the murder rate is so high in the US is because we are an angry, aggressive society compared to others.
Of course, saying that guns have nothing to do with murder (that it could be done as easily with a pipe or a knife) is nonsense. Guns are simply more lethal. When the guy gets drunk and his old lady rips on him, and he picks up a gun...well, killing somebody with a knife or a fist takes work, and there's a lot of blood around, and the other person in screaming or yelling or struggling or running; the killer can change his mind. With a gun, one anger-flash twitch of the old .357 and you can't take the bullet back.
And to bring it back to automobile deaths...the number of people killed annually by guns in the US is one-fourth of the number killed by cars, and many, man, many times more people are injured in cars than with guns. But we don't hate cars...
JC
Sparrow
Veteran
rvaubel said:
Who’s God?
rvaubel
Well-known
Sparrow said:
God, in this context, is a euphemism for "natural law" . Half the Founding Fathers were atheist or pantheist.
To some people "God" is the State. Thus its authority to grant or take away rights
Rex
Silva Lining
CanoHasseLeica
Very true! Most newspapers are politcal mouthpeices of one colour or another anyway.gareth said:
gareth said:
True, I'm not so niave to believe everything I am told by the government, however there is the basic numbers issue. i.e. Are there enough Scots to draw tax from to pay for the running of an idependent Scotland? Oil / Gas won't last forever.
gareth said:
I agree, although from a slightly different perpsective. I don't believe that it is sustainable for the English tax-payer to be expected to subsidise Norn Iron, Wales and Scotland indefinitely.
Probablygareth said:
Silva Lining
CanoHasseLeica
Sparrow said:
Dennis Bergkamp
Sorry ! Sparrow
Veteran
rvaubel said:
So what’s unalienable mean?
Sparrow
Veteran
Silva Lining said:Dennis Bergkamp
that's football.........right?
Silva Lining
CanoHasseLeica
Sparrow said:
Right!!!
eli griggs
Well-known
Hi Jenni, I have to disagree with pretty much all of your last posting. Your easy dismissal of the harm of negligence medical deaths appears absolute and I suspect that even if the numbers were one million, (which it is according to some reports) you would not be able to see that the when compared to the number of deaths from all firearms, comprises a much greater threat to the innocent. Numbers do matter and a person killed by medical misadventure is no less dead than one one killed a firearm, in any situation you care to mention.
As far as risk is concerned, everything is a risk and living in a society that has embraced firearms as throughly as America has, means that that risk is ever present. Having said that, the fact that medical negligence represents a leading cause of preventable death in America and people must seek treatment or go without is another risk. The fact that such negligence is often under reported and that hospitals conspire to hid the facts of such deaths, only enables the carnage to continue. The medical establishment has routinely opposed public databases that would allow patients (or their guardians) to check to see if the doctor or hospital/clinic has a suspect record that warrants further investigation and this only increases the risk to the innocent. This has allowed bad practitioners and institutions to avoid detection and avoid being permanently prevented from practicing. In many cases all a bad doctor has to do is move to another state and set up shop again and additional negligent deaths occur. If this isn't homicide, what is?
"I think it might be safe to assume that some people killed by guns are in fact innocent - or are all those people responsible for their own deaths in some way?"
No, innocents are in fact killed by guns, cars, tree falling and lighting strikes. Eating soup from a can also carries a risk as does English cooking, however when you consider that about 58% of firearm deaths here are suicides, then yes, many are "responsible" for their own death. That 39% are murders is indeed too many, and while don't have the F.B.I. or C.D.C break down of murders in front to me, I would not be surprised that the majority are gang and drug related violence. Since it is impossible to separate these people from their weapons, the solution must found elsewhere. Depriving the overwhelming law abiding population of their firearms is a ridiculous proposition and those who promote doing so have agendas that are not in the best interest on a free and democratic people who are firmly behind those Rights.
It's funny, but outside a few small villages and towns here that have passed protest ordinances, no one here is trying to force others to own or use firearms.
Contrast that to those people that appear tireless in their efforts to destroy the Rights of those who exercise their option to own guns. Even from forums such as the U.N., anti-gun forces conspire to control the choices of free people in other nations.
As far as your assertion that...
"There is no such thing as an absolute right to own a gun as it implies a right to kill, and nobody has that right. Besides, there are many non-lethal forms of self-defence."
I will only point out that the Right to effective self-defense, using lethal force, predates history and for someone to try to remove those Rights and leave people vulnerable to attack is unconscionable. We may wear better hats, but our need to protect ourselves from ourselves is as great as it ever was.
Try less than lethal methods to repel an determined attacker if you will and hope you have a chance to reflect upon your decision in the warm light of a better day. However, just don't expect a majority to embrace your reasoning and methods. Here at least, the Right to Bear Arms does exists and for good reason. That is a decision only the American People can decide to put aside.
"Ah. This was one small A&E unit trying to make a name and not a general proposal by the GMC. There are laws against carrying knives in the UK anyway."
All I can say to this is that great mischief has just such beginnings. Of course the Great Britain's "Knife Culture" does seem to be a legitimate growing problem, despite many restrictions on knives, some of which resemble those here.
With the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary trying to use amnesty for knife carriers and putting knife violations on a par with gun violations and a 73% increase this last year in muggings (42,000) together with a " 55 per cent increase in random attacks with knives on strangers." (51,700) I'd say that it is more than likely that more laws are in the works.
These numbers however are suspect, as the government has engaged in 'spinning' the books on crime, excluding Scotland and Northern Ireland, not including "offences against under-16s" and not reporting the full extent of commercial crimes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6156684.stm
The assertion is being made that "that nine out of 10 crimes are either not reported or go unpunished." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6207313.stm?ls
I must also question the implication that those people that break into houses are leaving whatever weapons the carry at home, even if they are 'only knives' (my emphasis, not yours).
More here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,29389-2304912,00.html
Even if guns are banned, criminals will have no difficulty obtain more, sad but true and the banning of firearms is certainly no grantee that crime will not increases.
As far as "* 54 people in England and Wales, and", I'll ask, where is Scotland or Ireland, if you prefer?
Of course none of this dialogue really means much, as I am not likely to persuade you and you have no chance of swaying me from my position. Perhaps we should rejoin our fellows and move on to a more appropriate topic for this forum?
Whatever you decide, the last word is yours
Cheers
As far as risk is concerned, everything is a risk and living in a society that has embraced firearms as throughly as America has, means that that risk is ever present. Having said that, the fact that medical negligence represents a leading cause of preventable death in America and people must seek treatment or go without is another risk. The fact that such negligence is often under reported and that hospitals conspire to hid the facts of such deaths, only enables the carnage to continue. The medical establishment has routinely opposed public databases that would allow patients (or their guardians) to check to see if the doctor or hospital/clinic has a suspect record that warrants further investigation and this only increases the risk to the innocent. This has allowed bad practitioners and institutions to avoid detection and avoid being permanently prevented from practicing. In many cases all a bad doctor has to do is move to another state and set up shop again and additional negligent deaths occur. If this isn't homicide, what is?
"I think it might be safe to assume that some people killed by guns are in fact innocent - or are all those people responsible for their own deaths in some way?"
No, innocents are in fact killed by guns, cars, tree falling and lighting strikes. Eating soup from a can also carries a risk as does English cooking, however when you consider that about 58% of firearm deaths here are suicides, then yes, many are "responsible" for their own death. That 39% are murders is indeed too many, and while don't have the F.B.I. or C.D.C break down of murders in front to me, I would not be surprised that the majority are gang and drug related violence. Since it is impossible to separate these people from their weapons, the solution must found elsewhere. Depriving the overwhelming law abiding population of their firearms is a ridiculous proposition and those who promote doing so have agendas that are not in the best interest on a free and democratic people who are firmly behind those Rights.
It's funny, but outside a few small villages and towns here that have passed protest ordinances, no one here is trying to force others to own or use firearms.
Contrast that to those people that appear tireless in their efforts to destroy the Rights of those who exercise their option to own guns. Even from forums such as the U.N., anti-gun forces conspire to control the choices of free people in other nations.
As far as your assertion that...
"There is no such thing as an absolute right to own a gun as it implies a right to kill, and nobody has that right. Besides, there are many non-lethal forms of self-defence."
I will only point out that the Right to effective self-defense, using lethal force, predates history and for someone to try to remove those Rights and leave people vulnerable to attack is unconscionable. We may wear better hats, but our need to protect ourselves from ourselves is as great as it ever was.
Try less than lethal methods to repel an determined attacker if you will and hope you have a chance to reflect upon your decision in the warm light of a better day. However, just don't expect a majority to embrace your reasoning and methods. Here at least, the Right to Bear Arms does exists and for good reason. That is a decision only the American People can decide to put aside.
"Ah. This was one small A&E unit trying to make a name and not a general proposal by the GMC. There are laws against carrying knives in the UK anyway."
All I can say to this is that great mischief has just such beginnings. Of course the Great Britain's "Knife Culture" does seem to be a legitimate growing problem, despite many restrictions on knives, some of which resemble those here.
With the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary trying to use amnesty for knife carriers and putting knife violations on a par with gun violations and a 73% increase this last year in muggings (42,000) together with a " 55 per cent increase in random attacks with knives on strangers." (51,700) I'd say that it is more than likely that more laws are in the works.
These numbers however are suspect, as the government has engaged in 'spinning' the books on crime, excluding Scotland and Northern Ireland, not including "offences against under-16s" and not reporting the full extent of commercial crimes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6156684.stm
The assertion is being made that "that nine out of 10 crimes are either not reported or go unpunished." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6207313.stm?ls
I must also question the implication that those people that break into houses are leaving whatever weapons the carry at home, even if they are 'only knives' (my emphasis, not yours).
More here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,29389-2304912,00.html
Even if guns are banned, criminals will have no difficulty obtain more, sad but true and the banning of firearms is certainly no grantee that crime will not increases.
As far as "* 54 people in England and Wales, and", I'll ask, where is Scotland or Ireland, if you prefer?
Of course none of this dialogue really means much, as I am not likely to persuade you and you have no chance of swaying me from my position. Perhaps we should rejoin our fellows and move on to a more appropriate topic for this forum?
Whatever you decide, the last word is yours
Cheers
S
Socke
Guest
Al Patterson said:
Does not apply here.
back alley
IMAGES
this thread is about ready to retire...
back alley
IMAGES
or be retired...
ladies and gentleman, last call!
ladies and gentleman, last call!
N
Nikon Bob
Guest
At the end of the day the only thing that is relative and absolute when you are being attacked is that you survive relatively unscathed after having absolutely subdued your opponent with whatever means that are at hand.
Bob
Bob
FrankS
Registered User
Less heat, more light.
(Great line, Guy!)
(Great line, Guy!)
Last edited:
S
Socke
Guest
Ok, language is a difficult thing, it changes with the society using it and sometimes people try to change it for whatever purpose.
This is something we have to accept, we also have to accept that some people who are not native speakers use words different to what they are used by the native speakers today, often because they have learned the language years ago and are not in daily contact with native speakers.
So just give anybody some leaway, what one thinks he read must not be what the other meant when he wrote it.
This is something we have to accept, we also have to accept that some people who are not native speakers use words different to what they are used by the native speakers today, often because they have learned the language years ago and are not in daily contact with native speakers.
So just give anybody some leaway, what one thinks he read must not be what the other meant when he wrote it.
R
Robert
Guest
I sometimes refer to children as kids but one time a dad pulled me up about calling his children young goats.
I stopped calling kids, kids until I realised almost everybody calls kids, kids or should that be kids, children or children, kids.
Oh shoot, I'm getting mixed up, I think I'll go and **** some shots to relax.
I stopped calling kids, kids until I realised almost everybody calls kids, kids or should that be kids, children or children, kids.
Oh shoot, I'm getting mixed up, I think I'll go and **** some shots to relax.
Al Patterson
Ferroequinologist
Amen! Someone who gets it!
Amen! Someone who gets it!
This is true.
Amen! Someone who gets it!
Nikon Bob said:
This is true.
BrianShaw
Well-known
actually joe, you missed your queue about mid-day yesterday!back alley said:
Have a nice New Year celebration tonight!
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