Coming Up NEXT in (Formerly) Great Britain:
Tag: UK
Do it Again, Only HARDER
Do it Again, Only HARDER
Sebastian has a very interesting British Public Service advertisement on his blog. His reaction:
You’d almost think the laws were ineffective, and only resulted in criminals having guns. Nah! Can’t be. That’s crazy talk!
Or, as Uncle puts it, “That’s unpossible!”
Here are two screenshots from near the end of the piece that say it all, now eleven years after the UK banned all handguns:
They admit that banning legally-owned firearms has failed. But the philosophy cannot be wrong!
The answer? DISARM BRITAIN!
Wait… I thought the handgun ban was supposed to do that…?
I left this comment at this blog post there. I doubt seriously it will make it through moderation:
OF COURSE “these laws don’t seem to matter.”
Are any of you familiar with the concept of “cognitive dissonance”? Here’s an excellent definition:
“When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as ‘escalation of failure’.)”
You’ve TRIED “disarming Britain,” and you’ve FAILED. Al you’ve done is disarm your victims and made them fearful of the consequences of defending themselves. Your ideology says “Violence is bad. Weapons are at fault. Remove the weapons and the violence will go away.” The ideology is FLAWED. But you’ve tried to follow the logic of the ideology, and it has failed. Since the ideology cannot be wrong, you keep turning up the power, and escalating the failure.
What you’ve lost is the understanding that there is a difference between “violent and predatory” and “violent but defensive.” Instead, you see only “violent.”
Human predators exist. A brick, a pipe, a chisel, a bottle – broken or not – can be a weapon in the hands of someone willing to use it. Knowing that their prey will be defenseless merely encourages them. How many of you avoid even looking at a hoodie-wearing chav on a bus or riding the tube, afraid that they might find an interest in YOU?
If any of you still have an open mind on the subject, read this. All three parts.
No wonder Brits are emigrating en mass.
UPDATE: Needless to say, my comment wasn’t approved. So I sent the blog authors, Natalie Harrison and Kyle MacRae an email directing them to this post and asking them “why not?”
Nat, Kyle:
I visited your website, “Disarming Britain” yesterday and read several of the posts after one of your adverts was posted to a web site I frequent. I left a comment on the post in question, “Knives and the Law” which was held for moderation.
It appears it didn’t pass muster.
I posted my entire comment, with a link to your site, at my own blog. I was wondering if you could tell me just what was it about my comment that got it rejected?
Thank you for your attention.
Kevin
Further updates as events warrant.
The Grey Lady Must Be Desperate
The Grey Lady Must Be Desperate
They linked to me!
(Click to see full size)
Look at the middle column, “Headlines Around the Web.”
More from the Petri Dish
More from the Petri Dish…
…that resides where Great Britain used to be. Via The Policeman’s Blog comes this cheerful bit of news:
Firefighters attacked at least 40 times a week
By Norman D. Landings ⋅ February 11, 2008
News to me.
Firefighters are being attacked at least 40 times every week, according to shocking new figures published today.
Crews have been pelted with bricks, bottles, burning wood and stones as they try to save lives.
In some cases they have been called to hoax incidents and ambushed, according to the Easy Targets? report, commissioned by the Fire Brigades Union.
In one incident, an entire crew was taken to hospital after a gang armed with sticks and scaffolding poles attacked them.
Unbelievable. Read the Fire Brigades Union web page on this topic.
But here are the key graphs from the story:
The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, are four times the number of attacks recorded by the Government and rose by 15 per cent to 1,500 last year in England and Wales. The total for the UK was 2,100 attacks.
In contrast, official statistics claim assaults fell by 68 per cent to just 400 in 2006/07.
Yet we’re supposed to believe that the British government reports on violent and gun-involved crime are accurate?
Go ahead. Pull my other leg.
The highest number of attacks was reported in the North-West of England.
Kevin Brown, from the regional FBU, said sometimes youths started fires just so they could target firefighters.
He added: “It tends to be in areas of social deprivation and poor housing, with gangs of youths fuelled by alcohol and drugs. They see the fire service as a target.”
In Tyne and Wear, crews have even been given ‘spit kits’ so DNA can be collected from those abusing or spitting at them.
I’ve covered “spit kits” before. As far as I’m concerned, they ought to be given “broken tooth” kits, so they can pick up the fragments of the teeth they knock out of the people who spit on them for proper forensic matching.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Local Government and Communities said they had not studied the report fully but would be happy to hold talks on tackling the problem.
She added: “This is an important issue and one the Government takes very seriously. It is unacceptable that firefighters should have to face such behaviour.”
Yes, I’m sure talking will help.
Firefighters called for more protection following the publishing of the report.
FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said it is almost “beyond belief” that firemen and women can be attacked so viciously while fighting fires and trying to save lives.
“In some areas, attacking fire crews has become a recreational activity with very serious consequences. It cannot be part of anyone’s job to face abuse, threats or attacks.
“The Government needs to take a lead rather than sitting on the sidelines ignoring the problem as it is doing in England. It is a different story in Scotland, Northern Ireland and increasingly in Wales where politicians are playing a more direct and active role.”
Talking isn’t “taking the lead”?
Research by the FBU showed that last October alone there were a series of attacks against crews across England, including:
• A hoaxer luring firefighters to a “car fire” in Cheshire before attacking them with bricks.
•A petrol bomb thrown at a fire appliance in Merseyside as firemen tackled a rubbish blaze.
•A gas cylinder exploded after being planted inside a wheelie bin and set ablaze in Cleveland.
In Lothian and Borders, incidents have included attacks with hammers, bricks, knives, lumps of concrete and coins while one crew reported that a breeze block was thrown off a bridge onto a fire engine.
Firefighters have ended up in hospital as a result of some of the attacks, which have led to delays of hours in attending emergency calls.
A spokesman for the Communities and Local Government Department said the Government believed the safety of firefighters was an important issue and it was “unacceptable” that crews should have to face attacks.
Legislation had been brought in last year to help the fire service take action against people who assaulted firefighters.
The spokesman said the department had not had a chance to consider the union’s report but would be happy to discuss the next steps with the FBU.
No wonder Brits are abandoning their country at the rate of 400,000 a year, while at the same time non-Europeans are streaming in.
When the Geek with a .45 decided to leave New Jersey for Pennsylvania, he wrote:
All I can say is, if you remember and cherish Liberty, and you live in a place like New Jersey, it’s high time to get the hell out of Dodge.
JOIN ME.
We’re Not Out of The Woods Yet…
We’ll be starting the house hunt after the first of the year. With the miniGeeks, we need a bigger place anyway, and shortly, this will all be a bad dream.
The thing is, I don’t think that’ll be the happy end of the story. I think the story is just beginning to be told.
As I mentioned to Kim, there is a hidden exodus that you won’t read about in the papers:
“People are moving away from certain states: not because they’ve got a job offer, not because they want to be closer to family, but because the state they are living in doesn’t measure up to the level of freedom they believe is appropriate for Americans. We are internal refugees.”
The fact that things have gone so far south in some places that people actually feel compelled to move the fuck out should frighten the almighty piss out of you.
(His emphasis.) The fact that people are abandoning their home country over shit like this ought to frighten the almighty piss out of the ones they’re leaving behind.
UPDATE: In comments, Kim du Toit councils, “Let ’em sink.”
Damn, that’s harsh.
Harry Carried a Smith in Afghanistan?.
That’s what it looks like in this pic (click to see full size):
What do you think? I’d have expected a Browning Hi-Power.
(And check out the ball cap!)
I Thought I was Only Kidding When I Called England Nerf™Land.
(And I really have! Here’s the evidence: 2005, and 2006, and I’m sure a couple of other places as well. )
But apparently now they’re doing it for real (h/t Phelps):
—
Around one in ten careless Brits has suffered a “walk ‘n text” street injury in the past year through collisions with lampposts, bins and other pedestrians.
The 6.6million accidents have caused injuries ranging from mild knocks and embarrassing cuts and bruises through to broken noses, cheekbones and even a fractured skull.
Look, I’ve heard of “Condition White” before, but if you are so disconnected from your surroundings that you walk into lamp posts, then the world doesn’t need to be padded for your protection, you need to be locked in a padded room for ours.
RTWT.
England. Where Great Britain used to be.
EDITED TO ADD: I really hope this story is a joke, because if it isn’t, that nation is just too far gone to save. (And the fact that we can’t tell if it’s satire says that it’s pretty far gone already.)
UPDATE 3/12: Phelps has the scoop. It was a “guerilla marketing” ploy by a wireless service provider – i.e., a joke.
But, as I said, the fact that we couldn’t tell is a sign that England is pretty far gone already. Even reader Phil B. reported that the local (UK) news treated it as real, so they couldn’t tell either.
Quote of the Day for Tomorrow.
(Since I already have a QotD for today.)
I’d like to think things are near some sort of conclusion…but I think we have quite a bit more horror to go through yet.
Comment by “jamie” at this Free Market Fairy Tales post.
Yup. The razor-blade ride ain’t over yet, and the alcohol bath is still a long way down. And we’re right behind you.
Quote of the Day.
From time to time I hear people who think that the EU will eventually lead to more liberal gun laws here in the UK. They reason that because many of our neighbours have less strict gun control that EU law will eventually standardise to the French or German model. They are of course quite wrong. The EU is not in the business of providing freedom, it is in the business of control. – Lurch at Gun Culture
(RTWT) Thus it is with all governments, which is why government is best kept small and watched closely.
But starry-eyed idealists always seem to believe that human nature is not what it is, thus Supreme Court Justice Louis Bradeis’s warning:
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
Or as P.J. O’Rourke put it:
Neither conservatives nor humorists believe man is good. But left-wingers do.
Boy, It’s a Good Thing Britain’s Banned Guns for Self Defense!
Somebody might have gotten hurt! Oh, wait…
Father killed for challenging gang of youths
A young girl watched helplessly as a gang of drunken youths kicked and punched her “courageous” father to death after he tried to remonstrate with them for making his family’s life a “misery”, a court has heard.
Amy Newlove, 12, saw the teenagers knock her father, Garry, 47, a sales manager, to the ground in the street outside their home after he went out to confront them over damage to his wife’s car.
They closed around him and broke into laughter as each started to kick him “as hard as they could”, especially in the head, as though “they were kicking a football”, the court heard.
One connected so violently with his victim’s head that his trainer flew off and became lodged beneath Mr Newlove’s prone body.
Amy’s sister, Zoe, 18, grabbed one of the alleged killers but was unable to restrain him, the court was told.
He and the rest of the gang then walked away, leaving the two sisters to tend their unconscious, dying father and to try to comfort their distraught mother, Helen.
The court heard how Mr Newlove’s street had been “plagued” by gangs of youths indulging in anti social behaviour fuelled by cheap alcohol.
Five teenagers, two of them brothers, now deny murder.
Only one of the alleged killers, Adam Swellings, 19, from Crewe, can be named.
He has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Two of Swellings’ co-defendants are aged 17, the others 16 and 15.
The 15-year-old, wearing smart black trousers, a shirt and a tie, took his seat in the second row of the dock, just behind his fellow accused.
Michael Chambers, QC, prosecuting, told a jury at Chester Crown Court that on the night of August 10 this year all five defendants acted as “an abusive and violent gang”.
Mr Newlove’s quiet residential street in Warrington, Cheshire, had been “plagued” for some time “by gangs of youths indulging in anti-social behaviour fuelled by cheap alcohol”.
They caused disturbances and vandalized parked cars, particularly on weekend nights.
In the past Mr Newlove had gone out to try to reason with them.
On August 10 he “had the courage” to face them again.
Tragically for him, they were “in no mood to be challenged” and he was no matched for their combined assault.
Mr Chambers described the defendants as “an established gang”.
He said on the night Mr Newlove was attacked the defendants had gathered with other youths and had been “drinking heavily”.
A few minutes before the “unprovoked and unjustified” attack the father-of-three had been watching television in his lounge.
Upstairs in her bedroom, Amy heard the sound of a street digger being smashed up and looked out to see a youth landing a kick on her mother’s Renault Scenic.
The teenager alerted her parents to the commotion, and a few moments later Mr Newlove, barefoot and wearing spectacles, rushed out to confront the gang.
Amy followed him. So, too, did her elder sister and Zoe’s boyfriend, Thomas Sherrington.
None of them was able to save Mr Newlove from his assailants, and Amy watched the entire scene unfold, the court was told.
Mr Chambers told the jury: “She saw one of the lads kick or knee her father in the back and he fell to the floor.
“She then saw all the lads, about six of them, kicking her father while he was on the floor.
“They were all kicking her father as hard as they could, all over his body, especially in his head. It was like they were kicking a football.
“Her father was curled up and the group of lads were all laughing as they were kicking him”.
Once the gang had moved away Mr Newlove was taken by ambulance to Warrington General Hospital where a CT scan revealed large-scale bleeding around his brain.
Surgeons were powerless to act and he died 36 hours later without regaining consciousness.
It later emerged that the critical blow was likely to have been a kick to the upper neck.
Well, assuming they get a conviction, I’m sure they’ll all receive nice long three year sentences for the murder. And this isn’t a single, isolated incident, either:
Public should stand up to yobs, says top officer
A police officer is insisting the public should stand up to yobs, even though two men have been killed in the past week for challenging unruly youths.
Detective Chief Inspector Cliff Lyons said people are “entitled to challenge bad behaviour” as we live in a “free and democratic society”, despite official Home Office advice that victims of crime should never take the law into their own hands.
On Sunday, father-of-three Garry Newlove, 47, died after allegedly being attacked two days earlier by a gang who were throwing stones at a mechanical digger.
Evren Anil, a 23-year-old science graduate, was killed when he challenged two teenagers who allegedly threw a half-eaten chocolate bar into his sister’s car.
Both incidents have added to fears that the risks of confronting drunken or aggressive youths is now too great.
Commentators have claimed that law-abiding citizens are no longer willing to defend themselves or their property in case the police charge them with attacking the criminal. Last week Patrick Walsh, a homeowner, was arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm after a burglar fell 30ft from a window at his flat, although police have now told him no further action will be taken.
(My emphasis.) NO! You don’t say! I thought it was just “gullible gunners” who believed this!
Yet the terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport has shown that the public still admires those who put their own safety at risk.
John Smeaton, a baggage handler, became a hero when he confronted two terror suspects, and was warmly received by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week.
Mr Lyons, leading the investigation into Mr Anil’s alleged murder by litter-throwing yobs, said: “I would say Mr Anil was quite entitled to challenge their behaviour.
“People are entitled to challenge bad behaviour. We live in a free and democratic society.
“My advice is to assess where you are, the circumstances of the incident and whether the incident may result in a threat to you or others – which is exactly what Mr Anil did.”
The Home Office warned the public against taking any action against criminals that could result in them being injured or facing assault charges themselves.
A spokesman said: “The public should not intervene directly in any situations of criminal activity – they may put themselves in danger or exacerbate the situation.
“Ultimately, they may be acting on the wrong side of the law.” The Association of Chief Police Officers said members of the public should call the police to report criminal behaviour.
David Green, director of the think tank Civitas, believes the public must be allowed to challenge criminals.
He said: “You can’t maintain any sort of decent society unless all the people take responsibility for discouraging wrong-doing.” He added it was down to the police to ensure that members of the public are not at risk of being prosecuted for taking a stand against yobs.
“The police should back the victim and not ask whether they used reasonable force.
“And the police also need to be much clearer. In some cases they are giving people bravery awards for tackling criminals, and in others they charge them with assault or kidnap.”
Nothing like a mixed message to chill the willingness to act.
Here are some of the 96 comments recorded when the paper asked Would you risk being a ‘have a go hero’?
Facing up to yobs is always difficult. How can you asses the situation properly when you can’t see if they are carrying weapons or know if they are on drugs or not?
It depends on circumstances. If I saw a couple of yobs breaking a bench or throwing stones at something for example, I would most likely walk on. If, however, there was another human being or animal being attacked or intimidated, I would of course step in. The first thing to do is call the police and then step in; because if you call the police first they will be on their way when you start getting your head kicked in, which is a comfort I suppose! But unfortunately they take so long, so maybe it isn’t a comfort!
Carrying weapons! They wouldn’t do that, it’s illegal! And now the government wants to make it illegaler! At least this respondent recognizes that when you need help right now, the police are only (tens of) minutes away!
Yes I would on the understanding I had a gun. It would not matter a jot if i was charged and then put in prison because I am 75 years of age and therefore for the few years I have left on this planet being kept warm, well fed, free access to dentistry and plenty of books to read will do me very nicely thank you.
Another example of the Greatest Generation remembering what it was like to still be free.
Keith Manton says it all. In my younger days the fear of the death penalty kept the murder figures down. The fear of corporal punishment at school, or at home, kept the majority in check. These were the boundaries most of us recognised. Because a minority went on to murder and some took little notice of the cane, the ‘do-gooders’ removed the boundaries assuming that always being ‘kind’ would be reciprocated by everyone. However, they do not advocate closing the prisons even though a majority of inmates reoffend on release. Who says present day prisons work? Feral mobs of today do not know where the boundaries are but they know their ‘rights’ and that there is a chance their victim will be prosecuted in their place if there is a fracas. It’s a topsy-turvy world and not as nice as that created by Gilbert and Sullivan. So, no, I would not intervene unless it were a family member. The law is not always on my side.
I wonder if that guy has ever read Heinlein? He damned near quoted him.
The question and the reason for the question evidence that Britain is now the sickest most evil and stupid post Christian society on earth. If anyone hurt an immediate family member and I had the means to render that person or persons unconscious or dead I would. But it is preferable to emigrate and live in a civilized society. No I would not intervene for anyone else as the sickko Communist Marxist filth running the police and the courts are on the side of evil now. Unless the British get rid of the present parties they will die in a welter of laws and regulations made for an alien culture. In the meantime 4000 a week emigrate to less violent and less evil nations of the earth.
Well, that helps explain Britain’s current mass exodus.
Yes – we should all stand up to the yobs. There are more of us than they are of them. I (a 60+ female)have twice recently challenged anti-social behaviour – with success on both occasions. What are the police doing? Nothing. They don’t even support those decent police officers who do carry out their duties with diligence. They don’t want police who have moral courage, they just want “touchy-feely pink and fluffy” who are only interested in political correctness. Ask the police how they treat officers with an exemplary record who, in a threatening situation, defend themselves. They drop them in the sh*t. Scumbags rule. The law abiding have their lives made hell. Time for the morally courageous majority to take action. If the police and the low-life politicians won’t take a firm grip, we will have to do it ourselves.
Another elder with her head on straight.
No, I would not ‘have a go’ unless I, a member of my family, or someone I knew well were facing direct attack.
Even then under the Criminal (Human) Rights Act and the inverted Cultural Marxist values and norms of the Crown (read NuLab) Prosecution Service I will be the one arrested for violating my assailant.
The only sensible response to attack is to flee if possible, or if not, to kill at least one attacker. As Churchill put it, “you can always take one with you”.
Hmmm… Must be one more “gullible gunner.”
I like to say yes – but I am sorry to say I would walk away.
Either you become a victim (in which case the Police are unlikely to act unless the press show an interest), or you are successful (and then the Police take the easy option and you become the criminal and get charged with assault).
In the last century the Police made a fundamental contract with us the public, if we gave up our arms they would protect our property and persons. They have broken the contract!
And another…
‘have a go hero’
Am I the only one who spots the cynicism (or even sarcasm) in this terminology? As in: “Yes, you pathetic ‘have a go hero’ law-abiding citizen who thinks he/she can stand up against the mighty thugs and criminals! And let me remind you, even if you can, we ‘da police’ or ‘da government’ will make you pay for it!”
Case closed.
I detect some bitter cynicism there.
As us country boys used to say (doubtless as male chauvinist bravado), if you happen put down some thieving miscreant, don’t even think of calling the police. Rather check the JCB for diesel. Problem is, you can’t risk moving home and leaving an incriminating souvenir. So doesn’t emigrating sound the far better, safer option?
Another vote to abandon the sinking ship.
DCI Cliff Lyons is a police officer for whom I have a great deal of respect but it must be remembered that what he said was merely his opinion – not Government policy.
The line between getting a George Medal and five years’ imprisonment, when one ‘has a go’ is very thin, indeed.
Until the time comes when it is quite baldly stated by the Government that any violence used against a mob confronting the ordinary man in the street will be accepted as reasonable, with no question of prosecution, so the violence and the murders will continue.
But speaking as a former police officer who knew that the only way to deal with yobs was to go into them, hard, I can say this, without fear of contradiction. If you go in alone, do not expect any help whatsoever from today’s police officers. The yobs are too much trouble. So are you, of course, but you’re an easy target. It’s you who’ll be arrested to help fill a quota – after all, you’re not going to cause the arresting officer any trouble, are you?
There it is, straight from the horse’s, err, mouth.
Read the whole thread.
“England can do it! Australia can do it! We can too!” – “Million mom” chant.
Like hell.
Another Peek into the Petri Dish…
…where the formerly Great Britain used to be.
After the school shooting in Finland, the BBC came out with a multi-part piece on guns, gun violence, and gun control in England and Europe. Interestingly enough, they started with a timeline of British gun control laws that began with this rather startling admission:
The contrast between UK legislation on gun ownership – among the strictest in the world, and that in the United States – among the most relaxed, might appear stark.
But in fact both countries’ firearms laws can be traced back to the same source.
The right to bear arms was guaranteed in the 1689 Bill of Rights, in which the new King William of Orange enshrined a series of rights for his subjects – Catholics were famously excluded.
This was enshrined in common law during the early years of the US, and later informed the second amendment of the US constitution, which explains why the right to bear arms remains so strong a factor in America.
Why didn’t it remain strong in the UK?
Meanwhile back in Britain – where hostile natives and rogue bears – were less of an issue, few people took up the right to carry arms.
If you don’t exercise a right, it atrophies.
Compare the BBC’s timeline with one I did in 2001 that got picked up by Enter Stage Right, entitled A Sterling Example. Mine, I think, gives the reader a bit more perspective.
The BBC series continues with an exploration of Who supplies the guns on our streets? In this piece the writer utters that-which-shall-not-be-admitted-aloud:
Britain has some of the toughest gun laws in the world, and has done a great deal to choke off the supply – but as long as there is a demand for guns there will always be someone willing to find a way to provide them, at a price.
Economics 101 from Father Guido Sarducci’s Five-Minute University: “Supply and-a Demand – that’s it!”
But hope springs eternal!
MEPs are currently discussing amendments to a European directive which police hope could make a big difference in the fight against gun crime.
The new, updated rules, which replies Directive 477 will introduce a number of extra controls on the sale of guns.
Gisela Kallenbach, the German Green MEP responsible for pushing through the directive, said: “You can never 100% stop people illegally obtaining guns no matter what legislation you have, but with the legislation you can at least make it as difficult as possible.”
But it won’t make it effectively difficult. All you can do is affect the price.
The directive will mean individuals wanting to buy blank-firing and imitation guns will have to prove their identity to the retailer or manufacturer, who will be under a duty to register that sale in the same way as the sale of a new or used car.
Buyers would have to provide a passport or identification card.
“If you can manage it with cars then why not with guns?” said Ms Kallenbach.
Because guns are small, easily concealable, easily stolen, increasingly valuable the harder you squeeze the market, and the distribution channels are already established?
Later in the piece:
Revenue & Customs are at the forefront of efforts to stop guns getting into the country.
A spokesman said there was no doubt guns were smuggled in on ferries, but they had achieved several notable intelligence-led successes.
In July two men were jailed for a total of 24 years for trying to smuggle in two Czech assault rifles, which had been broken down into components.
The guns, along with 460 rounds of ammunition, were found during the search of a car at Dover docks.
The Customs spokesman said: “We can’t stop every single passenger and we work on where the risks are. The figures suggest the number of guns being smuggled is at a fairly low level compared with drugs.”
But drugs are consumables. Guns are durable goods. And you know you can’t stop drugs from coming in.
A third piece discusses How guns get into the hands of crooks. Another rather startling admission is printed therein:
In the spring of 2005 Manchester gangster Desmond “Dessy” Noonan was interviewed for a television documentary and bragged about having “more guns than the police”.
A few days later he was shot dead on a street in south Manchester.
Noonan’s brother Dominic was arrested in May of that year in possession of a blank-firing gun that had been imported from Germany and then converted into a deadly weapon. He was later jailed.
But the gun was one of a batch of hundreds imported from Germany by a gang who had employed an engineer to convert them.
The sales manager at Cuno Melcher’s factory near Cologne still sounds mystified by the logic of the gang who tricked her into selling them hundreds of guns, which they would later convert into lethal weapons.
“It would have been easier to buy real weapons, from Eastern Europe, which you can get for 50 euros. Why did they buy gas weapons and convert them?” asked Julia Nicolai.
(My emphasis.)
Supply and-a Demand.
I read the rest of the piece. Personally, I think they’re vastly overestimating the value of those converted guns. Why do I say that? Well in the piece entitled Who carries guns and why? the BBC reports:
In the 1980s and 1990s the number of armed robberies fell away as more and more criminals moved into the drugs trade.
Despite the 1997 ban on handguns – introduced after the Dunblane massacre – the crooks increasingly favoured pistols and revolvers, which were easier to hide and more “fashionable”.
And:
What does seem to have changed in the past decade is the average age of both offenders and victims, which has come down considerably.
The average age of the victims in those 10 murders in the spring of 1997 was 29 and the youngest was aged 19.
Ten years on, if you look at the gun deaths that took place in June and July 2007 the average age of the five victims had fallen to 25 and that falls to 20 if 47-year-old boxer James Oyebola is excluded.
Detective Chief Superintendent Helen Ball, who heads up Operation Trident, recently told BBC Radio Five Live: “We have noticed for a couple of years now that the ages of people involved in gun crime is reducing and it’s something that we have been deeply concerned about and until we are able to tackle that trend I am not sure that we will be able to be confident in solving this problem.”
She said the proportion of victims who were teenagers had risen from 19% to 31% in the last four years.
So some very young offenders are scraping up that kind of cash for guns? Possible, but I think the reality is that guns are in actuality much cheaper than the BBC is reporting – which goes right back to Supply and-a Demand. The better the supply, the lower the price. As recently as August The Telegraph was reporting that handguns were going for as little as £50. Who’s right? Which hypothesis more closely matches the evidence?
Another fascinating tidbit. At the bottom of that piece was this bit of rather old but interesting data:
Note the date – 2000-2002. That makes the ratio between the UK and the US right at 2.25 to one. A far cry from where it was in the 1950’s, no?
By most rational measures, the UK doesn’t really have much of a firearm problem. They do, however, have a violent crime problem. And they have a firearm paranoia problem, as evidenced by this story illustrating the inability to differentiate between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective”:
March without your guns, says mayor
A MAYOR sparked a row by asking soldiers to lay down their guns before marching in this Sunday’s Remembrance Day parade.
Chepstow town councillor Hilary Beach says the 1 Rifles Army regiment, based at nearby Beachley Barracks, should not carry their weapons during the ceremony because of the rising tide of gun crime across the country.
Veterans’ groups criticised her comments as “ridiculous”.
As well they should. But she’s the Mayor, and thought it was a good idea.
And here’s the inevitable result of that mindset when carried into the halls of power:
Jail term cut for ‘feral’ killers
Two Cheshire teenagers who terrorised a vulnerable man before beating him to death and throwing his body in a river, have had their life sentences cut.
Craig Dodd, aged 17, will now serve a minimum of three-and-a-half years in prison and Ryan Palin, 15, three years.
The pair were dubbed as “feral” when they were jailed for life for the manslaughter of Raymond Atherton, 40, in Warrington.
They beat and urinated on Mr Atherton before dumping him in the River Mersey.
Despite the severity of their crime, Lord Justice Rix overturned the life terms and replaced them with sentences of detention for public protection, giving each a minimum tariff to serve before parole can be considered.
Lord Justice Rix decided the sentencing judge at Warrington Crown Court had not been right to impose life sentences for the killing.
He said: “We think it was an error of principle to say that a discretionary sentence of detention for life should be imposed.”
But here’s the kicker:
The court heard Palin, of Grasmere Avenue, Orford, and Dodd, of Lisguard Close, Runcorn spent months systematically abusing the victim, who had severe learning difficulties, in a process they nicknamed ‘terroring’.
They regularly broke into his council flat on St Katherine’s Way, Howley, where they wrote graffiti on the walls, burnt his hair and daubed his face with paint.
On the night of his death in May 2006, the boys were seen by neighbours beating him with planks of wood until he bled.
(My emphasis.) I guess his neighbors should have honked their horns and jumped up and down.
This is what disarmament has done to the formerly Great Britain. This is the result of a society unable to differentiate between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective.” This is what happens when the State denies its citizens the right to defend themselves, and abrogates its duty to protect them. This is what happens when a society journeys down the path of compelled helplessness.
And what was the mantra of the (not nearly a) Million Mom March?
England can do it. Australia can do it. So Can WE!
Not on my watch. Not ever.