The Brits are at it again

[KCSO]

"BRITS START CAMPAIGN FOR KNIFE CONTROL"
Ney York Times

Britian in the grip of Knife terror...
Calls for manufactures to redesign knives...
Pointed knives not essential...

Boy am I glad they got rid of all their guns, now they don't have crime anymore!

[45nut]

While doing a bit of research on the above I came across this person's view.
Quite readable,and quite well engaging to my mind. I will let you read it and reply yourselves..I do not intend to or want to get into a fight,just a enlightening discussion.....
Pax Americana (http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/gov_philosophy/pax_americana.htm)

[StarMetal]

Damn Ken,

I read that, I couldn't stop reading it. It made me want to grab my guns and cleasne our country of Washington control.

Joe

[wills]

"BRITS START CAMPAIGN FOR KNIFE CONTROL"
Ney York Times

Britian in the grip of Knife terror...
Calls for manufactures to redesign knives...
Pointed knives not essential...

Boy am I glad they got rid of all their guns, now they don't have crime anymore!

Once they reduce themselves to poking each other with sharp sticks, it will be interesting to see how they try to control that. I am glad my ancestors left there.

[Scrounger]

Once they reduce themselves to poking each other with sharp sticks, it will be interesting to see how they try to control that. I am glad my ancestors left there.


They had a chance to stop its spread in the sixties, but when they didn't exterminate the Beatles, the conclusion was forgone...

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It is interesting that a story of comparable American idiocy has surfaced at the same time as the above. I don't know whether many American states still have laws against fornication and seduction, although I understand they were never altogether put a stop to. I also understand there are Americans who take it as an article of faith that the earth is flat, and others (or perhaps not others) who practice do-it-yourself trephination on themselves, under a local anaesthetic.

I wouldn't dream, though, of attributing those interesting attitudes to the American people as a whole. There is virtually no chance of mandatorily blunted knives becoming law, and we don't have enough of the article to know if it was even being suggested, let alone suggested by British people who are allowed a handle on the inside of their doors. "People are suggesting..." is journalistic truth if anyone actually is.

Firearms ownership in Britain has been rising considerably for several years now, and the government have issued a statement affirming that self-defence against violent or apparently violent crime should be an automatic defence, unless it is obviously retributive or disproportionate to the danger. In fact there have been a very small number of prosecutions in the last fifteen years, and only five convictions, of persons who had killed or damaged burglars. All of those involved something a lot more complicated than ordinary self-defence, exactly as they could in most US states.

I'm sure I disagree with a lot in our gun control laws - and quite a bit in anybody else's. That is not to deny, though, that it is something good in our society that makes us vulnerable to such measures. By World Health Organisation figures around 3.6 per hundred thousand British people die from intentional homicide, as against more in most of our European neighbours, and 17.6 in the United States. I think "grab a gun for politics" has a lot more to do with this, than the sort of spinelessness some people seem to imply.

[Buckshot]

............BiS, you get enough people together and you're going to have some with whacked out ideas. Our Attorney General under Clinton, Janet Reno put out a call for manufacturers to produce less deadly ammunition. Now just think about that for a moment. How ludicris a thing for an educated adult to say?

But I seriously doubt anyone here would consider the British as 'spineless' forgetting the politics of it, the right or wrong, the British are there in Iraq and fought tough battles suffering many casualties. On the face of it doing so merely in aid and support of the U.S. Nothing in the British Isles was bombed as we had done to us, yet Britain stood by us. World and especially European opinions aside.

Britain has been a settled and well educated peacefull country for centuries. There were no more frontiers to fight and settle. Colonial holdings were a long way off and Britain had an army and navy to take care of those faroff places that had 'situations'. There was no danger of the Zulu's attacking Devonshire or 'Wogs' running rampant in Liverpool.

Here in the U.S., Australia, and to a degree Canada there was a good long century of frontier expansion going on. There is still a bit of frontier attitude amongst some of the population in these places. Possibly due to the distances involved and the former lackadasical and spotty regulation something that was geneticly inbred is now slowly being erased by population pressure.

Whatever it is, I know OF it, but I cannot explain it. I suppose rugged individualism isn't called for in a densely populated community. Heck, there is no room for it, and very probably no need for it. However there is definatly a difference in societal groupings outside large populations.

People in a rural settings are very different then those who live condensed in cities. Even in these days of advanced technology people in small towns or on farms, ranches, and homes dotted around such places are still very much responsible for thier day to day living. They are much more individually responsible for themselves then the average large city dweller you see on the street.

Like the older lady in the news story about the guy with the knife in the Wal-Mart. She took personal responsibility for a situation that others had no means to do. In a city you wrap yourself in ananimity and do not make eye contact. You got out into the country and people you don't know wave as you drive past.

Relating specificly to our 3rd trip up to Modoc County that Deputy Al and I took earlier last month. These people are pretty darn independant. A small farming and cattle town of 800 on the Eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. Yes they have elctricity, running water and even flush toilets. However most every house has a large supply of firewood stacked up somewhere on the property and it's not for the occasional bit of "Wine, cheese and thee" in front of a picturesque fire.

A bit remarkable to me and in marked contrast to the city of 60K I live in, is that at one of the 2 independant (real small) grocery stores in town they have ammunition for sale right there at the checkout counter. Never been in the other one. Yeah right, I can see it at home. "Gimme a pack of Marlboro's a box a them 12 guage shells". You know, in the 3 times we've been there, for 3 days each, we saw a grand total of ONE police type vehicle and he was a State Highway Patrolman, as the main street in town is State Highway 247.

Besides having only 800 souls, I doubt very much that the place really needs much policing. The first time we were there we went into largest of the 2 resturants and were under the suspicious scrutiny of the 5 locals sitting at a table back in the corner. Not unfriendly but we were for sure strangers and were worth watching. Yet it did not take long to realize how outwardly friendly and outgoing these folks were. A big change from the city, but these people weren't idiots either.

Our last trip we decided to see if we could get permission to hunt a ranch we'd used 2 years ago. When our knock on the door of the ranch house was answered we were immediately invited inside! Can you imagine that? Here's 2 adult males unknown to them yet we were invited in. We didn't look like robbers I guess, but what do robbers look like? The rancher, Joe Stephenson vaguely remembered us form 2 years past. And here he turned us two guys loose on his property with high powered rifles.

I don't know if you've seen the demographics of the last and previous elections? The famous "Blue and Red" maps? I suppose similar could be produced for many previous elections to show the same thing.

Again REAL actual politics aside, but going by what the candidates espoused as their platform, you will see without a doubt that the rural constituancy still cling to the things they feel are important and to things that made this country great. On the other hand you have the cities. In the country are the people who want to be left alone, and in the cities you have the people who want.

The cities breed a disassociation from real life. In the country, life happens. In the cities fiction happens. Certainly the majority of people are fine nice folks, but they don't go out of their way to be friendly. The press and crush of the shear numbers of people cause many to shy away from contact. This and the lack of morals, the fact that personal responsibility for actions and the transferance of 'blame' onto society as a whole has made violent behavior okay. After all, it's not their fault, right?

We're breeding a generation who believes in entitlment. You go out to the country and if you don't get your butt out there and work you're going to lose the farm. In town you get unemployment insurance, welfare and county supplied medical.

Violence to a degree is also tied to age groups in the population. It's been proven time and again that when the male population age group of (I think it is) 16 to 30? is large, so is violent crime. I read a report done by a group of college criminologists in Texas drawing on the earliest such records beginning in 1872. While gun ownership was close to universal, violent crimes went up and down with this age group's rise and fall. On the other hand, property and personal crime was almost non-existant.

So I suppose you had the saloon shoot outs and such happening, while other crimes just didn't happen hardly at all. Even today almost all home break-ins are perpetrated by people who know the homeowner. Why atempt to burglerize a house for unknown gain when ole Granny Smith may be sititng in her rocking chair with a 12 guage across her lap? They did show the value to that old saw, "An armed Society is a polite society".

We'll go by the WHO's numbers, but I'm sure they have an agenda. I will suppose without doing the work to check, that their numbers also include the times an armed citizen used deadly force to protect themselves, so you have bad guys included in that number. I'm guessing but I'd bet money on it. Why would I bet money on it? Well it's because our own Center for Disease Control has done the same, not to mention the stats trotted out by the various other anti gun groups and the major media. Of course the retraction is on page 38 and in tiny print.

It was funny to me and a remark I made often during the very large gunshows held at the Los Angeles County fairgrounds. About a quarter million or more people jogged through 6 huge exhibition buildings literally stuffed to the rafters with firearms and ammunition of all descriptions, yet not one firearm related incident had EVER happened there. If guns caused crime, believe you me cousin, THAT would have been the epicenter.

..............Buckshot

[45 2.1]

Buckshot, ya did good! The problem now is that the city folks outnumber the country folks in elections, thus the funny blue and red maps.

[KCSO]

I think this goes back to the idea that there are some people who want to take personal responsibility for their lives and a vast majority who don't care to as long as nothing is bothering them. The do-ers vrs the thakers, the Wolves vrs the Sheep, however you want to phrase it. Neither side seems to be able to understand the other and the do-ers are on a downhill slide. I can't understand anyone who would live in the country and seriously expect that if trouble occured they could call the cops and someone would magicly appear and solve their problems. yet I am meeting these folks almost on a daily basis. "I just moved here from Chicago and I haven't seen one of your Deputies patrol my road in the last week". "I need a Deputy to chase these turkeys off my porch". "Help me, there is a big grey dog (coyote) chasing my poodle". I am starting to feel like a hide hunter in the 1880's, my world of do it your self self reliance is dissappearig and I don't fit in anywhere any more.
Like the South and the North in the 1860's I think the majority will soon be forcing their will on the self reliant minority until a violent break comes. If you would have told my grandfather that somewhere in the US of A he would not be able to go into the Hardware store and buy a gun or ammunition and take possession when he slapped his money on the counter he would have laughed at you. We have made so many consessions for the good of society in the last 30 years that I no longer recognise the society. This year I am sendig men to school to learn to carry a pocket knife! Yes an officer has to be CERTIFIED to carry a knife on duty! Kids are being thrown out of school for having a nail file or an aspirin on their person. A local girl had to take her brothers picture out of her locker in school because he was IN UNIFORM with a GUN. Yet the sheep like majority keep empowering the wolves who push this nonsense for their own gain.

So much for my rant. Darn you Buckshot I was in a pretty good mood when I came in this morning.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Buckshot, that is an admirable summary of the difference between city and country people in just about anywhere. It could almost have been written by my Saudi students, a delightful bunch of backwoods bedouin. I don't think it is often a matter of orthodox politics, either. Politicians can make a sort of tacit agreement without knowing they are doing it, and very often it is a sort of "You rustle and slaughter some of our cattle, and later you do the same with ours in a different way, and they'll go on thinking they have to be dependent on one or the other of us."

I understand what you are saying about the influence of the westward expansion, but it can't be that simple. For the records, as against the myths, show that except for a very few abnormal locations in brief periods of time, death by crime or Indian attacks was relatively rare in the west, and the eastern cities were much more dangerous places to be. Partly, I suppose, the human consciousness isn't logical. But James Michener, talking about Texas in the earlies, speculates on a French psychological term, anomie, which is a sense of rootlessness bewilderment brought about by separation from one's original surroundings and standards. It could be argued that in the massive immigration from all over the world to the eastern US cities resulted in a population which was separated by its roots, and placed in an environment where you could feel you would never again meet the people you quarrelled with.

There were British people, of course, civilians as well as soldiers, who had lived much of their lives in dangerous places, where firearms were an everyday tool. The difference is that they were going back to the communities they had come from, where everyone knew who they were, and the convention was to leave all that behind them. Much the same thing happened with Americans who came home after major wars overseas, and saw no fascination in the sort of violence that appealed more to the next generation. Part of this, I suppose, is that in much the same way as Gallipoli is said to have produced an Australian identity, the United States seemed a lot more like home to even recent immigrants, when they came back from a life of danger and discomfort.

I think, though, the two tiers of national and state government have produced an ambivalence of legal standards, especially in territories which weren't states yet, or who were forced out of taking the Confederacy as their first preference. Britain, due to shorter distances (and our own brand of politically crafty tribal savages in the Highlands of Scotland) had made central control paramount centuries before. I think that, and the feeling that people were in a colony of their own nation, was what made Canada and Australia relatively peaceful places. The RCMP wasn't just about protecting the public, but who was in charge.

The WHO figures were compiled from national law enforcement figures, and reduced to as close to the same criterion as possible, so I think the comparison is pretty valid, and our way of taking responsibility for our own lives can't be entirely defective. I suspect that in any country the proportion of homicides involving the death of criminals attacking the innocent, is rather low. I remember that the WHO figures for the US showed rather more of a concentration in young adult males than are found in most countries. That, to me, suggests that it isn't due to greed, hatred or fear, to none of which age makes us less susceptible. It's the testosterone! But there is plenty of other evidence that it is, as you suggest, predominantly a product of a certain fraction of urban young males.

[Buckshot]

..............Actually I didn't really make the point I was trying to very well. I can think it, but getting from the brain through the fingers and typed on the screen, or on paper just doesn't follow through very well sometimes. At least for me. Maybe it's the difficulty in trying to convey an emotion or rather nebulous hunch :-)

To put it in it's bare bones context, and subject to many "Yeah butts" and "On the other hands", it boils down to the basic premise that Great Britain is merely a more civilized country. Speaking of populations as we are.

Now that begs the question as to if it's because England is a much older society, if it has something to do with the size and population density, societal mores, or merely upbringing? Education? How about attitude?

I don't know what the figures are for them, but I would also suppose crime is fairly low in such countries as Norway, Sweden and Finland. No facts, but just a hunch.

...............Buckshot

[Scrounger]

..............Actually I didn't really make the point I was trying to very well. I can think it, but getting from the brain through the fingers and typed on the screen, or on paper just doesn't follow through very well sometimes. At least for me. Maybe it's the difficulty in trying to convey an emotion or rather nebulous hunch :-)

To put it in it's bare bones context, and subject to many "Yeah butts" and "On the other hands", it boils down to the basic premise that Great Britain is merely a more civilized country. Speaking of populations as we are.

Now that begs the question as to if it's because England is a much older society, if it has something to do with the size and population density, societal mores, or merely upbringing? Education? How about attitude?

I don't know what the figures are for them, but I would also suppose crime is fairly low in such countries as Norway, Sweden and Finland. No facts, but just a hunch.

...............Buckshot

I think what you're trying to say is that Britain is an older, tireder country. Societies age, just as individuals do.

[Bret4207]

A couple of points to remember-

WHO organization figures use the same stats as most other governmental agencies, which include among their homocide rates those individuals that die from police gunfire, suicide and accidental shootings. Disregarding those deaths lowers the 17.6 per hundred thousand down to less than 6 last I knew. Higher than we'd like, but the figures are falling. Traffic deaths are something like 43 or 46. I would also note that having been involved in record keeping for a large law enforcement agency, I can say confidently that figures are commonly manipulated, altered and often plain inaccurate through confusion and carelessness.

Regardless of where you are people are violent. We see the British football (soccer) fans killing each other over a freakin' game and they call us violent?! No matter where you are these deaths are compounded by alchohol, drugs, greed and testosterone. Find a violent crime and you'll find at least one of those items involved in 95% of the cases. Darn few cold blooded killers out there, but there are lots of people who go stupid when drunk, stoned or when the guy next door has more of something than he does.

I agree completey with KCSO on the rural vs. city mentality. Apparently Canada has a big problem with this, compounded by their god awfull Socialist gov't. There is a larger and larger divide between rural and urban views each day. I don't see it stopping any time soon. Here in NY the state buys more and more land and closes it off to the populance so that city people driving through the area can see trees and "unspoiled wilderness". NY city voters control what goes on through the rest of the state without ever having been out of the city to know what goes on elsewhere. Those that move out into my area are like those KCSO mentioned. "Whats that SMELL??!!" That would be the manure your new neighbor the farmer spreads on his field to grow the corn to feed his cows to make the milk you drink. I won't even go into the services they expect for the taxes they pay or what they seem to think of as normal standards of behavior. Unfortunately many local gov't officials react to these expectations and demands and grant what these people want without looking at the long view. Higher taxes evolve from this which causes jobs to move out of the area which lowers the tax base which leads to higher taxes, etc. When I'm appointed King I'll change it all. Until then the downward slide of western civilsation continues.

[NVcurmudgeon]

I submit that Podunk, where everybody is armed, police are seldom needed, people tend to solve their own problems, and neighbors can be trusted, is the truly civilized place. Believing the big cities of the world to be more civilized is IMO madness. Urbanization and civilization are antonyms, though politicians everywhere insist on trying to convince us that they are one and the same.

[grumble]

I don't really know what "civilized" means. Theater? Opera? Sipping tea with a pinkie extended? If so, then we country folk aren't very civilized.

But, if "civilized" means being civil to one another, then we have it all over the jerks that live in cities. Here, teeanagers say "yessir" and "no ma'm," and "please" and "thank you." You can hire a high school kid to work and not worry about him wrecking your equipment, sneaking off when unsupervised, or bringing his buddies back to rip you off when he knows you won't be home.

I live about 15 miles from the closest pavement and 35 miles from the closest town of 300. When we meet a neighbor on the road, we stop and talk through our truck windows; if another neighbor should happen by, we have a tailgate party right there in the road. No stranger goes unnoticed, and hikers and cyclers always get a friendly "kin we hep ya?" as they pass through, not so much to actually "hep" them, but to find out who they are and what they're doing there. And of course, to put them on notice that they're being watched, but not in an unfriendly way.

Call a cop? HA!! Try two hours driving time, IF the roads are dry, and if one of the two deputies assigned to this half of the county (the county is the size of Connecticut with a population of about 3000 people, 5000 elk) isn't on vacation. We don't ask for help, but we give it a LOT. When my neighbor got hurt, he didn't ask for help, but about 20 people just showed up one day to brand his calves. When I put up my steel building, a neighbor showed up, like magic, with his backhoe to get my rafters lifted the 16 feet needed to bolt them in place.

Nobody here would hesitate to shoot if they thought it necessary, or to offer whatever assistance they could, if needed.

Your call -- who's the most "civilized," us or city folks?

[9.3X62AL]

Jump--NO CONTEST.

A lotta good thoughts expressed here. Buckshot and I live in an area that has transitioned from largely rural/agricultural to at least suburban, and often urban characteristics at present. During that same time I was working in law enforcement, and saw the expectations for my agency and its personnel transition from reasonable expectations for performance to ridiculous assumptions about our abilities and the capabilites of our society's courts to address the "issues" presented by our modern society's colliding complexities. I have few answers, except to say that self-reliance needs to make a major comeback if we are to survive as a free society.

[Jumptrap]

Jump--NO CONTEST.

A lotta good thoughts expressed here. Buckshot and I live in an area that has transitioned from largely rural/agricultural to at least suburban, and often urban characteristics at present. During that same time I was working in law enforcement, and saw the expectations for my agency and its personnel transition from reasonable expectations for performance to ridiculous assumptions about our abilities and the capabilites of our society's courts to address the "issues" presented by our modern society's colliding complexities. I have few answers, except to say that self-reliance needs to make a major comeback if we are to survive as a free society.

HUH? I ain't opened my motuh .....yet!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I wouldn't even say Britain was more civilised, in an all-round way. British football fans do, of course, represent a suspension of civilisation as we know it. But killing each other? I think we could use a few instances here, and I think we would find the total running at somewhere around 0.25 per hundred thousand, which represents 3.6 reduced to cover Saturday afternoons.

We do have a high level of minor crime, which is often committed by people of low enough judgement for a moronic semi-accidental killing. (Some of the blame lies with all those movies where a person gets up, groans, and gets on with the movie.) There are some (not all) forms of sex crime which don't vary very much with location, and would have a potential for murder if they were committed in Vatican City. Policemen will tell you few people are as dangerous as Mr. Average who suddenly realises he can't have the family hear about his below-average predilections. But in general our low-life creatures prefer to be non-deadly low-life.

3,431 people from around 58 million died in road accidents in Britain in 2002, and although a helpful government has taxed gasoline enough to make us drive less, on average, than Americans, more of it is in cities and roads which follow medieval tracks. It isn't that unusual for no death to occur in a year during any shooting sport - although a lot of suicides are probably set down as gun-cleaning accidents to save relatives' feelings. What counts is how much life matters, and how much bother we will put up with for it. Of course there are ways to reduce them much further, and I think most of us on this board would agree there are sacrifices that shouldn't be made just to eliminate a low death-toll further. People don't actually need to waterski, hang-glide, get dehydrated to earsplitting music or dose themselves with silly substances. But if we get irrational about a wider danger from their indulgences, they'll get irrational about shooting.

I think those experiences of city versus country people are pretty universal ones. Even in Britain, burglars often say they don't take advantage of those police response times because country people have shotguns. (And it certainly isn't true that they have been disarmed, or have to provide evidence of some kind of sporting use.) The likelihood of strangers being noticed, and the traceability of car numbers, is probably even more important, though. There used to be a county in central England (a larger unit than most of your counties), where patrol cars weren't allowed enough gasoline per shift to go to the far end of their patrol area and back. They probably spent the money on computer systems or conferences or something.

I certainly don't think socialism encourages crime. Silly socialism does, but that's a combination of two things. Wisely funding the health, education and self-esteem of poor people, in ways that will make it worth their while to conform and do something useful, has a far better effect than the purest form of self-reliance. That's what does indeed work for the Scandinavian countries. The Finns do stab one another quite a bit, I believe, but only when they are drunk, and they don't mean any harm by it.

[felix]

There has to be an unwritten rule known to all about the fine line of need vs greed. If that concept is ingrained throughout the area, then there will be no crime. That kind of eduacation comes from religious teachings rather than civil government decrees. ... felix