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Killyp

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 14, 2006
3,859
7
In Manchester, detectives denied they were losing control of the Moss Side area after a 16-year-old girl was shot in the street in an attack which some have linked to the murder of Jesse James, 15, earlier this month. At the same time in London, community leaders said the shooting of two black teenagers in a McDonald's in Brixton had left people in a state of shock.

He added: "The problem we face is that there are a small number of people who have a determined desire to engage in gun conflict. We're continuing to target them but we need continued support from the community to tell us what's going on and where these guns are. There's no excuse for being scared."

The shootings come in the wake of a series of violent incidents this week. In Nottingham, Nathan Williams, 17, was shot dead while cycling through the city in Tuesday, while four unconnected shootings in London over the past week have left four people seriously injured and one man, aged 22, dead. Despite the large numbers of teenagers involved in such incidents, the Home Office said it had no separate statistics on the ages of gun crime victims, although it is well established that young people, particularly males, are the highest risk category for all violent crime.

News article here

How difficult can it be to keep track of some of these idiots? It seems the police are more interested in catching you speeding than they are in saving someone's life. :(
 

Brize

macrumors 6502a
Jun 13, 2004
732
0
Europe
Killyp said:
How difficult can it be to keep track of some of these idiots? It seems the police are more interested in catching you speeding than they are in saving someone's life. :(

I can understand your frustration at the rising level of gun crime in the UK, but the very point of catching speeding motorists is to save lives.

73 people died of gun-related crime in the year ended 31 March 2005.

By contrast, 3,201 people were killed on Britain's roads in 2005; the total number of casualties was 271,017.
 

Killyp

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 14, 2006
3,859
7
Brize said:
I can understand your frustration at the rising level of gun crime in the UK, but the very point of catching speeding motorists is to save lives.

73 people died of gun-related crime in the year ended 31 March 2005.

By contrast, 3,201 people were killed on Britain's roads in 2005; the total number of casualties was 271,017.

My dad wrote a report on this for the Government. The majority (can't remember the figures for this) of speed cameras are placed on roads where there aren't a high number of deaths. In fact, it's something like the top 50 deadliest roads in the UK don't have speed cameras on them.
 

Brize

macrumors 6502a
Jun 13, 2004
732
0
Europe
That may be so, but you (erroneously) inferred that police officers on traffic duty should be re-assigned to investigate firearms offences. Nothing to do with speed cameras.
 

Killyp

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 14, 2006
3,859
7
Brize said:
That may be so, but you (erroneously) inferred that police officers on traffic duty should be re-assigned to investigate firearms offences. Nothing to do with speed cameras.

It's not all about the police officers themselves, cash has a lot to do with it.
 
L

Lau

Guest
Killyp said:
It's not all about the police officers themselves, cash has a lot to do with it.

I don't really get what you're saying here. That the reason gun crime is a problem is because there are speed cameras on the wrong roads that are making the police service money?
 

Brize

macrumors 6502a
Jun 13, 2004
732
0
Europe
Killyp said:
It's not all about the police officers themselves, cash has a lot to do with it.

Speed cameras generate revenue; they don't divert police funding.
 

Killyp

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 14, 2006
3,859
7
Brize said:
Speed cameras generate revenue; they don't divert police funding.

Crime prevention and road crime actually have seperate budgets. The money made from Road Crime doesn't go into the Crime Prevention budget at all. In fact the spending on Crime Prevention has gone down in the past few years.
 

Brize

macrumors 6502a
Jun 13, 2004
732
0
Europe
Killyp said:
The money made from Road Crime doesn't go into the Crime Prevention budget at all.

I never suggested it did. I was simply pointing out that speed cameras are self-financing, and not reliant upon funding that would otherwise have been allocated to policing.

Killyp said:
In fact the spending on Crime Prevention has gone down in the past few years.

Again, that may be the case, but it has no bearing on your original supposition.
 

Applespider

macrumors G4
Ignoring speed cameras entirely, cars cause more deaths/injuries than guns do in the UK. So while the gun stories get the news excited for being more unusual, it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable for the police to focus on where they can do most use.

And while it's relatively easy for the police to 'stake' out a road with a history of accidents and watch out for dangerous driving with a reasonable success rate per car passing, it's a lot tougher for them to stand on a street and watch out for people who might be carrying concealed weapons. Not least since if you believe the figures that many of those carrying them are young black men, you're going to open the police up to charges of racism if they stop and search on nothing more than 'I thought he might be carrying a gun because he's young and black'

The police can't be everywhere and it's very easy to say with hindsight where they should have been at certain times.
 

eenu

macrumors 65816
Aug 11, 2006
1,157
0
Manchester, UK
as a resident on manchester and living one mile from the shooting have you ever thought of the wider picture?

I strongly believe you don't get shot in Manchester if you are NOT involved with drugs.....i also strongly believe these kids being shot here are because they are family members of those invloved in drugs or with drug debts.

Reassigning traffic cops (of which my father is one) will not help with shootings.....SOCA and CID need to be involved at combating what i see as the main cause here Drugs and a minor amount on firearms supply.
 

yg17

macrumors Pentium
Aug 1, 2004
15,027
3,002
St. Louis, MO
Brize said:
I can understand your frustration at the rising level of gun crime in the UK, but the very point of catching speeding motorists is to save lives.

73 people died of gun-related crime in the year ended 31 March 2005.

By contrast, 3,201 people were killed on Britain's roads in 2005; the total number of casualties was 271,017.


In an entire year, in the entire country, only 73 people died of gun related crime? I bet the US has 73 deaths a DAY from gun related crime.
 

bartelby

macrumors Core
Jun 16, 2004
19,795
34
yg17 said:
In an entire year, in the entire country, only 73 people died of gun related crime? I bet the US has 73 deaths a DAY from gun related crime.


Yes, but your Constitution is to blame for the high levels of gun ownership.

Brize said:
By contrast, 3,201 people were killed on Britain's roads in 2005; the total number of casualties was 271,017.

How many of those deaths were directly due to speed?
 

Brize

macrumors 6502a
Jun 13, 2004
732
0
Europe
bartelby said:
How many of those deaths were directly due to speed?

From the same source:

Exceeding the speed limit or going too fast for conditions were reported as a contributory factor in 15 per cent of all accidents. However, the factor became more significant with the severity of the accident; it was reported as contributory factor in 26 per cent of fatal accidents and these accidents accounted for 28 per cent of all fatalities (793 deaths).​
 

bartelby

macrumors Core
Jun 16, 2004
19,795
34
Brize said:
From the same source:

Exceeding the speed limit or going too fast for conditions were reported as a contributory factor in 15 per cent of all accidents. However, the factor became more significant with the severity of the accident; it was reported as contributory factor in 26 per cent of fatal accidents and these accidents accounted for 28 per cent of all fatalities (793 deaths).​


So 15% were due to speed!

(28% of servere accidents were due to speed, what's the definition of servere?)
 

Applespider

macrumors G4
bartelby said:
So 15% were due to speed!

(28% of servere accidents were due to speed, what's the definition of servere?)

Well given that it says that 28% of accidents involving fatalities were due to speeding, I suspect the number of severe accidents is even higher - if you count severe as accidents in which one or more people lost limbs or were hospitalised for more than a few days?

It does say that speed was a contributing factor though so it may not have been the only one - drink, drugs, weather, mobile phones, automotive failure probably also had a part to play in several of them.
 
L

Lau

Guest
Applespider said:
Well given that it says that 28% of accidents involving fatalities were due to speeding, I suspect the number of severe accidents is even higher - if you count severe as accidents in which one or more people lost limbs or were hospitalised for more than a few days?

Definitely. As a cyclist (and pedestrian) I'm used to keeping an eye out for idiots, as just because it's someone else's fault doesn't stop me turning into a little pile of mush when hit. I also very much believe in sticking roughly to the speed limit for the same reason, as 10 mph makes the difference between slightly mangled and the aforementioned little pile of mush.

The other day, in a rental car, we were driving along at 30 mph, and I noticed someone in some sort of ridiculous large car waiting to pull out from a side road. I, in a habit type way, looked to see if she'd seen us, and she seemed to have, and then pulled out bang in front of us. Liam slammed on the brakes, and we came to a halt about an inch from her side doors, with two wee kids in the back. If we'd been going at 40, we'd have slammed into the side of her (and her kids) for sure.

Obviously, as we were going at 30 (the speed limit), there was some idiot behind us getting agitated. :rolleyes: I'm not saying I haven't enjoyed going fast in a car before, and yes, most of the time you're ok, but when you're a cyclist whose had a car grazing your leg as it goes past or you've had a close call like that, suddenly beating the "evil system" of breaking speed limits seems really effing stupid. :mad:
 

bousozoku

Moderator emeritus
Jun 25, 2002
15,698
1,871
Lard
yg17 said:
Yep, good ol 2nd amendment. Lets give everyone a gun to reduce violence! :rolleyes:

That could be a temporary solution, especially if they don't know how to use them.

Seeing as how there have been break-ins to two gun stores in the Orlando area in the last two weeks, the U.S.A. needs to re-think how things are done while allowing people to own guns.

Since most other countries don't allow people to own guns, working on the problem has to be more covert since the gun trade has to be covert. 73 isn't terrible but since people aren't allowed them and those could be 73 innocent people and not criminals, it's too many. I'd imagine the shooting numbers for Japan are slightly less but stabbings would be higher.

Obviously, car fatalities due to inattention require more police attention. No number of speed cameras will detect somehow drifting into the wrong lane, will they? Whether they're too concerned about the phone, the children are screaming, or they're reaching for something in the other seat, how do you combat that?
 

russed

macrumors 68000
Jan 16, 2004
1,619
20
Ugg said:
Thank Maggie for the continued uptick in crime across the UK.


urm... no!

you may know i'm a bit of a fan of good old maggie but to say she is responsible for the gun crime is stupid - my guess is you are one of those still bitter towards her - "she was responsible for everything bad of the 1980's" - yet everyone who has done well during the 90's has everything to owe to her because of her economic reforms.

i would have to say one of the problems is that the whole blame culture - no one is every to blame anymore, no one can be held responsible and everyone now has rights - as a result children are growing up without discipline because they cant be, and even if they get caught for something they will get a slap around the wrist (sorry, no you cant hit anymore) and told not to do it again. If you get sent to prison, its more like a holiday camp with tv's a relaxed environment and game consoles and even then they will be out in 1/3rd of the time. Its stupid - people say they should be 'reformed' whilst in prision, but the only way to deter people is for prision to be prision - you have to sit there and think - you may be bitter when you come out but you sure a hell wont want to go back again because you wont like being locked up for 20 hours a day with only a book to read.

the solution cant be solved over night but a good place to start is the return to people being held accountable for their crimes and the encouragement of people being proud of their society.

end of rant


now i'm waiting for the lefties/people who have created this decline in society to have a go at me now calling me a fascist.
 
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