London/Manchester shootings

[zami]

i am grossly offended - for a start do you know what fascism is? please learn before you call someone a fascist, i have studied fasicsm at university in great depth (not because i want to 'learn more' and become more) so i do know what fascism is and i DO KNOW it is not conservatism.

secondly, we all have a right to free speech, that is what democracy is about, i will listen to your opinion but democracy is not just calling someone something without clarifying your position. So please define why i am a fascist.

what damage did maggie do? please clarify also

i am not a fascist, i am not a supporter of the bnp or anything like that, i am definatly not rascist. all i am is a conservative.

please give constructive criticism and give your ideas of how to solve the problem dont insult me and an apology would be appreciated.

I too am offended by this illiterate Tory twunt. What is a "rascist" you right-wing fool?

It is thanks to 18 years of Tory misrule made possible by the votes of the selfish and the ignorant that people are dying on the streets in the very borough I live in, Lambeth.

The UK is a disgrace, instead of finding dignity in the EU it has prostituted itself to feral capitalism.

 

[nbs2]

Without resorting to attacks on the left and the right, I would love to know how many homicides occur in the UK and US per capita. The reason I ask is that if the rate of gun violence is significantly higher in the US (which it clearly and undeniably is), I wouldn't be surprised to see a significantly higher rate of violence in the UK with other weapons.

Rather than attacking each for being liberal or conservative, wouldn't it be better to take a step back, take a deep breath, and understand the problem? Honestly folks, anybody who really thinks that crime can be blamed on the actions or leadership of one or two individuals is as more simple minded then the people they blame.

 

[Ugg]

Rather than attacking each for being liberal or conservative, wouldn't it be better to take a step back, take a deep breath, and understand the problem? Honestly folks, anybody who really thinks that crime can be blamed on the actions or leadership of one or two individuals is as more simple minded then the people they blame.

Whenever society goes through major upheavals, crime rises. There's no doubt in my mind that Maggie caused more social upheaval in Britain than anyone else. Had she tread more cautiously, one can't help but wonder if there would be less of "little britain" and more of Great Britain. She made it clear that henceforth it was to be a dog eat dog world. Who can doubt her impact?

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Just a couple of general comments on this. One of the main objectives of the UK's zero-tolerance gun law is, as I understand it, to minimise the number of firearms in circulation. Accordingly, the law does impact upon those looking to procure firearms illegally, because guns aren't so readily available.

The UK had a much smaller number of guns than the US to begin with, which makes this line of reasoning much more likely to be effective in the UK. Still, by way of example, 10 years after the Australian gun buyback statistics have not shown a reduction in homicides...and gun crime has not been dramatically reduced. Again, the laws have little impact on the criminals who are actually responsible for gun crime - by definition their gun ownership and use is little effected by laws, even laws that are designed to reduce the nuber of guns available. The people who surrendered their weapons were not the people that the law was ultimately designed to disarm - those people have remained armed.

Despite this, I agree that UK-style gun laws would be ineffective in a US context. Although it's tempting to blame America's high murder rate on gun ownership, Switzerland offers a good example of a country with high gun ownership and a low rate of crime involving firearms. The US homicide rate, then, would seem to indicate a problem that's more fundamental to American society.

I agree, to the extent that the US homicide rate is a problem that is one of American society - and the Swiss example demonstrates that gun ownership does not necessarily bring with it higher homicide rates. I'm not convinced that Americans' wish to own guns is also the primary reason that we kill each other more often (c.f. the concept that violent video games make people behave violently - equally fallacious IMO). I certainly don't feel any unusual homicidal urges...

It strikes me as futile to discuss stringent firearms regulation in the US, given the degree to which guns are entrenched in American society. However, to defend or advocate widespread gun ownership in a country that very clearly has a homicide problem, is, to my mind, asking for trouble.

The "entrenchment" of guns in society is not the root of the homicide problem though. As I said before, I don't think the issue can be boiled down to "more guns = more homicide", and vice vera. Legal gun owners are essentially being scapegoated while the true causes, which are much more complex (poverty, broken homes, mental illness, abuse and so forth), are conveniently downplayed or even ignored. This concept is applicable everywhere - taking guns away doesn't remove peoples' motives or willingness to murder one another.

I think the London/Manchester shootings are an example of this. The weapons being used are banned - they shouldn't even be in the country. But the neighborhood in question by all accounts contains people who are living in classic conditions for harboring criminal activity. These conditions are the real problem. For all the restrictions that exist these people will find ways to arm themselves, if not with guns then with something else. Until you adress the reasons why they are willing to murder one another, you will not see a fundamental change in their behavior, regardless of whatever restrictive legislation gets enacted.

If I'm "entrenched" in my gun ownership ways and therefore (by implication) part of the problem, others are deluding themselves with the myopic notion that guns are the primary cause of the homicide problem...both are exaggerations and not really helpful, but the same people who energetically pursue fireams restriction are often doing so while failing to address signifiant social issues that have much more bearing on crime in general - not terribly surprising since the latter are much more difficult to wrestle with and it would be easier to assign the majority of the blame to a weapon that can be banned...the problem is that it doesn't really change things on a basic social level.

Anyway, discussion is never futile - it is the only way to really resolve a problem...the alternative is precisely what we are both trying to prevent.

Oh well, this yank will bow out now and let you Brits get back to discussing politics...I have my own government to worry about these days...