The shepherds' advice to the sheep

enfieldspares

Well-Known Member
So, this Government, and the posturing, preening Home Secretary (a "pound shop" pastiche of Margaret Thatcher's pretensions and prejudices) has had the National Crime Agency give advice in response to terrorist attack.

"Run", "hide", "lock the door behind you" (presumably "tough luck" on anyone trapped the other side of the door with the terrorists) and "don't lie down".

Yet the whole thread of this advice is just that. Passive, moribund, supine. The Conservatives boat they are the Party of Winston Churchill. By this advice they have also remonded us that they are the Party of Neville Chamberlain.
 
The advice given is stupid, there is an intellectual deficit everywhere in Gov. Possibly caused by too many responses without due consideration. However the SAS gets a major boost in funding and numbers.
More guns on the streets in the hands of competent marksmen is the answer IMHO, for the next few months to a year.. The video of the cafe shooting in Paris - one man with a gun and it would have been over, simply because they dont expect armed 'civilians'.
 
A generation ago, the PLO attacked schools in Israel, until all the teachers started being armed. Then they sought softer targets. Now the the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied groups attack tourists and schools elsewhere.
 
More guns on the streets in the hands of competent marksmen is the answer IMHO, for the next few months to a year.. The video of the cafe shooting in Paris - one man with a gun and it would have been over, simply because they dont expect armed 'civilians'.

Do you honestly believe that's the answer?

In America, where there is a far higher level of gun ownership, yet it seems we read continuously about about mass shootings. With all those guns in circulation you would think that mass shootings would be a rarity, yet it seems not.

How many marksmen do you think it would need to be able to cope with every possible terrorist act, or to be in every possible cafe? 1,000? 10,000?? 100,000?? The chances of one of these competent marksmen being in the right place at the right time is infinitesimally small.
 
You read propaganda about "mass shootings" in America, as part of a campaign to make honest citizens in the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK and Europe believe that they are in danger from law-abiding gun ownership.

Most of these "mass shootings" in the USA are gang gunfights, when you look deeper into the cases, and over half of them are in large cities run by liberal Democrats, where handguns are almost outlawed - Chicago, New York, Detroit, Washington DC, San Francisco.

But Switzerland and other countries with higher levels of firearms ownership than the USA, have less crime. Why? Look at the democraphics of the criminals. They are from cultures lacking in the moral restraints of Western Civilization, permitted to run wild.
 
Do you honestly believe that's the answer?

In America, where there is a far higher level of gun ownership, yet it seems we read continuously about about mass shootings. With all those guns in circulation you would think that mass shootings would be a rarity, yet it seems not.

How many marksmen do you think it would need to be able to cope with every possible terrorist act, or to be in every possible cafe? 1,000? 10,000?? 100,000?? The chances of one of these competent marksmen being in the right place at the right time is infinitesimally small.

America has a mental health problem, not a "gun" problem. There is no money in looking after mainly teenagers with mental health issues, so they are ignored until they go "postal".

Decent people need to have the right and the wherewithal to defend themselves, either from against jihadi scum running amok in European cities, or from theiving scum running riot in rural Britain or Ireland.

The police cannot be everywhere to defend the populace, and seem to be particularly ineffective in catching the scum after the event.

Its up to ourselves....an armed society is a polite society. Switzerland anyone?
 
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In the early days of psychotropic "wonder drugs" the liberals defunded the mental institutions and outpatient centers, in order to "mainstream" the mentally ill.

Well, of course they did not continue to show up for any minimal counseling or exams, nor take their medication.

Add to that the liberal legislation in the name of "privacy" and "non-stigmatizing" which stopped the reporting of violent psychotics to the police and courts, so these people did not show up on the background checks, if they even bought a firearm, instead of stealing it.
 
Do the Swiss murder each other in high numbers?

Err...sometimes they do, yes: Shooting in Wuerenlingen 'kills 5 including gunman who turned gun on himself' | Daily Mail Online

Switzerland gunman kills three in Daillon in Valais - BBC News

Though I don't really see the point of you raising Switzerland?

Although doubtless a generalisation, from my albeit limited experience (I worked for a Swiss company, so spent a lot of time there) for the Swiss gun ownership is synonymous with national service and protecting the country. In the US (where I lived for two years) gun ownership is a personal right. That results in a very different attitude.
 
Do you honestly believe that's the answer?

In America, where there is a far higher level of gun ownership, yet it seems we read continuously about about mass shootings. With all those guns in circulation you would think that mass shootings would be a rarity, yet it seems not.

How many marksmen do you think it would need to be able to cope with every possible terrorist act, or to be in every possible cafe? 1,000? 10,000?? 100,000?? The chances of one of these competent marksmen being in the right place at the right time is infinitesimally small.


Willi, yes I do. How many people do you know who could pass a physiological profiling if run by e.g. the SAS. It doesnt take 10,000. These people are cowards, it takes merely the comment and as many as you can field, as quickly as you can field them. Also, take the US and look properly at the stats. How many people, how many guns, how many suicides and how many non-criminal killings - we need to get real sadly. People with guns deter people with guns, especially cowards with guns who smoke pot and drink alcohol and are really just thugs. You need to open your mind a little and stop listening to biased propaganda. Are servicemen a cross section of society or are they not? They dont seem to shoot each other, except, occasionally by accident.
 
Willi, yes I do. How many people do you know who could pass a physiological profiling if run by e.g. the SAS. It doesnt take 10,000. These people are cowards, it takes merely the comment and as many as you can field, as quickly as you can field them. Also, take the US and look properly at the stats. How many people, how many guns, how many suicides and how many non-criminal killings - we need to get real sadly. People with guns deter people with guns, especially cowards with guns who smoke pot and drink alcohol and are really just thugs. You need to open your mind a little and stop listening to biased propaganda. Are servicemen a cross section of society or are they not? They dont seem to shoot each other, except, occasionally by accident.

Clearly you haven't looked at the statistics from the FBI. If you had you'd be aware that a homicide is something quite different from a suicide. A suicide is where someone kills themselves, a homicide is where someone kills them. To make it simple, a homicide is what we know as "murder". There were 12,253 murders in the US in 2013.

You could also have looked and seen how many of those homicides were committed by offenders who were known to the victim. If you had you'd have seen that, where the relationship between offender and victim was known, over 55% of victims were killed by someone they knew. More than 1,600 victims were killed by someone in their immediate or close family. Not gang members, not criminals, not dope-fiends or crackheads, but a member of their own family.

As for "people with guns deter people with guns", show me some evidence! What those same statistics show instead is simply that "people with guns kill people". Of those 12,253 murders (not suicides) committed in 2013 some 8,454 involved a firearm - that's nearly 70%. Or try it this way - it's the same as the population of Dunoon. Wiped out. In a year. However you dress it up, that's an awful lot of people.

Oh, and the statistics from the FBI are - by their own admission - under reported, since they rely on the filings from local police forces.

And yet somehow having armed vigilantes rushed onto the streets of the U.K. is the answer to our problems. Apparently trained by the SAS no less. Well, I shall sleep safer in my bed knowing that.

So far as my "listening to biased propaganda", I must have missed you looking over my shoulder. You have no idea about me, my politics, or what I might read. To suggest I am influenced by biased propaganda would be insulting if it wasn't so laughable.

What I am interested in is facts. Not rumour, not innuendo, not anecdotes and not bigotry, but facts. Something sorely missing from much of what I read on here.
 
Clearly you haven't looked at the statistics from the FBI. If you had you'd be aware that a homicide is something quite different from a suicide. A suicide is where someone kills themselves, a homicide is where someone kills them. To make it simple, a homicide is what we know as "murder". There were 12,253 murders in the US in 2013.

You could also have looked and seen how many of those homicides were committed by offenders who were known to the victim. If you had you'd have seen that, where the relationship between offender and victim was known, over 55% of victims were killed by someone they knew. More than 1,600 victims were killed by someone in their immediate or close family. Not gang members, not criminals, not dope-fiends or crackheads, but a member of their own family.

As for "people with guns deter people with guns", show me some evidence! What those same statistics show instead is simply that "people with guns kill people". Of those 12,253 murders (not suicides) committed in 2013 some 8,454 involved a firearm - that's nearly 70%. Or try it this way - it's the same as the population of Dunoon. Wiped out. In a year. However you dress it up, that's an awful lot of people.

Oh, and the statistics from the FBI are - by their own admission - under reported, since they rely on the filings from local police forces.

And yet somehow having armed vigilantes rushed onto the streets of the U.K. is the answer to our problems. Apparently trained by the SAS no less. Well, I shall sleep safer in my bed knowing that.

So far as my "listening to biased propaganda", I must have missed you looking over my shoulder. You have no idea about me, my politics, or what I might read. To suggest I am influenced by biased propaganda would be insulting if it wasn't so laughable.

What I am interested in is facts. Not rumour, not innuendo, not anecdotes and not bigotry, but facts. Something sorely missing from much of what I read on here.


Willi, I hope you understand this, I dont agree with you and your statistics - start talking about killings per thousand population and you will perhaps see that Switzerland has a higher rate than US. the US is not the big bad gun owning killing machine you make it out to be and, yes, i still feel my approach is the correct one.
 
so..... Switzerland with liberal gun calls have a higher gun death rate than the USA with liberal gun laws? To my logic that doesn't mean that liberal gun laws leads to less gun killings with legally held guns.

The UK with reasonably strict gun control has a tiiiiiiiny incidence of gun crime with legally held guns. I like that, and I also like the fact that the law allows me to hold the right guns for the "reasons" I need them but I have absolutely no objection to any tightening of laws that are designed to ensure people with no good reason can get there hands on guns they do not require.

Have you actually read the text of this EU directive? Read the full text and tell me what you don't like. Justify it with a logical argument - p.s "I like lots of guns" is not a logical answer.
 
Here's some inconvenient fact, from Paris, where I am presently. Not supposition but fact. One person killed at The Bataclan and one person wounded outside (so that's two people) were off duty law officials permitted to carry weapons on duty.

Neither, unlike USA, were permitted to carry them in civilian clothes off duty. Le Parisien newspaper, today, has their names and positions.

Both could, if armed, have possibly stopped the incident. As a result of this and to add uncertainty to the mix as of yesterday the French Goverment will now allow all law officials permitted to carry arms on duty to do so off duty. Anywhere in France they may be even if they are stationed in Paris but on three week holiday in Marseille.

So clearly the French Government sees the value of it. If you wish to "pooh pooh" this it is in today's 20 Nov. "Le Parisien" and other French media.
 
And Japan with even stricter gun control than UK (less than a score of legally privately owned pistols in the entire country) has statistically the highest handgun murder rate (number of gun murders to number of legally owned pistols) in the developed world.

You can prove anything with statistics. Yet the gun control advocates always quote Britain but never Japan. Another inconvenient truth?
 
Here's some inconvenient fact, from Paris, where I am presently. Not supposition but fact. One person killed at The Bataclan and one person wounded outside (so that's two people) were off duty law officials permitted to carry weapons on duty.

Neither, unlike USA, were permitted to carry them in civilian clothes off duty. Le Parisien newspaper, today, has their names and positions.

Both could, if armed, have possibly stopped the incident. As a result of this and to add uncertainty to the mix as of yesterday the French Goverment will now allow all law officials permitted to carry arms on duty to do so off duty. Anywhere in France they may be even if they are stationed in Paris but on three week holiday in Marseille.

So clearly the French Government sees the value of it. If you wish to "pooh pooh" this it is in today's 20 Nov. "Le Parisien" and other French media.

Why is that inconvenient?

I have no problem with officers of the law carrying firearms whether on or off duty. They are employed by the state, they are trained (both in the practice of using firearms and in the law regarding their use) and their job entitles them to be armed.

In similar circumstances if the UK government suggested a similar course of action it would probably make sense.

What I have a problem with is the notion that civilians should be carrying firearms "just in case".
 
Why is that inconvenient?

I have no problem with officers of the law carrying firearms whether on or off duty. They are employed by the state, they are trained (both in the practice of using firearms and in the law regarding their use) and their job entitles them to be armed.

In similar circumstances if the UK government suggested a similar course of action it would probably make sense.

What I have a problem with is the notion that civilians should be carrying firearms "just in case".

I'm glad someone has finally said it, there really are some people who need to take a good hard think who have commented on this thread. They strike me as people who fall into the category of:

1. Can't accept that handguns were banned in the UK and drone on about it at every opportunity even if it is not relevant to the subject.

2. Have some strange ideas regarding public ownership of firearms and clearly have no idea what it is like to actually have firearms in an operational environment.

3. Never been in the position where their lives could be at threat due to firearms.
 
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That's then the difference between my viewpoint, WG, and yours. For my viewpoint is the old fashioned one that the police are part of the community and not apart from the community.

That save for the right to arrest merely "on suspicion" that the police have only the same rights that we the community have under the Common Law.

A police officer carried his or her truncheon, and still does, not by any special Act of Parliament that gives them that right. But under the Common Law rights allowed to all subjects of the Crown.

That's what the "arms" clause in our English Bill of Rights re-asserted. That the "subjects that are Protestant shall be permitted to bear arms for their defence according to the law".

Or similar wording. But that the Common Law rights that the Catholic James II had denied his PROTESTANT subjects were by the Bill of Rights re-affirmed.

So that's my viewpoint. The police are part of the community not apart from the community and their rights to carry arms are in fact merely that commumity's rights (us...the subjects of the Crown) being exercised by them.
 
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