Prevention of crime and self defence

Pedro

Well-Known Member
An item on the ITV News this evening gave me some pause for thought. The cuts to the police service including stations closed and less officers nationwide (but particularly noticeable in rural force areas) are making it look increasingly likely that they will for all practical purposes not be able to do anything to prevent crime, but just be able to attempt to investigate crime that is reported to them. All reactive and no proactive.

Now there's some justification for saying that they don't even investigate crimes reported to them in many cases now. But, ignoring that, if this comes to pass and the police do not do anything to prevent crimes, then the onus falls onto the individual to prevent crime from happening to himself/herself and his property.

Some may well have already twigged where this is going. The reason that we cannot have firearms for self defence in this country is that the responsibility for ensuring public safety and crime prevention is the Governments, through the Home Office and through them, the police. If they aren't doing this.....
 
The reason that we cannot have firearms for self defence in this country is that the responsibility for ensuring public safety and crime prevention is the Governments, through the Home Office and through them, the police. If they aren't doing this.....

According to Colin Greenwood in 'Firearms Control', the reason is actually that some time since the 1920 Act was passed, the Chief Officers of Police decided (perhaps with the support of the Home Office) that self-defence was no longer a 'good reason to possess'. This was affirmed by a reply from the Home Secretary in 1946 who made it clear to the House that the HO didn't think personal protection was a good reason to possess.
No case-law, no statutory or judicial backing.
Just civil servants on one sort or another making stuff up.
 
I cant see the law ever being changed to allow possession for self defense in this country. There are powers even in the US feverishly chipping away at this very topic in many states. I think the majority of the UK population would have a fit if it was even suggested.
 
Ah, don't get me wrong. I certainly don't want to possess firearms for self defence. The purpose of the thread was to point out where we seem to be going with regard to the police preventing crime, the main reason why we don't need guns to protect ourselves. It was in the nature of me being apprehensive if things go this way.
 
Ah, don't get me wrong. I certainly don't want to possess firearms for self defence. The purpose of the thread was to point out where we seem to be going with regard to the police preventing crime, the main reason why we don't need guns to protect ourselves. It was in the nature of me being apprehensive if things go this way.

At a guess, private security patrols funded by us individuals to cover the inevitable police shortfalls run by the current MP's (and Tom Windsor) who are chipping away at the police and have a financial interest in the likes of G4S etc
 
Think this scenario is being played out in Australia now, think most private firearms were removed, leaving people in remote places completely defenseless
 
I cant see the law ever being changed to allow possession for self defense in this country.

The point I was trying to make in post 2 is that the statute law has not been changed from the 1920 Firearms Act's position of allowing possession for self-defence.

What has changed is Home Office's opinion of what we should be allowed - not a court's decision, or Parliament's.
 
Do you have any legal recourse, such as a lawsuit against the police? Could someone that has been robbed, beaten, etc... make a case against the police for failing to protect?

of course out laws are different (and do allow arms for self-defense) but the legal route has been tried. In our case, the suit was unsuccessful. The courts found that the police had a responsibility to protect the general citizenry, but did not have a responsibility to protect any individual citizen.
 
Why are you all getting paranoid about a violent attack taking place in your home? All the statistics point at violent crime and firearms crime are down considerably. Perhaps the police and criminal system are doing something right although there are other factors to take into consideration.
Anyway I thought they changed the law such that you can shoot someone if your under threat on your property.
 
No paranoia needed..

Some scrote enters your home and leaves in a bodybag whats the issue ?

Lets allow the fantasists a moment of glory whereby if you dont protect youe family the said intruder will fry a few pancakes and give the kids a hot milk before tucking them into bed..

Your home is indeed your families castle
 
All the statistics point at violent crime and firearms crime are down considerably.

To put it more truthfully, they've finally got under check the outburst of violent crime after 1997.

It's nice to say homicide is down 40% but that's only because it soared from 600 to 1000 in a few years (so basically you're back from where you started).

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/116483/hosb0212.pdf

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_360216.pdf
 
Who on a hunting forum would want a firearm for self defence?

Someone who fired a poorly placed shot at a grizzly bear!..... Of course, you could always place your firearm at your feet and try to reason with it.
 
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We had a visit from the travellers over Christmas. They cleared the barns one night, tractor, quad, trailer, chainsaws, strimmers etc. Big NFU claim.

Police reaction was non existent. A phone call to fill a form out - what turned out to be a "desk top investigation".

I have been stirring it up a little locally ever since. Local councillor who was having a bit of a stand on rural crime. He copied by email blast to the Chief Constable who actually came to visit the other week. An hour and a half over coffee, good chat. He knew he didn't have a leg to stand on and was very embarrassed. Turns out on a good night he has one Sargent and 3 Bobbies to cover about 300 square miles and a population of about 250,000. And he has to make a further 20% cut to his budget over the next 3 years. When 80% of his costs are salaries guess what that means. No chance of doing anything proactive, they just race from one shout to another.

Having stirred a bit further I have the local MP and the CC (again) coming to see me and a few other like minded farmers on Friday for a frank discussion on rural crime and what the future holds.

I'm sure it's not going to make a great deal of difference to the world, but if you don't try nothing is going to happen.
 
Why are you all getting paranoid about a violent attack taking place in your home? All the statistics point at violent crime and firearms crime are down considerably.

Not in West Mids, where firearms offences are reported (yesterday) to have increased by 6 or 8%.

As for licensing of personal protection weapons in the UK it can and does occur. Obviously they're not handed out like Smarties... and Joe Public has a cat in hell's chance.
 
The government gives away over £12 billion pounds of our money in foreign Aid every year, indeed the powers to be are having trouble looking for the next dubious idea to waste it on as they struggle to meet foreign aid targets, they literally can't give it away fast enough. Apparently the Foreign Aid budget ( the money it throws away) now equals the budget spent on policing our entire country.... Policing budgets are being cut to the bone.

Farcically, Cameron is trying to protect,by enshrining in law, the money destined for foreign aid. (0.7% of GDP) Simple logic would suggest that it now appears to be more important to the government to waste taxpayers money on foreign aid, than it is to maintain law and order in our own country...Or maintain the Armed forces... Or almost anything else in this country that is now subject to budget cuts.

It actually beggars belief that these idiots running our country can't seem to work out that there is an easy way to avoid many of the cuts we are seeing... STOP GIVING TAXPAYERS MONEY AWAY. Though by all means , those responsible in government could donate money from their own tax payer subsidised pension pots to fund some foreign aid if they feel that strongly in favour of it!
 
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Generally, there is a downward trend in reported crime.

This is no surprise with the number of police stations vastly reduced, the call centres being even more centralised and waiting for your call to be answered taking an age. Then when you do manage to report it, the only result is a crime number. Very little crime is investigated. And when it is, it's usually because the victim provides the evidence. So not really an investigation.

Those crimes where the numbers are rising are generally such things as rapes and indecent assaults. But that'll be because these days they are "in vogue" crimes as far as reporting and recording them is concerned. And the increases are mostly explained by senior police officers saying it's due to new reporting procedures being introduced.
 
Listened to a program on Radio 4 the other week about crime statistics... turns out a lot of "incidents" are not actually being recorded as a crime... using this tactic statistics can be made to do anything you want them to. I was quite surprised.
 
The police have always recorded crime to suit themselves. One example being sheds being broken into. When they need to provide evidence to get more resources to use for burglars, these were recorded as burglaries. When they then want to show how well they've done, they are recorded as thefts from a garden. Hey presto, look how good we did!
 
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