News story from the Telegraph.
- Derrick Bird spent three and a half hours shooting people with (presumably) a sporting double with birdshot. Yet in all that time, he was tailed by police and they never closed to engage! Are cops over there cockless cowards or what?
- In the hands of a psychopath, even a Fudd-friendly, slow to reload sporting double with wimpy birdshot can rack up a big score. Once again, we note there are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous people. And Bird was only dangerous by way of comparison.
- Despite early calls for restraint, what’s left of the Gun Culture in the UK is probably screwed. Recall that it was the “Conservatives” who passed the previous three bans and confiscations.
- Per issued licenses, there are about 715000 gun owners in the UK out of a total population of 62 million. That’s a hair over 1%. I find this terribly sad.
- Even worse is the reality that all the guns in the world will do you no good whatsoever if you are culturally and legally discouraged from defending yourself. The most effort expended by Bird’s victims was to barricade themselves inside a pub or run away.
I think the lessons from this sad incident are fairly obvious:
- There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous people.
- Dangerous people may come for you anywhere, at any time!
- Dangerous people don’t have to be that dangerous when they prey on helpless, neutered pacifists.
- You are on your own! The police may be restrained by lack of testicular fortitude or bureaucratic sanction. Their only official job is to count the bodies, not to actually protect you or your loved ones.
Therefore, CARRY YOUR DAMN GUNS, PEOPLE! We do not carry because we look for trouble, but because we cannot tell when trouble may come looking for us! You cannot make an appointment for a disaster, so it is the duty of a free man to be constantly prepared to meet Evil with disconcerting alacrity. It is not a light burden in terms of financial outlay, political liability and personal inconvenience, but a free nation cannot long survive if the citizens slough it off, as we have seen in the place formerly known as Great Britain.
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+1000
“The most effort expended by Bird’s victims was to barricade themselves inside a pub”
Hey, it sounded like a good idea in Shaun of the Dead.
“The most effort expended by Bird’s victims was to barricade themselves inside a pub”.
What more can you expect when victims in the UK who injure or kill their attacker are criminally charged just as the the attacker might have been. of course, one hopes for the killing rather than the injuring, since the badguy can sue for damages if you injure him severely enough.
To add to the misery of any UK citizen who would dare to act in self-defense, the punishments handed down to them are usually more draconian thatn the wrist-slap the average criminal gets for killing or maiming someone, because the goodguys usually don’t have the detrimental social background of the criminal, which is considered a mitigating circumstance during sentencing.
Most people who have never been in the presence of a gun, have only seen guns in media, when they are always used to incredible effect in dramatised situations(Bruckheimer and Woo movie actors, soldiers, etc.), and are constantly told that guns themselves emanate some sort of evil, 100% mortality miasma, have no real options in their brains.
Almost every British subject- including almost every British police officer, including the bosses, is that way.
At some subconscious level, even the tiniest gun is the HAMMER OF GOD, and they would no more try to confront one than they would a lion, tsunami, or 200 foot tall Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Good point.
Take your average non-shooter here in the US and try and explain the maxim “Run from a knife; charge a gun” to them. Watch the initial look on their face.
To someone with no exposure to guns outside Hollywood and the 6 O’clock News, guns are frickin’ magic wands that can wish you dead.
Your advice to carry your guns would make sense if this weren’t such a rare event. First you want to have guns, for various reasons, then you use stories like this to justify it. But it’s bogus. In one argument you say most of the gun violence happens in the drug and gang world, that you legitimate gun owners are not the problem. Then you take a story like this and act like it could actually happen to you. The chances of that are almost as low as your being hit by a meteorite.
The problem is you cannot talk about everyone when you say, “We do not carry because we look for trouble.” Some of you do look for trouble and some of you are unfit to have guns for other reasons. That’s the problem.
The key words being “British SUBJECT.”
I am not anyone’s subject, but God’s. Any man who would try to treat me as such can kiss my ass.
“Then you take a story like this and act like it could actually happen to you. The chances of that are almost as low as your being hit by a meteorite.”
I’d give you a crisp new $100 bill to stand up say that to the next of kin at the funeral of any of the victims of $MASS_SHOOTING.
“Then you take a story like this and act like it could actually happen to you. The chances of that are almost as low as your being hit by a meteorite.”
I’d give you a crisp new $100 bill to stand up say that to the next of kin at the funeral of any of the victims of $MASS_SHOOTING.
Or to the cop that shot Nidal Hassan. Or the church guard who stopped the mass shooting a few years ago. I guess they shouldn’t have been carrying because the odds of that happening to them are so low.
The problem is you cannot talk about everyone when you say, “We do not carry because we look for trouble.” Some of you do look for trouble and some of you are unfit to have guns for other reasons. That’s the problem.
I find this a fascinating assertion! Please provide the documentation to support this. I suspect it will be difficult, because if you bothered to look at the data, you would discover that CCW permit holders commit crimes at a rate significantly below that of sworn police officers, and an order of magnitude less than the public at large.
So who’s worried about a statistically rare event now?
We see two theoretically legitimate approaches to crime prevention: arm the people or disarm the people. In the last 30 years, America has seen a significant liberalization of weapons and self defense law, while the UK has banned guns and made it a crime to defend yourself. In the last 30 years, America has seen a plummeting crime rate, and the UK is now the most violent place in Europe.
Disregarding practical effects, one approach enhances the freedom of the individual, and the other makes people mere servants of the state. I think it is rather telling that you prefer the fascist approach despite its record of demonstrable failure.
You should really deal with the practical and moral problems of your approach before criticizing ours.
Some of you do look for trouble and some of you are unfit to have guns for other reasons. That’s the problem.
No, that’s not the “problem”.
But the problem is solved, why don’t you move to England? Stop trying to fight your illogical, dishonest fight, and just go to the UK? Live with your ideological brethren, where you can be assured that no one you see on the street has a gun. Legally.
MikeB, you’re right, and wrong.
The wrong part:
“In one argument you say most of the gun violence happens in the drug and gang world, that you legitimate gun owners are not the problem. Then you take a story like this and act like it could actually happen to you.”
Those aren’t inconsistent at all. Most people killed in drunk driver wrecks are drunk drivers. Doesn’t mean one of them won’t hit me.
The right part (depersonalised):
“Some (previously law abiding gun owners) do look for trouble and some are unfit to have guns for other reasons.”
Yes, that is absolutely right. And reasonable gun owners know it.
This mass killer, like the Fort Hood and Dunblane ones, looked for trouble and was unfit to have a gun. Their governments disagreed, all three were State- Approved gun owners.
Those facts don’t lead to taking everyone’s gun, any more than they lead to taking everyone’s gasoline because the Happy Land murderer was unfit to have a jug of it.
Yes, a human population produces some monsters. Those monsters will use the tools they can to do evil. How does making the targets more vulnerable help?
I know how it helps the disarmers. They can feel as though they are doing something against a spectacular wrong. And they are. That’s why anti gun thinking is so persuasive, people want to be Frances Oldham Kelsey.
But how does it help the targets?
How many people’s last thoughts- the people in Cumbria, or Dunblane, or hers, were ever
“I am sure glad the law kept me from having a gun!”
Staghounds, I hate to agree with a Prostituting Attorney, as I think y’all are mostly a bunch of police-minded bullies, but you are absolutely correct, there.
Note that when you make the populace meek and unable to resist a several hour rampage of one man with a 22 and a shotgun, consider how weak they’d be at the hands of a government with aims of control.
If you the public is totally helpless at the machinations of one nut, what will they do against a state with totalitarian goals?
Or is it as most of us fear, already far, far too late?
“mike”,
My dad once asked me why I still carried a gun most of the time despite the fact I was no longer a cop. He asked if where we were going was dangerous.
My first (and shortest answer) was “I don’t know if it will be dangerous or not.”
I am sure there are plenty of people who would be horrified that I carry a gun when I am on a walk with my family, or at dinner with my family (my god, there are CHILDREN present). Which is why I carry then more than when I am on my own. I don’t know when or where the next ass hat will show up and start shooting everyone he sees. If I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t be there. Since I lack the ability to see into the future I choose to prepare myself for what may happen. Is that event very rare? Yes, and thank god for that! In the very unlikely event I will be present for a criminal action where lives are threatened, well I just want to make sure that I have the proper tool close at hand. It is good for everyone, but especially good for the ones I love. I have a duty to protect my family.
You may only get one chance to save yourself and I know my family deserves that chance. I will do my best to provide it.
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