Here we go again

[Hock]

"Once more - for the record - my issue is not with gun ownership in the US, but with US gun owners telling me that I'm some kind of crime-paralysed 'victim' over here in the UK"

I think Mick, that what most are saying - and inarticulately -  is really about some kind of "individual rights" kind of point. The core is usually the right to protect one's self, the right for "granny" to protect herself with a gun. To own weapons. Its a bit of flag waving and many USA gun owners are just waiting for boom to drop on them, even to a paronoid degree. The NRA lives for this line drawn in the sand. Every country without guns (they still have criminals with guns) is an example of a slippery, sliding slope to that "big round up and melt down."

And well, I don't know what is going on in the USA today. It is all downhill. Maybe that could be a policy in the future Nancy Pelosi world?  What will the Chiness tell us when they come to occupy all the stuff they bought?

Hock

[Mr. Barnett]

Hi Mick,
none of my comments were directed at you.  They were general comments.  You are right about statistics, they are used however they can be used.  I posted such a list, because I personally found it funny that each incident was listed, and it was funny to me that the house raids, and gun confiscations of 'heirlooms' and collectibles were a bit over the top.  It's everywhere though.  TSA confiscates toy warrior from young child--makes me laugh too.  Personally, I could care less about the "to gun or not to gun" question.  Texas is a gun state.  I grew up around them.  They are not unfamiliar to me.  I have respect for them.  The US used to allow students to carry to class.  High Schools had shooting teams.  What has happened is that as the feds overtook the schools, the quality of education fell.  Then, with the same amount of firearms in circulation, and total lack of education on the part of the parents, and the schools, we started to have severe issues with reckless use of firearms.  I think it was all part of the general federal plan to use the recklessness as a means to finally rid the nation of firearms.  It's a strategy.  Demonize guns, and the owners of guns.  It works.  It is working.  Yet the main issue of gun ownership in the US is to keep the government in check.  Yet, the constitution was overthrown.  Step by step.  now, what used to be a very serious issue (self defense, firearms), that required astute and responsible people to maintain a properly trained and educated population has become a fucking chat room debate.  The issue is never really about guns.  It is about sovereignty.  Sovereignty and privacy to conduct ones own business as he or she sees fit.  Today though, everyone wants to be on the dole. Sucking from the government tit, and "gun control" has been propagandized to divert attention from the real issues at hand.  That issue is not gun control.  The real issue is the law.  The law of the land, and how it applies to sovereign citizens with respect to the law of the land.  What is at stake in the United States today is the complete destruction of the form of government known as a republic.  The federal government of the United States cannot legally dictate laws over the states.  Each state is sovereign.  The point of firearms, as stated in the original law of the land, was to maintain a regulated militia that gives credibility to laws passed by the people of the several states.  Firearms held in the hands of a united people have the distinct advantage of (theoretically) keeping the government from becoming tyrannical.  That form of government  (republicanism) has certain details, such as a well formed civilian state militia.  Every citizen is a part of that.  Every citizen should know how to own and operate a firearm.  The responsibility of the citizens to be vigilant and capable has been sold to the nanny state fanatics.  So today, not only are Americans under attack from their own tyranical government, but from exterior forces.  You English guys in this chat are an example of such attacks.  Subtile, but still there, is the idea that the English way is THE way.  You say, we don't have guns, and we are better off for it.  But you do have guns.  The military that surrounds your island and patrols the world has guns.  Those guns rest firmly in the hands of individuals whom you have trust.  The queen for example.  Or Gordon Brown.  These men can pull the trigger.  With those guns, the Chinese were forced to buy opium.  The American's have a history of forceful resistance to the Crown, and gun possession, ownership and use have been a part of that history.  The idea that a foreign power can dictate to American individuals whether or not they are intelligent enough or capable enough to own and operate firearms is ridiculous to sovereign citizens.   The financial powers responsible for the attempted economic coup d'etat of the United States are happy as pigs in shit right now.  All they could ask for is for Americans to recklessly use firearms when things get tough.  American's would be discredited even more.  Yet, I doubt that will happen.  The majority of gun owners in America are well behaved.  If they were forced out of the woodwork, They would overwhelm any single army in the world.  70 Million (less than half) Americans, armed against any standing army would, just by sheer numbers, would be torn down.  The only solution to the US gun "problem" is to have the gun owners turn on themselves, or be tied up and heavily regulated.  I don't see a gun problem, I see a crime problem.  The forces at work to propagandize and discredit the American society are powerful.  Will American's do what has to be done, or will they fall to the wayside as a failed "experiment"?  Who knows.  But guns are not really the issue.  

Mr Barnett

[Bryan]

  Didn't I point out right here on this forum that a guy in England bought some dummy Mac 10 Machine Guns and converted them to full auto working firearms in a small shed behind his house. That particular case also had murders and many weapons still known to be in the streets.


This is a great article from 2002.
http://reason.com/archives/2002/11/01/gun-controls-twisted-outcome

Teaser

In 1999 Tony Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone in a shabby farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass as two burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his home. He had been robbed six times before, and his village, like 70 percent of rural English communities, had no police presence. He sneaked downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. Martin received life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar, having served 18 months of a three-year sentence, is now free and has been granted �5,000 of legal assistance to sue Martin.


This was not the article I was looking for but is interesting.


Firearms dealer linked to 130 crimes
By Jason Bennetto Crime Correspondent
Thursday, 21 January 1999

A FORMER Special Constable with a penchant for Harley- Davidson motorbikes makes an unlikely quartermaster toone of the country's most prolific suppliers of illegal guns. Nevertheless, police have netted a key figure in the underworld of firearms dealing.

Anthony Mitchell, 45, who on Tuesday pleaded guilty to five counts of illegal firearms dealing and possession, has been linked with the seizure of 130 guns from crime scenes. They had been used for murders, shootings against police officers and in gang wars.

For years Mitchell churned out firearms at his workshop in an industrial estate in Hove, East Sussex. Almost all the dozens - possibly hundreds - of guns he supplied were supposed to have been deactivated. That is, they had been disabled so that they could not be fired but were "ornaments" for enthusiasts. The inquiry that led to Mitchell's convictionalso found his interest in guns went further afield: he was in a group of impostors who travelled the world, pretending to be British police officers so that they could enter shooting competitions.

He first came to the attention of the former South East Regional Crime Squad - now the National Crime Squad - three years ago. He was first named as a firearms dealer after a joint police and MI5 operation in 1997 that caught Paul Ferris, a criminal with a reputation for extreme violence, buying guns from John Ackerman, another dealer, from a street in Islington, north London.

In an Opal Fruits box police found three US 9mm MAC-10 sub-machine-guns. A favourite weapon of US crack gangs, and known as "Big Macs", they can fire 1,200 rounds a minute. Police also found silencers, ammunition and detonators. Ackerman, later jailed for six years, turned informer and named Mitchell as the source of the guns.

He was arrested in July 1997 but freed him after a search at the Hove workshop failed to find illegal guns. But officers from the National Crime Squad, assisted by the Organised Crime Unit at Scotland Yard and Strathclyde Police, set up a surveillance operation and kept tabs on one of Mitchell's associates, who was found to have 2.7kg of plastic explosives, two shotguns and a sub-machine-gun at his home.

Mitchell used the fact that he did not have a criminal record to set himself up as a legitimate supplier of licensed firearms to gun clubs and collectors.

But his secret work brought in the real money. As an engineer he developed a technique to reactivate firearms that were supposed to be permanently out of action.

He obtained a ready supply of deactivated guns from shops and mail-order firms. His speciality, or trademark weapon, was the MAC-10, which he reactivated by fitting a new barrel and breech block.

Police tests identified more than 100 MAC-10s - seized in Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, London, and south-east England - as being supplied by Mitchell. As well as MAC-10s, which cost pounds 1,100 each including a silencer and 120 rounds, there were revolvers and pistols, costing pounds 400 to pounds 500.

One of the weapons is believed to have been used for a street murder in Brixton, south London, in April 1997. Another was fired by a youth in Manchester at police officers in the Moss Side district.

Others were found during raids on drug stronghouses in Manchester. Mitchell was rearrested in October 1997 and 50 MAC-10s were found at his workshop.

Police discovered during a search of his run-down terraced house in Brighton that their target shared his fascination for firearms with a group of gun groupies.

With up to 12 other men Mitchell was part of an SAS-style organisation known as the Black Shods, who dressed in black boiler-suits and webbing.

The men had fake police identification cards, which they used to travel the world, including the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, entering police shooting competitions.

Videos and photographs were discovered of them competing for, and on occasions winning, trophies.

The police also discovered that Mitchell had been thrown out of the Sussex Police's volunteer uniformed Specials in 1993 after his gun connections came to light.

After Mitchell's guilty pleas at the Old Bailey in London on Tuesday he was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on 19 February, when he could be given a maximum jail term of 10 years.

Detective Constable Cliff Purvis, of the National Crime Squad, said: "Some of the weapons which bore the Mitchell `signature' mark have been used in killings and to fire at police.

"I'm sure he was one of the major contributors to illegal firearms in this country - he was a big fish, there's no question of that."

[Mick Coup]

....only 14,000 American people actually die in some kind of gun-related event here....

Now I'm not sure about this figure, regarding validity etc, but if my math is correct that appears to work out at one gun-related death every 45 minutes?  Are you serious when you use the 'only' term?  

As for attacks by us English, apparently pointing out in a subtle fashion that the English way is the right way - not so, not at all - once again, my point is exactly the opposite.  We don't need to be armed as citizens here, so how about just accepting that just because you want to be, we don't?  Guns simply are not important to the overwhelming majority of Brits - this may be hard to comprehend if you are from an extremely pro-gun state, but give it a try perhaps.  As you say, we have a military that are armed, and law-enforcement that are well on their way to being fully armed - but as citizens there is no requirement, no need, no real pressure or desire.

Bryan,

As for the 'dummy MAC 10' sub  machineguns (with your in-depth military expertise I thought you'd have got the terminology right...

Didn't 'I' point out right here:http://hockscombatforum.com/index.php/topic,4709.msg42276.html#new

"There have been high-priority arrests of individuals who were converting de-activated weapons - intended for collectors - back to live fire capability on a large-scale, and it was proven that a disproportionate number of illegal weapons used throughout the UK actually came from such limited sources.  Such arrests proved a huge blow to the supply of weapons to the criminal elements, and reduced the availability dramatically.

Premium weapons such as Glocks are extremely expensive on the black-market here, this isdue to the limited availability - though every would-be player apparently 'knows' someone who can supply 'anything you need' but the reality isn't that cut and dried, fortunately!  There was a spate of a certain air-pistol brand  - Brocock - being converted to fire live ammunition as its configuration proved highly receptive with minimal reworking - this was easily solved by this particular brand being taken off the market in the UK.

Other criminal enterprise sought to convert blank-firing weapons to fire crude projectiles - often with disastrous results for the firer - and those items were removed from public sale too.  Read between the lines regarding all this ingenuity - there just aren't that many guns available or else they wouldn't need to bother."

So we took a major supplier of firearms out of circulation - your point?

Bringing up the Tony Martin case demonstrates a certain ignorance of its facts - especially if you intend it to prove something regarding gun control?  How is US law regarding armed citizens shooting people as they run away from you?

So we are back to trying to use specifics to prove general points, and vice versa?  Once again, if I were to adopt this stance and start digging up US horror-story gun anecdotes, I'd be here for days most likely.

Active shooter statistics are factored in?  To overall deaths - the highly acceptable '1 dead per 45 minute' ratio?  Fine, but the only statistics I was looking for were the frequency of such incidents - how many last year?  We had two in 40 years - probably longer in fact - whereas you had more than two just last year I believe?

Once again - I have no solution for your problem, just like you don't either - but neither do you have one for our problems - how about accepting this?

Mick

[Brian S]

Tony Martin.

Tony Martin.

Errrrrr........

Tony Martin.

There.  That sums up one of the main anti UK arguments right wing gun loving Americans seem to have.

Couldn't read Mr Barnetts post.  Can someone tell him about paragraghs please?

Hock, my "solution?"  Where did I say I had one?  

But I do say this to the clan on here.  Stop telling UK citizens that they're sheeple for not having access to guns.  We don't need them.  Our society is controlled.  We haven't lost control.  You have.  Yes, there are crimes over here.  But no, there aren't 14,000 people killed by guns every year.

We have about 1/5th of that population.  Do we have anywhere near 1/5th of the gun deaths?  Do we have 1/100th?  No we don't.

We don't have a problem to solve.  You do.  And good luck with it.  But keep us out of the argument.  Like Mick said, it is annoying when a drunken alcoholic tries to lecture you about "your" alcohol problem.

 

[VicMackey]

Hock, you mentioned Richmond. I just recently move there from Danville, VA. Even though I like it here much better, it does have much higher crime rate than even any city in Hampton Roads (my hometown is VA Beach but was raised in Norfolk). But no matter where I go, whether it's some urban area like Richmond or some rural area like Danville, I will always have my guns with me. And whatever incident happens in the news, I will never let that change my pro-gun and pro-self defense stance and mindset.  News is news and the media has a tendency to sensationalize and twist the facts.  You have your share of law abiding gun owners who obey the law and carry out their everyday routine. And you have some who do keep a gun illegally and misuse it.

[Hock]

"But keep us out of the argument."

Keep you out of the argument?...but...but you started the thread?

Who exactly is telling Brits they are sheeple for not having guns?

Who is Tony Martin? I recall the name but I forget.

All the stories about Brit crimes with guns are anecdotal, just like the stories of USA crimes with guns. By the way the real "problem" itself is gun crime. "14,000 people hurt by guns" includes a whole lot of hunting accidents too. And a lot of criminal on criminal incidents.

The "per hour" thing...always distorting. I heard a police scientist comment on that once saying that,

    "In Hiroshima, 90,000 people died in the bombing. A criminologist wants to say
    that's five people every hour for three years. No, that's actually 90,000 people
    all at once."

Yup, you guys have 1/5 the population. But no one there lives in the desert. No one needs to shoot a rattlesnake, or kill a bear, or a cougar. (I have shot two rattlers near my garages. One in the country in northern Georgia and one in FT. Worth, Texas.) These are abstact point to note that much your population is all bunched up, lives in a completely different environment and well it's just different.

Hock

[shastana]

Mick-Im not saying you sir are incapable of handling yourself.  The nanny state problem exists when you look to your crowned gvt to regulate crime by disarming law-abiding citizens as if they were homicidal maniacs.  That to me is bowing at the feet of a crowned gvt that has one of two things in play- 1-oligarchy controls, or 2-forcing dependency on the state to protect you. 

Finally, all this doesn't mean anything to me anyway.  I live in the United States of America, am a born US Citizen, know my rights thru the Bill of Rights, and own firearms as well as many other things.  What is it to you anyway?  It's a small small part of our daily lives, and nobody cares about the criticism, really anyway.

As far as crime, we all have that in common.  There are over a hundred other countries that have firearms and they all have crime and terrorism.  And there are another hundred countries that are disarmed...and they all have crime.  Look at Australia and their crime rate, it has increased since the gun ban.  What works for the English doesn't  mean it will work everywhere else. 

Firearms are a part of defending your home and business.  Firearms are part of the militia.  They are part of the law enforcement, the military, the criminal world.  They are here to stay.

Finally, all this talk about active shooters...well people are trying to kill Americans with more than just bullets if you haven't noticed.  Violence is violence, whether it is on an airplane, a subway, by mail, etc etc.  It really is a world apart from England, and therefore has a world of different problems and solutions.  I think Im about done on this subject.  We are going nowhere fast.

[Hock]

Any alligators in the London area?
Aligators are migrating across the southest and into east Texas. It is amazing really. How they can cross land and sense water ahead. They will probably stop in the Dallas region. Too dry further west.
We have family friends that live about 75 minutes south east of Dallas and some how gators are in the small lakes/large ponds of their ranch and neighboring properties. They have grand kids that run all over the place and the grandmother carries various guns. Gators are officially "protected" but now so are the grand kids. Gators go missing. But they keep on coming.

And a quick note about the "only 14,000" people hurt by firearms. That is HURT not killed by firearms. VERY deceptive number. (That number might also include suicides.) A little west a few hours of the Dallas/Ft Worth metroplex,  last year some oil field thieves (stealing oil and rig parts were interrupted by one of the older workers making the rounds. Terribly isolated areas. The thieves beat the old man nearly to death. When he failed to report in, other workers found him. he laid out there all night. Awhile later in the same county, another oil rigger was making his rounds and stumbled upon rig thieves. They went after him. He NEVER goes unarmed and shot and killed one of the thieves. The others scattered. The rigger was no-billed by the grand jury. Self defense.

I don't know if this happened in the same time period that the "only 14,000" figure was amassed, but this thief/assailant would also be included into the precious only 14,000 number "harmed" by guns and produced year to year. So, not every person shot is a victim of a mass murderers/active shooters.

Hock

[Bryan]

  Actually Alligators have always been around where there is water. Mostly around Caddo Lake and the Red River. They were in swamps in South Arkansas and as soon as they completed Lake Millwood they made a permanent home there.

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/hunting/news/story?id=3051152

  Most interesting, looking for some info on Lake Millwood I found information they have documented a Alligator Nest in Oklahoma.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/ouachita/natural-resources/redslough/articles_and_papers/alligator_nesting_record.pdf

[Brian S]

Thanks for keeping the thread on topic.

M<ust have been your extensive military training.

[Professor]

Bri Thai,

go back and answer questions that you have been asked before and refuse to answer before you start stirring another pot of shit.

[Brian S]

You keep popping up and repeating this..... but then refuse to clarify what the question actually is.

Troll.

[Mick Coup]

More anecdotes?  Occasionally this argument is presented in a fairly clear and logical fashion, regarding different cultures etc.....and how anecdotal evidence shouldn't be used to offer proof either way - and then it falls flat, the 'it's just apples and oranges...' rhetoric yet again becomes 'our apples are better than your oranges' yet again, usually 'backed up' by yet more anecdotes....  As I said previously, shall I do some digging and then compare what makes the news here, in relation to what makes the news there?  I really don't have this much time on my hands, and we all know what the outcome would be.

Plus the ignorant view some would try to take regarding our 'Jolly-old tea-drinking cheerio' nation, obviously meant in a derogatory fashion, is way off the mark - get a passport, jump on a flight and you'd be surprised - though undoubtedly with some effort you could find a few Brits to fit this ridiculous profile, if I wanted to play this childish game, exactly what stereotypes could I make reference to regarding the US? 

There are a great many crimes in the UK that could be prevented, or solved right then and there, if the 'victim' had immediate access to a firearm as in some US states.  No doubt at all that this is the case.  The unfortunate truth is that widespead access to firearms carries a double-edged sword effect - they are available to everyone, most especially those with criminal intent.  This is the US situation, firearms are there to stay, and obviously with so many in circulation it's better to be holding than not - this is a point I have never argued, merely that there are not so many in circulation over here and I prefer it to be that way, much as I like guns!

Now before everyone dives in and states that UK criminals have access to firearms, so we must arm the citizens to equal the score, let me point out that only a very small number of UK criminal elements are armed - despite what the media scaremongers would love to portray in order to sensationalise a story. 

On a recent thread concerning a bunch of scumbags using dogs to attack and set a victim up to be stabbed, it was pointed out that in the US it would have played out very differently - and it certainly would've done, of that I'm sure.  Firstly though, this is one specific and therefore limited anecdote - so little can be drawn from it regarding proving any specific case either way, and this must be considered, or shall I trawl the US news and find specific cases that highlight how openly armed, trained and experienced cops have been shot dead, to 'prove' some point, never mind some unfortunate CCW citizen?

Read between the lines regarding the 'dog' story, consider why there are instances of inner-city scumbag oxygen-thieves using dogs as weapons...it's precisely because guns are hard to come by over here - same reason that inert weapons and blank-firers are converted to fire live rounds - despite what some claim.  It might well have played out differently over in the US for this reason - since those predisposed to using a dog as an 'improvised weapon' might well have just not bothered with all that hard work and just shot the poor victim instead.


How long would it take me to source a decent hangun plus ammo in a major US city, if I had a thousand bucks in my pocket and didn't ask any questions, or worry about breaking the law?  Not very long, and I'd get change, plus a selection of gats to choose from I'm sure!  Try that in London, Birmingham, or Manchester and you'll have a much harder task - sure they are available, but you wouldn't see any change from that sum, and might need more, plus ammo is hard to get. 

Think about where the criminal guns come from - stolen from legitimate owners, from legitimate gun stores, and other sources that have reason to possess and distribute firearms legally - now because there are no legitimate sources over here, this makes it extremely difficult to start this particular ball rolling regarding getting guns into the wrong hands. 

I did state in a previous post that I wasn't bringing utility guns into my argument - shooting 'critters' and the like - nor hunting weapons.  Even factor out the legitimate shootings of bad guys - like I said, just count the straight up murders, not even the times where someone gets a gun shoved in their face, just count the active 'postal' shootings, the drive-by shootings and other murders that somehow you seek to play down.  We don't even come close, nowhere near the 20% to match our population differences, because we don't have the gun problem that you guys have - we don't need the gun solution that you do.

My issue?  Being told that I have a problem that I know I don't have, by people who do not know that I don't have a problem, but who think that because they have a problem, everyone must have it and need to fix it their way.

If there were as many guns over here, in the hands of as many bad guys as you have over there, then I'd push for arming citizens too.  There isn't, so I won't.

Mick 

[Brian S]

.....because we don't have the gun problem that you guys have - we don't need the gun solution that you do.

That about sums it up.