Gun Control & RKBA
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Indian student murdered in Salford street attack (in UK, unprovoked attack)
A 23-year-old student from India has died after he was shot in the head at close range, in what police say was an "unprovoked attack" in a street.
Greater Manchester Police said Anuj Bidve was with nine students, all Indians, when they were approached by two men early on Monday in Salford.
Following a "very short" conversation, one of the men pulled out a handgun and shot the Lancaster University student.
The gunman was described as white, in his mid-20s, and of slim build.
full: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-16331668
So all that gun control in the UK still didn't prevent this random attack.
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Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Too bad the "gun culture" here can't learn from Brits, Danes, Swiss, Swedes and others.
Instead we have a "gun culture" that worships the dang things and even gunners like Randy Weaver.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,764 posts)PavePusher
(15,374 posts)When it comes to Weaver, hoyt suddenly beleives that everything he accuses us of is O.K., as long as it's done by a government agency, to someone he doesn't like.
Odd, that.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,764 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)He's not much better than Timmy McVeigh. TBaggers like em both.
That's for starters.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,764 posts)...ya think?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)DissedByBush
(3,342 posts)Weaver wasn't in the business of selling illegal guns, and didn't even have a criminal record, but an ATF plant badgered him for years and eventually Weaver caved, making the shotguns. That's classic entrapment.
And that's even if we assume Weaver was lying, because he says he sold legal shotguns and the ATF shortened them. And we know the ATF doesn't have a very good record when it comes to the truth.
The case against Weaver, and the raid, were absolute fuck-ups by the feds.
You'd hope they could do better against Aryan Nation scumbags, but it was Keystone Cops that left these racists with millions of our tax dollars in a settlement.
As far as intelligence, Weaver was a former Green Beret. You can't be dumb and get into that outfit.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)If it were a fuckup, I hope the ATF keeps fucking up chasing down illegal gun traffickers. I'm also glad someone is keeping the heat on racists living in compounds . . . . . .where they alter firearms to harm innocent people.
But, I see how people who love guns -- and are often right wingers -- would be upset that one of their "brothers" were stopped from breaking the law and harming innocent people.
Weaver, and anyone like him, is a half-wit.
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)they are fucking it up.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)
SteveW
(754 posts)DissedByBush
(3,342 posts)But that's not the case. Entrapment means a person was goaded into doing something he wouldn't normally do. There is ZERO evidence Weaver was ever in the illegal firearm business.
Their actions caused Weaver to get off on all charges, except for one for failure to appear in court. His buddy got off on all charges.
Oh, and don't forget the part about a sniper killing an unarmed woman who was holding a baby.
But all's fair in the battle against guns, right? Doesn't matter if they can't make one gun charge stick.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)sawed off shotgun to what he thought was just another terrorist planning on shooting innocent people because of their race.
"Entrapment" indeed. How do you "entrap" what you guys apparently consider an "honest/moral" man who is already cavorting with racist pigs and equipping what he thought was a terrorist to shoot innocent people?
And you guys wonder why some folks don't like all this gun BS.
Weaver was as bad as Timmy McVeigh -- I guess he was OK too?
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)Just another fine product of the gun culture.
The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control.[24]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_mcveigh#Post-military_life
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)four agents. During those 51 days he continued raping young women.
It is amazing to me how much the "gun culture" sticks behind murderous/racist/gun-trafficking wasted souls straight out of "The Turner Diaries" (a book on par with the Bible among right wing gun owners).
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)...all that much. We should all be toters Hoyt so we can shoot down the "lone wolf" when it attacks. Yes my friend, it's teabaggery at its wettest dream. That's why the need all the gun porn.
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)"if you don't like the Iraq War you support Saddam" bullshit we all heard ten years ago.
We can loathe people like Weaver and still loathe aggressive government paramilitary assaults that result in the death of innocent people.
SteveW
(754 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)There are thousands of Timmy McVeigh fantasy club fans in America today. They agree with your position, they fear mine.
SteveW
(754 posts)I don't really know him or care to, but you are convinced that there are "thousands of ...McVeigh fantasy club fans in America." I am unaware of these club fans, and you didn't provide any links.
Please read the rules.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)In fact, it's common knowledge.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink...
The Second Wave: Return of the Militias
The 1990s saw the rise and fall of the virulently antigovernment "Patriot" movement, made up of paramilitary militias, tax defiers and so-called "sovereign citizens." Sparked by a combination of anger at the federal government and the deaths of political dissenters at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the movement took off in the middle of the decade and continued to grow even after 168 people were left dead by the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City's federal building — an attack, the deadliest ever by domestic U.S. terrorists, carried out by men steeped in the rhetoric and conspiracy theories of the militias. In the years that followed, a truly remarkable number of criminal plots came out of the movement. But by early this century, the Patriots had largely faded, weakened by systematic prosecutions, aversion to growing violence, and a new, highly conservative president.
They're back. Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country. "Paper terrorism" — the use of property liens and citizens' "courts" to harass enemies — is on the rise. And once-popular militia conspiracy theories are making the rounds again, this time accompanied by nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to "reconquer" the American Southwest. One law enforcement agency has found 50 new militia training groups — one of them made up of present and former police officers and soldiers. Authorities around the country are reporting a worrying uptick in Patriot activities and propaganda. "This is the most significant growth we've seen in 10 to 12 years," says one. "All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."
A key difference this time is that the federal government — the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy — is headed by a black man. That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate. One result has been a remarkable rash of domestic terror incidents since the presidential campaign, most of them related to anger over the election of Barack Obama. At the same time, ostensibly mainstream politicians and media pundits have helped to spread Patriot and related propaganda, from conspiracy theories about a secret network of U.S. concentration camps to wholly unsubstantiated claims about the president's country of birth.
Fifteen years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote then-Attorney General Janet Reno to warn about extremists in the militia movement, saying that the "mixture of armed groups and those who hate" was "a recipe for disaster." Just six months later, Oklahoma City's federal building was bombed. Today, the Patriot movement may not have the white-hot fury that it did in the 1990s. But the movement clearly is growing again, and Americans, in particular law enforcement officers, need to take the dangers it presents seriously. That is equally true for the politicians, pundits and preachers who, through pandering or ignorance, abet the growth of a movement marked by a proven predilection for violence.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/splc-report-return-of-the-militias
BTW nice job of getting right up on the line and just putting a single toe over it.
If you feel I'm out of line, please alert.
SteveW
(754 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)You know what - here you go, I'll be your fucking google:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_movement
You'll notice these groups don't conform to the 1792 Uniform Militia Act which required state supervision.
Der der der. 
SteveW
(754 posts)friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)You're cramping the associational fallacy....
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)...who do use guns for their terrorism.
Do your really want to go there?
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)What restrictions do you advocate on computer use to keep them from doing so?
hack89
(39,181 posts)Timmy McVeigh never shot a person in his life.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)Timmy McVeigh just immersed himself in the gun culture...
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)They liked to blow things up too, you know.
Most of them were white middle- to upper-class college educated twentysomethings, and all of them far Left...
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)Your argument is outlandish and you would never dare make it in GD.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)No doubt the right had plenty of blood on their hands as, but to pretend they were alone is ahistorical
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed
* August 4, 1878 – Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky stabs General Nikolai Mezentsov, head of the Tsar's secret police, to death in response to the execution of Ivan Kovalsky.
* February 1879 – Grigori Goldenberg shoots Prince Dmitri Kropotkin, the Governor of Kharkov in the Russian Empire, to death.
* April 20, 1879 – Alexander Soloviev attempts to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The monarch spots the weapon in his hands and flees, but Soloviev still fires five shots, all of which miss. He is captured and hanged on May 28.
* February 17, 1880 – Stepan Khalturin successfully blows up part of the Winter Palace in an attempt to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia. Although the Tsar escaped unharmed, eight soldiers were killed and 45 wounded. Referring to the 1862 invention of dynamite, historian Benedict Anderson observes that "Nobel’s invention had now arrived politically." Khalturin was hanged on the orders of Alexander's son and successor, Tsar Alexander III, in 1882 after the assassination of a police official.
* March 1 (Julian calendar) 1881 – Tsar Alexander II of Russia is killed in a bomb blast by Narodnaya Volya.
* July 23, 1892 – Alexander Berkman tries to kill American industrialist Henry Clay Frick in retaliation for Frick's hiring of Pinkerton detectives to break up the Homestead Strike, resulting in the deaths of seven steelworkers. Although badly wounded, Frick survives, and Berkman is arrested and eventually sentenced to 22 years in prison.
* November 7, 1893 – The Spanish anarchist Santiago Salvador throws two Orsini bombs into the orchestra pit of the Liceu Theater in Barcelona during the second act of the opera Guillaume Tell, killing some twenty people and injuring scores of others.
* December 9, 1893 – Auguste Vaillant throws a nail bomb in the French National Assembly, killing nobody and injuring one. He is then sentenced to death and executed by the guillotine on February 4, 1894, shouting "Death to bourgeois society and long live anarchy!" (A mort la société bourgeoise et vive l'anarchie!). During his trial, Vaillant declared that he had not intended to kill anybody, but only to injure several deputies in retaliation against the execution of Ravachol, who had engaged himself in four bombings.
* February 12, 1894 – Émile Henry, intending to avenge Auguste Vaillant, sets off a bomb in Café Terminus (a café near the Gare Saint-Lazare train station in Paris), killing one and injuring twenty. During his trial, when asked why he wanted to harm so many innocent people, he declared, "There is no innocent bourgeois." This act is one of the rare exceptions to the rule that propaganda of the deed targets only specific powerful individuals. Henry is convicted and executed by guillotine on May 21.
* June 24, 1894 – Italian anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio, seeking revenge for Auguste Vaillant and Émile Henry, stabs Sadi Carnot, the President of France, to death. Caserio is then executed by guillotine on August 15.
* November 3, 1896 – In the Greek city of Patras, Dimitris Matsalis, an anarchist shoemaker, attacks banker Dionysios Fragkopoulos and merchant Andreas Kollas with a knife. Fragkopoulos is killed on the spot; Kollas is seriously wounded.
* August 8, 1897 – Michele Angiolillo shoots Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo dead at a thermal bath resort, seeking vengeance for the imprisonment and torture of alleged revolutionaries at the Montjuïc fortress. Angiolillo is executed by garotte on August 20.
* September 10, 1898 – Luigi Lucheni stabs Empress Elisabeth, the consort of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary, to death with a needle file in Geneva, Switzerland. Lucheni is sentenced to life in prison and eventually commits suicide in his cell.
* July 29, 1900 – Gaetano Bresci shoots King Umberto I of Italy dead, seeking revenge for the Bava-Beccaris massacre in Milan. Due to the lack of capital punishment in Italy, Bresci is sentenced to penal servitude for life on Santo Stefano Island, where he is found dead less than a year later.
* April 23, 1902 – Luigi Galleani speaks to striking silk workers at a factory in Paterson, New Jersey, urging all American workers to declare a general strike and overthrow U.S. capitalist society. Galleani, who was wounded in the face when police opened fire on the striking workers, was later indicted for inciting a riot. Galleani flees to Canada, where he was apprehended and returned to the USA by Canadian authorities.
* November 15, 1902 – Gennaro Rubino attempts to murder King Leopold II of Belgium as he returns in a procession from a memorial service for his recently-deceased wife, Marie Henriette. All three of Rubino's shots miss the monarch's carriage, and he is quickly subdued by the crowd and taken into police custody. He is sentenced to life imprisonment and dies in prison in 1918.
* May 31, 1906 – Catalan anarchist Mateu Morral tries to kill King Alfonso XIII of Spain and Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg after their wedding by throwing a bomb into the wedding procession following the ceremony. The monarchs are unhurt, but some bystanders and horses are killed. Morral is apprehended two days later and commits suicide while being transferred to prison.
* February 1, 1908 – Manuel Buíça and Alfredo Costa shoot to death King Carlos I of Portugal and his son, Crown Prince Luis Filipe, respectively, in the Lisbon Regicide. Both Buiça and Costa, who are both eventually shot dead by police officers, were sympathetic to a republican movement in Portugal that included anarchist elements.
* March 28, 1908 – Anarchist Selig Cohen aka Selig Silverstein tries to throw a bomb in New York City's Union Square. A premature explosion kills a bystander named Ignatz Hildebrand and mortally wounds Cohen, who dies a month later. Several contemporary pictures taken after the explosion show the mortally wounded Silverstein with his victim next to him.
* November 14, 1909 – Argentine anarchist militant Simón Radowitzky assassinates Buenos Aires chief of police, Lieutenant Ramón Falcón by a throwing a bomb at his carrige while Falcón was returning from a deceased fellow officer's funeral. The assassination prompted President Figueroa Alcorta to declare a state of siege and pass the Social Defense Law, which allowed the deportation of anarchist "agitators".
* September 14, 1911 – Dmitri Bogrov shoots Russian prime minister Pyotr Stolypin at the Kiev Opera House in the presence of Tsar Nicholas II and two of his daughters, Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana. Stolypin dies four days later, and Bogrov is hanged on September 28.
* November 12, 1912 – Anarchist Manuel Pardiñas shoots Spanish Prime Minister José Canalejas dead in front of a Madrid bookstore. Pardiñas then immediately turns the gun on himself and commits suicide.
* March 18, 1913 – Alexandros Schinas shoots King George I of Greece dead while the monarch is on a walk near the White Tower in Thessaloniki. Schinas is captured and tortured; he commits suicide on May 6 by jumping out the window of the gendarmerie, although there is speculation that he could have been thrown to his death.
* July 4, 1914 - A bomb being prepared for use at John D. Rockefeller's home at Tarrytown, New York explodes prematurely, killing three anarchists.
* October 13 and November 14, 1914 - Galleanists - radical followers of Luigi Galleani - explode two bombs in New York City after police forcibly disperse a protest by anarchists and communists at John D. Rockefeller's home in Tarrytown.
* July 22, 1916 – San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing. 10 persons killed-40 injured.
* November 24, 1917 9 policemen in Milwaukee, Wisconsin killed when a time bomb left at a Catholic church by Galleanists was taken to a police station, where it exploded.
* April to June 1919 – First Red Scare:
o April 28 – The mayor of Seattle, Washington receives a Galleanist mail bomb (defused)
o April 29 – servant of Senator Thomas W. Hardwick loses her hands and is burned by an exploding Galleanist mail bomb intended for the Senator.
o June 2 – The Galleanist Carlo Valdinoci tries to blow up Washington DC Attorney Mitchell Palmer's house and blows himself up when his bomb explodes prematurely.
o June 3 – New York City night watchman William Boehner killed by a Galleanist bomb placed at a judge's house.
* September 16, 1920. The Wall Street bombing kills 38 and wounds 400 in Manhattan's Financial District. Galleanists are believed responsible, particularly Mario Buda, the group's principal bombmaker, although the crime remains officially unsolved.
* March 8, 1921. Three anarchists shoot Conservative politician Eduardo Dato Iradier dead from a motorcycle in Puerta de Alcalá, Madrid.
* 1922. Gustave Bouvet attempts to kill French president Alexandre Millerand.
* 1926. Sholom Schwartzbard assassinates Symon Petliura, head of the government-in-exile Ukrainian People's Republic, in Paris. After an eight-day trial, he is acquitted by the jury, who has been convinced of Schwartzbard's just cause: the core of his defence was that he was avenging the deaths of victims of pogroms organized by Symon Petlura.
* 1926–1928. Several bombings in Argentina organized by the Italian anarchist Severino Di Giovanni, in the frame of the international campaign supporting Sacco and Vanzetti and against Fascist Italy's interests in Argentina. Bombings of the US embassy, of the headquarters of the Citybank and Bank of Boston in Buenos Aires, and of the Italian consulate on May 23, 1928.
* September 27, 1932. A dynamite-filled package bomb left by Galleanists destroyed Judge Webster Thayer's home in Worcester, Massachusetts, injuring his wife and a housekeeper.Judge Thayer had presided over the trials of Galleanist members Sacco and Vanzetti.
McVeigh liked guns for the same reason John Dillinger liked V8 Fords- they were useful for his purposes.
hack89
(39,181 posts)perhaps there are other factors?
DissedByBush
(3,342 posts)Not approached one time, approached many times over three years.
Entrapment means getting someone to do something he normally would not do. That it took the guy three years to get Weaver to do it, and there's no evidence Weaver had ever done it before, is pretty clear entrapment.
And that's if you believe the ATF's story, which knowing how the ATF works is pretty doubtful.
Because Weaver was a racist and an end-times kook doesn't automatically make him guilty of gun crimes.
"Weaver was as bad as Timmy McVeigh -- I guess he was OK too?"
Funny you mention that. McVeigh was set off by the government's treatment of Weaver. McVeigh's initial target was going to be the FBI sniper who murdered Weaver's wife, missing Weaver's baby by only inches.
So not only did the government blow its cover in a racist extremist organization and completely failed to make any gun or murder charges stick, it also helped spur the next generation of homegrown terrorists into action.
Congratulations.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Yea, Weaver was a choir boy.
beevul
(12,194 posts)Or do you define the word by who is in it rather than what it actually is?
SteveW
(754 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Some Awipes are really lucky they live in a country where a gun trafficking, racist gets better treatment than those he unfairly scorned and threatened (directly or indirectly).
But, you guys gotta protect the "gun culture," even the majority right wing bigot followers.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)And Weaver was convicted only of missing a court date.
When facts get in the way of faith, it's time to look for a new church...
DissedByBush
(3,342 posts)The government gave him the wrong court date to go to.
The government totally blew this so badly everyone involved should have been fired.
I'm all for going after these racist extremist organizations, but I expect the government show some tiny level of competency and effectiveness in doing so.
I definitely didn't expect the total clusterfuck that happened here.
SteveW
(754 posts)I'm glad to see you support the 5th.
Response to Hoyt (Reply #8)
Post removed
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)That's really sad.
Both of you have a warped sense of what's right and what's wrong. He wants no govt intervention, you want too much.
beevul
(12,194 posts)But don't let that fact get in the way of your little diatribe.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)The lengths you guys go to for this criminal. . . . . .
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)beevul
(12,194 posts)"I know, Weaver is one of the upstanding gun owners the "gun culture" likes to tout."
Quote someone saying that. Please.
"The lengths you guys go to for this criminal."
Facts are not dependent on whether he was a criminal, or a racist, or whether he was a saint.
Pointing out that YOU are wrong when YOU are wrong, isn't defending anyone hoyt.
But you knew that, and pretended otherwise, anyway.
And of course, this is all predicated upon assertions made by you with no source supplied.
in other words - nothing new here.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)The family and friends of Anuj Bidve would take great comfort in that I am sure.
spin
(17,493 posts)An Englishman's home is his dungeon
By Mark Steyn
12:01AM GMT 07 Dec 2004
One of the key measures of a society's health is how easily you can insulate yourself from its underclass. In America, unless one resides in a very small number of problematic inner-city quarters or wishes to make a career in the drug trade, one will live a life blessedly untouched by crime. In Britain, alas, it's the peculiar genius of Home Office policy to have turned the entire country into one big, rundown, inner-city, no-go slum estate, extending from prosperous suburbs to leafy villages, even unto Upper Cheyne Row.
***snip***
But the trouble is that this kind of burglary - the kind most likely to go "wrong" - is now the norm in Britain. In America, it's called a "hot" burglary - a burglary that takes place when the homeowners are present - or a "home invasion", which is a much more accurate term. Just over 10 per cent of US burglaries are "hot" burglaries, and in my part of the world it's statistically insignificant: there is virtually zero chance of a New Hampshire home being broken into while the family are present. But in England and Wales it's more than 50 per cent and climbing. Which is hardly surprising given the police's petty, well-publicised pursuit of those citizens who have the impertinence to resist criminals.
These days, even as he or she is being clobbered, the more thoughtful British subject is usually keeping an eye (the one that hasn't been poked out) on potential liability. Four years ago, Shirley Best, proprietor of the Rolander Fashion emporium, whose clients include Zara Phillips, was ironing some clothes when the proverbial two youths showed up. They pressed the hot iron into her flesh, burning her badly, and then stole her watch. "I was frightened to defend myself," said Miss Best. "I thought if I did anything I would be arrested." There speaks the modern British crime victim.
***snip***
That this most basic right should be something for which he has to organise a campaign is disgraceful. In New Hampshire, there are few burglaries because there's a high rate of gun ownership. Getting your head blown off for a $70 TV set isn't worth it. Conversely, thanks to the British police, burning the flesh of a London dressmaker to get her watch is definitely worth it. In Chelsea the morning after Mr Monckton's murder, Her Majesty's Keystone Konstabulary with all their state-of-the-art toys had sealed off the street in an almost comical illustration of their lavishly funded uselessness....emphasis added
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3613417/An-Englishmans-home-is-his-dungeon.html
Britain is in the grip of an austerity crime-wave with two thirds rise in burglaries in parts of the country
Increase in burglaries and robberies
By Jack Doyle Last updated at 11:38 PM on 11th December 2011
Britain has been hit by an ‘austerity crimewave’, with burglary and robbery both on the rise, experts said last night.
Police figures reveal there were 9 per cent more burglaries in October this year than in December 2010.
Feeling the pinch: Among the worst figures nationwide were a 66 per cent rise in burglaries in Devon and Cornwall and a 55 per cent rise in Cleveland
***snip***
Last week Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe told a committee of the London assembly: ‘We’ve got a challenge at the moment around robbery, particularly street robbery.’
In the year to October muggings in the capital were up nearly 15 per cent compared to the same period last year.
On the rise: Statistics show an increase in knifepoint robberies, bicycle thefts and pickpocketing
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072841/Britain-grip-austerity-crime-wave-rise-thirds-burglaries-parts-country.html#ixzz1hgeWKeud
Meanwhile crime of all types is falling in the United States and has been for years.
FBI: U.S. violent crime down in 2011, fewer murders, rapes
WASHINGTON | Mon Dec 19, 2011 10:05am EST
Reuters) - Murders, rapes and other violent crimes dropped sharply in the United States in the first six months of 2011, continuing a downward trend that has lasted 4 1/2 years, the FBI reported on Monday.
The federal law enforcement agency said preliminary January-through-June figures showed the number of violent crimes declined 6.4 percent from the previous year, led by a 5.7 percent drop in murders and a 5.1 percent decrease in rapes.
In other violent crime categories, robberies declined 7.7 percent while aggravated assaults fell 5.9 percent.
The FBI's regular statistical report did not give any reasons for the lower crimes nationwide. But the latest numbers provided further evidence of no crime spike coinciding with the tough economic conditions and high unemployment.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/19/us-usa-crime-fbi-idUSTRE7BI0ZR20111219
Perhaps the U.K. is not quite the crime and violence free utopia that you believe it is.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)spin
(17,493 posts)The crime rate is rising in the U.K. and dropping in the United States.
The Brits call it an ‘austerity crimewave’. They attribute the rise in crime to the loss of jobs and benefits.
Times are also tough here in the United States but we must be doing something right as our crime rate has dropped significantly over the last 4 1/2 years.
Oddly enough the sale of firearms have skyrocketed in our nation during that period of time but of course that couldn't have anything to do with the drop in crime. It's just one of those odd coincidences and it only proves that more guns does not equal more crime.
One of the articles mentions that street muggings in London have jumped 15% compared to last year. We probably don't see as many of those in the U.S. as the bad guys are terrified that they just might run into one of those paranoid individuals who can't leave their house without a couple of guns strapped to their body.
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)Isn't that part of what makes Brits "civilized"? They seem to think so.
rl6214
(8,142 posts)iverglas
(38,549 posts)You are quoting MARK STEYN at DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND?
I mean, I know he's Canadian and therefore inconsequential (but then why are you quoting him ...), but get a google, will you?
He lives mostly in the US these days, where I'm sure he blends into the crowd a little better than he does up here. Up here, he's about as ugly a right-wing fanatic as they come, and rightly reviled as such.
Apart from that, you anecdotal and cherry-picked non-comparable comparisons are what they always are when somebody in this particular forum decides to try to pretend that the UK is engulfed in a tsunami of violent crime. Garbage.
Perhaps the U.K. is not quite the crime and violence free utopia that you believe it is.
Perhaps nobody said they believed any such fucking thing.
On the rise: Statistics show an increase in knifepoint robberies, bicycle thefts and pickpocketing
That's almost laughable. Bicycle thefts. Who's clutching their pearls now?
You may want to look into the rate of homicide in the course of robbery in the UK. And then in the US. And note that it is a lot higher in the US ... which I'm sure Mark Steyn would tell you is because robbers in the US use firearms -- and this time he would be right. Somebody can then explain to you how this skews US robbery figures, since the presence of a body makes the crime in question a homicide rather than a robbery, while the robbery victims in the UK, who are still breathing, are counted there ...
oneshooter
(8,614 posts)friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)iverglas
(38,549 posts)bzzt
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)iverglas
(38,549 posts)The victory in question was for civil discourse.
Of course it was.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)And as I've noted before, none of them seem to have any problems with his other activities.
spin
(17,493 posts)Nor do I have the time to Google all the names of the writers that I link to.
iverglas
(38,549 posts)I don't know where you come up with crap like that in the first place -- The Telegraph is not the go-to place for progressive news and views.
But once you have, if you're considering posting an opinion piece like that at DU, and if you don't actually want to be taken as a shill for the extreme right wing, you really do want to do a teeny tiny google.
http://www.google.ca/search?num=30&hl=en&safe=off&complete=0&site=webhp&q=%22mark+steyn%22&btnG=Search
Fourth in my results list is his wiki article, which refers you to this, just for instance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurabia
Just for starters.
iverglas
(38,549 posts)2003 is a little outdated at this point.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/20/murder-rate-lowest-12-years
They're giving them /1,000,000 rather than the usual /100,000 -- maybe to avoid showing Austria as 0.6/100,000, which is a little awkward.
The rate for England and Wales comes out to 1.35/100,000. Down from the 1.49/100,000 in your table.
If that rate were to decline at the same rate as is seen in the US ... I may have asked before, but were you expecting Eden to be reinstated in the UK, maybe one homicide a year like, while the US is still merrily murdering one another? Your point continues to elude me. It's nice that the murder rate in the US is declining. It's absolutely pointless to say that the rate in another jurisdiction, which at its highest in the last four decades was not even 1/5 of the peak in the US, is declining more slowly.
Oh, btw, regarding UK crime rates overall:
The latest set of quarterly crime figures suggest that the sustained long-term trend in the fall of crime since 1995 by more than 45% has continued despite the economic recession and the accelerating rise in unemployment.
The fall in the murder rate in the 12 months to September 2010 was accompanied by a 9% fall in gun crime and a 6% fall in knife offences. The 619 deaths recorded on the homicide index was the lowest since the 606 murders in 1997/98. In 2009/10 , 421 victims were male and 198 were female.
That's from Jan 20 last year. I guess we'll have to see whether the Guardian is reporting some apocalypse of crime in 2011 this week ...
rl6214
(8,142 posts)"Too bad the "gun culture" here can't learn"
Have you turned in YOUR guns yet?
You still haven't answered, WTF is a "gunner"?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)defend oneself against some imagined boogeyman/men.
Hope that helps.
rl6214
(8,142 posts)That fear that they want to spread so they can deny law abiding citizens their rights.
gunner=short for "gun culture". Seriously? How do you shorten "gun culture" into gunner? Really? Grow up!
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)rl6214
(8,142 posts)your juvenile shtick is hilarious
TheWraith
(24,331 posts)Including something like 660,000 fully automatic military rifles?
ileus
(15,396 posts)
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)SteveW
(754 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)Kinda like our White Supremacists who we allow the arming of to a ridiculous extent.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)...if your desire to own a gun is simply to inflict harm on others to weed out sociopaths.
This is already a legal standard, we just don't choose to properly enforce it - we deny those who "an imminent danger to self and others" and have been adjudicated as such. I see no reason why this is not part of a "well-regulated Militia" and the Court even in Heller supported this notion:
Do you think White Supremacists would meet a "condition and qualification" to not be an immediate threat to others? Do you think we should be giving arms to White Supremacists because we're afraid of a political test? I'm sorry, but if you do, you are out of your damn mind. Why is it that you have to pass a fully battery of tests and interviews to become a citizen but to get a gun the bar is far far lower?
SteveW
(754 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts) SteveW
(754 posts)It's way past 4:20.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)SteveW
(754 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)I request that you stop engaging in such baiting. Obviously you think you're being funny, but it's really just juvenile and has nothing to do with the topic.
SteveW
(754 posts)Response to ellisonz (Reply #63)
Post removed
Response to ellisonz (Reply #40)
friendly_iconoclast This message was self-deleted by its author.
oneshooter
(8,614 posts)Glassunion
(10,201 posts)"I think there should be an interview to determine if your desire to own a gun is simply to inflict harm on others to weed out sociopaths."
Who conducts such an interview and to what standard?
BiggJawn
(23,051 posts)When will the Brady Bunch get it through their thick skulls that the Criminal doesn't give a flying fuck at a rolling do-nut hole about their laws?
beevul
(12,194 posts)The brady bunch hitches their wagon to "gun violence" sure, I don't deny that, but thats NOT really what they're about.
Witness the lies:
"Glock handguns are "not suited for hunting or personal protection,” said Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/opinion/10collins.html?_r=3&hp
"We're not a gun ban organization. We don't push for gun bans" - Helmke - 2008.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-helmke/nra-gun-licensing-and-reg_b_110778.html
Did I mention the brady nunch submitted an amicus in favor of the DC handgun ban, and have pushed the assault weapon ban at every turn?
Did I mention their original name was "handgun control inc"?, and that their mission was the banning of handguns?
And then there are these facts:
This is a group that has deliberately included adults in thier "statistics" to inflate them. No organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would do such a thing.
This is a group that claims to want to prevent gun violence, yet gives grades on a per state basis based on how much they restrict guns rather than how high or low the level of gun crime/gun violence is in that state. Again, no organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would do such a thing.
This is a group that claimed that civilian owned 50 caliber rifles which are esentially never used in crime could shoot down aircraft, which is a huge lie, and used that false rationale for stamping thier feet and screaming ban at the tops of thier lungs.
Again, no organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would do such a thing.
This is a group that opposes concealed carry, even though police as a group are convicted of a larger number of crimes than CCW holders.
Once again, no organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would do such a thing.
This is a group that claimed that "assault weapons" were the choice of criminals, in spite of the fact that ALL rifles - which 99 percent of so called "assault weapons" are - are used in less than 3 percent of all firearm homicides, and used that false rationale for stamping thier feet and screaming ban at the tops of thier lungs.
Once again, no organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would do such a thing.
They may as well be "the brady campain to reduce guns", because 90 plus percent of the things they stump for are aimed squarely at doing just that.
And did I mention that they thought a republican would be a good fit as president of thier org?
I have said it many times in this post:
No organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would go after legally owned guns, unless thats what they want gone. They aren't interested in reducing gun violence unless its through restrictive gun laws aimed at people who by and large aren't a problem in the first place.
Do they look at root causes of gun violence? No. They go after guns.
Do they bother investigating how much the "war on some drugs" effects gun violence? Of course not. Like good little gun haters they never bring that up, and go after guns instead.
As far as they're concerned, its the guns, and that should put them at odds with anyone who values his or her rights where firearms ownership is concerned.
Though their words (if you accept their lies as true) and their name might indicate their intention is to reduce gun violence, their their actions paint a completely different picture.
You're probably aware of this, but I thought I'd throw it out there.