Shootings and gangs: black community leaders speak up

[shillard]

I don't understand?

British politicians took all the evil guns away.

How could anyone possibly get shot in the handgun-free United Kingdom?

You must be imagining things.

[shillard]

Karlos wrote:
@shillard

No, they made them more difficult to own without a license and less convenient to purchase. They also made it illegal to go walking the streets with them. At no point did they come and physically remove them people, except during arrests of people found brandishing them perhaps.

Making something illegal will never stop someone determined to break that law from doing it. It just deters the waverers.

To turn your pathetically moronic point around:

So, does anybody take hard drugs in Oz? Wow, I thought it was illegal. How could anyone ever OD in hard-drug free Oz?

And here I was, thinking my sarcasm was about as subtle as a brick in the face.....

[shillard]

Nope, it's the fault of Governments that create consequence-free environments for armed criminals.

Ever wonder why you never get mass shootings (random or otherwise) at police stations, military bases, gun clubs......?

I reckon it might have something to do with the high concentration of armed personnel, and the extreme risk of the offender being blown to tiny bits the second they start harming others - but that's just my opinion.

I've yet to encounter any sensible alternative view, but I haven't closed the door to it.

[shillard]

Try www.flashbunny.org for a list of famous gun nuts.

[shillard]

PMC wrote:
Well said Mel_zoom, couldn't agree more.

BTW, welcome back T-Bone!!!

:pint:

Should't you update your smiley, to reflect your habit of pissing in another poster's pocket?

[shillard]

Dear God!

Not one of my guns has taken a life or injured a human being!

Can I take them back to be fixed under warranty or something, as they are clearly faulty?


To save myself the trouble of retyping, you can read my view on firearms - and firearms in the UK in particular - here:

http://shillard.blogspot.com/2006/04/stop-gun-grabbers.html

The links in the entry really say it all....



Something about the argument "violence never solved anything", and a reference to the "city fathers of Carthage" comes to mind....

[shillard]

mel_zoom wrote:
"Not one of my guns has taken a life or injured a human being!"

Why am I not surprised to hear you own more than one?

By buying them, are you not contributing to the profits of companies that thrive on making the process of killing people that much easier?

Put those rocks down, Mel - you're in a moral crystal palace.

Ever flown on an airline using Boeing or Airbus aircraft?  If so, you are "contributing to the profits of companies that thrive on making the process of killing people easier".

If you've ever used the products of Boeing, Airbus, IBM, Toshiba, TEAC, Honeywell, General Motors, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, Bolle, Ray Ban, Microsoft, etc - you have, and I quote:


"Contributed to the profits of companies that thrive on making the process of killing people easier".

So I do hope that you'll refuse to be hauled aboard a Eurocopter rescue aircraft after the ambos cut you from your wrecked car, becuase to patronise a service using equipment from a core military supplier would compromise your otherwise impeccable moral record when it comes to arms suppliers.

Mel, you are quite simply a clueless hypocrite.

[shillard]

mel_zoom wrote:
Gun owners:

Here is a thought. Assume your gun was stolen in a robbery and then used to kill someone in a subsequent crime. Can you honestly say you played no part in making that weapon available to the killer (even in this opportunistic example)?

Where do the illegally owned firearms in the hands of criminals come from originally?

The assumption is unlikely to be translated into reality.  In a robbery, I'd be inclined to shoot, stab, clobber or otherwise deal with the robber.

In a burglary, you'd need world-class safecracking gear or a few kilos of High Explosive to access my arms.  Plenty of more worthy targets around for the few with the skill and the means.


Here's a question for you - a couple of iced-up thugs start smashing your door down with the clear intention of pack-raping and (probably) subsequently murdering you.

Do you....

a) Shoot them.

b) Call 999 and pray the cops come faster than Pizza Hut.

c) Get raped and die.


Hint: My wife answers "a".

What do you do, Mel?

[shillard]

Would you use your handgun to shoot a chav with an axe that broke into your house?

Yup - unless I didn't have a handgun handy, in which case I'd kill him with one of my axes - or a knife, or a rolled-up newspaper, or my bare hands, or whatever was handy.

[shillard]

mel_zoom wrote:

Id rather take my chances with someone holding an axe than a gun. One thing you fail to address in your argument is that the easier a weapon makes it to kill someone the cheaper life gets.

If you tried to kill someone with your bare hands your instincts fights against you. You know what you are doing is wrong and because it takes time you can stop before you actually do kill them.

Put a blade in your hand and it becomes slightly easier (physically) to kill but you still have to be close enough to the person to do it and it would generally not be a quick death. Again youd struggle to do it.

Put a gun in your hand and you can fell a person at a distance, often instantly. It is both easier physically and emotionally because you have become more abstracted from the reality of what you are doing.

The more sophisticated and efficient weapons get the less immediately responsible the user is made to feel and consequently the cheaper life gets.

For the criminal a gun gives him a quick way to stop a victim from struggling. Its easier for him to terrorize the victim because both he and the victim knows that the consequences are likely to be lethal. If the victim offered any serious resistance it is also easier to kill him.

Without any access to guns criminals would doubtless use knives - as indeed many do - but not all criminals who feel sufficiently "hard" with a gun would feel quite as formiddable armed only with a knife.

Typically mindless stuff - no wonder the West is in free-fall.

Have fun explaining how in Australia, where 20 million people legally own over a million guns (and there are probably at least that many illegal ones laying about) firearms are used in less than 20% of murders.

The leading instrument of homicide is the knife, closely followed by blunt instruments and bare hands.  Firearms rate well down at number 5 on the choice methods of death.

The tool used is irrelevant - it's the intent of the human utilising it that matters.

Nobody designing a motor vehicle intended it to become the leading killer of the 20th Century.  Nobody designing cigarettes intended that the users of the product would be riddled with cancer and inflict a cost of untold trillions on health services.

Nobody designing a 767 intended it to be flown into a high-rise office building with the specific intent of killing thousands of people.

Inanimate objects are morally neutral - to think otherwise is to embrace some primitive animistic notion that belongs to apes and monkey-men.  

[shillard]

"I love my MX5"


Oh dear:

"Mazda began as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd, founded in Japan in 1920. Toyo Kogyo moved from manufacturing machine tools to vehicles, with the introduction of the Mazda-Go in 1931, although they produced weapons for the Japanese military throughout the Second World War."

[shillard]

mel_zoom wrote:

shillard:

Im sorry but your entire argument is seriously flawed. Armament manufacturers directly profit out of armed conflict and produce items specifically designed to assist in waging of armed conflict.

The same is not true for the majority of the other organisations you mention even if people are accidentally killed as a by product of their activities.

Bzzzzzzzzzt.  WRONG.

Let's look at the products of come of the companies I listed:

http://www.boeing.com/ids/a_to_z.html

http://www.eads.com/1024/en/Homepage1024.html

http://www.allpar.com/history/military/index.html

http://www.gogglesgiant.com/bolmilandtac.html


Good to see that you think fighter jets, tanks, guided bombs, laser targetting equipment and parts for nuclear submarines don't fall into the "specifically designed to assist in the waging of armed conflict" category.


Best quit while you're ahead, Mel.


Here's a funny little site for those trying to stake out the moral high ground.  I wonder how many actually practise what they preach....?

http://peace-action.inbyron.com/lists.html

[shillard]

CannonFodder wrote:

Inanimate objects are morally neutral - to think otherwise is to embrace some primitive animistic notion that belongs to apes and monkey-men.

Who/what are a monkey-men?

Those who believe that inanimate objects are not morally neutral.

And those who worship Bono, drive Volvos, fail to keep left (or right, in the States and continental Europe) unless overtaking, people who use their vehicle's fog lamps when no fog is present, and those who think Mike Moore is a really cool bloke who always speaks the truth.

I apologise if I've left anyone out - I'm sure I'll make up for it later.