On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 21:36:31 +0100, with neither quill nor qualm, Mark
Rand quickly quoth:
On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 13:24:20 GMT, "DeepDiver" wrote:
"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
. ..
But Florida's £30 billion tourism industry is under threat from a
campaign launched by a gun-control group which warns visitors they
could be killed.
Based on the REALITY of recent events, I'd wager you're MUCH more likely to
be shot in London (not to mention blown-up) than in any part of Florida.
Considering the lawlessness that has overcome the UK thanks to gun control
and multiculturalism, perhaps these idiotic ads by the Brady Campaign will
backfire on them and actually INCREASE British tourism!
London's current annual homicide rate is 2.1 per 100 000. If that counts as
being overcome by lawlessness then you must be in a war zone :-|
FOAD
You gun control creeps just don't face the facts, do you? Google for
"violent crime britain" and read some of the 2.4 million hits on that
if you dare. Headlines include "Violent Crime up 14%", " Shootings,
Gangs and Violent Incidents in Manchester", etc. I strongly suggest
that you investigate this deeper than one article in your local
newspaper if you want a more realistic outlook, Mark, though gun
controllers seldom do. Better yet, read "More Guns, Less Crime" for
a better grasp on the subject, complete with many dozens of cited
works which you could, if so inclined, read and follow up on.
Here's one from Google:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...1/205139.shtml
Britain: From Bad to Worse
Dave Kopel, Dr. Paul Gallant and Dr. Joanne Eisen
Thursday, March 22, 2001
During the 19th century, and most of the 20th, Britain enjoyed a
well-deserved reputation as an unusually safe and crime-free nation,
compared to the United States or continental Europe. No longer.
To the great consternation of British authorities concerned about
tourism revenue, a June CBS News report proclaimed Great Britain "one
of the most violent urban societies in the Western world." Declared
Dan Rather: "This summer, thousands of Americans will travel to
Britain expecting a civilized island free from crime and ugliness ...
[but now] the U.K. has a crime problem ... worse than ours."
Not surprisingly to many observers, the violent crime rate has risen
dramatically and steadily since gun bans have been instituted. That's
a trend seen wherever strict gun control laws have been implemented.
And that's the part of the story British officials have tried to keep
under wraps.
A headline in the London Daily Telegraph back on April 1, 1996, said
it all: "Crime Figures a Sham, Say Police." The story noted that
"pressure to convince the public that police were winning the fight
against crime had resulted in a long list of ruses to 'massage'
statistics," and "the recorded crime level bore no resemblance to the
actual amount of crime being committed."
For example, where a series of homes were burgled, they were regularly
recorded as one crime. If a burglar hit 15 or 20 flats, only one crime
was added to the statistics.
More recently, a 2000 report from the Inspectorate of Constabulary
charges Britain's 43 police departments with systemic
under-classification of crime – for example, by recording burglary as
"vandalism." The report lays much of the blame on the police's desire
to avoid the extra paperwork associated with more serious crimes.
Britain's justice officials have also kept crime totals down by being
careful about what to count.
"American homicide rates are based on initial data, but British
homicide rates are based on the final disposition." Suppose that three
men kill a woman during an argument outside a bar. They are arrested
for murder, but because of problems with identification (the main
witness is dead), charges are eventually dropped. In American crime
statistics, the event counts as a three-person homicide, but in
British statistics it counts as nothing at all. "With such differences
in reporting criteria, comparisons of U.S. homicide rates with British
homicide rates is a sham," the report concludes.
Another "common practice," according to one retired Scotland Yard
senior officer, is "falsifying clear-up rates by gaining false
confessions from criminals already in prison." (Britain has far fewer
protections against abusive police interrogations than does the United
States.) As a result, thousands of crimes in Great Britain have been
"solved" by bribing or coercing prisoners to confess to crimes they
never committed.
Explaining away the disparity between crime reported by victims and
the official figures became so difficult that, in April 1998, the
British Home Office was forced to change its method of reporting
crime, and a somewhat more accurate picture began to emerge. In
January 2000, official street-crime rates in London were more than
double the official rate from the year before.
So what's a British politician to do when elections coincide with an
out-of-control crime wave? Calling for "reasonable" gun laws is no
longer an option. Handguns have been confiscated and long guns are
very tightly restricted. So anti-gun demagoguery, while still popular,
can't carry the entire load.
Conversely, the government would not find it acceptable to allow its
subjects to possess any type of gun (even a licensed, registered .22
rifle) for home protection. Defensive gun ownership is entirely
illegal, and considered an insult to the government, because it
implies that the government cannot keep the peace. Thus, in one recent
notorious case, an elderly man who had been repeatedly burglarized and
had received no meaningful assistance from the police, shot a pair of
career burglars who had broken into his home. The man was sentenced to
life in prison.
The British authorities warn the public incessantly about the dangers
of following the American path on gun policy. But the Daily Telegraph
(June 29, 2000) points out that "the main reason for a much lower
burglary rate in America is householders' propensity to shoot
intruders. They do so without fear of being dragged before courts and
jailed for life."
So what's the government going to do to make voters safer? One
solution came from the Home Office in April 1999 in the form of
"Anti-Social Behaviour Orders" – special court orders intended to deal
with people who cannot be proven to have committed a crime, but whom
the police want to restrict anyway. Behaviour Orders can, among other
things, prohibit a person from visiting a particular street or
premises, set a curfew, or lead to a person's eviction from his home.
Violation of a Behaviour Order can carry a prison sentence of up to
five years.
Prime Minister Tony Blair is now proposing that the government be
allowed to confine people proactively, based on the fears of their
potential danger to society.
American anti-gun lobbyists have long argued that if America followed
Britain's lead in severely restricting firearms possession and
self-defense, then American crime rates would eventually match
Britain's. The lobbyists have also argued that if guns were restricted
in America, civil liberties in the U.S. would have the same degree of
protection that they have in Britain. The lobbyists are absolutely
right.
-
Dr. Paul Gallant practices optometry in Wesley Hills, N.Y. Dr. Joanne
Eisen practices dentistry in Old Bethpage, N.Y. Both are research
associates at the Independence Institute, where Dave Kopel is research
director. Reprinted with permission of the authors.
--
"Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not misery but
the very foundation of refinement." --William Morris
-----------------------------------
www.diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development