[Zedicus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/3138238.stm
Operation to tackle gun crime

Escalating gun crime in Greater Manchester is being tackled by a new police operation.
Detectives have launched an operation after a number of firearm incidents in the south Manchester and Trafford areas.

Four people have already been arrested and bailed since the start of Operation Bradford on 15 September.

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Whatton said: "Up until the end of August this year, the number of shootings in Greater Manchester had dropped by 5% from 79 to 75 on the same period last year.

"Recent weeks have seen this figure rise which is why Operation Bradford has been introduced.

Gang activity

"We are determined to stamp out this type of criminal behaviour and firearms activity."

Mr Whatton said officers would work with local communities to gather intelligence on gang activity.

He added: "We will not tolerate the gun culture which seems to be developing in small elements of society, but need the help of local residents in order to stamp it out.

"Carrying or using guns will not be tolerated and gang members need to know we will continue to deploy armed officers to combat the problem."

There have been four shootings, one fatal, in the Moss Side and Whalley Range areas of south Manchester in the past month.

Police also investigated three shootings in the Old Trafford and Urmston areas of Greater Manchester during August.


This must be totaly false, everyone knows that the UK dosn't have such a thing as gun crime....:rolleyes:

[keederdag]

Maybe it's "pellet" gun crime? :D

[Mark Tyson]

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=508673

"That is correct. There are no guns in London. None! We have destroyed them all. We do not allow such things here. Do not listen to these lies. These are lies of the American Gun Lobby and their stooges in the press. Do not allow yourselves to be decieved."

[KC]

Wow, I'm impressed. A complete ban on handguns resulted in a temporary 5% drop in gun-related homocides. Now, if they take Australia's route, and ban swords, spears, pointy sticks, and straight razors, and confiscate your family silver because of the sharpened olive forks, maybe they'll get another drop of the same magnitude and duration.

Way to go guys, keep up the good work. You've done a great job. Really.

[keederdag]

Oh that Tyson.....:D :D :D :D :D :D

[MeekandMild]

Four people have already been arrested and bailed since the start of Operation Bradford on 15 September.

Ouch! :eek:

I wonder if they were shoved through a square bailer or were they just rolled into round bails.




The bailiff in our town uses a round bailer so he can process more. Sure the bails are heavier but you can stack them up if you have a fork lift. :neener:

[Standing Wolf]

"We will not tolerate the gun culture which seems to be developing in small elements of society, but need the help of local residents in order to stamp it out.

Wrong. It's not a so-called "gun culture," but a crime culture.

[agricola]

This must be totaly false, everyone knows that the UK dosn't have such a thing as gun crime....

no, we have gun crime, its just comparatively speaking its at a much lower rate than the US.

[ZekeLuvs1911]

Agricola,
You are correct to say that it is lower but in a country that banned guns from private hands, you should HAVE NONE! To me, that means your handgun crime percentage is in the inifinity amount. Have a nice day.

[dinosaur]

Soon it`ll be time to ban The Comfy Chair!:neener: With apologies to Monty Python.:evil:

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

I'm surprised that everyone here has bought into the term "gun crime."I defy anyone to show a case where a gun has been convicted of a crime, in the whole history of the US and UK.

The term "gun crime" is liberal Newspeak, and there is no such thing. Crime with guns, there is too much of.

- pdmoderator

[Zedicus]

ZekeLuvs1911: You are correct to say that it is lower but in a country that banned guns from private hands, you should HAVE NONE! To me, that means your handgun crime percentage is in the inifinity amount. Have a nice day.
Bullseye!
Exactly what I had ment:)

[agricola]

zeke,

er, no... guns have not been banned in the UK - just certain handguns and those weapons that would be considered AWB-guns in the US. since there are still legally held firearms in the UK, your point makes no sense.

[ZekeLuvs1911]

Agricola,
It may be true that only certain guns are banned but it was done to reduce the amount of guns used in a crime yet it is still there and going up. To me, my original statement remains valid. The arguement that if we limit who and what types of guns people can have in order to reduce crime is a farce. The idea to to lower crime with these types of laws.

[WonderNine]

I'm so burnt out on this "gun crime" stupidity that I don't even have the energy to combat it anymore. I think I've run my course.

[greyhound]

gun culture which seems to be developing in small elements of society

Once again sounds like a racist reference.

Is it just me or am I starting to see a lot of racism in the antis arguments, i.e African Americans and those less well off don't know how to control themselves around guns?

I could be overanalyzing but when I keep reading about "cultural differences" (in the Canada vs. US post) and "small elements of society" I just don't know....

[agricola]

zeke,

no - if your contention is correct there would be no drug crime, since many drugs are banned. this is palpably untrue. the more correct statement would be that there would be no gun crime if no guns were banned - since none of them would be illegal.

[MeekandMild]

greyhound,

Liberals can't come out and say that gun control is too often driven by race-based zenophobia any more than they can admit that the Zeitgeist of pan-Arabic expansionism is based on anti-Semitism.

Britain didn't have any great overwhelming political support for gun control until they started their late 20th century movement toward reverse colonization. So now they are stuck with a big segment of the population which doesn't look like your typical Monty Python player and it scares their socks off. (Brits do wear socks don't they Aggie?)

[goalie]

"no - if your contention is correct there would be no drug crime, since many drugs are banned. this is palpably untrue. the more correct statement would be that there would be no gun crime if no guns were banned - since none of them would be illegal." - agricola

Actually, your statement is just as wrong. While it would not be a crime just to own the firearm, making all firearms legal would not mean that the use of said inanimate object could not be illegal. Cars are legal, yet it is still possible to commit criminal vehicular homicide with one. The key here is the word inanimate, something you guys over in the UK (along with parts of the US) don't seem to understand. Gun control: it isn't about guns, it's about control. :rolleyes:

[Marko Kloos]

the more correct statement would be that there would be no gun crime if no guns were banned - since none of them would be illegal.


That is incorrect, and it illustrates the semantic futility of assigning the blame for a crime to the instrument used in the crime. You still have "gun crime" in places where guns are legal, because guns are sometimes used to commit a crime, like robbery or homicide. The difference here is that the mere possession of a gun is legal and not a crime in itself in those locations. If you make the ownership of a gun a crime in location B, you automatically have an offense counting as a "gun crime" that wouldn't be an offense/crime in location A.

You don't count a robbery committed with a steak knife as a "knife crime", as if that makes the crime somehow less severe or offensive because of the nature of the tool used in the crime. Focusing on "gun crimes" is semantic juggling. In any case, over 90% of violent felonies in this "gun-happy" nation are committed without the use of a firearm at all. Concentrating on "getting guns off the street", and rendering the good guys defenseless in the process, would only shift a fraction of the violent crime from one "weapon" category to another. It wouldn't eliminate those 10%, since criminals would merely find another way to gain force superiority over their victimes: knives, bats, pointy sticks, mob tactics, you name it.

What you do accomplish when you focus on the guns and try to restrict legal ownership in the hope of cutting a small amount of crime is that you tilt the playing field in favor of the criminals. Now the honest citizenry has no legal option to achieve force parity with the criminals, who will always arm themselves with whatever they can get their hands on.

[agricola]

did noone else read pdmoderators post?

[agricola]

meekandmild,

Thats nonsense - each of the firearms legislation that has come into force has been a knee-jerk response to a notorious crime - the shooting of the three officers in Shephards Bush, the Hungerford killings, and the Dunblane massacre. All of those offences were committed by white men, as it happens.

The racist roots of gun control may be well known in the US, but to say the same applies in the UK is wrongness of the easily provable kind.

[Keith]

The racist roots of gun control may be well known in the US, but to say the same applies in the UK is wrongness of the easily provable kind.

Not true. I like to punish myself by reading The Guardian every day. And nearly every reference to gun crime (genrally accompanied by an argument for tougher new gun laws) has a reference to certain elements of your society. They use code words like "Yardies", or simply reference the neighborhood where these gun criminals live, ie; Brixton, etc.

And what are they talking about? Young black men!

And none of it has worked. Violent crime (all crime), in your country continues to rise.

Keith

[agricola]

keith,

ok then, what piece of legislation has been enacted to combat "black-on-black" gun crime?

[Keith]

I have no idea what you are talking about.


Keith

[Keith]

Oh look! Here's an interesting story. Britains FIRST black Chief Constable has been appointed... about a 100 years after the first American black Chief of Police.
And he's noted for heading up a squad targeting "Yardie Gunmen"...

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_823578.html?menu=news.latestheadlines

First black chief constable appointed

A senior Metropolitan Police officer is to become Britain's first black chief constable.

Mike Fuller, 44, a married father-of-two, will be officially unveiled as chief constable of Kent on Monday.

Mr Fuller, currently a deputy assistant commissioner with Scotland Yard, has in the past been outspoken on drugs, and the glamorising of guns through music and film.

Today a Kent Police spokesman confirmed his appointment to the £120,000 a year post.

The spokesman said Mr Fuller began his career with the police service as a Met Police cadet in 1975 before joining the special branch as a uniformed officer.

He later became a detective chief inspector and was credited with an innovative scheme to combat burglary, seen as a forerunner to the much publicised Operation Bumblebee.

Mr Fuller, whose appointment follows allegations of institutional racism prompted by the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, went on to join the Met's racist and violent crime offences force in 1998.

Two years ago, he was promoted to deputy assistant commissioner and made head of Operation Trident, a squad set up to target Yardie-style gunmen in London.


Story filed: 12:37 Saturday 27th September 2003

[agricola]

keith,

so what piece of legislation has been enacted (which after all creates gun controls legal basis) as part of a racist policy?

besides, DAC Fuller's appointment comes fifty-five years after the landing of the Empire Windrush (the accepted start of the modern Afro-Carribean communities in the UK), forty years after the first Black PC and almost thirty years after DAC Fuller joined the Cadets. How long did the African-American communities have to wait for similar recognition?

Besides, people in glass houses shouldnt throw stones. How many female heads of state have you had again?

agricola

ps: Operation Trident, the unit of which you speak targets "Yardie" (though that phrase in itself is hugely in error) gunmen, who target almost exclusively other Afro-Carribeans. Its success in building and improving the historically fragile links between the various communities and the Police shows that it is in no way part of a racist gun control policy, as you would know if you werent simply clutching at straws.

[MeekandMild]

Thats nonsense - each of the firearms legislation that has come into force has been a knee-jerk response to a notorious crime -

What an interesting reply, considering the sense of my assertion blew past you so well. Not to accuse the Brits of jerking their knees in a social vacuum, what other great social tide of change can you name which has been occurring for the past 50 years to the sound of constant drumming of fists in the back alleys?

You don't really think that the well orchestrated events surrounding those three incidents you mentioned just happened do you? Just fell out of the sky fully formed with all the Lords bought off and all the newsies preprinted? Puleeze!

[agricola]

meek,

sorry could you repeat that? i couldnt hear you correctly because your tin foil hat was rustling ;)