[cuchulainn]

fromt the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3220761.stmNipping gun culture in the bud

By Cindi John
BBC News Online community affairs reporter

A popular music venue in Hackney, east London, is packed with young people. But they have not come to see any bands perform.

Instead they sit transfixed by images flickering across a giant screen on the stage.

A succession of young men lie shot dead, sprawled on London streets in pools of blood.

Occasional gasps ripple around the room as a particularly gruesome picture flashes on to the screen.

The scenes are certainly horrific but it's not a horror film in the conventional sense - the screening is part of a conference organised for young people to educate them about the dangers of gun crime.

The film was part of a presentation made by Chief Inspector Leroy Logan of the Metropolitan Black Police Association (MBPA) on the work of Operation Trident - the Metropolitan force's squad which targets gun and drugs-related crime in six London boroughs.

Ch Insp Logan was unrepentant about showing such a graphic film to the youngsters, stressing the need to show the reality of the aftermath of gun crime.

"Some people might be attracted by the fast lifestyle - the nice cars and clothes and so on - but we tell them it can end up in a fast death. There is no bling bling in this one," he told his audience.

Many of the 150 youngsters - aged from 13-19 - came from London communities where gun crime is an ever-present threat.

Some, like 17-year-old Alex Babb, whose cousin was injured in a shooting, had personal experience of gun crime.

"When it happened I wasn't that shocked because I thought it's only a matter of time before it starts to get to people close to you.

"Even though my cousin doesn't get involved in that sort of thing, he just seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," Alex said.

'Make the change'

The decision to show the film was welcomed by one member of the audience, Steven Ogunbodede, 16, from Hackney.

"I think it's good they showed it, it will have an influence on some people, the type of people who get influenced too much by what they see their friends doing. I think it might make them change their ways," he said.

That is the sort of comment the organisers of the conference want to hear more often.

The conference, Moving Forward, was run by members of the Young Black Positive Advocates (YBPA) who introduced the guests, performed anti-gun and drug songs and led workshops covering themes ranging from guns and drug crime to teenage pregnancy.

YBPA chair Haji Munye, 16, said he hoped the event would help young people see both sides of gun culture.

"There's a good part to the fast life and there's a bad part, mainly a bad part, there's a little good part but eventually it will become bad.

"We hope to show them that if we can stand up and make the change, then they can as well, that if we can stand up against these things then everyone else can."

'Keeping a lid on it'

The conference was the final event in the month long Revival campaign which has seen an effort on the part of the MBPA to inform communities as a whole about the dangers of gun culture.

Open discussions during the day threw up a wide range of issues around gun crime and the police which were developed further in a series of workshops.

Whether such events will bear fruit in the long run remains to be seen but latest figures from Operation Trident are encouraging, with murders investigated by officers from the Trident team falling in the last year.

However, Leroy Logan of the MBPA does not believe that gives ground for complacency.

He says other factors are involved in the drop in figures including better medical intervention saving the lives of some gunshot victims.

"I think all we're doing is keeping a lid on it but it's a major explosion," he said.

But Mr Logan does see reason for hope: "We're fortunate in having stringent gun laws and community partnerships.

"It's not in our culture to carry guns so let's hope that continues and the majority of our young people will mentor others who are in to that sort of lifestyle."

[Bill Hook]

Kumbayah.

[GM7RQK]

"We're fortunate in having stringent gun laws and community partnerships.

Yes cause we all know the thugs obey the stringent gun laws :uhoh:

Stephen

[Norton]

Wow....how is this any different than any other kind of indoctrination? If a religious group were showing movies geared toward suiting their specific purpose, they would be branded a cult.

[WonderNine]

Government funded brainwashing at its finest....

[Tamara]

"Some people might be attracted by the fast lifestyle - the nice cars and clothes and so on - but we tell them it can end up in a fast death. There is no bling bling in this one," he told his audience.

"Then we show them Reefer Madness. The youth seem to respond to the warning messages we deliver."

[Kharn]

"Then we show them Reefer Madness. The youth seem to respond to the warning messages we deliver."

:D

Kharn

[agricola]

er.....

how is displaying to kids the outcome of a criminal life a bad thing?

[OF]

gun crime

No shows on the evils of blade crime? Or aluminum bat crime?

- Gabe

[Tempest]

how is displaying to kids the outcome of a criminal life a bad thing? It isn't. But vilifying a tool is. I'm thinking electric shock and aversion therapy is next on their list.

[MPFreeman]

"Some people might be attracted by the fast lifestyle - the nice cars and clothes and so on

I thought this was about "gun culture"? A culture I'm a member of. I want to know where in the gun culture is the fast cars, clothes and other stuff this moron is talking about. Yep, this gun culture is all about clothes and cars...:rolleyes:

[El Tejon]

Matt, well, I do like a nice suit. Dress left and leave room for a 1911 at 4 o'clock.:D Have you seen the new Territory Ahead catalogue, very nice.

If Euros want to raise their children as unarmed slaves, this is great news! They will be easier to fight in any future war.:)

[Andrew Rothman]

They call the violent drug-and-crime culture "gun culture," as if it is the guns that make people baaaaad.

The aims of the group are good. The methods may even work. I just wish they wouldn't blur the line between the tool and its use.

[agricola]

It isn't. But vilifying a tool is. I'm thinking electric shock and aversion therapy is next on their list.

it isnt villifying a tool. As mpayne said, this is more about the culture of dealing in crack cocaine and gang-chic than guns (which play a small but final part in the process), and the media has just used the easiest hook.

[sm]

The scenes are certainly horrific but it's not a horror film in the conventional sense - the screening is part of a conference organised for young people to educate them about the dangers of gun crime.
Well then equal time for Innocents Betrayed...to educate them about gummit control is easier with an unarmed society.

I guess the viewing of Rocky Horror Picture Show is to ...wait...probably a UK law banning RHPS,.. "its for the movie screens" ya know.:)

[Keith]

this is more about the culture of dealing in crack cocaine and gang-chic than guns

Perhaps you didn't read the article...?

Keith

[Daniel T]

Many of the 150 youngsters - aged from 13-19 - came from London communities where gun crime is an ever-present threat.

Not possible.

Ok, sarcasm aside, I seriously doubt that gun crime is an ever-present threat anywhere in the UK, period. More hyperbole, at best (I just consider it a lie), excused because "it's for the children".

[Pendragon]

Those who participate in the "crime culture", including the wannabees bear little resemblence to those in the US "gun culture".

All the people I knew growing up in the gun culture were hard working blue collar family men who went to church and did their best to do the right thing.

All the punks I have known and met in the crime culture were all about their image, the now, self promotion, and other false notions of masculinity that they picked up probably from the media since most probably did not have a true father figure in their life to show them what a real man is.

[Tempest]

agricola - easiest hook or not, they vilify guns, regardless of the reason. It's not a gun culture they have there, it's a crime culture that's on the rise. But by focusing on guns, they reinforce the "gun is evil" perception, as if the criminals won't use something else to commit crimes if guns were completely unavailable. They're already modifying air guns. These kids need to be taught that crime is wrong, not indoctrinated into a certain mentality.

[agricola]

keith,

thats funny - on the USS Liberty thread I dont recall you retracting your statements made in direct contradiction to survivors testimony.

[Nightfall]

The Ministry of Truth is hard at work I see... :D

[cracked butt]

Just to balance it out, they should have shown a mass grave full of bloody mangled corpses being bulldozed over by soldiers.

[Keith]

on the USS Liberty thread I dont recall you retracting your statements made in direct contradiction to survivors testimony.

Was that the statements where the survivors opined that fighter jets were specifically picking out medics to shoot as they zoomed by? I don't feel any need to retract a statement disagreeing with that.

On the subject at hand, the article is entitled "Nipping The Gun Culture In The Bud" and everyone involved states the program is about eradicating the "Gun Culture", yet you disagree...

Keith

[longeyes]

"how is displaying to kids the outcome of a criminal life a bad thing?"

What about displaying to kids the outcome of a socialist life? Or maybe what happens when a nation chooses to fragment its core culture to serve some theoretical ideal of inclusiveness?

As said above, this confuses a "gun culture" with a crime culture. Huge difference.

[Andrew Rothman]

Criminy.

They call it the "gun culture" but what they describe is the "crime culture."

They're not trying to wipe out pistol clubs or hunting in the UK, but criminals shooting each other and innocent bystanders.

The only thing this group is doing wrong (and it's a biggy) is attaching the wrong label to the culture.

---
All the punks I have known and met in the crime culture were all about their image, the now, self promotion, and other false notions of masculinity that they picked up probably from the media since most probably did not have a true father figure in their life to show them what a real man is.
In "More Guns, Less Crime," Lott makes much the same point. Punks live in the "now" and don't associate consequences to their actions.

My "anti" wife, a schoolteacher, just said the same thing about kids growing up in a culture of poverty, and ascribed much the same reason: no role model.

Funny how we all agree. Now what do we do about it? :)

[agricola]

keith,

nah it would be this:

The thing that should deflate the conspiracy nuts is that the air attacks were from some planes that had no armaments capable of taking out a ship. The only weapons they had were 30mm cannons!
Think about that for a moment - if this was a conspiracy to sink an American ship why didn't they send planes armed with weapons capable of taking out a ship?

to which when challenged you replied with:

All of the statements above are true.

Malone has also called you on this, and I provided an eyewitness account. If youre going to call people on accuracy, then please dont do so in a house of glass.

Besides, I said:

As mpayne said, this is more about the culture of dealing in crack cocaine and gang-chic than guns (which play a small but final part in the process), and the media has just used the easiest hook.

The article states the following -

The conference, Moving Forward, was run by members of the Young Black Positive Advocates (YBPA) who introduced the guests, performed anti-gun and drug songs and led workshops covering themes ranging from guns and drug crime to teenage pregnancy.

"Some people might be attracted by the fast lifestyle - the nice cars and clothes and so on - but we tell them it can end up in a fast death. There is no bling bling in this one," he told his audience.

"Gun culture" springs up, in the UK, largely from criminality and especially disputes over the crack cocaine supply - thats where the money, and the incentive to get money comes from and its (of course) the money that feeds the lifestyle.

Besides, since when did you have an unquestioning acceptance of what the BBC says?

[Keith]

The only thing this group is doing wrong (and it's a biggy) is attaching the wrong label to the culture.

They do it on purpose. If they can link guns to crime/drugs/poverty they can kill several birds with one stone. They can garner support from the masses for more intrusive legislation, taxes, gubmint "programs", etc, and not incidently, take a shot at the conservatives who oppose more gun control.

Keith

[agricola]

keith,

those conservatives would be who exactly?

[Keith]

Ag,

The statements were true. The planes were armed with 30mm cannons.

"Gun culture" springs up, in the UK, largely from criminality and especially disputes over the crack cocaine supply

And that is where we disagree. The "Gun Culture" springs up from rural landowners and hunters who vote Tory. Linking them with crack cocaine in the minds of the ignorant is just politics.

This is a "crime culture", not a gun culture.

Keith

[agricola]

er..... thats not what you said.

[Keith]

er..... thats not what you said.

What I said is just above in black and white, or black and gray as the case may be...
In my country we still interpret statements as having a relationship to the words actually used.
Perhaps you're used to hearing too much New Labour English (or Left-Speak as we term it here), where words have political and social meanings not associated with the old fashioned use of the English language?

Keith

[agricola]

keith,

that statement of yours was clearly factually wrong when survivors testimony is viewed; keep on insisting the sky is green! :rolleyes:

[Keith]

The sky HAS been green for the last few nights. We're having a remarkable series of aurora displays.

As for being "factually wrong", I think you're badly confused. Again.
The testimony of a few survivors that they were fired on with rockets instead of 30mm cannons does not make it a "fact". This is what we (users of Olde English) refer to as an "opinion" and one formed under stress and the fear of imminent death.
I realize that in New Labour English any statement that can be interpreted as anti-Israeli, is automatically a "fact", but for the rest of us (burdened with simple English, as we are), it remains a mere opinion.

There would be no reason for anyone to lie about which ordnance was used to try and sink the ship. 30mm cannons are not "nicer" or more "politically correct" than rockets and there was no reason for anyone to lie about it
The findings were that the damage to the upper hull and superstructure came from cannon fire. It is only a few tinfoil-hatted types who seize on the difference and cry "conspiracy".

Keith

[Iain]

To your corners gentlemen.

Keith - hope the aurora displays continue, am thinking about heading to Norway soon just to see it for myself.

-----

The fact is that the public is very torn over guns, I have been speaking to a lawyer this very evening and now appreciate even more some things about my country that many here do not seem to appreciate. It is not about us having had our guns removed or taken away forcibly (although the post-Dunblane handgun ban is an exception), we never really had guns in the same way that Americans have had. Guns are part of the frontier life, and thus part of your culture, and a 'gun culture' all to themselves.

When the term 'gun culture' is used in the UK it refers to an entirely different thing, a problem of young men and women carrying guns as part of a drug culture. That is where our gun problem stems from, there is a market for guns amongst criminals as part of an 'arms race'. That needs to be addressed as a problem entirely separate from the civil rights issue of gun ownership.

I am very much open to the arguments about guns, and have had my mind changed since being here, but I think the common mistake is to think of the British people as being alike in all aspects to Americans but disarmed, we differ from you in many other ways. Happy to explore those ways, but you need to keep in mind the differences, Kent is not like a repressed and disarmed Vermont, it is Kent and a very different place.

[Keith]

I'm sure you could have seen the aurora at your latitude - if the weather was clear? It was a remarkable series of displays that were seen as far south as Texas on this side of the pond. I've never seen anything quite like it. A friend from Kentucky emailed me to say she could see it through the thin cloud cover (!) on wednesday night.

I don't think we (Yanks and Brits) are so very different in matters like this. In both places, politicians will try and interpret the events in ways that favor their party platform.
In this case, the Labour Party has been leading the fight against guns - so, it only makes (political) sense to paint the situation as a "gun problem". To paint it as a "crime" or "drug" problem is to tacitly admit a failure - that they should have concentated efforts on this instead of wasting time and money banning legal ownership of guns.

Keith

[agricola]

keith,

So men who were there dont know what they are talking about and must be mistaken, damn them loony conspiracy theorists!

You obviously have some deep pool of knowledge that justifies each and every one of your statements. Care to share it with us?

[agricola]

oh, and please check the Liberty thread again just to see how even the IDF disagrees with your interpretation of "facts", and slandering of the survivors.

[Keith]

You obviously have some deep pool of knowledge that justifies each and every one of your statements. Care to share it with us?

Well sure, I'll be happy to help you out! What I do is read statements from both sides of an issue and try and balance things somewhat.

What you do is referred to as Cognitive Dissonance. A phenomena where one simply accepts all statements and opinions that favor personal prejudices while rejecting everything else.

In the case we were discussing, we can look at a lot of reasons why the Israeli military might attack an American vessel. The simplest (and therefore the most likely) reason is that they thought it was an Egyptian vessel. That seems very likely since the actual diplomatic and military messages from the US have shown that less than 24 hours precedingthe attack we had assured them that NO AMERICAN VESSELS WERE WITHIN 100 MILES OF THE COAST and that none would go within 100 miles of the coast.

The balanced opinion would favor the premise that they took us at our word and attacked the vessel thinking it was Egyptian - since it was 14 miles off the coast.

The unbalanced (Cognitive Dissonance) opinion would disregard that and create a conspiracy theory revolving around all kinds of bizarre and unconnected events and persons.

Keith

[Hazwaste]

Fast cars and fancy clothes? I can't afford them. I own guns.

[Pilgrim]

The scenes are certainly horrific but it's not a horror film in the conventional sense - the screening is part of a conference organised for young people to educate them about the dangers of gun crime.

So by this reasoning, the reason for the games in the Colisseum of Rome was to educate Romans about the dangers of gladius (Roman short sword) crime. After watching gladiators, criminals, and Christians killed in the Colisseum, Roman citizens walked away foreswearing ever participating in such disgusting displays of blood. Right. :rolleyes:

Pilgrim

[greyhound]

When the term 'gun culture' is used in the UK it refers to an entirely different thing,

but I think the common mistake is to think of the British people as being alike in all aspects to Americans but disarmed,

Very well put, St Johns. I'm sure there's lots of other terms that like "gun culture" mean very different things in the UK and US.

(like "football":rolleyes: )

But I guess a lot of Americans get hot that instead of accurately calling it the Gangsta/crime/drug culture y'all focus on the guns. But, then, that's where the second quote above makes sense. Without a 2A, I would imagine demonizing guns is not as hot a button in the UK.