[jimpeel]

This simply shows the fact that those disposed to aberrant behavior will move to other means to perpetrate their crimes. This guy is no different; but the powers-that-be can't see it.

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004082118220002394837&dt=20040821182200&w=RTR&coview=

Police fear serial hammer killer stalks London

LONDON, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Police are investigating whether a serial hammer killer is targeting women in London after a French woman was bludgeoned to death in circumstances similar to other attacks.

Emilie Delagrange, 22, was found with a serious head injury lying near a cricket pitch in the southwest suburb of Twickenham on Thursday night. She died shortly afterwards.

The attack bore similarities to three other assaults in the neighbourhood in the past two years, all of which left female victims with severe head injuries.

A London police spokeswoman said the Delagrange investigation was being helped by officers from a team that probed the nearby murder of student Marsha McDonnell last year.

"The possibility that this was linked to other attacks is an important line of inquiry, but we are keeping an open mind," she said.

McDonnell, a 19-year-old gap-year student, was bludgeoned to death in the early hours of Feb. 4, 2003, close to her home after taking the bus back from a night out with friends.

A 17-year-old boy who was arrested last March in connection with the murder is being held in a secure mental unit, but has not been charged.

Delagrange, who had been living and working in Twickenham, was killed as she walked home, also having taken the bus back from a night out.

Police said other similar attacks have taken place on women in the area, although not all victims were killed.

A month before the McDonnell murder, a 17-year-old girl survived serious head injuries from an attack in nearby Strawberry Hill, and in April this year a 34-year-old woman was attacked on Twickenham Green, where Delagrange died.

A few weeks after McDonnell was killed, a male 18-year-old was attacked nearby but escaped unhurt. He said the weapon he was struck with was a "hammer-like" tool.

Detectives are still trying to trace Delagrange's mustard coloured handbag and mobile phone.

© Copyright Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.

[P95Carry]

Hope this wasn't the dreaded ''ball peen'' hammer ..... tho heaven knows, even the std claw is lethal! Should be banned - of course.

Wonder when the ''screwdriver'' serial killer will strike again!!:p

Damn ... they are screwed up - and i was spawned there.:rolleyes: :(

[agricola]

http://www.channeloklahoma.com/news/3670782/detail.html

http://readthehook.com/stories/2004/08/19/newsEvonitzRevealedSerialK.html

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040817/NEWS01/408170334/1002

http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/news/081004_AP_lr_Coral_Watts.html

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/3648403/detail.html

[R32]

I think we are long over due for some reasonable hammer control laws. Think of the children!!

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

It's sickening to realize that this murderer could likely have been stopped if these victims were carrying a handgun since, from the news reports, it's apparent that not all of the victims were immediately disabled by the attacker.

These Londoners were victimized twice, once by the attacker and then by thier Laws.

[agricola]

er... coolhand do you have a link showing that

from the news reports, it's apparent that not all of the victims were immediately disabled by the attacker.

[TooTaxed]

When I lived in Calgary, Alberta, Canada just a few years ago, though the repressive gun laws had disarmed many folks, the Alberta crime rate was higher than before...the bad guys simply sliced and diced, not expecting their victims to have guns. Disemboweling was a favorite...!:uhoh:

[jimpeel]

... and your point with all of the links would be ...

You want to see links to crimes that were stopped or prevented by the presence of a firearm?

The fact remains that your country has a history of murders that involve some of the most inventive methods. You, in fact, have whole museums dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology. We don't have those here.

This guy has merely moved on to the next available weapon to perpetrate his crimes and the gun control laws had no effect on his aberrant behavior.

[agricola]

jimpeel,

which museums would they be?

[gabeodog]

I think it's Maxwell silverhammer.

[Iain]

This is a duplicate.

jimpeel,

what are you talking about when you say "your country has a history of murders that involve some of the most inventive methods"? Ag's point with his links was clear.

Can I ask what is it about the UK that pushes so many buttons on here? There seems to be an obsessive need on the part of some members to 'prove' that the UK is a very Sodom or Gomorrah post-Hungerford/Dunblane.

[gunsmith]

The reason for the UK as a "button" is that American law is based upon English law (Blackstones law). And we see the UK as a horrible experiment in "political correctness uber alles".
With Tony Martin and others being prosecuted for self defense and your extremley biased media, Americans like Gwynneth Paltrow and Madonna moving there and telling us (through their phalanx of armed security)
how much better it is over there...well we see all that and say it must not happen here.

But I know that I am really happy with your Gov't for assisting with the war on terror and despite your countries problems (which are happening here as well) that the UK is still a wonderfull country.
Cheerio,pip pip!
Carry on!

[Iain]

I don't think our media is any worse than yours. And if Madonna wants to live here and pontificate about how nice life is here it's up to her. She doesn't live in the 'real world' anyway, whether in London or L.A.

I don't know about the political correctness. We hear the same sorts of stories about you guys. I always try to bear in mind that the stories we hear over here at times (like the 1,000lb man) represent nothing near the reality of the everyday American. Same goes, I have yet to be mugged, raped, serial killed or slapped with a dead fish.

And again, Martin is a very poor example of self-defense. There have been several cases recently where people have been acquitted - and this is because we do take things to trial to establish how things happened, merely saying 'he came at with a knife' doesn't mean he did. If you take the Martin case, which has been hashed and rehashed here, at the straight facts he shot a person in the back - would you be allowed to call that self-defense in SF (as I note you are from there)?

Do you know anyone who says 'Yeehaw'? because I don't know anyone who says 'pip pip'. I do know someone who says 'cheerio' but he's quite weird.

Seriously, I am curious. These threads do pop up on a regular basis, they vastly outweigh threads about France.

[stv]

Just as a side note, there recently was a man who shot a robber in the back with the robber's own gun. Neighbors hailed him as a hero, while California's use-of-force laws do not permit shooting someone in the back, yet the police released him on bail. It has yet to be seen whether or not he will be charged with anything.


A Bullet Too Many? (http://www.examiner.com/article/index.cfm/i/072204n_burglar)

Vigilante hailed as hero in jail (http://www.examiner.com/article/index.cfm/i/072304n_vigilante)

[agricola]

gunsmith,

i) St Johns is being too kind about Martin - it wasnt self defence, the boy was in the act of climbing through a window when he was shot in the back (the idea that Martin fired blindly when dazzled by a torch comes from Martins failed defence, and was disproved by forensic evidence);

ii) neither Gwyneth Paltrow or Madonna have armed security guards during their stay in the UK.

[goalie]

Some of you guys over the pond fail to realize that we know he shot the intruder in the back. Some of us happen to think that shooting anyone who breaks into your home at night is justified, front or back. If you don't want to get shot, stay in your own damn house.

[jimpeel]

AG:which museums would they be?
St. J:
what are you talking about when you say "your country has a history of murders that involve some of the most inventive methods"?Try this one. http://www.met.police.uk/history/crime_museum.htm

Follow the links at the bottom for some of the more innovative murders.

There was even a radio series starring Orson Welles called "The Black Museum" http://www.old-time.com/otrlogs2/blkmus.html

Then go out and rent "10 Rillington Place" http://imdb.com/title/tt0066730/ It's available in UK format. Maybe you have heard of Mr. John Christie. He kept a lovely garden.

[gunsmith]

Notice I'm using English not American in my salutation?


STV, that guy you mentioned who grabbed the gun out of the hand of the robber who was leaving his house with the guys possesion will not be charged,even the liberal prosecuter knew he would be let go during trial and didn't bother.

ST JOHN.
Here in California you can shoot a person that has broken into your house,you can shoot him in the back as he is running away if you feel like it.

Even in NY which is a nightmare to gun owners you can shoot anyone who has broken into your house-as long as your gun is registered.

I've said yeehaw at times,not very often I must admit,I'm a native NY'er and yeehaw is more of a Southern thing. My girlfriend says "hey ya'll and yeehaw" all the time because she sings along with Gretchen Wilson when her video comes on the country music channel the song is "Redneck Women" ...
I was talking to some tourist from Manchester and they told me that the British Troops had captured a Pakistani guy (who was raised in Manchester) in Iraq and he had been fighting with Saddams Republican Guard- as he sat captured he was laughing at at the British Troops because as a POW he would be returned to Manchester where he was still on the Dole and would be getting health care to take care of his minor wounds and then collect more dole.
If that aint political correctness gone awry I don't know what is,that would never fly in the peoples republic of Berkeley and they're off they're rocker over there...er..nutters- as you blokes say;)

[Iain]

Uh-huh jim...

And then perhaps we could look at the history of crime in the US. Pots and kettles.

Gunsmith...

I understand what you are saying. I guess my response should be that self-defense and shooting a burglar can be quite different things. Martin shot a burglar, other British citizens who shot a burglar in self-defence have been acquitted. There is obviously a 'cultural' difference here, but I don't see defense of property as self-defense. Obviously a burglary can turn into a SD situation and then it would be no holds barred.

It's purely a difference, one shared by the vast majority of people I know over here. I don't think it makes us stupid, nor do I think that your approach is wrong either. Just different.

But, Martin is a poor example of self-defence for the reasons Ag points out, maybe he would have been acquitted in SF, NY or TX but would it have been for the reasons he gave? If it is legal to shoot a burglar fine, but over here it isn't. It is legal to shoot someone in self-defence which is what Martin claimed he was doing, and lying to the police and the courts is bad news everywhere I believe.

[agricola]

Jimpeel,

For a start, the "Black Museum" and the Met Crime Museum are in fact one and the same, and (something which you convieniently left out) it is not open to the public. Even then, its part of a museum which represents the history of the Met (replete as it should be for the worlds first Police force), not just criminality - something which is parallelled by many US police museums. All of which is hardly have whole museums dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology is it?

Secondly, the fact that we have serial killers like Christie means precisely nothing in this debate (which is being kind to you, since your country has far more, and far more notorious killers).

[jimpeel]

and (something which you convieniently left out) it is not open to the public.Since I was unaware that it is not open to the public, I could not have omitted that fact as a matter of "convenience". Regardless, it is a museum that is dedicated to criminal behavior (or behaviour, as it were) which is in keeping with my statement which read:You, in fact, have whole museums dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology.Whether they are open to the public, convenient or not, is of no relevance for the purposes of this discussion. They exist.

From the link I provided:The Crime Museum at Scotland Yard is the oldest museum in the world put together purely for recording crime. In 1877 the name 'Black Museum' was coined, when on the 8th April a reporter from 'The Observer' newspaper used the term after being refused a visit by Inspector Neame. However the museum is now referred to as the Crime Museum.There was no attempt at obfuscation on my part. The information was there for all to see by merely clicking on the link and reading the content.

How about Madamme Tossauds?
http://www.aboutbritain.com/MadameTussauds.htm

Galleries of Justice?
http://www.aboutbritain.com/GalleriesOfJustice.htm

The House of Correction Museum of Police and Prisons?
http://www.aboutbritain.com/RiponPrisonMuseum.htm

Tolbooth?
http://www.aboutbritain.com/TolboothMuseumAberdeen.htm

They are open to the public. (Wouldn't want to leave that part out, now, would I?)

[agricola]

jimpeel,

it says, in big red letters right at the top of one of your links:

The Crime Museum is a Private Museum - it is NOT open to the general public. It is open to police Officers by prior appointment.

secondly, anyone who has visited Madame Tussauds would know that it is not one of those whole museums dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology.

Neither, for that matter, are Tolbooth, the Galleries of Justice and Ripon gaols - they are recreated prisons and museums which feature exhibits on crime and punishment as the links describe, not "dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology".

Finally, I refer you to your original thread:

We don't have those here.

http://www.nps.gov/alcatraz/

[jimpeel]

Are you desperate, or what? Alcartaz Island is NOT a museum. It is a designated federal recreation area operated by the National Park Service. I should note that that fact is emblazoned at the top of the link you provided in LARGE FRIENDLY LETTERS.

And why do you dwell on the Crime Museum being non-public? Have you no answers other than obfuscation and diversion.

Nothing you have said so far has detracted from the FACT that all of your gun control laws have merely sent criminals, such as the subject of this thread, to use other means to perpetrate their crimes while disarming noone but the law-abiding. Are you for cricket bat control? Hammer control? Lord knows you already have knife control. What is next in your superb "free" society?

[agricola]

jimpeel,

lol, i love the way some people here refuse to accept their mistakes, and when presented with a direct parallel (which Alcatraz is to the links you posted), rubbish it (while simultaneously ignoring their own mistakes) and then retreat into "well you dont have RKBA anyway!!!!!"

at least have the decency to admit you are wrong before trying to start that whole debate off. By the way, have you ever been to any of those museums?

[juggler]

How did we get from Police fear serial hammer killer stalks London to museums? :confused:

It started off as a great example of the need to be able to defend yourself. 19 and 22 year-old women were bludgeoned while out at night alone. A 17-year-old suspect is in custody. Seems pretty simple and age-old to me....... antagonist chooses those weaker to do whatever nasty he has in mind because the possibility of resistance is minimized. He wasn't going around attacking males who were larger or women in groups, was he?

If bad boy had an inkling that he might SUFFER for his actions (get shot, for instance), he might stick to torturing puppies or whatever perverted pastime he thought he could get away with.

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

How did we get from

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Police fear serial hammer killer stalks London
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to museums

Someone must be trying to change the subject.

:D

[agricola]

chl,

that would be someone called jimpeel:

The fact remains that your country has a history of murders that involve some of the most inventive methods. You, in fact, have whole museums dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology. We don't have those here.

[jimpeel]

I have tried to get back on subject when I posted: Nothing you have said so far has detracted from the FACT that all of your gun control laws have merely sent criminals, such as the subject of this thread, to use other means to perpetrate their crimes while disarming noone but the law-abiding. Are you for cricket bat control? Hammer control? Lord knows you already have knife control. What is next in your superb "free" society?But the response continues to be "Nuh uh! You're wrong and I'm right!"lol, i love the way some people here refuse to accept their mistakes, and when presented with a direct parallel (which Alcatraz is to the links you posted), rubbish it (while simultaneously ignoring their own mistakes) and then retreat into "well you dont have RKBA anyway!!!!!"

at least have the decency to admit you are wrong before trying to start that whole debate off. By the way, have you ever been to any of those museums?So if it helps to get this thread back on topic I submit the following for the edification of agricola:

I'm wrong, you're right; and the assemblage will make that determination for their own edification regardless of what either of us have posted.

Now, about this guy with the hammer; and whether the firearms laws in Britain have caused criminals to shift their choice of weapons to perpetrate their crimes because of them; and whether those laws have actually caused a decrease in crime, criminality, and the murder rate ...

[jimpeel]

Now, about this guy with the hammer; and whether the firearms laws in Britain have caused criminals to shift their choice of weapons to perpetrate their crimes because of them; and whether those laws have actually caused a decrease in crime, criminality, and the murder rate ...I say that the laws have merely shifted the focus of the weapons used, and have had no effect on the crime rate. Firearms are still finding their way into Britain and those who lack firearms are merely shifting their use of weapons to whatever is on hand.

Hell, here in the e-e-e-e-e-e-vil country of America we had a guy beaten to death with a toilet seat! We could, of course, prevent that ever happening again by requiring the destruction of all toilet seats and making everyone sit on the porcelain instead. That would, however, cause more injuries when people's a--es become stuck to the toilet in freezing weather. Again, one evil is merely replaced by another.

AND, NO, I AM NOT TRYING TO SHIFT THE THREAD TO THE TOPIC OF TOILET SEATS!

Although Magnolia does have a lovely line of toilet seats in decorator colors and natural woods:evil::neener:

[agricola]

jimpeel,

Thanks for having the honesty to admit your mistakes.

Now, with regards to this case there is little likelyhood that CCW would have prevented this - from the material in the public domain, the victim in this instance had been drinking (apparently rather heavily), the killer was probably laying in wait and would have been able to determine victims at will, and (from the lack of witnesses at the time of the offence) there was no chance of a passerby with CCW intervening because there were no passers-by.

Given the previous attacks, which are being linked (but for which there is no proof that they are) it would seem that the attack was sudden and without warning, reducing the chances for defence. All that is in addition to the state of affairs that says if the victim had CCW there is nothing to then say the suspect would not have had access to firearms.

Secondly, when you say:

Now, about this guy with the hammer; and whether the firearms laws in Britain have caused criminals to shift their choice of weapons to perpetrate their crimes because of them; and whether those laws have actually caused a decrease in crime, criminality, and the murder rate ...

I say that the laws have merely shuifted the focus of the weapons used, and have had no effect on the crime rate.

that is something I half agree with. As I have posted many times, Colin Greenwood stated that there has been no effect - positive or negative - from the various gun bans (Greenwood bemoaned the bans from the standpoint of effective use of Police time, and the way the media / what would be "liberal" groups in your vocabulary demonized guns in the wake of Hungerford and Dunblane). That stands in direct opposition to the message that has been prevalent on this board, and that which Lott, Nemorov and Malcolm (and ilk) have been spewing - that the gun bans have seen crime rise in the UK. Thats something thats palpably false, and indeed its doubtful that anyone at the time saw a ban as going to effect the general crime rate one way or another.

However, as always there is something that I feel is incorrect, in this case there is little evidence to show that criminals have switched weapons - you would actually need a fall in armed crime around the ban to make such a point stick, and/or admit that the ban had been a success in disarming criminals (which I would hazard a guess is not what you intended).

To extend your point about there being no effect, this case has nothing at all to do with gun bans, its about someone with a hammer attacking another human being.

[jimpeel]

Now, with regards to this case there is little likelyhood that CCW would have prevented this - from the material in the public domain, the victim in this instance had been drinking (apparently rather heavily), the killer was probably laying in wait and would have been able to determine victims at will, and (from the lack of witnesses at the time of the offence) there was no chance of a passerby with CCW intervening because there were no passers-by. I never broached the subject of CCW nor whether the victim would have been able to mount a defense if so enabled. My contention from the outset has been that a shift in choice of weapons is the natural progression of gun control. By your argument, if all firearms of all types were magically wished from the Earth those who were disposed to their use would not substitute another weapon in their stead. The firearms laws have had no effect on crime; and, in fact, the crime rate has gone up even in the face of these measures in spite of whatever good intentions were envisioned by the authors.

Given the previous attacks, which are being linked (but for which there is no proof that they are) it would seem that the attack was sudden and without warning, reducing the chances for defence. All that is in addition to the state of affairs that says if the victim had CCW there is nothing to then say the suspect would not have had access to firearms. Again, I have not broached the subject of CCW nor any mounted defense by the victim.

Secondly, when you say:


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, about this guy with the hammer; and whether the firearms laws in Britain have caused criminals to shift their choice of weapons to perpetrate their crimes because of them; and whether those laws have actually caused a decrease in crime, criminality, and the murder rate ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I say that the laws have merely shuifted the focus of the weapons used, and have had no effect on the crime rate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Which proves that I have been on topic and you have started to segue and meander.


that is something I half agree with. As I have posted many times, Colin Greenwood stated that there has been no effect - positive or negative - from the various gun bans (Greenwood bemoaned the bans from the standpoint of effective use of Police time, and the way the media / what would be "liberal" groups in your vocabulary demonized guns in the wake of Hungerford and Dunblane). That stands in direct opposition to the message that has been prevalent on this board, and that which Lott, Nemorov and Malcolm (and ilk) have been spewing - that the gun bans have seen crime rise in the UK. Thats something thats palpably false, and indeed its doubtful that anyone at the time saw a ban as going to effect the general crime rate one way or another.Come on, now, agricola. "... its doubtful that anyone at the time saw a ban as going to effect the general crime rate one way or another."???? This was going to be the panacea. This was gooing to reduce crime and prevent Dunblane redux. There is no argument that the intention and the debate in the Parliament was the anti-crime benefit of the ban.

However, as always there is something that I feel is incorrect, in this case there is little evidence to show that criminals have switched weapons - you would actually need a fall in armed crime around the ban to make such a point stick, and/or admit that the ban had been a success in disarming criminals (which I would hazard a guess is not what you intended). What you would need would be a statistical spread sheet on the number of crimes and the weapons used in those crimes. Without same, your contention is specious.

You state "... you would actually need a fall in armed crime around the ban to make such a point stick" but if the number of firearms in circulation went down but armed crime stayed the same of increased, the only conclusion one could come to is that there had been a shift in the type os weapons used or that the only firearms in circulation that had been confiscated were from those with no predisposition to use them in an aberrant manner.

To extend your point about there being no effect, this case has nothing at all to do with gun bans, its about someone with a hammer attacking another human being.Then why didn't he use a firearm? Do you believe he would use a firearm if he could get one?

[agricola]

jimpeel,

the reason why I harped on about museums was not to distract the thread, but because you had made a comment that was demonstrably false, and it needed to be exposed, just like the following.

The CCW points was aimed more at coolhand and his ilk than you, although it is also relevant for you (unless your only point was "look how bad the UK is") and relevant to this debate. As for the claims of the gun ban to reduce crime, I'll ask you to find anyone responsible for the legislation who claimed that it would reduce crime generally.

Also, the person who needs to prove his claims is you, who at the end of the day is arguing that the gun bans caused criminals to switch from firearms to other weapons (ie: that the gun bans worked). Is that what you are arguing?

[jimpeel]

the reason why I harped on about museums was not to distract the thread, but because you had made a comment that was demonstrably false, and it needed to be exposed, just like the following.
I actually proved my point. I conceded for no other reason but to get the thread back on topic and you still won't let it go. GET BACK ON TOPIC AND STAY THERE, PLEASE. Geesh!!The CCW points was aimed more at coolhand and his ilk than you, although it is also relevant for you (unless your only point was "look how bad the UK is") and relevant to this debate. As for the claims of the gun ban to reduce crime, I'll ask you to find anyone responsible for the legislation who claimed that it would reduce crime generally.Where can I access the transcripts of the debates? I know where to get ours here in the United States but haven't the foggiest on where to get yours. What was the number of the legislation?
Also, the person who needs to prove his claims is you, who at the end of the day is arguing that the gun bans caused criminals to switch from firearms to other weapons (ie: that the gun bans worked). Is that what you are arguing?Yep, that is exactly what I am arguing. Why don't you point me to a source that belies what I have said. I am stating that it is logical that criminals would take up other weapons in the absence of firearms. You state that they would not do so; and that would mean that the streets are safer as the thugs are no longer arming themselves.

Crime in general is up in your country and I cannot believe that all of the violent crimes are being committed using only hands and feet.

My original contention in the thread header as threadparent was this:This simply shows the fact that those disposed to aberrant behavior will move to other means to perpetrate their crimes. This guy is no different; but the powers-that-be can't see it.Prove me wrong!

[jimpeel]

From the Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/02/24/nguns24.xml

Gun crime trebles as weapons and drugs flood British cities
By David Bamber, Home Affairs Correspondent
(Filed: 24/02/2002)


GUN crime has almost trebled in London during the past year and is soaring in other British cities, according to Home Office figures obtained by The Telegraph.

Police chiefs fear that Britain is witnessing the kind of cocaine-fuelled violence that burst upon American cities in the 1980s. Cocaine, particularly from Jamaica, now floods into Britain, while the availability of weapons - many of them from eastern Europe - is also increasing.

Detectives in London say that the illegal importation of guns started after the end of the Bosnia conflict and that they are changing hands for as little as £200. During the 10 months to January 31, there were 939 crimes involving firearms in the Metropolitan Police area compared with 322 in the 10 months to the end of January, 2001 - an almost three-fold increase.

In Merseyside there were 57 shootings during the 12 months to last December compared with 15 in the same period the year before. Greater Manchester also recorded a 23 per cent increase in gun crime and there have been rises in Nottinghamshire, Avon and Somerset, West Yorkshire and the Northumbria Police area which covers Newcastle.

Gun crimes during the first 10 months of the annual period have trebled in most of the urban areas which have so far submitted statistics to the Home Office. Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said gun gangs were spreading across the country whereas, until recently, they were confined to a handful of London boroughs.

Sir John said: "We have to stem the large number of guns coming in. We know you can buy a gun in London for £200 to £300, and that's frightening. The price of hiring or buying a gun has come down because there are more guns circulating. We are having success; we are taking out about 600 guns a year."

The new gun crime figures also show that handgun crime has soared past levels last seen before the Dunblane massacre of 1996 and the ban on the weapons that followed. The ban on ownership of handguns was introduced in 1997, the year after Thomas Hamilton, an amateur shooting enthusiast, shot dead 16 schoolchildren, their teacher and himself in Dunblane, Perthshire.

It was hoped that the measure would reduce the number of handguns available to criminals. According to internal Home Office statistics, however, handgun crime is now at its highest since 1993.

[jimpeel]

From the Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=INSSSD12EBHFZQFIQMGSM5WAVCBQWJVC?xml=/news/2001/07/17/nhand17.xml

Gun crime rises despite Dunblane pistol ban
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 17/07/2001)


HANDGUN crime increased by 40 per cent in the two years after the ban imposed because of the Dunblane massacre, according to a new study.

The report from the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College, London, found no link between the legal possession of guns and their use by criminals.

Its findings appeared to support the position taken by pistol shooters when their sport was banned in 1997 in response to the murder of 16 Dunblane schoolchildren and their teacher by Thomas Hamilton.

More than 160,000 handguns were surrendered to the police. But in the two years after the ban the number of crimes in which a handgun was reported to have been used increased from 2,648 to 3,685 - up 40 per cent. Their use was at its highest level since 1993.

The study, commissioned by the Countryside Alliance, said: "The long-term impact that the 1997 legislation is likely to have on the use of handguns in crime cannot be judged with any accuracy at this time.

"But the short-term impact strongly suggests that there is no direct link between the unlawful use of handguns and their lawful ownership."

David Bredin of the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting, said: "It is crystal clear from the research that the existing gun laws do not lead to crime reduction and a safer place.

"Policy-makers have targeted the legitimate sporting and farming communities with ever-tighter laws but the research clearly demonstrates that it is illegal guns that are the real threat to public safety."

At the time of the ban, gun owners maintained that criminals did not use legally-registered weapons and had no difficulty finding guns on the black market. Mr Bredin said the Government should review the administration of privately-owned firearms.

"Compared to many other countries, Britain does not yet have a serious gun crime problem, though action is needed before we do. However, it is clear that legally-held firearms do not form a significant part of the problem."

The report found that of the 20 police areas with the fewest legally-held firearms, half had an above-average level of gun crime. Of the 20 police areas with the highest levels of legally-held guns, only two had armed crime above the average.

Gill Marshall-Andrews, of the Gun Control Network, said: "We must not forget that almost all illegal guns start out legal so it's not easy to draw a neat line between the two as the shooters would like.

"If we want to hold gun crime down in this country the last thing we should do is relax our gun laws."

[jimpeel]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/15/nknife15.xml

Criminals 'to face mandatory jail' for carrying a knife
By Rajeev Syal and Patrick Hennessy
(Filed: 15/08/2004)

Criminals caught carrying knives will be automatically jailed for at least two years, under plans being drawn up by the Home Office.

New legislation, to be announced this autumn, will order judges to give the minimum sentence to anyone carrying a knife with intent to use it in a criminal act.

The move follows the introduction of the Criminal Justice Act in January, which imposed a mandatory five-year sentence for possession of a prohibited firearm.

Proposals for similar legislation against knives follows a rise in the number of recent stabbings.

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, asked officials to draw up the plans after Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, suggested that the law should be tightened.

A spokesman for Mr Blunkett said: "The Home Secretary is aware of growing concern about the use of knives. We are actively looking at how best to deal with this situation through legislation." Sir John, Britain's most senior police officer, said that he had spoken to Mr Blunkett about the introduction of a minimum sentence for anyone caught carrying a sharp weapon.

"Not only do we need to look at the cause, to prevent these people from carrying these knives, at the same time we need to harden up the penalties on people carrying knives," he said.

"We already have a five-year mandatory sentence for guns, and that is an option. He [Mr Blunkett] knows of my opinion . . . They [offenders] need to be reminded of the fact that they can go to prison for carrying knives."

Mr Blunkett's decision to tighten the law follows several recent well-publicised stabbings. lan Pennell, 16, was convicted two weeks ago for the murder of Luke Walmsley, 14, in a school corridor - an attack that prompted a public outcry.

Yesterday, two teenagers were charged with the murder of 19-year-old Sayed Abbas, who was stabbed to death at Hounslow West Underground station in west London last week.

[jimpeel]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1997/10/03/ngun03.html

[quote]Yachtsmen scuppered as start guns are seized
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor

POLICE acting on Home Office advice, have told yacht clubs to surrender their handguns under the ban that took effect on Tuesday.

The firearms are cannon used to signal the start of yacht races by firing a powder-only cartridge, giving out a loud bang and a puff of black smoke.

Despite an exemption in the firearms legislation for "signalling apparatus", Essex police advised clubs to hand them in or risk imprisonment for illegal possession of a handgun. Dyfed Powys in Wales is also seeking a ruling from the Home Office before deciding whether to round up the starting cannon.

The move has astonished the yachting community, resulting in complaints to the Home Office. It is now considering whether they should be returned.

Although the cannon - normally mounted on wooden trunnions - weigh around 40lb, they have short barrels and strictly fall within the definition of a large-calibre weapon outlawed after the Dunblane massacre. Most police forces relied upon the exemption for signalling apparatus - such as athletics starting guns and Very pistols - and chose not to bother their yacht clubs.

Essex, however, erred on the side of caution and collected in the cannon - trunnions and all. Colin Pryke, commodore of the Maldon Little Ship Club, said two of their cannon had been taken on Sept 29, the day before the ban took effect.

"Given the threat of imprisonment, we were left with little option," he said yesterday. He was asking the Home Office for assurances that the cannon will not be destroyed until the matter had been resolved.

Robin Hill-Sanders, secretary of the Royal Yachting Association Eastern Region, said the cannon from his club, Blackwater Sailing Club, had been impounded.

"It is totally potty," he added. "They are taking them away from every club that has a firearms licence. They are big, heavy things normally bolted down on a big lump of wood. This is because there is a recoil - but it also makes them difficult to steal. The whole thing is grotesque. The idea that somebody could shoot anyone with it is ludicrous. It is not something you hide in a holster."

Jerry Eardley, RYA legal secretary, said he hoped that the matter would be sorted out following representations to the Home Office. He said the cannon was the best way of signalling to competitors, especially in coastal waters.

"There may be starting lines of 200 competitors, in choppy conditions, with the wind in the wrong direction and a lot of shouting and rattling of sails," he said. "They may not hear the bang and need the puff of smoke as well to make the signal effective."

He added: "There is no doubt that they are firearms - but we thought it was sufficiently clear in the legislation that they were exempt."

He understood from the Home Office that the police would be told they can hand back the cannon. But a spokesman for Essex police said they were still awaiting a ruling. "It is now going to be discussed by ministers. If they decide they are exempt we will be returning the cannon to the yacht clubs."[quote]

[agricola]

jimpeel,

Yep, that is exactly what I am arguing. Why don't you point me to a source that belies what I have said. I am stating that it is logical that criminals would take up other weapons in the absence of firearms.

Firstly, since you admit thats what you are arguing, then that probably puts you in a minority of one on this board. Secondly, that is logical but the way you phrased it (thus):

whether the firearms laws in Britain have caused criminals to shift their choice of weapons to perpetrate their crimes because of them

would suggest that armed criminals pre-bans were changing tactics and weapons post-ban. that isnt the case - as your links show (though, of course, the reasons for the rise are more complex than described), there is nolong-term decline or corresponding rise in crimes committed with other weapons. Simply, pre 1988 (or especially 1997) the armed criminal community in the UK was small and clustered towards the higher end of the scale in terms of seriousness, where in general it has remained.

Now if what you are saying is that criminals might arm themselves with what is to hand, then thats something I agree with - but that is clearly NOT what you said, as shown above; there is a clear link between the gun bans and the nature of armed criminality, evidence for which does not exist because there is no link.

transcripts of debates in the Houses of Parliament can be found here (http://www.parliament.uk/hansard/hansard.cfm)

finally, two of your links are at least two years out of date, and the third does not mean what you say it means in your quip about "knife control" - read the second paragraph (emphasis mine):

New legislation, to be announced this autumn, will order judges to give the minimum sentence to anyone carrying a knife with intent to use it in a criminal act.

agricola

ps: not distracting the thread, but as is clear to anyone who has been to any of those museums, you were wrong and demonstrably so

[jimpeel]

Now I know what turns other members off about debating you. You deny the undeniable and equivocate the unequivocal. Nothing is sufficient to your needs.

I state that there are whole museums dedicated to crime and you want an example.

I show you the Black Museum and the best you can say is it is not open to the public. It is still a museum whether it is open to the public or not.

I then show you four more museums that are dedicated to crime and punishment and the best you can counter with is that they are prison reproductions. They are still museums. You then take that position as meaning that all that came before was fallacious regardless of the fact that the Black Museum IS a museum and it IS "dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology" as I stated it was.

You then attempt to equate these museums with an American national park which is not a museum and does not contain a museum.

You then put words in my posts which were never typed by me attempting to say that I was speaking about CCW and how the victim could have mounted a defense if so empowered. That was, as you would say, "demonstrably false". I never held that stance.

My contention has never been anything other that that which I posted in the thread header which is:This simply shows the fact that those disposed to aberrant behavior will move to other means to perpetrate their crimes.

When I brought this fact to your attention, the best you could counter with was that I should prove myself correct rather than your proving me wrong.

You then contend that my statement that the firearms law, post Dunblane, was passed in the interest of crime reduction and public safety was false. You state that noone at the time made that link; but you can't state what their intentions were if not for those purposes. If not for crime reduction and public safety, what was the law passed for -- traffic violations?

You stated:Now if what you are saying is that criminals might arm themselves with what is to hand, then thats something I agree with ... and I had stated exactly that when I posted: I say that the laws have merely shifted the focus of the weapons used, and have had no effect on the crime rate. Firearms are still finding their way into Britain and those who lack firearms are merely shifting their use of weapons to whatever is on hand.

You have taken my contentions far afield of what I clearly stated. You have twisted them and nit-picked them to your own advantage while offering nothing in refutation. You have offered no proof that my contentions are false nor that the law, as passed, was for any other reason than crime reduction and public safety.

When I post articles from your own local newspaper, The Telegraph, you state that those articles have no validity because they are two years old; even though they clearly show that the law had no effect in its immediate aftermath.

You state that you agree that a move to other weapons meets a test of logic but my phraseology is flawed -- even though the quoted passage echoes my original contention in the thread header.

I will try one more time in the next few posts and then, failing a reasonable dialogue, I shall put you behind me as so many others on this board have.

[jimpeel]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/20/ncrim220.xml

Trends reveal rising tide of violence
By John Steele, Home Affairs Correspondent
(Filed: 20/07/2004)

The announcement of the Government's five-year "anti-crime" plan comes after a period of at least six years in which many crimes, including the kind of thuggery and anti-social behaviour highlighted by the Prime Minister, have risen.

Since 1998, a year after Labour took power, there have been increases in gun crime, muggings, serious and lesser violence, rape, possession of drugs and damage to cars.

Labour can point to successes against two major property crimes - domestic burglaries and thefts of cars - which have both fallen, according to statistics of crimes recorded by police.

But both crimes were falling during the previous Tory administration, a trend attributed by many to improved security in homes and vehicles.

By contrast, the trends in many other offences reflect a greater threat to the safety of individuals and a continuing lack of respect for their property, even if it is harder to steal.

The trends are taken from the Home Office's published "long-term trends in national recorded crime" - offences considered serious enough by the public to report to police, and serious enough for police to record.

The trends, for England and Wales, go back either to 1993 or to 1998, when the Home Office began separate recording of some offences that were previously included in broader categories. Some of the increases, the Government has argued, reflect changes in definitions and methods of recording. (As I recall, this has also been posited by yourself as a reason for increased crime. - JP)

Crimes involving firearms - many of which are linked to drugs, particularly crack cocaine, and gang culture - have more than doubled since 1997, passing more than 10,000 offences a year in England and Wales. Possession of weapons has also gone up, from about 23,000 in 1998/99 to 32,100 in 2002/03.

Offences of "more serious violence", ranging from murder to assault intending grievous bodily harm, rose from about 18,000 in 1993 to 38,291 in 2002/03.

"Other offences against the person" - a range of lesser crimes of violence - have also risen, from less than 500,000 in 1998/99 to 800,000 in 2002/03.

"Robbery of personal property" - muggings - rose from nearly 60,000 in 1998/99 to 96,867 in 2002/03.

Snatches of property rose from less than 50,000 in 1993 to 135,400 in 2002/03.

Offences of violent disorder - "a disturbance made by an unruly mob of three people or more" - have risen from fewer than 10,000 offences in 1993 to 22,292 in 2002/03.

Overall, the long-term trends show there were 5,899,450 crimes in England and Wales in 2002/03, an apparent rise of seven per cent on the previous year.

The Home Office suggests, however, that after taking into account changes in recording introduced in 2002, this was in fact a three per cent fall on the previous year. (I assume that this will also be your retort to this story since you have used it in the past. - JP)

[jimpeel]

What about this guy?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/09/nosb09.xml

Five years in prison for acting in self-defence
By Alasdair Palmer
(Filed: 09/05/2004)


On the night of August Bank Holiday 2003, at about 11.30, Brett Osborn, a 23-year-old casual labourer, killed Wayne Halling, a stranger who had forced himself into the house where Osborn and four friends were watching television over a drink.



When Halling entered the house he was covered in blood and was in a frenzy. He seemed impervious to pain and was suffering from drug-induced delusions. He had been smashing the windows of other houses in the street with his fists and head, giving himself more than 90 wounds - his wrist was cut to the bone and he had sliced half through one of his toes.

By the time he arrived at 19 Regarth Avenue, Romford - where Osborn was sitting with his friends - he was, as every witness who was interviewed stated, a "terrifying sight".

He got in because one of Osborn's companions, Kelly Hinds, had heard the commotion and gone outside. The drug-crazed Halling took her for "Emma", the girlfriend who, he screamed, had "set him up". Miss Hinds recalled that he "grabbed me and pushed me against a parked car. I immediately got blood from him on my top. I managed to push him away".

Halling pursued her back to the house. Miss Hinds managed to get inside but, even with the help of her pregnant sister, Jodie, was unable to close the door against his weight or stop him from pushing his way in. He staggered along the corridor, smearing the walls with blood. Jodie Hinds screamed "He's in the house! He's in the house!" and Jay Westbrook, her boyfriend, struggled with him, knocking him down. But he got up again and kept going.

Osborn recalls: "There is blood everywhere, things are flying everywhere, the girls are screaming hysterically. I just don't know what to do. Then he starts coming towards me." In fear and confusion, Osborn picked up a steak knife with a 6in serrated blade that he says was on the floor.

He would later tell the police: "I didn't know what he was going to do to me." Also, knowing that Jodie Hinds was pregnant, he was terrified of what might happen if she were attacked. "He came towards me, sort of grabbed me," says Osborn, "and I lunged, and stabbed him that was the only thing I could think to do. It was just the panic. He's mad, he's crazy, he's just smashed up three houses, attacked people, beaten up my friend. I didn't know what was going to happen. There's blood all over him. The only thing I could think of was to protect myself and the other people in the house."

Halling fell to the floor. Police and an ambulance then arrived: there had been several calls to the emergency services, but because of fights in Romford as the pubs closed, officers had been slow to get to the scene.

The wounded intruder refused to let paramedics treat him. He fought them off until he was handcuffed by the police. PC Joanne Allan recalls that she had "never witnessed anything like this in my life. I was terrified, as I had no idea what was happening". She even considered using her CS spray to control the struggling man, who was lunging and striking out wildly. Sergeant Paul Darham, the second police officer on the scene, agreed that "the scene of blood and a male shouting and behaving irrationally was extremely distressing and frightening".

The "irrational male" was bundled into the ambulance but died on the way to hospital. Brett Osborn had stabbed him five times. Three of those stab wounds were superficial, barely breaking the skin. But one had punctured his assailant's lung. It was this injury that killed him.

An autopsy revealed that Halling had taken a massive dose of cocaine - it may have been in the form of "crack" - that night. It was the cocaine that had caused his delusions and made him impervious to pain.

There could be little doubt that Brett Osborn had not planned to kill Halling, or even that he never intended to do so. Halling was unknown to him until he had forced his way into 19 Regarth Avenue. He stabbed him because he feared for his own life and the safety of his friends. Yet, astonishingly, the Crown Prosecution Service decided to prosecute Osborn for murder - a crime that carries a minimum sentence of life imprisonment.

"The law," explains Harry Potter, the barrister who, with Charles Bott, would defend Osborn, "does not require the intention to kill for a prosecution for murder to succeed. All that is required is an intention to cause serious bodily harm. That intention can be fleeting and momentary. But if it is there in any form at all for just a second - that is, if the blow you struck was deliberate rather than accidental - you can be guilty of murder and spend the rest of your life in prison.

"Moreover," Mr Potter continues, "while self-defence is a complete defence to a charge of murder, the Court of Appeal has ruled that if the force you use is not judged to have been reasonable - if a jury, that is, decides it was disproportionate - then you are guilty of murder. A conviction for murder automatically triggers the mandatory life sentence. There are no exceptions."

The legal situation was explained to Osborn by his defence team. Mr Bott and Mr Potter advised him that although they thought it very unlikely that any jury would reject his plea that he had stabbed Halling in self-defence, they could not, in all honesty, claim that it was a certainty. There was a small chance that a jury might decide that his use of the knife was "disproportionate". The jurors would then be bound, under the law, to convict him of murder.

It was explained to Osborn that he could avoid that risk only if he elected to plead guilty to manslaughter as a result of provocation. He would then probably be sentenced to a maximum of three years. His defence team did not advise him to take that option: they merely set out the alternatives in front of him.

Osborn decided that he could not face the risk of life imprisonment. "You see it in the paper," Osborn has said, "that bloke Tony Martin who shot the kid who was burgling his house. He went to prison for years. I didn't want to waste my life because [Halling] burst through the door. Why did he have to ruin my life?"

Tony Martin was convicted of murder after a jury rejected his claim that he had acted in self-defence when he shot dead a burglar who had broken into his isolated farm house. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Appeal Court decided to quash his conviction for murder and substitute one for manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility. Martin, who was jailed in April 2000, was freed in July 2003.

Osborn chose to plead guilty to manslaughter through provocation. He did not, however, receive a three-year sentence. At his sentencing hearing on April 21 at Woolwich Crown Court, Judge Shirley Anwyl decided that he should serve five years. He is now in Belmarsh Prison.

"We couldn't believe it," Denise Osborn, Brett's mother, told The Telegraph. "Brett has never been violent. He has never been involved in any kind of violent behaviour at all before this. He has a conviction for benefit fraud, but nothing to do with any kind of violence. He was devastated at being the cause of another man's death. It is a terrible thing for him. He never meant to kill anyone. To treat him like a rapist or someone who coldly sets out to kill another human being is just so unfair and wrong."

Osborn's barristers are appealing to get his sentence reduced. They believe that the Court of Appeal's judgment in the Hastings case - Barry Hastings was convicted of manslaughter after killing an intruder and had his sentence cut from five years to three on appeal - demonstrates that the most Osborn should have received for his plea of manslaughter was three years.

Malcolm Starr, a friend and supporter of Tony Martin, said: "This case shows that it is not so much that the law needs changing but rather that some common sense should be applied. Anyone attacked in their own home should be given the benefit of the doubt whatever the circumstances.

"People have a choice whether to break into someone's home and frighten them to death. How you would react to that happening to you is something you won't know until it happens to you."

The dead man's family, however, insist that Halling was "unarmed" when he was stabbed. They are wanting Osborn's sentence increased. They also point to the fact that Osborn, while he handed the police the knife he used to stab Halling on the night of the crime, did not admit to having used it himself immediately. He did so only at a later police interview.

They also say that Osborn's claim that he stabbed Halling in the course of a struggle is not substantiated by the location of his stab wounds, which were to Halling's back, not to the front of his body. In his interview with the police, officers asked Osborn if he had "warned" Halling that he had a knife and would stab him if he did not desist. Osborn had to admit that he had not warned him.

"That is just ridiculous," says Mrs Osborn. "A man behaving like a lunatic, covered in blood, is coming towards him, and my son is supposed calmly to warn him that he might be stabbed if he attacks?"

The determination of the dead man's family to see Osborn punished may have been what persuaded the CPS to take the decision to prosecute Brett Osborn for murder. "I think the law is contemptible," says Mrs Osborn. "How can it be right to put my son in jail for defending himself and killing someone by accident? That law has to be changed. There's got to be a recognition that when you did the kind of thing Brett did, you are not a murderer and you don't deserve to rot in jail. People have got to realise that it could happen to anyone. It could be you.

"For us, the whole thing has just been a nightmare. I keep hoping I will wake up and Brett will walk in through the door of my home. But he won't. He's in prison and he won't be released for years. It is so wrong."

[P95Carry]

On much of this Jim - it seems you are ..... http://www.acbsystems.com/images/smilies/dedhorse.gif

[jimpeel]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/23/ncrime23.xml

Violent crime shows big rise but burglaries fall
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 23/01/2004)

Crimes of violence recorded by the police rose by 14 per cent in the third quarter of last year compared with 2002, Home Office figures published yesterday showed.

Assaults increased by 17 per cent over the same period and the most serious violent offences, such as homicide and serious wounding, went up by 18 per cent.

However, continuing falls in burglaries and car thefts - principally because owners are making their homes and vehicles more secure - mean that total crime remained stable.

Separate figures provided by the British Crime Survey, which interviews 20,000 people about their personal experiences, suggested a three per cent fall in violence in the 12 months to Sept 2003.

The use of different data and changes in recording methods continue to cause confusion over trends, with the Home Office tending to attribute the rise in violence partly to the way police collect the figures.

Ministers said the chance of being a victim of crime was the same as in 1981 and that violent crime was 25 per cent less than five years ago. However, the Tories said "violent crime is soaring".

Crimes of serious violence are likely to be reported and the figures show an increase from 10,000 offences to 11,800. Offences of minor wounding, harassment, common assault and weapon possession rose from 203,800 to 238,000. Sexual offences increased by eight per cent, from 12,900 crimes to 14,000.

Recorded robberies fell by two per cent compared with the same quarter in 2002, reflecting specialist police operations in the big towns and cities to curb street crime.

Gun crime figures showed a 46 per cent rise in the use of replica weapons and the overall number of firearm offences increased by two per cent to 10,248 incidents. This compared with a 34 per cent rise in 2001-02.

However, the number of robberies in which a gun was used fell by 13 per cent and the use of handguns to commit any crime fell by six per cent.

The total number of homicides rose above 1,000 for the first time but this included 172 victims of Harold Shipman, the serial killer who committed suicide earlier this month. If these are excluded, the number of murders stayed roughly the same. (I guess the Shipman murders weren't really murders because he got more than his fair share. LOL !!! - JP)

There were 81 homicides involving firearms in the year compared with 97 the year before - a reduction of 16 per cent.

Under legal changes agreed by Parliament last year, a mandatory minimum jail sentence of five years will now be imposed for possessing an illegal firearm.

Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister, said the increases in violent crime should be put into context.

"Better police crime recording policies mean that local forces now have a clearer picture of crime in their area and that anti-social behaviour and low-level thuggery, which are included in the violent crime figures, are more accurately recorded.

"We are also encouraging victims to report crimes, especially violent and sexual offences, and we would expect to see a rise in these figures."

Chris Fox, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said that while overall crime was stable, "the continued rise in reported violent crime remains an issue of particular concern".

David Davis, shadow home secretary, said: "No amount of Home Office spin can hide the fact that violent crime is soaring. "For the Government to describe this as some sort of success shows how bad things have become.

"If Blair or Blunkett think they are winning the war on crime they are living in a different country."

Mark Oaten, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "The rise in violent crime is surely a sign that the binge drinking culture is getting out of hand."

[jimpeel]

Stop hitting agricola that way, you mean man, you! :neener:

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

jimpeel:

I have tried to get back on subject when I posted:

Just to clear up this point, you're not the one I was referring to. IMO, You have done an outstanding job of supporting your viewpoint.

[jimpeel]

Thank you; and apologies for any offense.

[agricola]

jimpeel,

this is becoming increasingly pathetic.

I state that there are whole museums dedicated to crime and you want an example.

I then show you four more museums that are dedicated to crime and punishment

I wanted examples, and that is not what you said. What you said (in addition to screaming, when challenged, that I was disrupting the thread) was

You, in fact, have whole museums dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology. We don't have those here.

the black museum is a collection of exhibits taken from the history of the Met, in addition to other items - uniforms, cars and other curios. the fact that it isnt open to the public is important, because for all but 40,000 of the UK population it doesnt exist (which does not make it "dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology btw" but it does make it equal to the NYPD museum)

In addition, the way your wording has changed from the first example to the most recent two shows that you (as you did before all of this kicked off again) recognize that your original statement was in error.

All of that is further proved by the fact that you are still wrong, Madame Tussauds IS NOT A MUSEUM DEDICATED TO CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, as ANYONE who has been to it will know, indeed anyone who read the link you posted would have realised (in addition to those commentators here).

You then attempt to equate these museums with an American national park which is not a museum and does not contain a museum.

no, but it contains a former gaol which is open to the public. Guess what your other three examples are?

You then put words in my posts which were never typed by me attempting to say that I was speaking about CCW and how the victim could have mounted a defense if so empowered. That was, as you would say, "demonstrably false". I never held that stance.

which is to ignore what I said above, which would have been apparent if you hadnt gone through this thread trying desperately to prove your points by omitting a great deal of what I have said:

The CCW points was aimed more at coolhand and his ilk than you, although it is also relevant for you (unless your only point was "look how bad the UK is") and relevant to this debate.

a point of view which is more than justified when one considers your sig:

Gun Control: The premise that a woman found in an alley, raped and strangled with her own pantyhose, is morally superior to allowing that same woman to defend her life with a firearm.

but the absolute peach is:

You have taken my contentions far afield of what I clearly stated. You have twisted them and nit-picked them to your own advantage while offering nothing in refutation. You have offered no proof that my contentions are false nor that the law, as passed, was for any other reason than crime reduction and public safety.

firstly, what you posted even in that quote from your last non-spam post was NOT what you now intend it to be. Before 1988 and 1997 there must have been criminals armed with firearms in order for:

I say that the laws have merely shifted the focus of the weapons used

to be an accurate statement; it isnt, as is clearly shown by the statistics on this issue -

http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm50/5001/img/tab3a.gif

people did not disarm from firearms to other weapons because of the gun ban, as I have said, as Colin Greenwood has said, as almost every pro-RKBA commentator has said and as the statistics say. of course, to admit that you are wrong is clearly something you cannot live with, so i'll expect a whole sheaf of fresh (or not so fresh) cut and paste odysseys in response.

You state that noone at the time made that link; but you can't state what their intentions were if not for those purposes. If not for crime reduction and public safety, what was the law passed for -- traffic violations?

If you had said just "public safety" as opposed to saying just "crime reduction", then you would have been correct; however you didnt:

This was gooing to reduce crime and prevent Dunblane redux. There is no argument that the intention and the debate in the Parliament was the anti-crime benefit of the ban.

only a very tenous link to public safety (prevent another Dunblane) and a rather clearer identification of "the anti-crime benefit of the ban". If you want, I can produce reams and reams of cut and pastes showing that the ban was intended to stop another Dunblane and to enhance public safety, but (seeing as you asked for and were given the Hansard location) you have clearly been unable to find any evidence to back you up (in your original contention, not the current one - which, as demonstrated, change with the facts). As your starter for ten (though this is probably wasted upon you):

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmhansrd/vo970611/debtext/70611-30.htm

will return to this after work.

[agricola]

jimpeel,

this is becoming increasingly pathetic.

I state that there are whole museums dedicated to crime and you want an example.

I then show you four more museums that are dedicated to crime and punishment

I wanted examples, and that is not what you said. What you said (in addition to screaming, when challenged, that I was disrupting the thread) was

You, in fact, have whole museums dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology. We don't have those here.

the black museum is a collection of exhibits taken from the history of the Met, in addition to other items - uniforms, cars and other curios. the fact that it isnt open to the public is important, because for all but 40,000 of the UK population it doesnt exist (which does not make it "dedicated to the criminal mind and methodology btw" but it does make it equal to the NYPD museum)

In addition, the way your wording has changed from the first example to the most recent two shows that you (as you did before all of this kicked off again) recognize that your original statement was in error.

All of that is further proved by the fact that you are still wrong, Madame Tussauds IS NOT A MUSEUM DEDICATED TO CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, as ANYONE who has been to it will know, indeed anyone who read the link you posted would have realised (in addition to those commentators here).

You then attempt to equate these museums with an American national park which is not a museum and does not contain a museum.

no, but it contains a former gaol which is open to the public. Guess what your other three examples are?

You then put words in my posts which were never typed by me attempting to say that I was speaking about CCW and how the victim could have mounted a defense if so empowered. That was, as you would say, "demonstrably false". I never held that stance.

which is to ignore what I said above, which would have been apparent if you hadnt gone through this thread trying desperately to prove your points by omitting a great deal of what I have said:

The CCW points was aimed more at coolhand and his ilk than you, although it is also relevant for you (unless your only point was "look how bad the UK is") and relevant to this debate.

a point of view which is more than justified when one considers your sig:

Gun Control: The premise that a woman found in an alley, raped and strangled with her own pantyhose, is morally superior to allowing that same woman to defend her life with a firearm.

but the absolute peach is:

You have taken my contentions far afield of what I clearly stated. You have twisted them and nit-picked them to your own advantage while offering nothing in refutation. You have offered no proof that my contentions are false nor that the law, as passed, was for any other reason than crime reduction and public safety.

firstly, what you posted even in that quote from your last non-spam post was NOT what you now intend it to be. Before 1988 and 1997 there must have been criminals armed with firearms in order for:

I say that the laws have merely shifted the focus of the weapons used

to be an accurate statement; it isnt, as is clearly shown by the statistics on this issue -

http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm50/5001/img/tab3a.gif

people did not disarm from firearms to other weapons because of the gun ban, as I have said, as Colin Greenwood has said, as almost every pro-RKBA commentator has said and as the statistics say. of course, to admit that you are wrong is clearly something you cannot live with, so i'll expect a whole sheaf of fresh (or not so fresh) cut and paste odysseys in response.

You state that noone at the time made that link; but you can't state what their intentions were if not for those purposes. If not for crime reduction and public safety, what was the law passed for -- traffic violations?

If you had said just "public safety" as opposed to saying just "crime reduction", then you would have been correct; however you didnt:

This was gooing to reduce crime and prevent Dunblane redux. There is no argument that the intention and the debate in the Parliament was the anti-crime benefit of the ban.

only a very tenous link to public safety (prevent another Dunblane) and a rather clearer identification of "the anti-crime benefit of the ban". If you want, I can produce reams and reams of cut and pastes showing that the ban was intended to stop another Dunblane and to enhance public safety, but (seeing as you asked for and were given the Hansard location) you have clearly been unable to find any evidence to back you up (in your original contention, not the current one - which, as demonstrated, change with the facts). As your starter for ten (though this is probably wasted upon you):

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmhansrd/vo970611/debtext/70611-30.htm

will return to this after work.

[jimpeel]

So the ONLY reason for the handgun ban was to prevent another school shooting; and as long as there isn't another school shooting the legislation is a total success.

All of the stories in the British and world press on the failure of the handgun ban to staunch the rising British crime rate have been wrong because the law was never written with that intention in mind.

All of the writers in the European, American, Canadian, and Australian press have been under the mistaken impression that the law was written as a crime reduction and public safety measure when the law actually had the singular intent of preventing another school shooting and nothing more.

Crime prevention and public safety was not even a secondary aspect of the law and the law protects only school children and teachers.

Well, you can bet your boots that I'm sure glad we got that straightened out.

Um, what happens if there is another school shooting? I'm a little fuzzy on that and maybe you could clear that up for me.

[Mk VII]

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1354.asp

"Asked if the Government was concerned about the enforcement of the new measures given the UK had some of the toughest laws on guns following the Dunblane tragedy and yet gun crime had still increased, the PMOS [Prime Minister's Official Spokesman] said that the measures post-Dunblane related to legally-held weapons which had been used in a tragic, murderous way in a Scottish primary school. In this case, however, we were talking about tackling illegal guns which were coming into and being used in this country, in addition to the issue of replica weapons. Put to him that the only practical way to tackle the problem of gun crime was through a return to 'sus', the PMOS said that that wasn't necessarily the case. The amendment was about tightening up gun laws to take guns off the street and send a strong signal to those who might use them.

Questioned about legislation relating to the use of handguns, the PMOS said that the purpose of the Firearms Amendment Act 1997 had been to ban the private ownership of small firearms. There was clearly a further issue relating to illegally-held guns being used for crime given the increasing gun culture in parts of this country. That was obviously something which we had to address. "


I can recal Alan Milburn, the Minister of State, proudly boasting that it had "got guns off the streets"

[agricola]

jimpeel,

All of the stories in the British and world press on the failure of the handgun ban to staunch the rising British crime rate have been wrong because the law was never written with that intention in mind.

for a start, few writers outside the US have linked the gun ban and the crime rate. secondly, you yourself said that the gun ban had achieved its aims (of removing firearms from criminal hands), when you argued that it had caused criminals to stop using firearms and switch to something else.

Have you found any evidence that shows your theories are correct? I have provided the debate in the Commons about the ban AND the links for you to try and find, you havent so I guess not. As Mk VII shows, the ban was about guns and gun crime (powered by the emotion of post-Dunblane), the "general crime rate" didnt enter into it because it would have made no sense to anyone.

All of the writers in the European, American, Canadian, and Australian press have been under the mistaken impression that the law was written as a crime reduction and public safety measure when the law actually had the singular intent of preventing another school shooting and nothing more.


again, the vast majority of what passes as writing when the link between the ban and the rising crime rate is wrong, as demonstrated on this very forum. In addition, I have never said that it "had a singular intent of preventing another school shooting", as you well know:

If you had said just "public safety" as opposed to saying just "crime reduction", then you would have been correct

If you want to have a debate, then we can have one. Regretfully what we are having now is you making a point, me disproving it, you making a different point that is not the same as the first and accusing me of not answering the new point, me disproving it and pointing out the change, you retreating to cut and pastes of news articles that dont prove either of your first two points, me pointing this out, you retreating to a "Well you dont have RKBA" rubbish and then accusing me of not answering points already made.

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

Mk VII:

Excellent posting. It's always good to see a few well reasoned, honest, and adult UK counterpoints to the postings of Agricola.

[agricola]

rofl

coolhand, if you didnt have me on ignore you would have realised he was backing me up.

[agricola]

its also nice to see you are keeping in line with your "insults are bad, unless I dish them out" philosophy. I will not be replying in kind, since I know the mods of this site are busy people and have no wish to deal with you reporting my posts.

[jimpeel]

coolhand, if you didnt have me on ignore you would have realised he was backing me up.Actually, he was not backing you up but showing that part of the debate, in difference to your claim to the contrary, was about the effect of the gun ban on crime and getting guns off the street.

Your contentoion has been that the law was not passed as a crime control measure.
That stands in direct opposition to the message that has been prevalent on this board, and that which Lott, Nemorov and Malcolm (and ilk) have been spewing - that the gun bans have seen crime rise in the UK. Thats something thats palpably false, and indeed its doubtful that anyone at the time saw a ban as going to effect the general crime rate one way or another.As Mk VII shows, the ban was about guns and gun crime (powered by the emotion of post-Dunblane), the "general crime rate" didnt enter into it because it would have made no sense to anyone.... the vast majority of what passes as writing when the link between the ban and the rising crime rate is wrong ...

[agricola]

jimpeel,

we will have to wait for mkvii to respond, but trying to say that what I said:

If you had said just "public safety" as opposed to saying just "crime reduction", then you would have been correct

As Mk VII shows, the ban was about guns and gun crime (powered by the emotion of post-Dunblane), the "general crime rate" didnt enter into it because it would have made no sense to anyone.

and from the link he posted:

Questioned about legislation relating to the use of handguns, the PMOS said that the purpose of the Firearms Amendment Act 1997 had been to ban the private ownership of small firearms. There was clearly a further issue relating to illegally-held guns being used for crime given the increasing gun culture in parts of this country. That was obviously something which we had to address. "

are all that different would be clearly wrong. It was not passed as a crime control measure, because it would only ever be expected to affect one small area of the criminal statistics that would never affect the general rate as you contended:

...its doubtful that anyone at the time saw a ban as going to effect the general crime rate one way or another."???? This was going to be the panacea. This was gooing to reduce crime...

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

Jimpeel:

Actually, he was not backing you up but showing that part of the debate, in difference to your claim to the contrary, was about the effect of the gun ban on crime and getting guns off the street.

Your contentoion has been that the law was not passed as a crime control measure.

Agreed.

[jimpeel]

You left out this part:"... In this case, however, we were talking about tackling illegal guns which were coming into and being used in this country, in addition to the issue of replica weapons. Put to him that the only practical way to tackle the problem of gun crime was through a return to 'sus', the PMOS said that that wasn't necessarily the case. The amendment was about tightening up gun laws to take guns off the street and send a strong signal to those who might use them.

[agricola]

jimpeel,

er no, i didnt:

As Mk VII shows, the ban was about guns and gun crime (powered by the emotion of post-Dunblane), the "general crime rate" didnt enter into it because it would have made no sense to anyone.

I have said, at least twice, that the ban was about public safety and guns (and gun crime) not, as you contended, about "making crime fall" which didnt enter into anyones heads at the time.

[agricola]

coolhand,

this is why you shouldnt have one party on ignore when listening into a debate, as you come across (if you didnt already) as pretty foolish.

[Art Eatman]

ag, this has got to be some of the hair-splittingest stuff you've posted in a long time!

Look: Had guns not been involved in heinous crimes, guns would not have been banned. The issue, then, is an effort to reduce crimes, not MERELY look at guns as the be-all and end-all of criminal misbehavior.

The over-arching question is whether ALL violent crime has been reduced as a result of banning guns (or, "some guns", if you prefer), not whether gun-crime and only gun-crime is reduced. That's why I make the "hair-splitting" comment.

So the primary question about England, then, is whether or not the rate of violent crime has increased, decreased, or remained stable. Whether or not the rate of violent crime where firearms are involved is lessened is irrelevant.

Another question I have is whether there has been any change in the rate of deaths from criminal violence (by whatever means; guns, knives, clubs, etc.).

Art

[agricola]

Art,

I would hardly call it "hair splitting" - dont forget, at the time of the ban we were seeing total firearm crime (minus air weapons) of 6000 offences. When it was being proposed, the main thrust of the public debate was firstly "never again" (referring to Dunblane and Hungerford) and secondly "why does anyone need a handgun anyway" (this was particularly made clear during the second ban of .22 weapons) and allusion to those 6000 offences (which ignored the points made by Greenwood and others that the vast majority of those offences were committed with illegally held weapons anyway).

My focus on minutae in this debate has also been due to jimpeels tactic of making comments that are demonstrably false, as anyone who has been to Madame Tussauds will attest. Its nitpicking, but its important to expose the small lies because they illustrate the bigger one.

Thats why I said:

As Mk VII shows, the ban was about guns and gun crime (powered by the emotion of post-Dunblane), the "general crime rate" didnt enter into it because it would have made no sense to anyone.

What jimpeel has been trying to argue is that the 1997 ban was brought in to reduce crime (initially he didnt reduce this to "gun crime", though he has since its become obvious even to him that he is wrong). MkVII's post showed that is the case, as did the Hansard report I linked to. Jimpeel is now claiming (along with coolhand, who still has me on ignore) that what I said was not what I said.

The over-arching question is whether ALL violent crime has been reduced as a result of banning guns (or, "some guns", if you prefer), not whether gun-crime and only gun-crime is reduced. That's why I make the "hair-splitting" comment.

As I said above, that isnt (and never was) the question over here. Given the extremely small number of offences pre-ban, even a totally effective ban that reduced the offences to zero would have a statistically minute (viewed against the total number of crimes) effect in the criminal statistics.

I appreciate that, in the US, this link between gun bans and reduced crime has been made by the antis'; that does not mean that it was made here (especially at the time of the 1997 ban).

So the primary question about England, then, is whether or not the rate of violent crime has increased, decreased, or remained stable. Whether or not the rate of violent crime where firearms are involved is lessened is irrelevant.

If you are talking about the crime rate generally (ie: without mentioning firearms), then thats a valuable debate - the reasons for the rise are interesting and varied. However, to (as is done all the time on this board) link the rise with the 1997 ban is totally false, for reasons that have been posted tens of times here and on TFL.

Another question I have is whether there has been any change in the rate of deaths from criminal violence (by whatever means; guns, knives, clubs, etc.).

there has, but the reasons are not a disarmed populace - pre-1997, the populace as

[Art Eatman]

ag, in order to avoid the old cliche about "figures don't lie, but liars figure" certain things are needed.

To me, all these arguments of whatever sort require certain data, possibly in the form of a graph.

In such a graph, I'd like to see a line indicating the violent crime rate, say from 1990 to the present. Along that line, points should be indicated where there were notable changes in the law, including changes in any gun control laws, or changes in sentencing policies. If there are changes following such nodes, there is room for debate.

As it is, we're stuck with what's available in the English press, since most of us aren't going to delve deeply into the problems of another country. Certainly we're not going to fight our way through the differences in how words are used, as we've mentioned before. Face it, we know that stricter gun controls were enacted in England. We see an apparent increase in the reporting of the amount of violent crimes of whatever sorts. Ergo, "If A, then B."

I'd also comment that each and every little nit-picky comment is just not worth bothering with. Extraneous, irrelevant, etc. Heck, just use PM to let somebody know their BS is getting so deep it's stressing your hipboots. :D

Art

[agricola]

art,

such a graph would be useless, because (as I showed) you could illustrate whatever theory you liked.

As I pointed out, the 1997 ban "affected" only 6000 crimes (in fact rather less, since it was targetted on handguns), so you would have to justify why it was included and not something that could generate more of a statistical impact.

If you want to see the data, please look at pg 79 (pg 68 on the text) onwards from

here (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/hosb1004.pdf)

which should prove illuminating.

[Art Eatman]

ag, I tried the link, but it came up too small to read...

But look: You have some rate of violent crimes, recorded year by year. You have some rate of people dying from these violent crimes, whether from knife, gun or whatever, recorded year by year.

To me, the pertinent questions about any sort of gun ban is whether or not the rate of violence changed, and whether or not the death-rate changed. That is, is there any apparent effect from the ban on these rates?

"As I pointed out, the 1997 ban "affected" only 6000 crimes (in fact rather less, since it was targetted on handguns), so you would have to justify why it was included and not something that could generate more of a statistical impact."

Is "6000" the total of violent crimes in 1997? Of these, how many resulted in fatalities?

After 1997, were there more or fewer than 6000? What is the trend, over these last six or seven years? And, what sort of change is there, if any, in the rate of fatalities?

In the U.S., 80 to 90 percent, roughly, of all unlawful homicides are committed via use of a handgun. (I'd have to hunt through the CDC data to be more accurate.) How did (does?) that compare with England?

Art

[agricola]

art,

just zoom in the .pdf, its easy enough to read and it will give you most of the facts that you requested in that last post,

also, about 6000 is the number of total firearm offences in the last year before the ban

[jimpeel]

Art,

There are three illustrations of "pages" with the upper right hand corner turned down at the top of the page in the header. Click on the one on the right (Fit Width) and it will zoom to readable proportions.

[longrifleman]

I've been trying to follow the general debate without getting bogged down in the stats, as I think comparing them from different countries and from bureaucracies that changed their collection methods during the period in question is of very limited value. I also have very litttle faith in the accuracy of such statistics, but that is another subject. The question that I would like agricola and/or any other of our English bretheren to address comes from the statement "never again". If the goal of firearms elimination wasn't crime reduction but only to reduce injury/death from firearms, is it the Crown's contention that death from firearms gets you deader than a hammer up side the head? What exactly IS the point? I've followed this debate for a long time and have had a hard time getting an answer simple enough to wrap my dumb redneck brain around. This might be a good time to get it settled so I can quit reading these threads. They usually end up making my head hurt.

Please, type slowly and use small words.

[Art Eatman]

"also, about 6000 is the number of total firearm offences in the last year before the ban"

ag, that's a nice datum, if and only if one also knows the answers to my other questions in my preceding post.

As a solitary data point, it's useless.

I'll try the link again when I have time.

Art

[jimpeel]

So if the Brits state that the intention of the law was never to reduce crime; but only to disallow the perpetration of one singular type of specific crime -- school shootings -- which was never a prevalent crime in the first place, then they can also state that the rise in crime cannot be tied in any manner to the firearm ban. Neat.

The problem then is, lacking that reason, that the British population is becoming increasingly more aberrant. The crime rate escalating has to be caused by some factor, or set of factors, and the firearm factor has now been eliminated.

So why, in the face of cameras in every aspect of their lives; and laws that have criminalized simple bad behaviour, is the crime rate up? Is it because the laws are now so numerous that they have criminalized behaviour which was formerly legal; and a new class of criminal has been created -- the formerly law abiding? Has British society come to resemble that in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"? Are the Brits becoming just so many Hank Reardons?"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We *want* them broken. You'd better get it straight That it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against– then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
-- Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged , Ch. III, "White Blackmail"

[jimpeel]

Art,

Here is the 2002 / 2003 report for comparison.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb703.pdf

Here are a host of articles on gun crime in the UK

http://www.stungunresources.com/crime_gun_uk.html

And here is a good resource, the home page of the above, which bills itself as "250,000 links and web site descriptions for Self Defense-related information organized alphabetically."

http://www.stungunresources.com/

[agricola]

jimpeel,

So if the Brits state that the intention of the law was never to reduce crime; but only to disallow the perpetration of one singular type of specific crime -- school shootings -- which was never a prevalent crime in the first place, then they can also state that the rise in crime cannot be tied in any manner to the firearm ban.

Please, respond to what was written and not what would make your argument easiest. The ban was brought in as a "public safety" measure inspired by Dunblane (though the only reason it was done is because of Dunblane). I appreciate these are similar but they are not equal. To illustrate this, I draw your attention to the following quote from the later 1997 debate (to add .22 handguns to the section 5 list, the speaker is Sir Nicholas Lyell, Tory MP for North-East Bedfordshire, emphasis mine):

In summary, therefore, this is what the House is considering. Here we have a popular sport, an Olympic sport, a Commonwealth games sport, enjoyed and participated in by people who are recognised to be highly responsible. There is no real case that these comparatively light pistols are exceptionally dangerous or that they are any more dangerous than the other implements and substances that I mentioned. The use of such pistols by club members is closely licensed and monitored and is demonstrably responsible. It is not necessary in the public interest to ban them. There was indeed overwhelming political feeling following Dunblane, which led to the 1997 Act which introduced a regime that is already more draconian in its controls and more stringent than those that exist almost anywhere else in the world. Nothing further will be gained in public security by a complete ban. As is now widely recognised, we in Parliament have, in these circumstances, a duty to protect the liberties of our constituents and the rights of minorities.

I would also point out that few people have become criminals because of the changes in legislation - the thing about law-abiding people is that they abide by the law, when it changes they change. Where (especially with regards to this) people have fallen foul of the law, its usually because they have turned to doing things that were illegal before the change - eg gun shop owners who dispose of their "illegal" stock to criminals. (hope this answers longriflemans question as well)

Art,

its not a solitary datum - I published the table it was on earlier in this thread, and the .pdf contains pretty much all of the criminal statistics from that given year.

[Art Eatman]

jimpeel, I tried that first URL.

Fifteen minutes later, my computer is now back up and running and I'm back on line...

Ciao,

Art

[jimpeel]

The links are working fine. Do you have Acrobat Reader? If you do, perhaps it would be better to do the following:

Right click on the link

Choose "Save Target as"

Save the PDF file to your hard drive at a location of your choosing

After it downloads, use Windows Explorer to open the file locally.

If you are on diaup, and you left click on the link, it will try to open directly from the website and can take quite a long time to do so. Opening it locally is vastly superior to opening the file over the Internet, especially with dialup.

Sorry if it caused any consternation.

[agricola]

art,

i definately works. try updating adobe, sometimes that causes a lockup. as jimpeel says, the file size is high so if u try to open it straight away youll be waiting ages.

[longrifleman]

(hope this answers longriflemans question as well)

Well, it's an answer. But, not a very satisfactory one. My redneck brain failing to work again probably. I am trying to understand the underlying reasons more than the policy nuances (Me and GWB don't do nuance).
The phrase "public safety" is one of those things that sounds comforting and official until you try to actually define it. I think public safety is best served by an armed and alert citizenry ready to do their duty to defend themselves and others from criminals. Folks on your side of the pond seem to get the vapors at the very thought of such a barbaric idea.

The statistics available seem to support either approach. Pick the numbers to get the answer you want. That tells me that this question has to go beyond the usual utilitarian bs calculation. (In case you haven't noticed, I'm no fan of utilitarianism) Is this the core of the issue? Some will be sacrificed so that other's will be saved. Make no mistake, some will be sacrificed if they are denied an effective means of self-defense.

I'm not trying to argue that you should run your country my way (well, maybe a little). I truly want to understand how two peoples with so much shared heritage can look at the same world and come to such a different conclusion on such a fundamental issue.

[P95Carry]

longrifleman - unfortunately the very idea of ''permitting'' those poor folks a means of self defence has long passed. There may be supposed ''statutes'' that protect a man's right to defend himself but - for all practical purposes, as I see it - these may as well not exist. Carry a knife and even if inoccuous in intent - chances are it'll be seen as having ''criminal purpose''.

Even leaving aside the guns issue ... it is, as here .... the scumbags who will always be armed and able to harm others. The ''responsible'' citizen (oops, sorry, subject) ... has long since been cast asunder as an inferior life form, when it comes to ability to defend himself .. legitimately.

Hamilton and Ryan were, IMO as a then gun owner and shooter ... the ''excuses'' Gov needed to implement their long awaited further subjugation ..... on the basis that no person ''needed'' a firearm, let alone just might enjoy use of one or several for legit sporting purposes. This was also pretty much the argument given out by the equivalent then of the Million Moms. Someone should even own ... A GUN .... horror!

It seems to be forgotten that even if people carry in the US and thus have a means of self defence - I doubt there are many who have the slightest wish to have to use same ... because of all the legal and litigious sequele that can result. So mere possession of a firearm is neither ''carte blanche'' for using it nor ... even a very enticing proposition. It does tho level the playing field a lot. Neither I might add does it demonstrably lead to ''rivers of blood''!

Leaving aside guns and crime links ... the 97 change in firearms law was pretty much a result of pressure from many sides on a Gov to disallow firearms ... because no one could accept they had any place in a ''civilized'' society (sic). Gov's go for votes ... plus a privelage is easy to remove too.

The hard reality which I'd reiterate is tho, that no amount of penalization of Joe Public thru removal of his gun owning privelages (leaving aside the supposed reasons), will make one iota of difference on bad guys aquiring guns - or any other weapons, and will not either produce a safer society. Just a more vulnerable one.

I have no doubt Ag' will make further justifications tho.:)

[TheEgg]

Questioned about legislation relating to the use of handguns, the PMOS said that the purpose of the Firearms Amendment Act 1997 had been to ban the private ownership of small firearms.

Yes, that is what I thought. The 1997 act is NOT about crime. It is to further the control of government over people by disarming them. Dunblane was a nice excuse for the statists.

The debate about the crime statistics is not on point at all, but simply smoke to confuse the gullible.

It is always best to keep your eye on the ball, and not let the magician distract you.

[agricola]

theegg,

thanks for not reading the majority of the thread, by 1997 the people were already disarmed. Also, the point about criminal statistics is important because thats the language in which Lott, Nemorov and Malcolm speak. The arguments they put forward are false, so thats how they have to be challenged.

Though you are right about it not being about crime (who would have thought it jimpeel) ; it was sold as being for "public safety", though in reality even at the time it was identified as a kneejerk response to a national tragedy, seized on by the then Labour opposition as a stick with which to beat the Government, who were then forced to bring the first Bill in. Labour then noticed the ommission of .22 pistols, and seized upon it (with the help of the Snowdrop campaign) to beat the Tories with again, and finally close it once they were in office with the second Bill.

[jimpeel]

How can you logically and with mental awareness separate crime reduction and public safety? One affects the other. A rampant crime rate affects public safety in a negative way whereas a waning crime rate enhances public safety.

For what other reason could reducing the aberrant use of firearms be for other than being related to public safety? Are the firearms going to go off by themselves without the hand of a human to actuate them as has been imagined by many a gun banner?

To state that a reduction in the number of firearms is going to increase public safety, without considering the reduction in aberrant use thereof, is to place all firearm misuse in the "accidental" category. If crime is reduced by even one event, public safety has been enhanced; but to say that public safety is enhanced in the absence of crime reduction is specious unless all firearms misuse will be due to negligence and accident.

[TheEgg]

thanks for not reading the majority of the thread,

Unfortunately, I did read it.

I just think that most of it missed the point. I would not argue with your analysis in the second paragraph, and recognizing that that is what went on, discussion about crime stats, no matter the source is, while perhaps entertaining, irrelevant.

While I agree that this was a "handy stick" for Labour at the time, I am of the opinion that certain political forces, both in your country and mine, are always happy to use whatever argument is at hand to increase the power of government and reduce the freedoms of the subjects/citizens. I think that this law was a classic example in your country.

The McCain/Feingold Act is a classic example in our country.

Utilitarian arguments can be used by people of bad intent to justify almost anything, and thus should be examined with the utmost care -- and not only from the point of "does this legislation achieve the desired goal", but also "does achieving the goal in this method do violence to other societal values, such as maximum possible freedom for the individual?"

My problem with many, many individuals today, most especially politicians in your country and mine, is that the value of maximum possible freedom for the individual seems to have dropped completely from the list of important goals for our nations.

So -- my formulation is this -- it does not MATTER whether gun bans have a utilitarian effect. Gun control laws are not worth the cost for the somewhat elusive benefit. So debating endlessly whether crime went up 3% or down 3% is a waste of oxygen.

(There is no evidence that I have seen that they have any positive or negative effects on crime, that is not refuted by other evidence -- I personally think that it is a wash, without effect either way. As a result, it is a philosophical debate. Those in favor of increased governmental control and reduced personal freedom will favor more gun-control, while those who value personal freedom will resist.)

[agricola]

jimpeel,

you have (repeatedly) said:

Come on, now, agricola. "... its doubtful that anyone at the time saw a ban as going to effect the general crime rate one way or another."???? This was going to be the panacea. This was gooing to reduce crime and prevent Dunblane redux. There is no argument that the intention and the debate in the Parliament was the anti-crime benefit of the ban.

I have shown (and as at least theegg has recognized) why the 1997 ban was passed, and why all of your posts here have suffered from serious errors of fact, one more of which I have just noted in the above quote. For the last time, the ban had nothing to do with "crime" but was sold as "public safety" (or "why does anyone need a handgun anyway"), but was in fact political maneuvering against a dying Major administration.

[agricola]

theegg,

That at least I can respect; what gets my goat is when people (as illustrated) try to argue the pro-RKBA position using bogus stats / facts. With regards to your point at the bottom about bans not having any affect, thats certainly our experience here.

[jimpeel]

It all comes down to the simple question I posed in my last post.How can you logically and with mental awareness separate crime reduction and public safety?Perhaps I was too wordy in trying to make myself clear as to what the question meant. This time I will simply let the question stand alone and you can edify me as to what the answer might be.

How can you logically and with mental awareness separate crime reduction and public safety?

[agricola]

jimpeel,

because in this issue they are two clearly separate things. you said:

There is no argument that the intention and the debate in the Parliament was the anti-crime benefit of the ban.

which is palpably false, as demonstrated by mkvii's link and my link to the Hansard debates. When faced with this, you now argue that public safety actually means a reduction in crime anyway (anyone who doesnt think so is crazy!), despite the evidence as listed above.

[Mk VII]

a much-used argument at the time was 'maintaining public confidence in the system of firearms control in this country' - in other words, it doesn't matter if it works, as long as the Great Unwashed think it works.

[P95Carry]

Mk VII .... only thing you forgot there was some extra emphasis - on CONTROL ..... somewhat a keyword!:(

[jimpeel]

Very well put.

I think I am giving up on this debate. I state something and am refuted as being wrong; but the argument is based on semantical juggling. I try to elaborate on the original premise and am accused of changing what I said in the first place. When I try to elaborate on the elaboration it is stated that what I am saying is completely different than what I said in the first or second place.

Me siento como estoy hablando un idioma extranjero :rolleyes:

[P95Carry]

I really don't think Jim there is much more you can add ... it's all there.

''C'est la vie'' ........ :)

[jimpeel]

"la vie''

[agricola]

" I very rarely contradicted statements of this kind, as I found it less trouble, and infinitely more amusing, to let them pass; indeed, had I done otherwise, it would have been of little avail, as amongst the many conversations I held in America respecting my own country, I do not recollect a single instance in which it was not clear that I knew much less about it than those I conversed with."
Mrs. Trollope, 'Domestic Manners Of The Americans' (1832)

jimpeel - p95 is right that its all here, you can track how what you have said changes when challenged and pretty much everything you initially said has been proved wrong.

[jimpeel]

If I told you the sky was black you would claim how wrong I was. There would be nothing I could say that would convince you otherwise. You would just continue to tell me that I was wrong but never present proof that you were right.

[agricola]

jimpeel,

sorry - but only one side here has presented evidence to disprove the others claims. I have given you criminal statistics for the period in question, the debate in the house of commons referring to the bans, the website for hansard so, if i am wrong, you can find evidence yourself.

you have quoted Ayn Rand and a host of unrelated cut-and-paste articles, few of which have any relevance to the debate.

[Tamara]

Perhaps I was too wordy in trying to make myself clear as to what the question meant. This time I will simply let the question stand alone and you can edify me as to what the answer might be.

How can you logically and with mental awareness separate crime reduction and public safety?

Easily. Do you think that states which ban the more explosive varieties of fireworks are doing it to reduce crime, or for public safety?

[Art Eatman]

Tam, your example is correct as to the bare words of jimpeel's question, but your example is not in context with the argument at hand.

There are nearly seven years of data available since the Big Ban. That oughta be enough time for anybody to know if violent crime has increased, stayed the same or decreased.

I've yet to hear an answer, which is part of why I dropped out after having my computer lock up from attempting to enter a supposedly informative website. If the one referring to some website cannot cite useful information from it, I see no point in doing more than checking the thread for THR rules...

Ta, ta,

Art

[goalie]

Easily. Do you think that states which ban the more explosive varieties of fireworks are doing it to reduce crime, or for public safety?

To actually look at the analogy, one would have to look at how often people are hurt accidentally by explosives and compare that to how often people are hurt criminally/intentionally by explosives.

Firearms accidents are quite rare, and do no come close to accounting for more than a small fraction of firearms/firearm user related injuries, with the vast majority being accounted for by suicide and criminal activity.

To say that banning firearms is about "public safety" while stating that it is not about crime reduction is a masterful play at politics. Am I really to believe that there were more "accidental" firearms injuries in the UK than there were suicides and criminally inflicted injuries? If not, how is it anything but disigenuous (at best) to ignore the effect a ban would have on crime?

Agricola may be correct when he asserts that the intent of a ban on firearms was not driven by crime. All that mananges to do though is reinforce the evil and myopic vision of those that passed the laws. They showed about as much intelligence as a scientist who does a study on the dangers of skin cancer, but only does research involving tanning beds and ignores the sun (and his study group's exposure to the sun) altogether. Sure, the data such a scientist collects may not be actually false, but it is wildly out of context and wildly misleading.

[agricola]

art,

There are nearly seven years of data available since the Big Ban. That oughta be enough time for anybody to know if violent crime has increased, stayed the same or decreased.

but thats the thing - as I have said many times, to link the two is to make a link where no such exists. Prior to 1997, there were only a minute number of firearms held for self defence, one of the (then) most rigorous firearms legislation systems in the world and (as the table I posted showed) only about 6000 incidents per year of criminal use of firearms for the whole of England and Wales.

banning handguns was not held at the time as a method of reducing crime (as repeated posts have shown, despite jimpeels latest contention which in effect means that one thing means the other, as tamara has illustrated so well), it was sold as being for "public safety" and was used as a political tool in the midst of a general election campaign.

to point out to tamara:

Tam, your example is correct as to the bare words of jimpeel's question, but your example is not in context with the argument at hand.


it is, because she has shown, again, how mistaken he is about this contention.

goalie,

i think you are ascribing to much rationality to a piece of legislation, in a decade of knee-jerk responses, as one of the worst.

[Tamara]

Tam, your example is correct as to the bare words of jimpeel's question, but your example is not in context with the argument at hand.

Art, what most folks on this board don't appear to realize is that, like other countries on the other side of the pond such as Germany or Italy, handgun usage for self-defence in the UK prior to the outright ban was as near to zero as makes no nevermind. Since the only use for handguns in Britain was sport, taking them away was percieved as a public safety measure. In pre-Dunblane England, a pistol could do three things:
1) Be used as a recreational toy.
2) Accidentally hurt an innocent.
3) Maliciously hurt an innocent.
John Q. Shooter couldn't tell a mugger or home invader "Wait here, old chap, while I nip off down to the lockers at the club and fetch my pistol." So the legislation was portrayed as a public safety issue, banning a noisy and dangerous toy with little in the way of redeeming social characteristics, much like M-80's.