U.K.: "The British Gun Closet"

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AGRICOLA...

"he would have been called "an unmitigated thug" by the prosecution, not the Government."

Sorry, but HankB was right. He works for the government and echoes the government mindset. Just the fact that he characterized the defendent as such a way reinforces what your government tries to convey on a daily basis.
 
fprice,

No, he speaks in order to present the case before the Court on behalf of the Crown, the Queen being unable to try every case herself due to reasons of time and space. He works for the Crown Prosecution Service, and if anything echoes their mindset.

However much you want it to be true, the gubbermint does not speak with one voice from its army of drones. What the prosecutor said is restricted to the trial and his presentation of it. As a case in point, two weeks ago I was at Bow Street Magistrates Court when a CPS lawyer stated that an estate agent, who had been speeding, said that "she showed callous disregard for other peoples safety". This was not evidence of a widespread Government campaign aganist estate agents.

I'll believe you when you produce a member of the Government stating that that man was "an unmitigated thug" (and that means a member of the Government in the real rather than tin-foil-hat definition).
 
No, he speaks in order to present the case before the Court on behalf of the Crown, the Queen being unable to try every case herself due to reasons of time and space. He works for the Crown Prosecution Service, and if anything echoes their mindset.


Anyone know what the meaning of "is" is? :rolleyes:

And I thought it would be reasonable to assume that govt. employees are hired and promoted by folks of similar mindset, which is usually the mindset of their own superiors.

I suppose you would like to make this an issue of pre-existing bureaucracy and that it is comprised of civil servants hired by several govts., Labour and "Conservative," and you'd be right. However, as practice actually dictates, those with the favored mindset are actually given the more important tasks and choice assignments.



I do so love the fact that you can be charged for the costs of prosecution by declining to incriminate yourself and that that refusal can weigh against you in court.
 
agricola...

"No, he speaks in order to present the case before the Court on behalf of the Crown,"

You say no then say exactly what I said in a different set of words.

Goerge Orwell WAS a British citizen when he wrote his famous forecast of the future, wasn't he?
 
fprice,

no, you said:

He works for the government and echoes the government mindset

wheras i said:

No, he speaks in order to present the case before the Court on behalf of the Crown, the Queen being unable to try every case herself due to reasons of time and space. He works for the Crown Prosecution Service, and if anything echoes their mindset.

the CPS is no more the government than a hubcap is a car.

cz-75,

i made the drone comment as a joke, however you seem to think its the actual state of affairs :rolleyes:

CPS lawyers are those from law school that dont want to go into private practice, largely because the caseload is far more in the CPS and offers better experience.
 
i made the drone comment as a joke, however you seem to think its the actual state of affairs

No, I think the smart minion echoes the sentiments of his masters, who probably chose him for this very fact to start with.

You said that this:

No, he speaks in order to present the case before the Court on behalf of the Crown, the Queen being unable to try every case herself due to reasons of time and space. He works for the Crown Prosecution Service, and if anything echoes their mindset.

If so, whose mindset does the CPS echo? Could it be the current Labour govt.'s?

Moreover, I sincerely doubt the Queen's mindset is that of the current Labour govt. I always fancied her a Tory.
 
agricola...

"the CPS is no more the government than a hubcap is a car."

The CPS is a part of the government, is it not? I imagine that you find that out right quick if you stopped paying them (from some sort of government funds) and tried to evict them from their government offices.

The fact of the matter old chum is that you will go to any lengths to deny the fact that your government is anti-gun and that policy trickles all the way down to the way prosecutors treat victims of crime.
 
No, he speaks in order to present the case before the Court on behalf of the Crown, the Queen being unable to try every case herself due to reasons of time and space.
I understand your Queen can't try every case herself, but has she ever actually tried ANY case?

And from your arguments, I take it you're asserting that the Queen and ONLY the Queen speaks for the Government? So government prosecutors presenting government cases in government courts in order to enforce government policy before government judges do not speak for the government?

Hmmm . . . if only your Queen speaks for the government - as you clearly implied - I suppose people like Tony Blair, Jack Straw, etc. don't speak for the government either . . .

What is "is" indeed . . . now I begin to understand where our Oxford-educated former president learned his parsing skills.
 
HankB...

"Hmmm . . . if only your Queen speaks for the government - as you clearly implied - I suppose people like Tony Blair, Jack Straw, etc. don't speak for the government either . . ."

Only one line can sum up this situation.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
 
hankb,

i) youre mistaken in your conception. Its an archaic (but important) phrase but it is Her Majesties Government- when you say I take it you're asserting that the Queen and ONLY the Queen speaks for the Government?, its wrong because the Queen is (in terms of our understanding of the word) constitutionally above the Government. In the UK the Government refers to two classes - on one hand the MPs and Lords who occupy Ministerial posts (Home Secretary, Foriegn Secretary and so on) and on the other the career civil servants (the so called "whitehall mandarins" that Churchill Micawberised). In the UK that is the Government. No more, no less. Since we have free and fair elections over here, we the people are in control of the Government in actuality as has been the case since the Civil War.

ii)So government prosecutors presenting government cases in government courts in order to enforce government policy before government judges do not speak for the government?

I suspect youre trying to intimate some kind of show trial situation here. Our Government is elected by and responsible to the people (reforms of the House of Lords have since 1911 meant that its power is more as a judicial chamber than a legislative body, though it retains some law-making and -review powers at the sufferance of the Commons). Its courts are free and fair. The CPS enforces the Law of the land which is established by the peoples elected representatives by prosecuting those that are alledged to have breached the law.

The function of the CPS and individual lawyer is to prosecute criminals to the best of their ability given the evidence in that case; they are not Government mouthpieces.

fprice,

Our Government is anti-gun. It is that way because our people are. Are you suggesting that the Government knows better than the people?
 
youre mistaken in your conception.
Well, you're the one who brought your Queen into the discussion.

Come to think of it you said the prosecutor represents the Crown; OK, that's fine. You should know.

But now you say your Queen is consitutionally above the government. Put these statements of yours together, then the prosecutor - representing the Queen (who you said can't try all cases herself) is also above your government.

So when the prosecutor calls defendants names, it's not the government doing it, it's the minion of a higher power doing the name calling. (Unless the Crown isn't the Queen who wears the . . . Crown?)

Thank you for clearing everything up. :rolleyes:
 
hankb,

its simple enough. all courts and indeed the Government are constitutionally (in our sense of the word) beholden to the Queen. if you dont understand that (which was clear enough from your post) then hopefully you do now.

[edit: when the prosecutor calling people names, thats just the prosecutor calling people names and not evidence of anything else]
 
agricola...

"Our Government is anti-gun. It is that way because our people are. Are you suggesting that the Government knows better than the people?"

We know the first. As far as the second, there are a great many Brits who are NOT anti-gun, but they have been brow-beaten by a vocal group. The third is generally proven wrong time after time.

But thank you for admitting the anti-gun bias of your country. However, in light of that admission, how can you continue to continue to deny the fact that the prosecutor is an organ of the government?
 
Because he prosecutes the law which has been established by the elected representatives of the people? if there was any kind of sizeable pro-gun movement along the US lines then we would have heard it - there isnt. Since you agree that the Government shouldnt refuse the will of the people......

the prosecutor serves the law, and not the government. your point would have merit if we had an unelected government (because the people would have no say in the establishment of the law), however we have a free and fair system that guarantees the rights that we have decided we wish to have - which are different from your own rights, but no more or less valid because of that.

[edit: i have odds on who will use the word sheep or sheeple first, closed book tho :D]
 
Q: . . . how can you continue to continue to deny the fact that the prosecutor is an organ of the government?

A: Because he prosecutes the law which has been established by the elected representatives of the people . . . the prosecutor serves the law, and not the government . . .

So if he works for the Crown, not the government, and serves the law, not the government, his paycheck must come from somewhere else, and not the government, right?

:banghead:
 
Hankb,

he is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a government mouthpiece. he is a lawyer who prosecutes criminals. thats all he or she does.

oh, i forgot, except when he oppresses the few remaining valiant non-sheeple Brits who only want to excercise their ancient rights of RKBA in the face of the most evil tyranny that has ever lived, in which instance he becomes a newer, wig-wearing, sherry-drinking version of Roland Friesler. :rolleyes: :scrutiny:
 
I think there are significant differences between how government is organized in the US and the UK. In the US we have 3 branches, legislative, executive and judicial. I believe that agricola is saying (please correct me if I am wrong) is that the British view is that the government consists of what in the US would be the executive branch; that is the PM and his/her ministers and the bureaucracy. The other difference is that in the US prosecutors are part of the executive branch which is charged with enforcing the laws and in the UK they (along with the judges I think again correct me if I am wrong) are part of branch which works for the Crown not the government (as the British use that term).

So in the US prosecutors do work for and speak for the “government†in the British sense of that term (the executive branch). But do not in the way that term is properly used in the US; meaning the over all government (all three branches). Another way to look at this would be to take agricola’s statements where he uses the term Crown and substitute the word state, as meaning a sovereign nation, and the statements about the prosecutors working for the Crown will be better understood by those of us from the US. But I would also view this as a false distinction since the state (Crown) must have a government (in the US sense of the term) in order to govern and in actuality those prosecutors still work for and are paid by a branch of that government (again in the US sense).

I also want to add that in the US the right to silence IS absolute as far as self incrimination and your silence can not be used against you in any way. You can be compelled to testify against other persons other than a spouse unless that would incriminate you. You and your spouse are considered one entity under this right so forcing you to testify against your spouse is the same as self incrimination.

One of our founding principles is that just because a majority decides that something is the law does not make it right. This is the reason that we a have a republican government that has limited enumerated (by the Constitution) powers rather than a pure democracy were anything the majority decides is it. For example, in the US there was a time when slavery was legal and had been legalized by democratic processes. Did that make slavery right? I think not. The founders also knew that in order to prevent tyrannical majorities from trampling on the rights of minorities that they needed to codify in our Constitution a minimal set of rights that were protected from the unreasonable actions by government. The Right to Arms is one of these.

Here in the US the government (courts primarily but all branches) has a responsibility to reject the will of the people IF that will is contrary to the Constitution as the Constitution is a binding agreement or contract between the government and the people. The Constitution is in fact the document that forms our government and as soon as the government abrogates the Constitution it (the government) becomes illegitimate and any actions of the government that are contrary to the Constitution are also illegitimate. These are very American principles that many democracies do not follow. We Americans would claim that this is to their ultimate detriment and the peoples of those nations have our heart felt condolences.
 
No, Hank, he's asserting that the Queen and the CPS are not "the government." I assume he means that they are not Parliament, which is not the same thing, of course.

To me, it seems patently obvious that if the CPS is in charge of and responsible for prosecuting the people accused of breaking "the government's" laws and it is paid for out of "the government's" budgets with money paid to "the government" in taxes, then it is clearly part of "the government."

But what do I know? I thought "most" was different from "all," remember? As in "you can still request a jury in most criminal matters" is different from "the right to trial by jury has not been eliminated."
 
Our Government is anti-gun. It is that way because our people are. Are you suggesting that the Government knows better than the people?
I find that very quaint. Your government is also anti Catholic is it not? Why are you holding onto Northern Ireland? Do most of your people want to pay taxes through the nose to protect a few thousand pommmies there? Wouldn't the people much prefer to evacuate and allow Ireland to chart its own course?

What would happen if you put the matter of gun control to a vote with every county deciding what is best for itself? Would you have a very few deeply urban areas which are antigun? Of course. Would you have the rest of the country progun? Who knows?

CCTV has proven time and time again its usefulness in the detection of crime, including very serious crimes.
Well if soemone wants to perpetrate a serious crime on me I dont want it DETECTED then solved next week. I might be dead next week of multiple stab wounds or baseball bat injuries to the head. I want it STOPPED with immediate knockdown! Let the criminal suffer while I'm still alive to watch it.
 
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CCTV has proven time and time again its usefulness in the detection of crime, including very serious crimes.

Oh ya, I just love cameras recording me at all times! Why don't you just stamp 666 on my forehead and give me a national I.D. card too while you're at it!

First of all, it's a waste of money. Second of all, I don't need the government recording me on closed circuit TV everytime I walk to the local 7/11. I don't want Big Brother watching me.

There's no need for a camera pointed at me everytime I walk down a street. That's just damn scary. You Britons are downright scary!

Agricola, are you familiar with the concept behind the book 1984?
 
Don,

thats right, the CPS and Queen are, for different reasons, not "Government" - as they are unaffected by electoral changes. youre wrong to state "the government's" laws, because at the end of the day the Crown is responsible for the law (Parliament can change it, but given that we get a new Government every 4-5 years its daft to describe the law all as a single body all from "the Government").

meek,

thats a nice way of ignoring the fact that a) the majority of the population of Northern Ireland want to remain in the Union; b) that those people consider themselves as Northern Irish and British. it also conviently ignores recent history of your own Government and its policies.

also I presume that anyone with a weapon for self defence has never been injured or killed ever with that weapon? sometimes you cannot defend yourself, for whatever reason. why then oppose a method that has proven time and time again its use?

wondernine,

i am familiar with 1984. are you?
 
Look, the fact that they're unelected in no way means they're not part of your government. Again, if they prosecute people for breaking the laws passed by the part you consider the "real" government, then they're the government.

They govern. What else could they possibly be, by definition?
 
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