from my cold dead hand

[neonleon]

"Distrust everyone in whom the impulse to punish is powerful" - fredrich nietzsche

instead of quoting one of my heroes aphorisms to me, why don't you heed it yourself.

 

[SuitsBlue]

i cant

and i didnt quote it to you, i quoted it because it was the first thing i thought when i read your post.

can you explain to me why ian bradey will live on the tax payer in relative comfort for the rest of his days because he tortured and killed children decades ago?

 

[neonleon]

I hate threads/debates/arguements on this subject. Too many people argue their case who believe too strongly on one side or the other or are too close-minded to listen to the points being made and consider them fairly. Too many people post who don't know what they are talking about, don't think about what they are saying or what the hear, read and see. I am not talking about specific people in this thread or forum, and I don't know any of the statistics - so i can't claim to 'know' any better than anyone else - but i have seen many that people have posted throughout, and i do consider myself to be inteligent, open minded and fair, and biased towards neither side on this issue.

Anyway, I normally avoid such discussions at all costs, but this time i have read through most of this thread, and have decided to post my thoughts. Some of the things i write will be more open-ended questions: things that i wonder myself, that i don't have the answers to, that perhaps some of you do and can supply, or perhaps just things that some people haven't considered.

Ultimately i don't think there is a right or wrong, no winners, no preventing people being people. There are no easy answers, or instant fixes.

In some ways TX is right, if someone wants to kill someone that badly then gun control isn't going to stop that. Nor is baseball-bat control, monkey-wrench control, bowling-ball control, or rolling-pin control. However for the main i believe that these people shouldn't be part of this arguement, and nor should 'the criminal element'.

Our bodies contain all the tools we need to cause fatal harm. Guns (and knives, baseball bats etc etc) do however make this much easier to the untried 'average joe'. Legalized gun ownership makes it that much easier for 'ave joe' to get his hands on those guns. *** I'd have a pretty hard time beating any of you to death with my bare hands, better chance with a bat, but give me a gun and i think i could do a pretty good job. *** How many of these atrocoties(sp) that we hear about are committed by the people who own the guns in question, or should be able to own or carry a gun? Surely removing the number of guns readily and legally available can help prevent these rare situations. These are the types of situation that i believe we should be aiming to and can be largely prevented.

Although in the US it would seem that increased gun controls would have little effect in the short term, due to the culture, the feeling of neccesity, and the number of guns in society, I think that the only way to tackle the problem is to look at the long term overall picture. Yes there are too many guns out there already, and no, you can't prevent there from being illegal guns, but surely over time if you reduce the number of legally owned guns in society, it will become easier to find the illegal ones. The aim should be to prevent those in the grey areas form having acces to guns - the people who aren't going to cause much trouble without one, but if they do get their hands on one can cause a Columbine or Virginia Tech. Even if increased gun controls did prove to have little or no effect, does that mean that it is ok not to try, and surely any effect is worth it?

Regarding the arguements for having a gun i have mixed views. Hunting is another debate entirely, and in the UK is something which comes up in the news on a fairly regular basis. Suffice to say that i am fairly anti-hunting, though not massively so, so my opinion in that arguement should be obvious. I also don't believe that they should be allowed for sporting or recreational use, except perhaps at designated and regulated clubs/societies. The strongest arguement i believe is for self-protection. This is probably the hardest part of the topic to resolve. However i would say that surely widespread gun ownership is the root of this need, and putting guns in the hands of both parties in such cases is only likely to escalate and not placate the incident.

I won't go into any real statistical analysis, like someone previously said stats can be made to tell any story - and someone famous once said "stats lie". Don't ask me who. On top of this one-off stats and stats without analysis are meaningless in terms of debate. I will however just look at one point from an article i think TX linked to:



This would seem to back up their claims at first sight. However what happened in the years before that, and further into the future should also be taken into account . Had violent crime been increasing year-on-year before that? Did it start to decrease 2 or 3 years later? Altho violent crime stayed the same, were there less gun-related incidents, or did fatal incidents decrease?

I'm sure there are plentyt more things i meant to say, one of the other reasons i hate these debates is that there is always so much i want to respond to, that i can never remember it all. I hope i haven't come across as better-than-thou or pompous or anything like that. But please take this thread seriously and post respectfully, and to those who believe in the right to bear arms, put aside for one moment whether or not gun controls affect gun related deaths, or whether or not you do need them for protection. If it came down purely to your right to own a gun, and the possible prevention of innocent deaths, is your right that important in this case.

Appologies for the long post! Peace to all

statistics can be bent and manipulated. But is anyone going to deny the figures I have quoted?

Perhaps they are not incredibly accurate as governments want to manipulate crime statistics, but come on, you cant manipulate or cover up 11,300 odd deaths (in 2005 alone) by gun homicide in the same way the 50 odd in England and Wales every year can't be manipulated to be 0 or 11.300.

This isn't a statistic. It's a great big [Poor language removed] difference. If you don't like numbers then how about animals. Our gun homicide is a mouse compared to the herd of elephants in the states.

So Gun control in the UK has worked and continues to work. We have never had even before Dunblane and subsequent legislation - easy access to guns in this country. Contrast to the situation in America where you can buy a gun in the equivalent of Tescos.

Yes, there are cultural differences - but the main one is that we have done something about gun homicide and the US will not, because of an engrained cultural obsession with guns, NRA lobbiests, Gun Corporations lobbying and contributing to political campaigns, the masses of people out there who believe exactly what they read, and idiots who believe that the constitution is holy, not a set of laws that were pertinent at the time, but should be subject for revision when circumstances change and as the earth goes round the sun.

A large proportion of the victims of gun crime in America are blacks. I'm thinking there'd be alot more noise in the mainstream press if more white kids were getting killed.

 

[neonleon]

i cant

and i didnt quote it to you, i quoted it because it was the first thing i thought when i read your post.

can you explain to me why ian bradey will live on the tax payer in relative comfort for the rest of his days because he tortured and killed children decades ago?

Brady wants to die and is challenging the european court to stop the UK keeping him alive with drips. He refuses to eat food and is a very tortured soul.

But to answer your question...

because the state should act objectively, not emotionally. Because the state should not lower itself to the level of sickos. Because the state should be better than the people it prosecutes. Because given how many governments behave in corrupt fashions, giving the state carte blanche to execute people is a terrifying prospect for anyone who believes in liberty and free speech. Because executing the mentally ill (symptoms of which he undeniably shows) is reprehensible, same as executing the physically handicapped or people with non-mainstream sexual orientations. Because (although obviously not in Bradys case) there are major miscarriages of justice, constantly, that result in the death penalty. Because no man is an island entire of itself, every man is a continent a peece of the main...

 

[SuitsBlue]

bradey wants to die, his own free will is over ridden by human rights.

(i dont consider him human, but thats another issue)


the state should act objectively - iraq
the state should act unemotionally - falklands
how you consider any way the state can act like sickos sounds a heart issue to me.
the state should be better that the people??? WRONG - the state is the people.
corruption should be punishable
its very difficult to kill someone because of what they SAY, usually its condemnation for what they do.

I do not appreciate the inclusion of the mentally and physically disabled, because of the undertones associated therein.

this is britain, pankhurst got the vote along with her other sufferers*

''non mainstream sexual orientations'' is vague.

corrupt individuals, including police that bear false witness condemn themselves to the punishment their victim was sentanced.

oh, no person is an island? bull
every person is a continent od peace? bull

the freedom to recluse oneself is a right nonetheless.

 

[neonleon]

bradey wants to die, his own free will is over ridden by human rights.

(i dont consider him human, but thats another issue)


the state should act objectively - iraq
the state should act unemotionally - falklands
how you consider any way the state can act like sickos sounds a heart issue to me.
the state should be better that the people??? WRONG - the state is the people.
corruption should be punishable
its very difficult to kill someone because of what they SAY, usually its condemnation for what they do.

I do not appreciate the inclusion of the mentally and physically disabled, because of the undertones associated therein.

this is britain, pankhurst got the vote along with her other sufferers*

''non mainstream sexual orientations'' is vague.

corrupt individuals, including police that bear false witness condemn themselves to the punishment their victim was sentanced.

oh, no person is an island? bull
every person is a continent od peace? bull

the freedom to recluse oneself is a right nonetheless.

writing the words iraq, falklands and bull next to other words, hardly represents intelligent discourse or even repartee. Perhaps you'd care to elucidate more cogently?

 

[neonleon]

the freedom to recluse oneself?

it doesn't even make sense.

 

[SuitsBlue]

we differ over what the state is defined by.

there was no 'bull' next to either iraq or the falklands.

perhaps your ideal of 'intelligent' and mine is quite different, although im not currently condemning you as such, its the hairy arm pitted, flat shoe wearing hippy lesbian human rights brigade that enable todays criminal with 'rights' and 'decency'.

i ask one thing, where is the 'decency' and the 'rights' of the victims and their families?

want a kick in the balls? i side with the victims not the offenders.

 

[SuitsBlue]

the freedom to recluse oneself?

it doesn't even make sense.

of course it does, howard hughes.

 

[neonleon]

who is Howard Hughes and what gives him the right to use a noun as a verb?

 

[SuitsBlue]

he was a recluse that chose that life. freedom remember?

 

[neonleon]

we differ over what the state is defined by.

there was no 'bull' next to either iraq or the falklands.

perhaps your ideal of 'intelligent' and mine is quite different, although im not currently condemning you as such, its the hairy arm pitted, flat shoe wearing hippy lesbian human rights brigade that enable todays criminal with 'rights' and 'decency'.

i ask one thing, where is the 'decency' and the 'rights' of the victims and their families?

want a kick in the balls? i side with the victims not the offenders.

so what you are saying then is that todays criminal should have no 'rights'?

or are you saying something else?

And labelling those in society that seek to protect the human rights of all people, in otherwords humanitarians as lesbians. I thought you condemned prejudice and bigotary on the basis of skin colour, but here you are using the word lesbian in a derogatory fashion, stereotyping lesbians. I'll let it go with hippies, until the hippy rights movement gets going.

Care to explain yourself? Were I a gay women I could and probably would construe your remarks as homophobic.

Hopefully this is a misunderstanding.

 

[neonleon]

he was a recluse that chose that life. freedom remember?

yeah but the sentence makes no sense in the english language unless recluse is a verb, which it isn't.

Where is he from?

 

[SuitsBlue]

im saying something else

it wasnt just lesbian i used as derogatory. it was one a few that time after time is the standard.

its the same people that side with criminals every time, rights, freedoms, justice. what chokes me to the back teeth is the turn around when they are personally affected. hypocrisy of scum like proportions.

regular law abiding members of society have rights, individuals that forfeit that right to commit crime no longer have the same protection.

the belief otherwise is what protects the murderers, paedophiles and rapists. im disgusted being on the same planet as that group let alone battling for justice in the same system.

enablers is what i see, perhaps the rapists. paedophiles and murderers should prey on the enablers before the rest.

lets see the chorus continue then.

 

[SuitsBlue]

yeah but the sentence makes no sense in the english language unless recluse is a verb, which it isn't.

Where is he from?

english language evolves all the time, socio darwianianism or something similar.

i cant excuse or condemn words/literature we cant agree on.