Crime Increase In Britain
on 10/20/2005 at 08:32 AM
God help the law abiding citzenry of the UK. Self-defense is a fundamental human right, just like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, et cetera.
11,000 gun crimes in a country that has outlawed ALL guns. But..........but........but how can that be????????
The only problem gun control or gun banning will have is to turn honest citizens into targets for the thugs and hoods. You can see this same effect everywhere that handguns are banned. Washington DC comes immediately to mind.
On the drinking thing. The Brits have had an 11:00 pm closing time since WW2. They felt that closing the pubs at that time would make the workers get a nights sleep before going to work. The unintended effect it has is known as binge drinking. When it gets close to closing time some people line up a bunch of drinks and guzzle them down.
I think that the 24 hour thing goes too far in the other direction. It seems to me that a “wee hours” closing time would work just fine. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard “last call” but I think that closing time here in Ohio is 2:30. NY is 4:30. The Brits could have gone with something like that and been fine. I don’t know that every pub will stay open 24 hours, it’s just that they’d have that choice now.
I just thought of a place I frequented in Galveston. It had no windows and a peephole in the door. That place stayed open from Friday morning until Monday morning. You just had to be known there to get in after hours. Ah, memories…
No QCM, it would not resolve the WHACKO problem, but that will not stop the Teddy K’s and Johnny K’s of this country from trying to pass the laws. (… what is it about the last intial “K” and Taxachusetts) Someday, when no one’s looking, they may just find a way to sneak it by. (much as they do their annual pay raises ... except this year when the whole WORLD is looking)
Well where to start on this one? Stin not to take issue with you but from what I recall of the licensing laws. The original restrictions on pub opening hours stemmed from the First World War. There was a rather hysterical report that ammunition factory workers were getting drunk in their dinner hour. What with thousands dying at the front this caused a great deal of outrage and Parliament brought in licensing laws. These are controlled by local magistrates. The original hours were (if memeory serves) 10am to 2pm then 6:30pm to 11pm. There were different hours on Sunday (and in Scotland and Wales) I am not sure about the 11pm closing though. Pubs, apart from special holidays, close at 11pm. Clubs and hotels can apply for extended opening hours and many stay open till 2am.
The idea of 24hr pub opening is lunacy. It saddens me to say it but it seems the majority of British these days are low life scum. The product of forty years of socialism I fear. You only have to take a holiday to spot the Brits. They are the drunken louts making a nuisance of themselves.
As far as the main topic of gun control. Well, prior to the ban on handgun ownership it was difficult to obtain a handgun in the UK. You had to be a member of a gun club and the police would regulate the number of guns possessed, and the storage and amount of ammunition possessed by the gun owner. Rifles were/are slightly easier to obtain provided one has land to shoot one on. However the police are very anti firearms ownership. In fact the public in general are hostile to the idea of gun ownership. I am divided on this. As a gun owner I would prefer that there are some controls on who can own a gun. Living in Britain where I would say 80% of the population are only slightly removed from pond life it seems to me sensible that there are restrictions. On top of that we don’t have the wide open spaces you enjoy in the US.
In the US I doubt there could ever be the kind of controls put in place in the UK. For one thing how many firearms are actually registered with the authorities? As a percentage it can’t be many. In Britain each guns serial number is registered with the owner firearms license (issued by the police). Having said that, since handguns were banned from the public gun crime has gone ballistic. Though if you take away guns from the law abiding citizens the only people who will have guns are the police and the criminals.
Now that there is no longer an iron curtain and the Euroweeneies have neutered our Customs it is not difficult to smuggle in pistols and AK47’s. On top of that our Immigration controls are a joke. Any scumbag can turn up and claim asylum. If they come from a country like Algeria, Syria etc. then the courts won’t allow their deportation because of the insane human rights laws that Blair passed to bring us in line with the Euroweenies. Many of the people that turn up destroy their passports so how do you know where they are from? On top of that many of them come from countries where guns and crime are second nature. In London now the old gangsters have been displaced by ruthless criminals from Albania and Russia. These people are entirely without a moral compass and can obtain guns easily.
To summarise it seems to me that introducing 24hr pub opening borders on the insane. As it is the police cannot cope with the drunken mindless thuggery and violence that occurs every Friday and Saturday night in most town centres. There is something inherently rotten in British society and it seems to me to be on a downward spiral. 24hr drinking will if anything increase the rate of decline. On top of this we have increased violent assaults and crime in general. I don’t really blame the police. It isn’t all their fault. Half their time is spent filling in forms so that the minorities can be assured that they are not being targetted disproportionately. How about this for a sick society? There have been cases recently here where home owners have been prosecuted for defending their homes against burglars etc. The police advice if you detect someone in your home “Hide in a cuboard and phone the police” What kind of message does this send to the scumbag other than “Help yourself the homeowner won’t interfere and if he does we will bang him up”
Sorry for such a bleak tale from Blighty but that’s how it is these days I’m afraid.
Thank you for the correction, Lyndon. I knew it was a wartime provision, I just got the wrong war. I was hoping that our Brit members would check in and give us more details. I appreciate that you have, bleak as it is.
I hate to see the things that are being reported from Blighty these days and it seems that all reports I see are pretty much as you say. I emigrated from Scotland just shy of my ninth birthday and have only been back once, courtesy of the US Navy, in 1972. I still care but I would never, ever go back there to live. Visiting is also losing its attraction as the older relatives pass on.
I hope you can save it.
Stin,
I’m afread I have to disagree about the visiting. I have traveled all over the country from Portree to St. Andrews, to Longtown, to Edinburgh and I never tire of the wonderful scenery and friendly people. (not to mention some of the most wonderful brews in the world) My wife and I go over for a couple of weeks every 3 years or so. We were there this past May as a matter of fact. I can never get too much of Edinburgh. I do HATE the new convention center (or whatever it is) though. It is BUTT UGLY and doesn’t belong anywhere near Hollyrood.Banning alcohol has been tried, remember “The Untouchables”? It didn’t work. Let’s face it, anyone who has a problem when they drink has a problem without drinking. The problem, whether it’s spousal abuse or a tendency to pick fights, will probably manifest itself more when alcohol is applied but the problem is pre-existing. Drinking doesn’t create it.
Using myself as an example: I’ve got a sharp tongue and can be quite
nasty“witty”, at least in my own mind. I usually have it under control but when I drink enough Scotch whiskey (and with Scotch, there’s never “enough” for me) I sometimes lose that control. With enough Johnny Walker aboard I sometimes can lose more friends than I gain.My solution is to stay away from the Scotch. I can’t control it. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Usually I’m okay, but then there is the rest of the time. I don’t have that problem with rum or anything else, therefore I stick to rum or some other “light” liquor when I drink. It took me years to learn this lesson but I have learned it well.
The solution is not to ban Scotch for everyone, the solution is for me not to drink the stuff, as much as I love the taste of it. Why should everyone be denied because of me? Why should I be denied because of some other squirrelly bustard not being able to hold his drink? We’re all adults and should be responsible for ourselves.
Don’t you think that it’s hypocritical to agitate to legalize
and want to ban 
?
Black Label, of course ... and I can tell the difference.
10/20/2005 at 02:14 PM
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