Why no Cannons on Police Helicopters?

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

In fact he was cleared of manslaughter on appeal.

Keith


Keith - my apologies, you are quite right.

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in
:

"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
.. .
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in
:
Absolutely true: but it's a poor advertisment for the idea that a
few thousand weapons would transform the UK and turn it into a
crime-free paradise.

Never claimed it would.It would allow ODCs to defend themselves with
less risk to themselves,though.Especially the elderly,infirm.

Not if the criminals are aggressive, armed and practiced, and the ODCs
are not. It takes hard work, practice and a lot of rounds to become
proficient with a handgun.


Well,that's NOT the way it's been here in the US,and I doubt that UK
criminals are any different.I've read of plenty of examples of elderly
people using handguns well enough without any extensive training.
It's simply not that hard to use a handgun.

I challenge him and he starts to run. Can I shoot him? If not, how
do I detain him?

If he runs towards you,then you shoot him.If he runs away,then he
gets away.

So in other words, exactly the same as in the UK: if I see him he runs
away.

Depends on how close he is to you,too.

Why does adding firearms to the mix help matters?

He grabs it off a shelf in a supermarket and runs for the exit. Can
I shoot him?

I see where you are going here,and I'm not playing that game.

Dodging the question, Jim?

No,you're trying to pin me down with a dumb question.I'm not playing that
game.

Someone snatches a loaf of bread and runs away. How many rounds are
you allowed to fire at his fleeing back, to prevent the theft? How
much risk are you allowed to take? If they're running through a crowd,
how many bystanders are you permitted to hit before your use of force
becomes "unreasonable"?

No, he committed premeditated murder, and a jury agreed.

Well,one of your appeasing jurys ruled that way.

They saw the evidence, noted that the defended lied repeatedly, and
drew their own conclusions. That's the point of juries, Jim, they're
selected from your peers. If Martin had called the police and
presented them with a corpse whose wound was in the chest, he'd maybe
have been hit for the illegal firearm.

In the US,many jurys would
rule justifiable homicide.Some places would not even bring charges.

So, shooting fleeing and unarmed boys in the back and lying to the
police is acceptable behaviour in the US?

Lying,no.Shooting those two after repeated burglaries with police being
useless would be "justifiable homicide" in many parts of the US.

(He'd have
been acquitted if he'd ceased fire when they fled: he might even
have been acquitted or had the charges downgraded if he'd told the
truth. But to (a) pursue the intruders and continue firing when
they were in headlong flight, and (b) to lie about events both to
the police and to the court, convinced the jury that he wasn't
acting to defend himself but had planned and prepared to kill.)

And that's about the only way his burglaries would have been
stopped.The police failed him.

Sure, and nobody's denied it. On the other hand he was notably
eccentric, refused to fit the most basic security, and contributed a
lot to his own misfortune. You're entitled not to have your car
stolen, but part of the deal is not leaving it parked with the window
open, door unlocked and keys in the ignition.

And I doubt he left the keys in his door locks,or windows open after
repeated burglaries.

Sitting up in the night with an illegal weapon waiting for intruders
so you can go downstairs and kill them (and then claim never to have
left your room)... that's not self-defence, that's premeditated
murder.

Justifiable homicide.Police could do noting for him,he had no other
recourse.Why should he have to turn his home into a prison?

Again, I can only presume life is much more difficult and dangerous
where you live, that so much theft happens in plain sight and
unprevented. Property theft here is done where nobody's looking, so
issuing firearms wouldn't help.

So,you are saying there's no at-home burglaries in the UK?

No, just that they're generally rare enough to make newspaper
headlines.

Well,I believe that they would not make newspaper headlines,but that does
not mean they don't happen.Heck,many people,especially the elderly are
embarassed that they were victimized,and don't report such crimes.

Iknow George
Harrison would have benefitted from having a handgun when that
intruder entered his home.

Sure - how many years ago was that? He's been dead and buried for a
while, Jim. Don't you have any new examples? Or is life in the UK
actually a lot quieter and safer than your NRA tracts would like you
to believe?

Why should the passage of time make that example any less valid? I don't
keep up on what happens in the UK,that's just the most visible and
remembered incident I know of.You still haven't refuted it after all this
time,either.

Maybe he (and his wife)wouldn't have been stabbed so many
times.

Or maybe a peacenik ex-Beatle wouldn't have owned a firearm even had
the option been open to him - ever pause to consider that?

well,sure,it's his choice(or it would be,if UK alowed it) to be armed(and
prepared for such things,especially after the Queen having an intruder in
her bedroom,and Lennon getting killed.)

But peaceniks have a habit of changing their position after they've been
attacked or threatened,and they find out what the police CAN'T do for their
security.



--
Jim Yanik
jyanik-at-kua.net

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in
:


"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...


Or maybe a peacenik ex-Beatle wouldn't have owned a firearm even had the
option been open to him - ever pause to consider that?


Its also worth recalling that the attacker was a paranoid schizophrenic
with an obsession about harrison and not a common burglar
and had no previous criminal record. In the US he like the
the man who shot John Lennon would have had access to a more lethal
weapon than a knife.


Even in UK,people CAN get or MAKE guns if they choose to,if they know where
to go.


He was released in 2002 having responded to treatment
and had been symptom free for 2 years.

Keith


How reassuring.(not)

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik-at-kua.net

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in
:

"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
.. .
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in
:
Of course, and always have been, but they don't get used for
burglary.

Because they know they are safe,protected by UK's laws against self-
defense,at the expense of the citizenry.

Or because they can't afford guns, because if they had that sort of
cash they wouldn't be out burgling or nicking car stereos. And because
if they *had* a gun they'd use it for something more lucrative.

Appeasement,that's what it is.

If you think any intruder in my house is safe, then come and try to
break in. Stop trying to tell us what life's like here.

Well,just because YOU are so capable,doesn't mean that everyone else is,nor
should they be restricted by your self-limitations.

delete elephant nonsense.

But actually,in parts of the US,attacks by
large animals such as bears or cougars is a fair possibility.

Yep, there's a thread on the subject elsewhere. If I were living in
the US I'd eagerly investigate the options for acquiring a firearm or
two: mostly for entertainment but with security in mind. Different
place, different needs.

Exactly;one size does not fit all,different people may need differing
levels of security.

Thanks, but we like having handguns be rare and unusual. You do it
your way, we'll do it ours.

yes,keep those criminals safe,while your citizens suffer crimes.

I'm not quite sure how proliferating firearms is going to help the
situation. Most British citizens aren't familiar with firearms, don't
particularly want them around and don't see why they should spend
significant sums on buying, properly securing, and becoming proficient
with a weapon when they have no particular need. One reason the 1997
handgun ban passed easily was that very few people owned and shot
them, and the political pressure was all to ban those horrid nasty
implements of Death.

And yet the same thing can still happen again.If the Yardies can get
machine guns,and others make,steal or smuggle in guns,the guns ARE
available inthe UK.

On the other hand, I can see the many criminals who haven't suffered
conviction

Are there a lot of those in the UK? In the US,most criminals have long
histories of crimes.

yet considering this would be Christmas come early, buying
weapons for resale to those less able to legally purchase. (One
presumes that background checks, limits on purchases, and any attempt
to track weapons once sold would be considered as unfair and
unreasonable in the UK as they would in the US)

End result? Unarmed citizens, but the Bad Guys have even freer access
to weapons. Not sure why this is supposed to help. Presumably some
ODCs will then buy weapons, but isn't that a little late?


Folks like me who *did* happily pay up to turn a few hundred rounds a
week into .45-calibre holes in paper were a rarity.

Appease them.

No, keep them disarmed as a rule.

except that it really does not keep them disarmed. Note the Yardies and
other gangs having guns in the UK.If they want them,they can get them.

Not if one or two of the group have guns: outnumbered and outgunned
is a bad place to be.

You're STILL better off than being unarmed.

Why? Dead is still dead.

But you may not always die.And that's generally the case as its been in the
US.It shouldn't be any different where you are.

And at least you will get some
of them before they get you,maybe even the ones with the guns.

And this makes you "less dead" how, precisely?

you seem to think that evey shootout results in everyone dead.It doesn't
happen that way.

Then the
next
group will have second thoughts about trying such attacks against
others.

And this helps *you* how, precisely? Meanwhile that gang now have more
weapons to play with.

If these armed gangs aren't deterred by one in four USAians owning
firearms, what level of ownership is needed before they stop their
rampages?

Many of those owning such guns do not have carry permits,and cannot carry
them in public,but their homes are much less attacked.The worst places for
gun violence in the US are largely where gun control is the strictest.


Meanwhile we're largely bereft of such gangs and like things that way.

Thus leaving the ODC open to a lifetime of legal nightmares,
apparently.

Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.

My attitude precisely, but then others claim the advantage of "shoot
early, shoot often" is that dead men can't sue. (Which appears to
suppose that killing strangers on suspicion is viewed with
enthusiasm...)

Where are you keeping it while you're asleep?

Nunya bidness.

I just remember the rules I learned in the Army: I don't think my wife
would appreciate sharing our bed with a firearm of any type.

YMMV.


(And for the endless whines about Jill Dando - she was shot in
the back of the head on her doorstep, caught completely
unawares. She could have had a MAC-10 in each hand and it
wouldn't have made the slightest difference)

Well,so she was caught unawares;that's the result of a false sense of
security that the UK residents have,from their "gun control".

So having more weapons means we get to be perpetually paranoid?

It might make you more concerned with what goes on around you.Maybe.

Give her a gun. Give her two guns. Give her a hundred guns. What's the
difference? No matter how heavily armed she was or was not, she was
killed on her doorstep by an assailant she never saw.

You seem to be advocating that more weapons will make us safer, which
means we'll all be much more paranoid... doesn't compute, Jim. Either
being armed makes us safer, or it makes us more alert and aware, but
you don't go to higher alert states because the risk level dropped.

And how "being armed" is far from the panacea quoted. Note also
that this incident was five years ago - haven't you had any other
examples to cite?

Why,what's changed in the last 5 years? Nothing.But UK gun crimes
have risen every year,I believe,despite gun "control".

Yeah, I think we had 23 killed last year as opposed to 17 in 1999.
That's *how* much more dangerous than the US?

(Remember, Jim, someone using a banana in his pocket as a 'gun' is a
firearm crime in the UK. Be careful what you're claiming.)

It would not surprise me to find that the UK gov't has classed some crimes
as other crimes,skewing the data.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik-at-kua.net

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in
:


"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...


Why,what's changed in the last 5 years? Nothing.But UK gun crimes
have risen every year,I believe,despite gun "control".

Yeah, I think we had 23 killed last year as opposed to 17 in 1999.
That's *how* much more dangerous than the US?


Last year in fact there was a drop of 16% of robberies involving
guns and a drop of 13% in homicides involving firearms.

How about robberies in general? Or homicides in general? Increase or
decrease?

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime/guncrime/index.html

The same source also points out than only 0.5% of crimes
reported to the police involve the use,possession or
threat of use of firearms

A more telling statistic is that of the number of police
officers killed and injured by firearms during the
course of their duty. In the 10 years between 1992 and
2002 there were exactly 3 police officers killed and
40 seriously injured.

Most criminals know that shooting cops is a really BAD idea.

The equivalent figures for the USA are 1,533 killed and
23,000 seriously injured.

Perhaps this explains why all the coppers I know
prefer tight gun control, none of them are armed
themselves of course.

Keith






--
Jim Yanik
jyanik-at-kua.net

"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
.. .
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in
:


A more telling statistic is that of the number of police
officers killed and injured by firearms during the
course of their duty. In the 10 years between 1992 and
2002 there were exactly 3 police officers killed and
40 seriously injured.

Most criminals know that shooting cops is a really BAD idea.

Yet around 150 are killed and 230 injured in the US
every year and US cops are armed while British police
typically are not.

I prefer things our way.

Keith

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 22:32:12 +0100, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:


"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
.. .
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in
:


A more telling statistic is that of the number of police
officers killed and injured by firearms during the
course of their duty. In the 10 years between 1992 and
2002 there were exactly 3 police officers killed and
40 seriously injured.

Most criminals know that shooting cops is a really BAD idea.

Yet around 150 are killed and 230 injured in the US
every year and US cops are armed while British police
typically are not.

In addition, some of the US deaths and injuries are from friendly
fire. Doesn't matter what the bad guys think when it's the good guys
doing the shooting.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message ...
Most criminals know that shooting cops is a really BAD idea.

Yet around 150 are killed and 230 injured in the US every year and US cops
are armed while British police typically are not.

I prefer things our way.


Your way didn't work too well in Northern Ireland. Nothing significant
was accomplished there until there was significant international
assistance with the interdiction effort.

You can't expect the rest of the world to act like sheep, and that is
precisely why the British foisted their biggest police problems on
others -- in their colonies that is, rather than at home.

Americans have nowhere to run. Our problems are here, and we have to
stay here to deal with them, instead of running away from the problems
like the Brits.

"Evan Brennan" wrote in message
...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...
Most criminals know that shooting cops is a really BAD idea.

Yet around 150 are killed and 230 injured in the US every year and US
cops
are armed while British police typically are not.

I prefer things our way.


Your way didn't work too well in Northern Ireland.

You mean that place they sent the Army into. You know, those folks with
really cool guns. The Royal Ulster Constabulary made considerable use of
firearms as well.

tim gueguen 101867

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 15:45:52 +0200, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:

"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
. ..
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in
:
Aren't the criminals deterred by the armed citizens?

Welll,due to those who are against people using,carrying,or even owning
firearms,most US citizens do not own guns,nor carry them.Thus the chances
of criminals encountering armed citizens is not high enough yet to deter
such crimes.

So you've got the crime anyway, and the armed criminals, and the accidental
deaths and suicides... and the answer is "more guns"?

There are many excellent reasons to own and enjoy firearms of all sorts, but
this notion that more weapons equals increased safety just isn't one of
them - not at an overall level, anyway. If the level of firearm ownership
you have in the US isn't already sufficient to deter criminals, increasing
ownership (unavoidably including that segment of the population known as
"criminals not yet identified or convicted") is unlikely to help.

There is a body of evidence that suggests that open ownership of
guns and their general possession reduces some sorts of crimes-- but
it also increases others, mainly crimes of passion.
I think the problem is that many progun enthusiasts are taking the
experience of rural areas, and uncritically assuming you can transfer
that to urban areas. My family lived in a rural community where guns
were omnipresent, and it was a polite community...and not one with a
lot of gunplay.
I live twenty miles outside of LA, and if everyone in LA had a gun,
every rush hour would be a mass slaughter. The two situations are
simply not comparable.



And in many states,defending property with lethal force IS
illegal,protecting the criminals,making it safer for them to commit such
crimes.

What's the property value that justifies homicide, out of interest?

Can I kill a man for stealing my car? (About $7,000 at last check).

Can I kill a man for stealing my watch? (About $100)

Can I kill a man for stealing a loaf of bread?

In california, none of the above. In the 1970's, using a weapon
even against an armed intruder could see you being taken off to jail.
Now, the general standard is that you are presumed to be "at fear for
your life" if you are confronted. It is not a blanket protection--
if the fellow you said you were afraid of dies after being chased down
the street, cornered and shot five times, the DA.... will have some
questions.
Other states tend to give different levels of this-- some pretty
much give a homeowner ON HIS OWN PROPERTY a blanket right of self
defense. I believe texas is the most forgiving in this case, but
there's so much variation it's hard to say-- ditto for gun carrying
laws.



ISTR that in the so-called "Wild West",where many people were armed,people
could leave doors unlocked,horses unattended,without much fear of theft.

I seem to remember much talk of hanging horse thieves, suggesting that this
"golden age" was illusory.

Lower population densities-- and again not comparable, either for
or against the idea of general gun possession in a modern society.
But I will say that the experience of other nations where everyone has
an AK-47 do not make me confident.





My grandparents *did* live with doors unlocked, but that was because (a)
they lived in a close-knit community where everyone knew everyone and theft
would have been seen, (b) they were poor and frankly had very little to
steal. (No guns, in case you were wondering)