Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

Anti-gun advocates like Gun Control Network Chair Gillian Marshall-Andrews tout the United Kingdom’s longstanding firearms restrictions, which include a near total ban on handguns, as the “gold standard” of gun control. In recent years, UK officials have continued to implement new policies that further burden law abiding gun owners. These include surprise inspections of gun owners’ firearm storage arrangements, the use of centralized firearm owner licensing data to target “terrorists,” and intrusive medical monitoring of firearm certificate holders.

However, the UK’s criminals appear indifferent.

According to the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) statistical bulletin “Crime in England and Wales,” [glow=black,2,300]firearm crimes in England and Wales were up 27-percent for the year ending in June 2017[/glow]. The bulletin noted, “The latest rise continues an upward trend seen in firearms offences in the last few years.”

In an attempt to resolve some of the increase, ONS explained that part of the growth could be due to improvements in the crime reporting. It should also be noted that the UK’s definition of “firearm,” as used for statistical purposes, includes some imitation guns and other non-firearm items, like pepper spray and stun guns. However, ONS also made clear that “Evidence of some genuine increase in offences involving firearms can be seen in admissions data for NHS hospitals in England, which showed increases in all three categories of assault by firearm discharge.”

An in-depth August 2017 ONS report on firearm crime statistics in England and Wales prepared for the House of Commons painted a similar picture. Using data through March 31, 2017, ONS found that non-air firearms offences had increased 23-percent over the previous year. The document showed that the 2016/17 total number of non-air firearms offences was 31-percent higher than the total in 2013/14. The 2016/17 figure for non-air firearm offenses was the highest recorded since 2010/11. The report also noted that there was a 19-percent increase in what ONS categorizes as “violence against the person” crimes involving a firearm from the period 2014/15 to 2015/16.

In 1997 the UK enacted a total ban on handguns in England and Wales. Despite this restriction, for the year ending in March 2017, handguns were the most common type of non-air firearm used in criminal offenses. Moreover, the statistical bulletin pointed out that there was a 25-percent increase in offenses involving handguns for the year ending in June 2017. As in the United States, the use of rifles in crime is rare, accounting for about 1-percent of non-air firearm offenses each year.

This increase in the criminal misuse of firearms is being cited as justification for a two week national gun surrender period from November 13 through 26. The effort is being spearheaded by the National Ballistics Intelligence Service, which has enlisted the Metropolitan Police and other local law enforcement in the effort. Under the program, those in illegal possession of a firearm can turn it in to specially designated police stations, no questions asked. During a similar effort in 2014 about 6,000 guns were surrendered.

The Met and local police stations have come up with various campaigns to promote the surrender. The Met’s promotional materials urge London’s youth to #GiveUpYourGun and include a YouTube video explaining the potential consequences of illegally carrying a firearm. A video from the Derbyshire Constabulary challenges viewers to tell the difference between a real and imitation handgun, and implores the audience to turn either type of object over to the police.

Despite this messaging, more practical public officials don’t seem to be holding out much hope that the UK’s criminals will comply. Much of NABIS’s press release on the surrender targeted the otherwise law-abiding.

Explaining the types of guns they were targeting, NABIS Head, Detective Chief Superintendent Jo Chilton, noted, “Perhaps you have a gun that has been handed down through the family or you have found a firearm in your loft or shed which has been gathering dust and you had forgotten about.” In a video for the BBC, NABIS Head of Operational Support Clive Robinson pointed to a table full of early 20th century firearms and said, “These are the sorts of weapons families are finding from loved ones that have passed. They’re finding in garages, etc. But when they see them they’re not sure what to do with it. If you bring it into your local police station we will safely dispose of it for you.” Assistant Chief Constable from Northumbria shared a similar sentiment, telling the BBC, “We are realistic enough to realize that we’re not going to get hardened gang members who are in possession of weapons they intend to use.”

Gun rights supporters and most gun control advocates agree that turn-ins, usually in the form of so-called “buybacks” in the U.S., are ineffective public policy. Since 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice has recognized that turn-in programs do not work. A more recent DOJ survey into research concerning Australia’s 1996 nationwide amnesty (confiscation) program noted that there is little evidence that it led to a reduction in crime and that turn-ins are generally ineffective because
[shadow=grey,right]“The guns turned in are at low risk of ever being used in a crime.” [/shadow]

[glow=black,2,300]It is encouraging that some UK officials have at least a remote understanding that gun turn-ins do not work as intended.[/glow]

The recent increase in firearm crime should prompt public officials to reflect on some of the UK’s other gun control measures with a similar skepticism. However, employing reason isn’t their strong suit. Despite the data showing that rifles are used in less than 1 percent of firearms offenses, in October the Home Office announced plans to ban “.50 calibre and certain rapid firing rifles.”

   

Now tell us Howie, tell us all in the rest of the 'uncivilized' world, just how did all this come to pass while the UK has the most restrictive firearms laws on the Planet Earth??      

Doesn't the UK have a more civilized class of criminal?

Don't they obey the law?

The Northern Marianas governor has passed a law banning handguns in the territory - but it can't be implemented.

Handguns were banned for decades up until last year, when a military veteran who wanted one sued the territory's government.

The court ruled in his favour, saying the territory's gun ban violated the United States constitution, which enshrines a person's right to bear arms.

The government has written up another handgun ban, which was approved by Governor Ralph Torres this week.

However, our correspondent in Saipan, Mark Rabago, said the law was effectively moot - unless someone decides to appeal against the ruling in the Supreme Court.

"It's an ineffective law unless somebody challenges and overturns it. But judging by the history of the United States, the states who entirely ban handguns have never won."

The Northern Mariana Islands (link), officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; Chamorro: Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; Refaluwasch or Carolinian: Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an insular area and commonwealth of the United States consisting of 15 islands in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. The CNMI includes all islands in the Mariana Archipelago except Guam which is the southernmost island of the chain and a separate U.S. territory.

[shadow=grey,right]Not only real men have guns but real girls too.[/shadow]

Europeans might not exactly agree.....

Lifelong Sinn Féin supporter (R-NY) Congressman Peter King with Gerry Adams

A lifetime supporter of Sinn Fein could be in line for a key position in Donald Trump's administration, according to Washington insiders.

Unlike many other mainstream Republican politicians, US Congressman Peter King backed the billionaire businessman during the White House race.

His loyalty to Mr Trump has led to speculation that he could be appointed homeland security advisor - the chief counter-terrorism aide to the President.

The New York Congressman, who has voiced support for the Provisional IRA and is seen as a very close friend of Gerry Adams, is considered one of the most respected experts on terrorism and security on Capitol Hill.

Yesterday's New York Times reported that Mr King was also in the running to be US ambassador to the UN..........

 

So blind faith in the constitution is not exclusive to SF alone. You seriously think the government declares unlimited rights to people and limits itself at the same time.

....That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

.....We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Quote from: ersi on 2017-10-20, 16:53:50

So blind faith in the constitution is not exclusive to SF alone. You seriously think the government declares unlimited rights to people and limits itself at the same time.

This is a major misconception.

The U.S. Constitution is The Peoples Document, in which the People define the government, & specifically give the government whatever rights they are to have.

The government can only govern by, & through, the consent of the governed, The People.  

➤ ➤ ➤  See here an example.

Government has no rights outside of what the People give them in the Constitution.

The only claim that government can have on the Constitution is that they, as individual Citizens, are part owners of the document.

The U.S. Constitution was written by the Founding Fathers, learned people who got together & defined a new, for the very first time, self-governing way to live.

Up until then every country had a ruler, a Monarchy, who by the "Divine Right of Kings" granted those beneath them their 'rights' which, because a King can do anything....being he was given his Kingship by God directly......he can take back any 'right' he granted ....for any reason....at any time.

Whatever a King decreed or commanded was Law. There were no rights to appeal.

When America was born, the "Divine Right of Kings" became no more over the the American People, who, through their Constitution defined for the first time, what powers the government had, & how it must respect the Rights of the People id it wished to continue to govern with their consent.

So the Bill of Rights, commonly known as the first 10 Amendments to the US Constitution, does not emanate from a Government, & it actually does no give any rights, it simply tells the government these rights were given to the people long before government even became a concept, & therefore government must not interfere with the people freely exercising their rights.

So blind faith in the constitution is not exclusive to SF alone. You seriously think the government declares unlimited rights to people and limits itself at the same time.

Quote from: SmileyFaze on 2017-10-19, 00:08:48

JFYI......a quick note of interest to those unfamiliar.....in the 18^th Century the phrase "....well regulated...." meant well trained, not regulated by an entity.

Quote from: SmileyFaze on 2017-10-19, 08:22:13

You will find that "REGULATED" did not mean restrictions placed on or to anything by a State of another Government body in the late 1700's.

The basic premise holds ground: well-regulated means something like functioning correctly. But it seems like a slight leap to subsequently conclude that well functioning means without any restrictions.

No, I'm not struggling with the interpretation. The only thing on the side of the gun rightists is the fact that the 2nd amendment is the 2nd amendment, also called the Bill of Rights for historical purposes (even though it doesn't say Bill of Rights in the actual document, if it matters to you at all what the document says). This fact by itself, when you overblow and idealise the concept of Bill of Rights, can get you the interpretation that you have, including the notion that there are no gun rights elsewhere in the world because they are not in the other countries' constitutions or their equivalent of Bill of Rights, while in reality other countries achieve the same effect with ordinary laws.

.....Gt Britain was ahead of the USA in doing away with slavery.....

.........What you practiced totally contradicted all those boasting great principles when you broke away and the so-called principled leaders did slavery.  So decades after the British Empire did away with the thing you lot lived a constant hypocrisy and racial matters are still deeply flawed in the wonderful claimant of so-called principled country stuff. Clutch at daft straws but your history is damnable and still is.

Britain followed in the footsteps of the Portuguese in voyaging to the west coast of Africa and enslaving Africans. The British participation in what has come to be called the 'nefarious trade' was begun by Sir John Hawkins with the support and investment of Elizabeth I in 1573. (15) By fair means and foul, Britain outwitted its European rivals and became the premier trader in the enslaved from the seventeenth century onwards, and retained this position till 1807. Britain supplied enslaved African women, men and children to all European colonies in the Americas.

The 'Slave Coast' came to be dotted with European forts, their massive guns facing out to sea to warn off rival European slave traders. Each 'castle' incorporated prisons or 'barracoons' in which the enslaved women, children and men were kept, awaiting purchase by the traders, who could initially only reach the coast at those times of the year when the winds blew in the right direction. The prisons – without sanitation, with little air – must have been hell-holes in the humid coastal climates. The death rates are not known.

The trade became a very lucrative business. Bristol grew rich on it, then Liverpool. London also dealt in slaves as did some of the smaller British ports. (16) The specialised vessels were built in many British shipyards, but most were constructed in Liverpool. Laden with trade goods (guns and ammunition, rum, metal goods and cloth) they sailed to the 'Slave Coast', exchanged the goods for human beings, packed them into the vessels like sardines and sailed them across the Atlantic. On arrival, those left alive were oiled to make them look healthy and put on the auction block. Again, death rates (during the voyage) are unknown: one estimate, for the 1840s, is 25 per cent.

Plantation and mine-owners bought the Africans – and more died in the process called 'seasoning'. In the British colonies the slaves were treated as non-human: they were 'chattels', to be worked to death as it was cheaper to purchase another slave than to keep one alive. Though seen as non-human, as many of the enslaved women were raped, clearly at one level they were recognised as at least rapeable human beings. There was no opprobrium attached to rape, torture, or to beating your slaves to death. The enslaved in the British colonies had no legal rights as they were not human – they were not permitted to marry and couples and their children were often sold off separately.

Historian Paul Lovejoy has estimated that between 1701 and 1800 about 40 per cent of the approximately more than 6 million enslaved Africans were transported in British vessels. (It must be noted that this figure is believed by some to be a considerable underestimate.) Lovejoy estimated that well over 2 million more were exported between 1811 and 1867 – again, many believe the numbers were much greater. (17)

Abolition of the trade by Britain

Europeans who were Roman Catholics often treated their slaves more humanely than those of the Protestant faith, perhaps especially the members of the Church of England, which owned slaves in the West Indies. (Roman Catholics did not deny Africans their humanity and made attempts at conversion, while British slaveowners forbade church attendance.) The enslavement of Africans was justified in Britain by claiming that they were barbaric savages, without laws or religions, and, according to some 'observers' and academics, without even a language; they would acquire civilisation on the plantations.

In the 1770s, some Christians in Britain began to question this interpretation of the Bible. They began a campaign to convert the population to their perspective and to influence Parliament by forming anti-slavery associations. Slavery was declared a sin. According to some interpreters of William Wilberforce, the main abolitionist spokesperson in Parliament, it was this fear of not going to heaven that impelled him to carry on the abolitionist struggle for over 20 years. (18)

Parliamentarians and others who could read, or had the time to attend meetings, were well informed about slavery by the books published by two ex-slaves, Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano; slightly less dramatic and emphatic anti-slavery books were published by Ignatius Sancho and Ukwasaw Groniosaw. Equiano, like Thomas Clarkson (another truly remarkable man), lectured up and down the country, and in Ireland. (19)

The Act making it illegal for Britons to participate in the trade in enslaved Africans was passed by Parliament in March 1807, after some 20 years of campaigning. Precisely why so many people signed petitions and why Parliament voted for the Act is debatable. (20) It is somewhat curious that many of the chief – including Quaker – abolitionists were importers of slave-grown produce. (21)
Slave emancipation by Britain

A few Britons – including the British Africans – were not content with abolition and campaigned for the emancipation of slaves. This was another long struggle. Among the most forceful were the women abolitionists, who, being denied a voice by the men, formed their own organisations and went door-knocking, asking people to stop using slave-grown products such as sugar and tobacco. The most outspoken was probably Elizabeth Heyrick who believed in immediate emancipation, as opposed to the men who supported gradual freedom. (22)

This battle was won when Parliament passed the Emancipation Act in 1833; as the struggle was led by men, it was for gradual emancipation. But protests, often violent in the West Indies, resulted in freedom in 1838. The slaveowners were granted £20 million (about £1 billion today) compensation; all the freed received was the opportunity to labour for the paltry wages that had now to be offered.

This Act only freed the enslaved in the West Indies, Cape Town, Mauritius and Canada. Slavery continued in the rest of the British Empire. Even the importation of slaves into a British colony continued – into Mauritius, obtained from the French after the Napoleonic Wars, where importation was not stopped until about 1820. (23)
Emancipation in Britain

Africans have lived in Britain since they arrived as troops within the Roman armies. How many came here in more modern times, i.e., since the fifteenth century, has not been researched. They begin to appear in parish records of births and deaths from the sixteenth century. (24) Again, what proportion was free and how many were slaves is not yet known. The famous decision by Chief Justice Lord Mansfield in 1772 in the case of James Somerset, taken to court by activist Granville Sharp, merely stated that Africans could not be exported from the UK to the West Indies as slaves. There was no consistency in the many court judgements on the legality of slavery in Great Britain. (25)

The efficacy of the Acts

As there was almost nothing done to ensure that the Acts were obeyed, slave traders continued their activities, as did the shipbuilders. Information about this was sent to Parliament by the abolitionists, some of the captains in the Anti-Slavery Squadrons and British consular officials in slave-worked Cuba and Brazil. Investigations were held, more Acts were passed, but all to no avail, as no means of enforcement was put in place in Britain. All the government did was to set up the Anti-Slavery Squadron – at first comprised of old, semi-derelict naval vessels, unfit for the coastal conditions. To enable them to stop slavers of other nationalities, Britain entered into treaties with other slaving countries. But these were also ignored. The slave trade continued, unabated.

Britain not only continued to build slaving vessels, but it financed the trade, insured it, crewed some of it and probably even created the many national flags carried by the vessels to avoid condemnation. Britain also manufactured about 80 per cent of the goods traded for slaves on the Coast. (26).............

SLAVERY

THE USA    from  1775  to  1865          =  90 years

GREAT BRITAIN    from  1573  to  1833  =  260 years

Put that in yer book Fossil!  

The States' rights to regulate has also been upheld.

........The Constitution, on the other hand, by opening up with
“We the People” immediately affirms that the Constitution is of the
people, for the people, and by the people of the United States. This
interpretation, which arises most strongly from the presence of “We the
People” in the Preamble, effectively leads to an understanding of the
Constitution as affecting the people directly and not through regulations
imposed on the States. In other words, those words define that the interaction
between the Constitution and the citizens of the United States is direct and
immediate, meaning that the Constitution, and the government it
creates, supersedes any State government.

The words “We the People” in the
Preamble are often considered the strongest links between the Constitution and
the Declaration of Independence, in that the Declaration of Independence was
written from the perspective of the people, not of specific individuals or of
government. In beginning the Preamble of the Constitution with “We the
People,” the Constitution is immediately emphasizing the significance of
the people and is also ensuring an understanding that the people are the ones
giving power to the Government. This is also a critical element to
the American Constitution, in that the power of the Government mandated by the Constitution comes not from God
or from itself, but from “We the People.” .........

Jefferson? A damn slave owner and had it off with a couple of the female ones.

The so-called Founding Fathers were essentially the corporate money me of the day and Freemasons (even see their placer on the banknotes by the way) and the wonderfully "principled" heroes included slave owners and rights only if white. Big deal.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

.......the US constitution, which should be seen as a direct continuation of the English legal tradition.

So DC banned basically the right to ownership of guns, to have them at home. This tells me two things. First, since somebody was able to came up with such a law, gun rights are apparently not so thoroughly ingrained and enshrined in the American legal system after all. Second, the case has a connection to the 2nd amendment only in terms of keep arms, not bear arms, i.e. carry them around

On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Heller v. District of Columbia.[3][4] The Supreme Court struck down provisions of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 as unconstitutional, determined that handguns are "arms" for the purposes of the Second Amendment, found that the Regulations Act was an unconstitutional ban, and struck down the portion of the Regulations Act that requires all firearms including rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock". Prior to this decision the Firearms Control Regulation Act of 1975 also restricted residents from owning handguns except for those registered prior to 1975.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, and the primary dissenting opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, are considered[citation needed] examples of the application of originalism in practice.........continued

......Likewise, I don't understand why Smiley wasn't... Why wasn't he?
Not only he can say. If he doesn't explain himself, others will do it for him...

[glow=orange,2,300]Tiocfaidh ár lá[/glow]

[glow=orange,2,300]Ooh Ah Up The Ra!!![/glow]

.......But now she sighs at things going on over there and her son and his wife were on holiday (here as happens!) but have decided they want to emigrate to here and north of the kingdom especially. His former Glasgow parents having lived there for so loin in the US are too tired and such to come back being a lot older now but quite happy their son and wife want to live in a less crazy country. Seems the younger couple cannot wait to get out and I will promise them a meal when they do......