What is wrong with the nanny state?

[Kaninchen]

So inefficient law enforcement is something you like?

If you think that ‘inefficient law enforcement’ is a marker for ‘Italy’, then you’ve missed an awful lot in the field of “chaos management by magic 'cause there doesn’t seem to be any rational explanation that even an Italian seems to manage to come up with”.

No doubt if you’d been mugged or your home burglarized, you’d have liked it better.

As I said earlier, we Europeans know what guns are for - wars, massacres of entire populations, that sort of thing, we’ve had an awful lot more practice.

Anyway, Shabbat looms so end of ‘fencing’ for a while.

 

[vern_humphrey]

If you think that ‘inefficient law enforcement’ is a marker for ‘Italy’, then you’ve missed an awful lot in the field of “chaos management by magic 'cause there doesn’t seem to be any rational explanation that even an Italian seems to manage to come up with”.

Police sitting in a roadhouse casually drinking coffee, while traffic backs up for miles because of a wreck that can be seen from the roadhouse might be a place to start looking?

As I said earlier, we Europeans know what guns are for - wars, massacres of entire populations, that sort of thing, we’ve had an awful lot more practice.

And learned nothing from the experience.

 

[cynic]

Perhaps.
But I am not going to do your homework for you.

Your claim is European countries.
Britain is one.

What of Italy? France? Austria? etc?

You claim plural, you only back singular.


Seems even stats you quote are questionable now.

Spain, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, Denmark, Finland, and Ireland are on that list, aswell as Australia and New Zealand where there are als
restrictive laws about gun ownership. Not a exhaustive list, but enough, perhaps.

The stats are questionable because poster Al Massetti suggests they could be (apples and oranges? how is no. of instances per 100,000 ppl “apples and oranges”?). Which of course means that they are:dts: and you don’t need to ponder the idea
that more guns in circulation just might mean more gun-related crime.

 

[cynic]

Riiight.

Scorpions were never legal in Britain. So how would banning legal ownership have prevented criminals from having them?

do you have any answer to the data quoted in post #58, or are your anecdotal accounts from newspaper articles and your last vacation in Britain better than actual facts.

 

[cynic]

Here’s another excerpt from the report summary:

The Non-Connection Between Guns and Death

You’ve probably heard Sarah Brady, the former head of Handgun Control, Inc., and now of the Brady Campaign, say, “If guns made people safer, America would be the safest nation on earth.”

Since the early 1980s the u.s. gun-ban lobby has sponsored advertisements suggesting that firearms are uniquely available in the United States, and that as a result, the u.s. has a gun-homicide rate higher than the rest of the industrialized world.

As Kates and Mauser deftly point out, both assertions are false.

First of all, firearms are abundantly available and widely owned throughout much of Europe, but that doesn’t necessarily lead to high homicide or suicide rates.

To research that question, Kates and Mauser compiled statistics for the rates of murder and gun ownership for nations stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the Pacific.

*… almost no Russian civilians owned firearms–(but) Russia had, and continues to have, by far the highest murder rate in the developed world.

The problem with many of the existing published studies, Kates explained, was that the raw numbers used in the existing studies were not published. So he and Mauser set out to get the raw numbers and analyze them personally.

“We were able to put together figures for nine European nations that had more than 15,000 firearms owned per 100,000 households, and we also had nine European nations that had less than 5,000 firearms owned per 100,000 households,” Kates said.

“What we found was that the first group, with triple the rate of gun ownership, had one-third the homicide rate of the second group.”

On the other hand, in Russia–where firearms had been under police-state control for decades–Kates and Mauser found an exceedingly violent society.

Although the Soviet communist regime tried to hide the problem from the rest of the world, the collapse of the Soviet Union exposed the truth: Despite those iron-fisted government controls on firearm ownership–almost no Russian civilians owned firearms–Russia had, and continues to have, by far the highest murder rate in the developed world.

First of all using the Russia as an example in inherently dodgy due to it’s lower standard of living than the rest of Europe, much higher levels or crime in general, it’s recent history (economic problems, rough transition from communism to capitalism). Also, quoting a paper that happens to come to a conclusion you agree with is not ‘conclusive’ of anything. Unless you’ve proof that the data in post #58 is corrupt, then I’d rather trust that than some study by an individual who possibly has an agenda to push.

 

[cynic]

Meanwhile, you’re ignoring the desire amongst the US general public to have gun ownership legal

Nobody’s ignoring that, however they will have to put up with the consequences.

 

[cynic]

nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?id=247&issue=007

It looks like find the data and information to back up my comment will be easier than I thought.

Here’s another article with some relevant data.

nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=206&issue=007

The thing to do is to find and post that study by Kates & Mauser that goes into detail about a number of countries.

posting links to ‘fact sheets’ from the NRA site

 

[Wolseley]

Nobody’s ignoring that, however they will have to put up with the consequences.

Just like anybody who ever tries to invade.

Boy, are they ever in for a big surprise.

 

[Al_Masetti]

posting links to ‘fact sheets’ from the NRA site

What’s wrong with that?

Last I heard, the Second Amendment was still real.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Lots of problems with the nanny state.

I mentioned John Boyd. Whilst surfing yesterday, I found a neat article about John Boyd and his fight against the military bureaucracy.

ejectejecteject.com/

 

[vz71]

I didn’t just recognize it - I proclaimed it from the start, you just didn’t notice!

If gun control was something that you really did not care about one way or the other, you would not defend it.

 

[Kaninchen]

If gun control was something that you really did not care about one way or the other, you would not defend it.

I have to admit that I’m at something of a loss to understand that comment at all. Please point out to me where I’ve been defending the idea of gun control in the US.

If I have, then I apologize, but I’d really like to know where I have done so.

 

[Kaninchen]

And learned nothing from the experience.

Learned an awful lot - mainly about enmeshing the economies of Europe so that another ‘Great European Civil War’ becomes impossible.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Learned an awful lot - mainly about enmeshing the economies of Europe so that another ‘Great European Civil War’ becomes impossible.

So tell me about the former Yugoslavia?

 

[Kaninchen]

So tell me about the former Yugoslavia?

Not in the EU - one day, I expect.

By ‘Great European Civil War’ I was actually referring to the big ones - like 1914-18 and 1939-45.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Not in the EU - one day, I expect.

By ‘Great European Civil War’ I was actually referring to the big ones - like 1914-18 and 1939-45.

The lesson of the former Yugoslavia is that to keep peace in Europe, you have to call in outside help.

 

[Kaninchen]

The lesson of the former Yugoslavia is that to keep peace in Europe, you have to call in outside help.

No, the lesson is that it should never happen again - meanwhile ‘Europe’ (by which I mean the EU) has been greatly extended since then with the accession of so many of the ex-communist countries.

One of the lessons of ‘Great European Civil Wars’ is that, without them, there would have been no involvement of the US in Europe.

 

[vern_humphrey]

No, the lesson is that it should never happen again - meanwhile ‘Europe’ (by which I mean the EU) has been greatly extended since then with the accession of so many of the ex-communist countries.

But in the most recent crisis, you had to call on the US to prevent war.

One of the lessons of ‘Great European Civil Wars’ is that, without them, there would have been no involvement of the US in Europe.

And a great many young American men would not be buried on European soil.

 

[Kaninchen]

But in the most recent crisis, you had to call on the US to prevent war.

One of the problems of alliances, isn’t it?

I happen to be one of the people who believe that a Union of 500 million people ought to get around to looking after ourselves entirely.

And a great many young American men would not be buried on European soil.

Exactly.

 

[vern_humphrey]

One of the problems of alliances, isn’t it?

In other words, you snookered us into solving your problems for you.

I happen to be one of the people who believe that a Union of 500 million people ought to get around to looking after ourselves entirely.

So stop claiming – as a Prime Minister of Great Britain did a while back in regard to the crisis in the former Yugoslavia – that you can’t solve European problems without American involvement.