

Moderator: Van Canna
and loooking at the figures for gun crime, once again it seems that the place with the most guns has the least crime
The NRA envisions a "National School Shield Emergency Response Program" where qualified police, military, security personnel and others organize to protect schools.
Schools remain a target for criminal gunmen because they are not protected by armed security the way other important institutions are, LaPierre said.
Policies banning guns at schools create a place that "insane killers" consider "the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk," he said.
Former congressman Asa Hutchinson will lead the school security project.
Armed personnel will be part of the security model but not the only component, Hutchinson said.
"School safety is a complex issue with no simple, single solution," he said. "But I believe trained, qualified, armed security is one key component among many that can provide the first line of deterrence as well as the last line of defense."
OK, I’ve argued this question extensively. Here’s the deal:
In the UK, under the law you are permitted to use “reasonable force” to defend yourself or others.
Here’s the rub: Other people after the fact determine what was "reasonable" at the time of the incident.
Possession of anything "with the intent to threaten to cause injury or fear" is verboten – so if you pick up a baseball bat and stand outside your property as a deterrent to rioters, your intent is to "threaten to cause injury or fear" and you're therefore guilty of being in possession of an "offensive weapon."
Apparently you're supposed to wait until you, personally are under physical attack before you can pick up anything with which to defend yourself, and then you are restricted in how you use that item to some "reasonable" level to be determined at some future time when the jurors can reflect calmly on the situation.
Further, as has been explained to the British public, the law does not require the intention to kill for a prosecution for murder to succeed. All that is required is an intention to cause serious bodily harm.
That intention can be fleeting and momentary. But if it is there in any form at all for just a second – that is, if the blow struck was deliberate rather than accidental – you can be guilty of murder and spend the rest of your life in prison.
As a result, the Crown Prosecution Service can (and has) prosecuted people for merely possessing anything they consider to be an "offensive weapon" whether or not said "weapon" was ever displayed.
They have prosecuted people, like the man who beat a burglar with a milk bottle, for "unreasonable" use of force.
One man was acquitted not too long back of murdering a home invader with his shotgun when his defense was that the gun "accidentally discharged" as he was pointing it at the huge, steroid-enraged bodybuilder climbing through his second-floor window and verbally threatening to kill the homeowner.
Since there was no intent, fleeting or momentary, he wasn't guilty of murder, apparently, even though he had to unlock the gun cabinet, retrieve his shotgun, unlock the ammo cabinet, retrieve his ammo, load the gun, aim the gun, and put his finger on the trigger. All of that was "reasonable," but pulling the trigger intentionally would have been an act not of self-defense, but of murder.
The result of these laws is that the act of defending yourself is legally risky. Even if you’re acquitted, it may cost you a fortune in legal fees, and you very well might go to jail. If you actively defend your property, the chances are very high that you will be prosecuted for – at a minimum – possession of an "offensive weapon" and "causing fear," and you will most probably lose in court.
All of this has what has been referred to as a "chilling effect" on the willingness of the British populace to actively defend themselves. You'll note in the stories coming out of the UK that the people doing the "vigilantism" are almost exclusively immigrants – mostly Turks and Sikhs. They haven't had their self-reliance beaten out of them yet.
If, however, you have no chance of escape, and this individual is intent on destroying your future quality of life to whatever degree he can, then the only option left is a physical response.The bottom line to achieving such a goal is to be first and hit hard. If this creates the opportunity to escape, then do so without hesitation. If not, then you must continuously attack until the threat is terminated - then escape to safety at the first opportunity.
Despite what the gunmaker Bushmaster would have customers believe, feelings of anger and inadequacy are a terrible reason to buy an assault weapon. The killings last week at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., have focused public attention on the Bushmaster AR-15, a rifle used by the shooter — and also on Bushmaster’s loathsome ad campaign for the weapon. One print ad features a picture of the gun next to this slogan: “Consider your Man Card reissued.” If you feel unsure about your masculinity, in other words, just buy this rifle to restore it.
Firstly, in recent months concern has grown about firearm security in the Ministry
of Defence (MoD) following press stories of soldiers bringing ‘souvenirs’ home from
Iraq and Afghanistan, selling confiscated weapons or even stealing guns from military
armouries to sell in the UK. Facing criticism that the MoD may be inadvertently
contributing to British ‘gun crime’ problems, tougher security processes were introduced
to screen returning soldiers (Owen and Johnson, 2007).
Secondly, there have been suggestions that one consequence of the Northern Irish ‘peace
dividend’, rather than the decommissioning of weapons, has been the return of small
arms from the six counties to the streets of Liverpool and Manchester where they now
command higher prices.
Regarding the theft or ‘misappropriation’ of firearms, here misappropriated is defined
as ‘stolen, obtained by fraud or forgery etc., or handled dishonestly’. In the decade to 1996
approximately 1,000 shotguns, rifles and handguns were recorded as stolen annually
most from private homes (Squires, 2000: 190–91). By 2006–2007, 2,219 firearms
(air weapons and imitations now being included in the figures) were misappropriated.
During the decade 1997 to 2007, over 29,000 firearms were recorded as misappropriated.
Around 50 per cent are air weapons, with imitations the next highest category (355 in
2006–2007). Shotguns, rifles and handguns accounted, respectively, for 282, 210 and
103 of the firearms misappropriated in 2006–2007. Not surprisingly, the highest rates
of misappropriation relate to firearms stolen from private homes (Kaiza, 2008: Tables
2.10 and 2.11).
Here, patterns of racialised social
exclusion combined with the frustrations of relative deprivation amidst the affluence of
the ‘American Dream’ to produce an assertive and violently aggressive form of masculinity
(Katz, 1988) well suited to the demands of the illegal economy. Drug dealing implies
a different kind of economics. Research from many countries (Gunst, 1995; Anderson,
1999; Jacobs, Topalli and Wright, 2000; Bourgeois, 2003; Mullins, 2006) shows violence
to be a necessary component of successful drug dealing. You cannot call the police if a
deal goes wrong or a customer refuses to pay. A capacity for violence is your credibility,
your ‘capital’, the respect you are due. It has to be won, both earned and protected. Your
reputation is what prevents others from trying to ‘mess’ with you, making them take you
seriously. In the street drug dealing scene this violence is not ‘meaningless’ – it means precisely the same as the notices in high street shops: ‘We always prosecute’. It means:
‘I always retaliate’.
Return to Van Canna's Self Defense Realities
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests