Sometimes it takes a stark juxtaposition to shine the spotlight on the vacuity and moral cowardice of our Fourth Estate.
I was watching the early evening ‘news’ yesterday on ITV1, the more popular terrestrial, commercial station. This is something I can bring myself to do only very occasionally as commercial TV “news” presenters are such unwavering amplifiers of fatuous Nulabour propoganda that they make the average BBC reporter look like Rush Limbaugh in comparison.
Yesterday evening’s first (and, by scheduling implication, most urgent) item was a piece of political agitprop by some organisation calling itself ‘Mothers Against Guns’, barely dressed up a ‘news’ feature.
Not content with the strictest anti-gun laws in the Western world, these people are upset because (wait for it) replica guns are still commercially available. Rooted to the spot, I squirmed through the next five minutes of shockingly blatant manipulation mixed in with junk statistics that were so obviously and ridiculously fraudulent as to be beyond parody. “Nine Tenths of all deaths in this country are caused by replica firearms which are converted to fire real ammunition”. Yes, the Mothers Against Gun frontwoman actually said that and got clean away with it. The upshot of all this heart-string tugging is (surprise, surprise) that they want the ‘gubbament’ to ban replica guns as well. For the sake of the children, of course.
Normally I would make no remark on this. Not because I do not care but only because it is so sadly typical of the agenda-driving that passes for “news” in this country, that no single example is, of itself, particularly worthy of comment.
But, on this occasion, there was a difference. The second item (yes, the very next item) was a report of this horror:
[Note: link to UK Times may not work for readers outside of UK]
Police hunting the killer of an elderly couple found brutally murdered in their home in North London today have arrested a man near King’s Cross.
The bodies of Derek Robinson, a retired paediatrician, and his wife Jean, a retired music teacher, were discovered at 8am by a decorator who had come to work on their house, and may have disturbed the killer.
The decorator let himself in with a key and stumbled on a blood-splashed scene so gruesome that detectives have yet to establish what weapon was used to kill the couple.
Detective Superintendent Sue Hill said: “This is a horrific attack. These people were in their own home and they were slaughtered.”
These unfortunate souls were both in their sixties, so it is unlikely that their mothers are still around to learn about the grisly and frenzied murder of their defenceless children.
Guns don’t kill people. A lack of guns kills people.
There are a long list of events that could have been prevented by an armed public, beginning with Columbine and continuing through the horror of slaughtered schoolchildren in Belsan, Russia. I think it’s time to DEMAND that every person in the free world that is not an habitual criminal be allowed to carry a weapon AT ALL TIMES, IN ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD that has any chance at all of being a terrorist target. Let’s see how “brave” our terrorists are after that.
There’s a comment I’m going to steal from handguncontrolinc.org, a gun control parody site: It’s safer with less guns, which is why lunatics shoot up schools, universities, and white collar work places, instead of gun shows, police stations, and military compounds.
And why “mothers”? Because it is teenagers who are getting shot–by each other. Perish the thought that parents and schools should attempt to deal with the cause by bringing the children up to be civilised, self-controlled individuals, rather than expect the government to tackle the superficial symptoms of a degenerate “street” culture.
The story isn’t really about guns at all. It is about the abnegation of individual responsibility.
Still no call for a ban on baseball bats. I’m really tempted to start one.
Guy — don’t exercise yourself, it will come.
Of course, carrying a baseball bat, or a walking stick with the intention of using it to defend yourself is an offense already.
In a part of South London I have the misfortune to visit now and again, the little darlings have found the perfect, legal answer: dogs.
I saw a gang of these thugs just this week as they swaggered down the street, people backing away from their pack of drooling rottweilers, bull terriers etc.
Time was they kept them at home in case the cops raided for crack. These days, it seems fido wants to be taken walkies.
“TV “news” presenters are such unwavering amplifiers of fatuous Nulabour propoganda”
This is a quote for the ages.
Concerned mothers against water pistols.
The fine line between a farce and a tragedy sure is blurred right now.
There are two elements at work here. One is the ancient and worldwide fear on the part of the aristocracy that the peasantry might acquire and use weapons to resist the demands of whatever gang of thugs was calling itself the nobility that year, and imposing taxes, duties, and restrictions on every conceivable aspect of life.
From Japan, China, India to Europe and the rest of the old Roman Empire, the biggest fear was that of peasant revolt. When we study history, the main subject has always been the wars between various groups, and the clashes of armies. But the main purpose of any army in premodern times was the suppression of unrest among the subjects, and in order for that to be kept as one-sided as possible, the subjects were disarmed by custom and statute.
It is no surprize that the martial arts developed in those ares in which the repression was the strictest, or that various forms of liberty developed in the British Isles, which depended on its yeoman with bows and pikes to form mass armies.
The reason the story of Robin Hood was so “romantic” was that a group of armed men took to the forest to oppose the villainy of a repressive regime. Take away their bows and you have Rwanda, not Errol Flynn and Maid Marion.
Secondly, the group in question protesting replica weapons is operating from the Marx by way of Freud point of view that everyone is totally a product of their environnment, as malleable as silly putty, and unable to resist the temptations of weaponry, even if it is fake. There are an endless number of variations of this theme, as it is a staple of victimology that no one can possibly resist the surroundings that shape each person into the grotesquely malformed creature that evil capitalism demands.
Thus we have the obscenity of the tobacco trials, based on a new invention, tobacco law, that violates numerous canons of legal procedure, or the currently fashionable suits against arms makers and fast food shops. In the background is the relentless pressure on everyone, especially TV, public figures, the media in general, and the academic world, to have only “public spirited” and “responsible” ideas and lessons.
Today’s radical is not the marxist professor, or filmmaker who shows some nudity, it is anyone who dares to suggest that people are not pottery, but in fact are responsible for their lives and actions regardless of the circumstances. But to accept that position would entail a re-examination of more than a century of denial that anyone is actually responsible for anything.
And, what’s worse, it would require a significant part of the human population to actually engage in some critical introspection, an attempt to know if there IS anything in there besides reactions to outside stimulus.
Given what I have observed of my fellow humans, that would be a frightening prospect indeed. Better to keep charging ahead, finding those “others” who are responsible for all our troubles. Not as scary as mirrors.
The question is, why have the British allowed themselves to be neutred? They’ve practically curtsied to Blair while handing him their rights on a silver tray saying, “Oh, please take some, sir! We’re not using them anyway …”
We know now that yobbery and loutishness are part of the English character that never went away and has re-emerged in all its coarseness. But I never thought of the English as being servile before their government hitherto. But they are.
To make matters worse, Mothers Against Guns are actually one of the more sensible groups when compared with, say, the Home Office.
The Home Office recently consulted on changes to the firearms laws. They proposed imposing the controls which exist in respect of shot guns on all firearms, limiting the number of cartridges an individual can hold, requiring gun dealers to balck out their windows etc etc. – and all in the knowledge that the number of lawfully held guns used for criminal purposes is negligble. There is absolutely no credible evidence to suggest a need for greater controls on licenced shotguns and firearms.
Mothers Against Guns have been one of the few gun control groups to point this out.
Unfortunately for your logic, both events happened in areas where the public is armed.
This is meant to be ironic, which is fine, but raises a good point. Massacres and the like are not typical ‘crimes’ (let no one imagine I think them not crimes at all) as they are committed by ‘lunatics’. To use them as part of a campaign for increased gun ownership is simply scaremongering, as most crimes where gun defence is useful are muggings, rapes and housebreakings.
To raise the infamous names of Dunblane, Columbine and Beslan is naught more than scaremongering of the ‘save the children’ kind you quite rightly abhor. Stop! or be damned.
If we’re talking about lunatics, then it doesn’t quite matter if everybody has a gun because somebody will get killed. The mad fellow would go out in a blaze of infamy, but the lives he might take with him would be a tragedy indeed. How do you stop something like that? A guy walks on the street, whips out an easily available Uzi and starts spraying the passerbys. Sane? Definitely not. Encouraging more guns for people to defend themselves? Ridiculous.
On the other hand, if we don’t allow anybody to carry guns, thus denying most lunatics easy access to such potent weaponry, there’s the criminal factor of housebreaking, robbery, and rape. Thankfully, solutions exist for those that serve to deter the criminal element. Caning and a stint in hell(jail). When all else fails, hang ’em, and screw anybody who says that’s barbaric. This acts on the presumption that even criminals are rational folks who value their lives.
The key point is that guns are pretty easy weapons to use for killing, while other weapons are not. Sure, a criminal might get a gun and rob several homes, but he had better be sure those are worth it because if he gets caught by the authorities in places where punishment is severe, his life is forfeit. Sure, a lunatic might get a kitchen chopper and start hacking at folks, but the lethality of such a weapon is decidedly less than a gun.
There are multiple solutions to any single problem. It just depends on the lunatics and the likelihood they’ll appear guns blazing in your country, as well as the punishment systems in place.
TWG
The reason the atypical “massacre” is of significance is because it is often the aftermath of such tragedies that the erosion of law-abiding gun owners’ rights are further eroded.
To address TWG, I don’t think the data supports the position that gun control severly limits the access lunatics have to weaponry, but for a minute let’s assume it does. If you do a search on violent crime rates in England (including gun crime) you will see as gun control is increased so is violent crime. Obviously this in and of itself doesn’t prove anything because of an enormous amount of other contributing factors. Nevertheless, you can also do a search on violent crime rates in the United States, particularily the states that have enacted right to carry laws, and you will see crime has gone down notably in those areas. I know (as of when I got my license in April ’03) that Florida has seen an 11% decrease in crime since 1990 when they pioneered right to carry laws. My state, Michigan, has (again as of March ’03) some 90,000 licensed individuals and not one of them had been convicted of committing ANY felony while carrying their sidearm.
Setting all that aside, it is still illegal for a convicted criminal to touch, buy, possess, or carry a firearm. Should the actions of “lunatics” dictate the freedoms of the rest of the population (particularily that of self defense).
They’ll be calling for a ban on vodka next. . .
Kalashnikov launches vodka in honour of his gun
Sorry about the awkwardness of the first sentence in my last statement. I was trying to proof it with the preview option and posted in instead. Oh well…grace, right?