We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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Imagine this for a moment “Just imagine that instead of urging householders to barricade themselves inside their homes if a burglar attacks, a group of senior police officers were to write a joint signed letter to the Times saying that in such a case, fight the intruder, to the death if necessary. Imagine what impact this would have on the public debate about self defence and crime.”
Brian Micklethwait, speaking at a recent one of his regular Friday evening soirees.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Ah Johnathan, you were right, I should have blogged this myself. As I recall the original outburst, it was: what would the effect be not on the damn DEBATE, but on the actual, real world CRIME RATE??!!??
But thanks anyway.
Given the odds, a revolver might help the householder . . . . .
Well, presumably the crime rate would rise in the short term, as youd get shootings as well as burglaries?
Well, presumably the crime rate would rise in the short term, as youd get shootings as well as burglaries? I’m not convinced how much of a deterrent it would be until people actually started getting shot.
But the chief constables are precisely the ones who wouldn’t.
It is clear from my dealings with the police in recent years that there is a massive divide between the (by and large) university-educated, fast-tracked elite, which makes CC (far too young in most cases) and the poor bloody infantry of PCs, sergeants and the like, who actually have to do the dirty work. The PC nonsense that so many complain about trickles down from the top, it does not get drawn up from the roots, where working policemen face the worst of reality every day.
Clipping the wings of our chief constables (ideally starting with that half-wit Brunstrom, in North Wales) is one of the first things David Blunkett should be doing if he is at all genuine in his apparent desire to curb the influence of the lunatic Left.
G Cooper – Blunkett is blind. This cannot be said often enough. He can read figures, he can listen to reports, but he cannot see the results of Britain’s lefty driven system of crime control and social policies.
Blunkett has never in his life seen Britain from a railway sidings as his train slides through it. He has never in his life seen the assault on the senses of the mile or two or graffiti covering public walls and embankments on the way in to Euston Station (for one). He may have read about it, but he has never seen a dreary, 1950s ‘town centre’ full of vomit-laden 20yr olds on a Saturday night. He can hear the shrieking, drunken girls, but he can’t see them having sex standing up against the walls of the Arndale Centres.
He’s never walked down a British street and seen the layers of crisp packages and beer bottles caught in people’s hedges on the street side. He’s never seen little 12-yr-old girls in skirts up to the top of their thighs – although he may have wondered why 11 yr old boys were being provided with free condoms and little 13 yr old girls were getting abortions without their parents’ knowledge
The British don’t understand that the appointment of Blunkett as Home Secretary was an insult to Britain. Blair did it because he could.
Blunkett may be an able man – in fact, he clearly is – but he is not qualified for this job or any other job in national government. He doesn’t know what’s going on because he can’t perceive it with his own eyes, and he is dependent on others, with their own agendas, to describe it to him.
I sincerely think Mr Blunkett is confused between his own conservative instincts, and what he is being told. And he can’t see the difference. The Home Secretary of Britain should not be a blind person. Sorry. But no.
Verity, you have the typical conservative’s obesession with sex. Getting mugged for your cellphone is a problem. Being hassled by a belligerent drunk is a problem. Short skirts are frnakly not a problem to anybody but the wearer, if that. Kids that age see them as a pure fashion accessory and it takes an adult’s overreaching mind to add in a spurious sexual context. As for “shrieking drunken girls”, they’re an ugly spectacle but no harm to anything except the cleanliness of the pavement – whether or not they shag standing up in public.
There’s a lot of worse things to lay at Blunkett’s door than Yoof Culcher, which he likely couldn’t change if he tried!
I’m not conservative. I feel a basic contempt for people who feel that they need to arbitrarily restrict freedoms in others.
However, the police don’t and can’t defend us. The police can potentially address organised crime, but they can’t prevent for example, motiveless and violent attacks by thugs. They can only ever be there, barring rare moments of serendipity, *after* the damage is done.
We need a right to personal defence.
Julian
On short skirts: Kids that age see them as a pure fashion accessory and it takes an adult’s overreaching mind to add in a spurious sexual context.
Verity mentioned 12 and 13 year old girls. I’d say at that age they know exactly what they’re doing and it is not the adult adding in the sexual content.
Bloody hell, Verity. The badly formed thought has crossed my mind occasionally that Blind Lemon Blunkett may be missing something vital because of his handicap. I never thought I’d see anyone say so in public so clearly. Hail to Verity.
I cannot for the life of me understand why Blunkett’s blindness makes him unsuitable as a Home Secretary, or indeed as any other government minister, nor can I understand Verity’s oft-expressed obssession with the matter.
One might reflect for a moment that the very successful head of Oliver Cromwell’s equally successful secret service, one John Milton (the poet), was also blind. Didn’t stop him doing a good job and knowing exactly what was happening in the country and overseas.
Ronald Reagan had polio, Theodore Roosevelt was epileptic, and Winston Churchill probably had dyslexia (as did George Washington). Where do you draw the line in deciding what degree of physical “wholeness” is necessary to occupy high office?
EG
Another thought on the blindness thing:
I have personally never seen anyone inject drugs, yet I know it is a big and growing social problem. Likewise, I have never actually seen a pensioner being mugged, a car being stolen, a defenceless person intimated into hopelessness by an armed burglar or a woman being raped. I believe these things happen, although I have never seen any of them happen with my own eyes, so in that respect I may as well be blind.
It doesn’t matter whether you physically, personally see such horrid events take place. They happen, you have reliable evidence that they happen, and you have reliable evidence of the problems they cause. You don’t NEED to see with your own eyes.
Whether or not Blunkett is blind is supremely irrelevant to his ability to do his job. I happen to think he is something of a micro-managing control freak, but this has nothing to do with his blindness.
EG
The Telegraph has a story which begins:
Two women in their eighties have been brutally beaten in their own homes by burglars in the past few days. Two more reasons, if they are needed, as to why vulnerable householders must have the right to defend themselves against violent intruders.
The rest is in that vein. However, no words match the accompanying pictures to truly bring home the wickedness of what happened to these two ladies.
Ken you would only get shootings if the burglaries continued – pretty stupid? to break in and get shot.
The way forward is not to winge at Blunkett (he’s only knee jerking half the time and obeying orders the other ) he’s got to be seen to be doing something. What will solve the problem is if the head of the police/cps/whoever were accountable via election to the local people. They would then get the crime detection policies they deserved (good or bad).
GCooper, I hesitate to ask, but what has Brunstrom done to offend you so? Is it the heroin, the speeding or something else?
& Verity, your obsession with Blunkett’s blindness is bizarre; any sighted minister could make precisely the same (stupid) decisions. Furthermore, all the things you proceed to rant on about are minor problems, if indeed they are problems at all. I can report to you that entering any Swiss city by rail usually involves “the assault on the senses of the mile or two or graffiti covering public walls and embankments on the way in”, yet the cities are orderly, safe & clean for the most part. I’d suggest there’s little connection between graffiti & crimes that I would term serious. I can understand people interpreting it as such, & seeing it as evidence that there are masses of potentially violent individuals out there with no respect for others or their property, but it’s simply not the truth.
A_t writes:
“GCooper, I hesitate to ask, but what has Brunstrom done to offend you so? Is it the heroin, the speeding or something else?”
Both – but even more the man’s insufferable arrogance. He is an unelected, unrepresentative, virtually immovable demigod who behaves like the worst sort of colonial district governor.
That said, I’m not really very interested in debating the matter with you. I was expressing an opinion, not inviting a debate with someone whose opinions I am unlikely ever to share. Or vice versa.
Blunkett’s blindness leads him to have a classic case of Ptomkin villiage syndrome – he cannot simply walk into an inner-city council estate and have a look around, or a hospital, or anywhere else for that matter. He cannot read blogs such as this, unless someone is printing the content in Braille specifically for him. He can only experience what he is told by others, so he is totally controllable.
Plus, he’s nuts…
This is why it’s dangerous.
GCooper,
“That said, I’m not really very interested in debating the matter with you. I was expressing an opinion, not inviting a debate with someone whose opinions I am unlikely ever to share. Or vice versa.”
that’s fine; i wasn’t spoiling for a fight, just curious.
& on the bright side, I think we at least share a healthy contempt for Blunkett’s authoritarian nannyist streak if little else.
Stoatman
“He cannot read blogs such as this, unless someone is printing the content in Braille specifically for him. He can only experience what he is told by others, so he is totally controllable.”
Blogs are no more a primary source than ‘what he is told by others’; it’s just a different form of telling. Also, do you know nothing about text-to-speech?
Sighted ministers can easily be potemkined too, whether volutarily in order to make things look good, or just having the wool pulled over their eyes by local housing officers who don’t want to lose their jobs.
I completely agree with most posters’ contempt for Blunkett, but I see his blindness as utterly irrelevant; I can’t see why one couldn’t have a blind Home Secretary who was competent & not hugely authoritarian, & I certainly know that it’s possible for sighted home secretaries to be both blind to the facts in front of them & despicably disrespectful of liberty.
Euan Gray – Ronald Reagan did not have polio. That was Franklin Roosevelt, who was not epilectic. You forgot to mention that Jimmy Carter was legally brain dead. Still is. Dyslexia is nothing. Richard Branson has dyslexia. It has absolutely no effect on anyone’s life. It’s a made-up affliction, like ADD.
Julian Morrison – Ask Guiliani what small breakdowns of civil order and the breaching of the barriers of communitiy norms lead to.
I didn’t mention theft of mobile phones because I’ve never seen anyone robbed of their phone. I’m sorry phone theft has played such a large part in your life.
Blunkett may be a clever man. He’s certainly a determined man. And he shares an authoritarian streak with his master. (The ‘master’ in the socialist government being Blair, not the electorate.) Others may disagree, but I would argue that sight is the most critical of the five senses and Blunkett, is, by nature of his handicap, distanced from the life the rest of us see going on around us.
Steve S – I am with you 100%. Electing the police chief, the fire chief, the sheriff and the schoolboard works in the United States. It would work in Britain – as long as it was unequivocal and not watered down. They certainly buggered up the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ initiative that works so well in American cities that adopted it.
Verity
I’m not in the habit of quoting a nutter like Ken Livingstone but as he said, if voting changed anything they’d abolish it. Electing our local officials would be a major advance for the UK and its for this reason that Bush will be holidaying in Ramallah before it happens.
I think our three strikes became ‘three strikes and you receive a talking to’.
Verity:
Really? Do you actually know anyone who has dyslexia? I can assure you it DOES have an effect on people’s lives. Not exactly life-stopping, but it certainly adds difficulty and it is NOT a “made-up” condition.
And how about the point that not personally seeing things does not actually mean you know nothing about them or cannot know the truth about them? You say yourself you have never seen anyone actually being robbed of their mobile phone – so how do you know this sort of thing ever happens? How do you know it isn’t just made up by people with a hidden agenda for mobile phone control freakery?
EG
Verity,
“Ask Guiliani what small breakdowns of civil order and the breaching of the barriers of communitiy norms lead to.”
Why not ask the Swiss why despite having as much graffiti as the UK or US, and a long history of the laws on cannabis being flaunted with impunity, along with various other laws (squatting for instance has long been reluctantly tolerated in various Swiss cities), old ladies can withdraw their month’s pension in cash from the bank & walk home with said significant quantity of cash with little trepidation. (I have to say, i’m not sure what the answer is myself, but it does rather put a cork in the whole ‘graffiti means crime’ rubbish. I think the more rational attitude towards heroin may have something to do with it, though I think most of it’s out of the hands of government & in the character of the people.)
Back to the subject of my post, I personally would imagine that if senior officers did ever say such a thing, it would create a fair old rumpus, calls for their resignation, etc, etc. The usual blather. But you never know, it might at least get debate out in to the open. It would no longer be possible to dismiss advocates of self defence as nutters.
I agree with A_T that Blunkett’s blindness is irrelevant to stuff like self defence. In fact, a blind person might be expected to take personal safety even more seriously than a fully sighted person.
Euan – Isn’t dyslexia the name for illiteracy in middle class children?
A-t – Switzerland’s civilised nature may have something to do with a gun in each house.
Verity writes:
” Electing the police chief, the fire chief, the sheriff and the schoolboard works in the United States. It would work in Britain – as long as it was unequivocal and not watered down.”
I think you’re right but, as Pete_London goes on to say, there seems little chance that it will be implemented in the UK, not least because it would take power out of the hands of the political classes and put it into those of the people who pay these sanctimonious bastards’ wages.
Which takes us back to the fatal flaw in Brian Micklethwait’s original premise. It is the senior officers who have largely created the policing problem in the UK, so there is no point in listening to their sociological babble. Far better to listen to the word of the average Plod on the beat who, in my experience, has a far clearer grasp of what is actually going on in this country and what might be done about it.
Of course, were their voices to be heard, the usual suspects (to maintain the theme) would be up in arms, howling about Daily Mail opinions and fascist dictatorships. Polly Toynbee and her crazed fellow travellers would have field day.
No, you’re thinking of “a progressive education.”
In all seriousness, though, dyslexia is a real condition and isn’t a made up thing, whatever Verity may believe. I know two people who have dyslexia, one middle class, one unambiguously working-class. The same term is used in either case, and the same problems are experienced.
EG
GCooper
Far better to listen to the word of the average Plod on the beat …
The Policeman’s Blogfits right in. In fact I may fire off an email to Polly to give it a mention …
Pete_London,
Yeah, i’m not sure about that; I think a lot of people misunderstand the fundamentally different nature of gun ownership in Switzerland vs. the US. The guns are provided to men by the state for the purpose of defending the state. The old lady mentioned above would be very unlikely to have a gun in her home unless she lived with her son or grandson, & certainly woudn’t be carrying a pistol in her handbag.
Personally, if any factors can be identified, I’d say that having a good system of democracy which emphasises the will of the people over the personality of politicians (president? what president? the ‘great leader’ will be gone in a year or less anyway; make your own decisions don’t just hang on the ego of some ‘great man’), & makes people feel that they, as regular citizens, can change things if they’re sufficiently motivated, as well as operating primarily at a local (canton) level, all helps to make society be more cohesive & allows most people, including people who would feel marginalised in the UK or the US, to feel they’re part of society.
That’s my personal observation from having spent some time there, & I’ll grant you that’s not the entire story, but it seems a much more likely explanation than the guns thing tbh.
Euan Gray – OK. Theft of mobile phones is just a rumour.
However, with my own eyes, I have seen girls of 12 walking to school in skirts up over their thighs and I’ve seen little boys following them, nudging one another and making obscene gestures. I have seen people legless and vomitting in town centres, shouting abuse at anyone crazy enough to be passing by and having sex in public. I have seen grafitti.
I never said grafitti leads to crime A_t. I am saying graffiti and the instances cited above are part of the broken window syndrome that Mayor Guiliani identified with such effect.
David Blunkett couldn’t have identified it, because he couldn’t have seen it. It would have taken a highly perceptive aid to say: “Oh, look, that window over there is broken. Hmmm. And look, there’s a car that looks as though it’s been up on blocks for months, making the street look abandoned. I wonder if that window being broken leads to a sense that the street is derelict and no one cares about the surroundings?And look, those youths are jostling that little old lady! I think I see – if you’ll forgive the expression – a pattern here! I think we should call it the broken window syndrome, Home Secretary. Why don’t we have an initiative?”
Guiliani evolved his theory by being alert paying attention to his own observations over months of walking the streets in bad areas of NYC.
Euan again: Yes, I knew a successful businesswoman who was dyslexic and she wasn’t half proud of her affliction.
Pete – a couple of very funny and apt posts.
Speaking of Polly Toynbee, over on Stephen Pollard’s blog, Yasmin Alibaba won the vote for pundit providing the most reliable guide to political debate by being the most dependably wrong about everything. She even beat out Max Hastings and French foreign policy.
But he could have read about it. He could even have trawled the net for it (you can buy Braille printers, Braille keyboards and output devices, text-to-speech software, etc). He is not exactly in the thrall of conspiring officials with a hidden agenda. His blindness is utterly irrelevant.
Recall that the “Potemkin village” was created by Potemkin (duh) to fool the Empress Catherine – not noted for being blind. If you don’t want to find out about things, you won’t, but if you do then being blind won’t stop you.
Affliction? I thought it was a “made-up condition.” Shome mishtake, surely?
EG
‘affliction’ – from the point of view of the proud sufferer.
Euan – please don’t deflect the argument: Why would Blunkett trawl the net for information about broken windows if he didn’t have the idea in the first place, and he wouldn’t have had the idea in the first place without walking round crime laden neighbourhoods for months and seeing them WITH HIS OWN EYES and evaluating what it was that they all had in common.
He didn’t just sit in his office and intuit his broken window theory. It was borne in on him after months tramping around the streets, observing.
I only used this as an example of how critical is personal observation in a job like this. Blunkett has a very major disability. The Home Secretaryship is a job demanding someone who has all his faculties.
Verity, your central thesis is ridiculous; if Blunkett is unable to see Guiliani’s wisdom because he HAS NO WORKING EYES! then why didn’t any of Giuliani’s predecessors implement the same things he did? They had working eyes & had presumably had taken a walk or two in their time. Why didn’t they see the “obvious” answers that were sitting there all along? Answer, because it was Giuliani’s *brain* which was important here, much, much more so than his eyes.
Taking one particular policy where the ability to see (well, observe) played a major part in it’s development is hardly proof that Blunkett’s unsuitable for the job. As I said above, it has so much more to do with the mental suitability of the candidate & very little to do with whether they can see or not.
If Blunkett were a genius with a healthy respect for liberty, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, no matter how blind he was; you’ve become bizarrely fixated on this one glaringly obvious aspect of him, & have decided that this is what you shall pass judgement upon, ignoring the man behind it; I see little difference between your attitude & that of people advocating positive discrimination & other PC baubles; neither of you are bothering to judge a man on his actions, preferring to lump them into a ‘special group’.
Blunkett’s lack of sight undoubtedly limits him in some ways, but one could have a far worse sighted home secretary, or a much better blind one; the blindness is an irrelevance.
A-t:
Don’t worry, I am judging Blunkett on his actions.
Euan:
How does Blunkett trawl the net?
by the way A-t, your statement:
Personally, if any factors can be identified, I’d say that having a good system of democracy which emphasises the will of the people over the personality of politicians (president? what president? the ‘great leader’ will be gone in a year or less anyway; make your own decisions don’t just hang on the ego of some ‘great man’)…
is most welcome. Its just a pity that the left didn’t catch on a century ago. But maybe I didn’t explain. The elderly ladies may well not have had guns at home, but as someone once said: “An armed society is a polite society.” A society where people are predisposed to not invade other’s homes for fear of being blown away is one where the elderly can sleep more safely at night anyway.
Steve – yes, if people did continually get shot, then the crime rate would fall. But I can’t imagine that the pronouncements of police officers in the Times would have a substantial deterrent effect, until the shootings started.
That’s not a road we should go down anyway, though. Burglars will simply become armed. One of the advantages of Britain is that although we may have four times the crime rate of the US, you don’t get shot if you are burgled.
Bear in mind that there is a sort of “positive externality” from having folks who can use guns and other weapons to defend themselves, and who are allowed to do so. It makes burglars a bit more wary of going into homes in the first place. I think this is probably one reason why there is less such crime in Switzerland (in picking up on A_T’s comment).
The burglar is usually an opportunist, and taking the risk, however small, of being shot, is probably quite a deterrent.
A_T,
Im with Pete on the gun thing, tho I do not disagree with the attitude of the society, and would also point out that Switzerland is not as “multicultural” as many other countries, their location and culture of self-identity as Swiss helps with that. (I base this on description not personal experience, so I could be wrong, but from what I know England and America are far more of a cultural mixing pot. It still follows that the armed society is a polite one however, and keep in mind that theives do not frequent areas in which there are few targets. Also bear in mind that a theif may think the older lady has no weapon, but that does not mean that her neighbor in hearing distance does not.
Ken,
Im not sure if you are being sarcastic, so if you are I apologize for my response.
I am not certain that I would prefer your situation. Four times the crime rate is not an advantage, and the economic effect of such disregard for private property may be deeply damaging in ways not immediately apparent. The ability to maintain a livelihood in the face of theft and the insurance costs that go with it could be just as threatening to life as a gun. Human life is certainly more important than property, but there are certain things that are worth risking life for, those things are principles.
I further would argue that there is little evidence that burglars would be significantly more armed. Perhaps a burglar would not find it worth the trouble of aquiring a gun in your culture because it is unnecessary to accomplish his task, but it is likely that they will always attempt to be better armed than their victims. The key, however, is that in burglary, weaponry is limited, due to the nature of the crime, and so an armed public would be quite equal, in addition to having home-turf advantage. I think the idea that crime is not so bad so long as no one dies is a fallacy. Crime should be dealt with in the best way possible, and the most effective solution that still allows freedom is an armed public.
I wasn’t being sarcastic, but I am quite interested in your response as it does raise a lot of valid points. I don’t think that four times the crime rate is necessarily an advantage. The question is if greater arming would necessarily increase the deterrent effect to burglars. In some cases, I do not doubt that it would. Petty crime would be reduced drastically. Yet a potential side-effect is that burglars themselves become armed. Now, the hometurf advantage, plus the sheer power of a gun, does equalise the odds in favour of the homeowner. But will it necessarily decrease those burglars who will procure arms and be prepared to take the risk? I’m not sure.
I don’t even know where I stand entirely on the issue. I agree that homeowners should be entitled to defend their own property strongly; but I have an uneasiness about people getting shot as a result. I’m not sure that would be a proportionate response.
Ken
I believe stats show that levels of burglary in US States which allow gun ownership are negligible. If a homeowner is armed at the worst they will be on an equal footing with an invader. This alone will deter an invader. Do you think a burglar, even a half-witted chav, will risk a shoot out for a few quid? If the idea of burglars being shot makes you feel uneasy, blame the burglars.
the situation is analagous to playground bullying. A bully picks on the smaller and weaker. A bully will pick on those he knows won’t fight back. If he thinks he’ll get a smack on the nose for his efforts he won’t bother.
To get right back on topic, I suspect that senior police officers would never issue a call for householders to fight burglars. They love their monopoly hold on state-sanctioned violence and would never willingly give it up.
Ken writes:
“Burglars will simply become armed. One of the advantages of Britain is that although we may have four times the crime rate of the US, you don’t get shot if you are burgled.”
Tripe. Conclusive and exhaustive evidence from the US shows that as soon as home owners are allowed to be armed, the burglary rate falls through the floor. No doubt someone with the statistics to hand will be along to post them soon.
As for the bucolic fantasy you appear to harbour about burglary in Britain, I can only assume you didn’t read yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, with its latest crop of pictures showing defenceless elderly women who look as if their faces have been danced upon.
Burglary in Britain is frequently violent and sometimes deadly. This sort of liberal Dixon of Dock Green rubbish, pretending it is not a crime of extreme violence and with profound effects on the psychological condition of those burgled, is tantamount to support for the violent thugs who commit this vicious, hateful crime.
We rarely have burglaries of occupied homes in the US ( I live in Hillsboro, Oregon ). Burglars will stake out homes during the day, and make sure they are currently unoccupied.
If one does go into an occupied residence, he is either judgement impared ( usually an addict ), or wants a live victim ( a rapist ).
Furthermore, those parts of the US with the strictist gun control do have the most violence. Firearms are banned in Washington D.C., and they have had the highest murder rate several years running. I have walked town streets in Montana openly armed with a holstered revolver while buying supplies during a road trip … and had store clerks not even bat an eye about it … and the violence rate there is nearly zero.
As for Switzerland … yes, the household Assault Rifle is State supplied … but the rate of civilian ( non-militia ) gun ownership is about as high as the US … and no one will look twice at some kid bycycling to the rifle range with a rifle slung on his back.
They have dealt with the drug problem much better than we have … if the addict keeps his nose clean, and obeys the laws, he can feed his addiction cheaply, and in peace … Switzerland has some of the best behaved addicts anywhere….
Part of my point Ken, is that even if it were true that freedom of arms meant heavier armed burglars (I dont think this is true because lawfully sold guns are almost never used in crimes, therefore the guns used are from unlawful sales), and also assuming that this would mean that more people would be shot, is that necessarily a worse outcome?
1) Shootings do not always amount to killings, particularly with modern medicine.
2) Unless silencers are employed, shootings attract attention, so that once shots are fired, by the homeowner or the burglar, the situation resorts to flight.
3) Most of those being shot would be the burglars, if the entore culture were one of armament and the average person had some tutelage in firearms use. A burglar who puts himself in harms way by attacking a person or his property deserves what he gets, despite the fact that the punishment may not seem to fit the crime. Again, however, shootings do not always mean death, and violence that does not involve a firearm does not always mean survival. Further, I have little sympathy for the burglar because of his willingness to engage in a hotile and illegal act.
4) The short-term potential increase in death and violence has shown itself to be followed by an overall reduction in crime.
5) The short term potential increase in death and violence is worth it to restore both order and a reasonable right of self-defense to the individual. The ability of the police to protect and prevent crime is limited, especially in a free society, so an alternative must be found. Further, the idea that the state has a right to engage in violence yet restrict the individual is out of line. The state is comprised of individuals who have no more rights or qualifications than the individual. The police may be more trained, but in matters of self-defense, the police cannot be available. The police are trained to directly engage known threats, to research and locate said threats, to hold such persons untill proof of guilt is found. The police are not our first line of defense, they are instruments of the law.
6) An armed public is a distribution of power, and the less consolidated power is, the more freedom there is.
As such, I submit that even if there was an increase in violence, the goal is worth fighting for. As I mentioned, some things are worth the risk.
Pete, in addition to what you say about the homeowner possibly/probably having a gun – if arming oneself is legal, the burglar has absolutely no idea whether the person on the other side of the door owns a gun and has it pointed at the door. That is why Ken’s point just isn’t valid.
When a burglar knows that most people are armed, he’d be suicidal, even if armed himself, to break into a house where the man/woman on the other side of the door has the advantage and is legally entitled to blow him away.
Also, in the US, my local police department gave free shooting lessons to householders who owned guns.
OK, I think you’ve managed to convince me that there probably would be a decrease in the crime rate. I don’t deny that this is desirable.
However, on a related topic, are you supporters of the death penalty?
Thank the Lord’s holy genitals for Verity!!! There are moments, moments mind you, when in a flight of fancy, I could almost imagine a sort of ‘who’d be the best minister’ TV game show with all kinds of daft questions with you as one of the contestants pitched against the evil blind one… but instead of proper Home Secretary questions, we’d just have questions about blindness for a laugh!!!
GCooper, I’d just like to add that your comments about mine being tantamount to supporting the burglars is utter crap. Of course I don’t support the burglars. Yet I have some unease about them being shot for it. If I felt that the act of the policemen in writing to the times would actually have an effect before people started getting shot, then I’d be all for it. But I don’t think it would have an effect on the crime rate until the burglars started getting shot. And sadly, I don’t think most people are responsible enough to shoot in the air as a warning before shooting at the burglar him/herself. I think we are going into a very dangerous situation if we allow disproportionate (and illegal) actions to the original perpetrator.
I suppose Ken, that we differ in that I don’t consider shooting a burglar to be necessarily disproportionate. If indeed a burglar was only intending to take the family silver, then of course shooting is a bit much. OTOH, not all break-ins are restricted to theiving, and no one can know the intentions of another person. There is also the question of time, homeowners and police alike may find themselves in a situation where “shooting in the air” does not even remotely resemble a responsible action. It is hard enough to hit an attacker without wasting time with warning shots. Further, the burglar should know better. He should not be in your house to begin with, rather than simple deciding to run because it turns out the whole thing was more dangerous than he care for. Warning by announcing presence, as the police do, is valid, but showing or firing a gun as a “warning” is not a proper self-defense action. This applies especially considering secondary targets, shots fired are fired in a structure, not “into the air”.
As for the death penalty, I think it has its uses, but I am very cautious of granting the state such power. I think that as a deterent there is a case for it, but not as punishment. There may also be a case for removing them from society, since exile is no longer viable, but that is debateable. The reason that I would be more likely to grant deadly force to an individual is that they are there at the time of the offense and therefore more able to make a valid judgement than anyone after the fact. More importantly, the hope is that incidents of violence would be reduced as the knowledge that potential targets may in fact be armed, and are therefore not easy prey.
Ken, if you don’t insist that burglars – intruders into other people’s homes with the intention of terrorising them and taking away their possessions – be removed from the premises with all force, then you are doing a polite little curtsey and offering carte blanche to burglars.
Oooh, you hope that people protecting their homes would shoot into the air? Why? Someone has violated my home? Entered my premises without permission? Someone I don’t know? Hmmm. Who would do such a thing? And I’m supposed to shoot into the air so he can grab me round the neck and overpower me?
Ken: I . think . not.
Mike, could you let us know in which post I indicated that I think the handicap of blindness is amusing? Did I say I think it disqualifies a candidate for the office of Home Secretary? Indeed, I did. Did I post that I thought it was a hoot? Never!
Ken writes:
“GCooper, I’d just like to add that your comments about mine being tantamount to supporting the burglars is utter crap. Of course I don’t support the burglars. Yet I have some unease about them being shot for it.”
Why? If I break into your house, menace your wife/partner/SO/children/hamsters/whatever helps you sleep at night, why should I expect protection from the law?
Why do you believe the rights of thugs exceed those of the innocent?
By supporting rights for these vicious thugs, you identify yourself as part of the problem. You may not have crawled through the window, but you are defending those who do.
If you cross my threshold uninvited, you should forfeit all rights to be treated with anything other than the ultimate response.
Verity: I didn’t claim that you thought blindness was amusing. It’s just that your earlier exchanges with Euan had me amused!! I love you!
I don’t believe in the rights of thugs. I just find it damn uneasy to say that the crime means that they should forfeit all rights, including the right to live. And that is in no way supporting the rights of burglars – unless supporting the right of anyone not to be killed is construed that way.
Limberwulf, isn’t the problem with your statements about the death penalty that an individual on the spot at the time, although in possession of many facts, its also more likely to be in a state of shock and therefore less likely to act rationally?
Limberwulf, isn’t the problem with your statements about the death penalty that an individual on the spot at the time, although in possession of many facts, its also more likely to be in a state of shock and therefore less likely to act rationally?
Quite the opposite, in the case of a burglar. It is the very fact that a homeowner in this position will be in a state of shock and incomplete possession of the facts that gives him the right to react with deadly force.
Consider: once a burglar has broken into a home, he has already used force (to gain entry), demonstrated that he does not care about law, that he doesn’t care that people are inside, that he is willing to brave risks to take their things away from them. It may be that this is absolutely as far as he will go, and he wouldn’t further and commit violent acts on people, but there’s no sure way to know other than giving him an opportunity to hurt someone and seeing what happens. The only safe assumption for you and yours is that he is so inclined.
When the police arrive and everyone is fully informed and not in a state of panic, it would be wrong to put a burglar against the wall and shoot him. It’s the very fear and uncertainty that make it right to do so presumptively.
Well said, Weasel! No one wants to execute burglars or other intruders after the event. But in the heat of the moment, in a situation in his home that the householder didn’t initiate himself, the householder has the absolute right to put an end to it using whatever force his judgement – at that moment suggests.
Also, what no one has mentioned in any of these threads is, not only does a woman have no unarmed means of fighting a man, but when burglars or other intruders encounter a woman alone, that’s a little extra bennie that goes with the job. I and millions of other women decline to be lagniappe.
sorry to be picky but c’mon
“burglars – intruders into other people’s homes with the intention of terrorising them and taking away their possessions”
Now, I can see the latter as a motivation, & the former as a consequence, but I’m having real trouble imagining the burglars whose *intention* when they break in to someone’s house is to terrorise them. We all know what these guys are doing is bad. Building them up into bogeymen motivated by ‘evil’ rather than greed (or more often, at least in the UK, the overwhelming desire for more heroin) doesn’t do much for me.
GCooper, the reason those women were in the Telegraph was precisely because the attacks were unusual in their casual brutality. It’s blood-chilling to even think about the state of mind of the young men who did such a terrible thing, & I can only hope that they’re caught & locked up for a long time, or failing that, that they soon meet meet with some random & violent death.
Regardless of all the discussion about whether one should be armed & whether one should respond in a deadly manner to household intruders, I think the biggest single factor which could reduce burglary & robbery in the UK would be to take a look at our current drug laws & adopt more rational attitudes towards the criminalisation of what is essentially a personal matter. But of course the ‘moral’ majority will not countenance such a thing.
A-t:
I think the biggest single factor which could reduce burglary & robbery in the UK would be to take a look at our current drug laws & adopt more rational attitudes towards the criminalisation of what is essentially a personal matter.
This is a request. I have often heard of the link between robbery and drug use but I’ve never once seen any evidence presented to back up the claim. Does anyone know of any? Until I see it I’ll be more inclined to believe its an argument (usually) put forward by the left in order to allow them to indulge in a post-dinner party snort without the fear of having one’s career prospects sullied by an arrest. Ditto for the supposed medicinal effects of canabis.
Before the insults fly in, note I haven’t stated drug use should remain illegal. I’d simply like to see the evidence behind a common claim.
By the way A-t, the biggest single which could reduce burglary in the UK would be for burglars to decide not to burgle.
You know, every time an act of striking wickedness is reported in the papers, and rational people call for action and punishment, there is inevitably an apologist who claims that the reason this act of violence was reported was because it is so unusual. So that’s OK, then.
There was another little old little lady with a face that looked like hamburger in the paper a couple of weeks ago. There was also a middle aged man – I think he was from the media, but I can’t remember because there are so many of these rare incidents and they all get mixed up in my mind – around a week ago with a smashed in face and two horrible black eyes. But then, the reason all these incidents end up in the papers is not because they’re a trend which the British are helpless to fight, but because they’re all so rare.
You’re whistling in the dark, A_t.
“By the way A-t, the biggest single which could reduce burglary in the UK would be for burglars to decide not to burgle.”
Heheh true, but given that they’re not likely to do that on their own, we might as well be thinking about the best way to make the right decision a bit easier for them. “You may be shot & killed” is one way, heroin on prescription may be another; certainly seems to be if the claims about addiction & burglary are true & you look to the evidence of Switzerland, Holland & other countries which have experimented with less hardcore ways of dealing with heroin addiction.
Btw, I agree with you on the medical benefits of marijuana front, & it pisses me off that the whole debate gets sidetracked on to how “good” the plant is or not, as though medical ‘virtue’ means that one suddenly has a right to get high for recreational purposes because it’s come down on the ‘good’ side of morality. It’s still playing the same stupid ‘drug use is a moral issue’ game that the prohibitionists love. Whether or not it’s ‘good’ is irrelevant; it’s about my freedom to do as I wish with my body & mind.
I don’t have any figures offhand, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some relating to heroin use among burglars (offhand from what I remember, heroin addicts tend to burgle, being more passive, while crack addicts are more likely to mug people; certainly the split in attitudes has been quite marked among those I’ve encountered). If anyone knows of any, please post links!
Actually, I’d be more interested to see a comparison of the rates of burglary and the value of VCR’s. It may be coincidence, but in the US at least, as the value of small household applicances has plummetted, I have heard fewer and fewer anecdotal stories of break-ins. There just aren’t that many small, valuable, easy-to-find and easy-to-fence objects in the average home now.
Perhaps our friends the Chinese have helped lower our crime rates.
A_t writes:
“GCooper, the reason those women were in the Telegraph was precisely because the attacks were unusual in their casual brutality.”
Really? My information suggests that violence associated with burglary is quite common.
Indeed, when a member of my family was burgled last year, they were told by the investigating (ha!) police that the very worst thing they could have done was get downstairs sooner than they did – because there was every chance they would have been attacked – most probably with the obligatory sharpened screwdriver which seems to be every toe-rag’s weapon du jour these days..
This level of violence is, apparently, quite common – no doubt because the vicious little bastards who perpetrate it know they have little to fear – even on the rare opportunities they are caught.
As for legalising heroin to clear up the problem, may I make an alternative suggestion? How about stopping the little buggers taking the stuff in the first place?
And how do we do that? Well we might make a useful start by reversing the Gramscian landslide that has engulfed British society in the past thirty years thanks to the influence of all the usual suspects.
Hmm… only been trying that for… how many years is it now? Been a resounding success, hasn’t it? Do you have any new methods to suggest? Or do you just want the government to squander even more of my tax money on policies which don’t appear to work?
Beyond your grumblings about the deliberate sabotage of British society, do you have any concrete policy suggestions which you feel would stop people taking heroin? Unless you’re willing to adopt death penalty type harshness, most other countries’ experiences (including the UK’s, prior to signing up to various restrictive & ridiculous international drug treaties) suggest that managing the problem through prescription is far more effective in terms of reducing the addict’s negative impact on society than punitive retribution.
If you do have any suggestions, ones which would work in modern day Britain, rather than harking back to some idealised past, I’d be interested to hear them; it’s a thorny problem.
If you do have any suggestions, ones which would work in modern day Britain, rather than harking back to some idealised past, I’d be interested to hear them; it’s a thorny problem.
Oh, sure. Put them in prison on the first offense. Second offense, they stay longer. Third, longer still.
It has worked a treat in the US.
If your police catch one in ten of these guys, and don’t punish the ones they do catch, and the homeowner isn’t allowed to defend himself…what do you expect to happen?
OK, then I want a prescription for my whisky. (Plus the cans of soda would be nice. That stuff’s expensive, given that it’s only aerated water.)
A_t writes:
“If you do have any suggestions, ones which would work in modern day Britain, rather than harking back to some idealised past, I’d be interested to hear them; it’s a thorny problem.”
It is, in point of fact, you who harks back to a golden era. You may be too young to remember, but the system you advocate used to be, more or less, that which operated in the UK.
It failed to work – large quantities of the methadone and heroin so prescribed ended-up on the streets, helping a new generation of learners get acquainted with the joys of opiate addiction.
As you say, society has changed, and reverting to the 1950/60’s methods you advocate would be a recipe for even more problems.
You don’t fix a societal problem by subsidising it. That way you just get more of the same.
🙂 Verity, the day that British emigres start robbing my house to pay for their uncontrollable whisky habits, I may have some time for you.
More seriously, although alcoholism is a terrible addiction, it’s not half as powerful as heroin addiction, & furthermore because alcohol is sold on the open market there are plenty of cheap types of alcohol, which can be afforded by most down & outs. I don’t know if a similar phenomenon would occur if heroin were legalised.
TBH, the presciption thing’s a bit of a half-way measure for me, & i’d be quite happy (although slightly uneasy, I confess) to see heroin sold in licensed outlets (the more libertarian among you may even object to the notion that they should be licensed, & you may have a point), but I think that prescribing it would be a good half-way house, given the general public’s attitude & would at least make it harder for minors to get hold of.
Strange, GCooper, we must have looked at different figures. Granted, some of the prescribed heroin leaked out. This also happens currently in Switzerland & Holland. But the big explosion in heroin addict numbers happened after the UK signed up to some international treaty or other (I can find the reference if you need it) & adopted the US-inspired “hard-line” punishment approach. Suddenly the heroin addicts had to fund their habits & the easiest way to do this was to sell heroin to others, creating more addicts.
I wasn’t alive at the time, but have seen enough figures to suggest that this was the case.
To suggest that subsidising anything ensures more of the same is stupid too; if we subsidised suicide, would we get more of it? Do you think there are many people out there who deliberately go out to get addicted to heroin? Yeah, a few idiots have thought being a junkie was cool, but most people don’t. The point is, there are unscrupulous criminals who currently control the heroin trade. They are interested in expanding their market. People come across heroin, have it recommended to them, think they can handle it & before they’re aware of it, their occasional weekend has turned into a habit they can’t break (having said that, many are able to keep it at the ‘weekend fun’ level; it’s not an inevitable path).
Here’s an idea,
Legalize it, let Phillip Morris sell it. They’ll put drug lords and street gangs out of buisness by the score. 🙂
As far as the addicts go, doing the stuff is it’s own punishment. Has anyone here ever been in contact with a heroin addict? (Owning Trainspotting doesn’t count.) They are constantly miserable. Teach your kids that, make sure they understand it.
A_t writes:
“I wasn’t alive at the time, but have seen enough figures to suggest that this was the case.”
The figures, as so often, are extremely misleading. At the time the UK changed its policy on the prescription of heroin, it was also undergoing a societal change of enormous proportions. It is clear (and it was even clearer at the time) that the willingness to take drugs had also changed – and it was inevitable that a proportion of those who did so would end up taking heroin.
I’m not an advocate of the present methods of control – they simply don’t work. But neither do I believe the tosh pumped-out by some of the drug charities which I believe dangerously downplay the dangers of drug use.
It might surprise you to hear that I’m opposed to the substitution of methadone for heroin (it’s probably a worse drug to be addicted to) and that I do believe in treatment by the traditional ‘weaning-off with help’ method. But inaugurating a free for all with heroin is the worst of all options.
Above all, we simply cannot afford to treat the symptoms of societal breakdown rather than the causes. Even if your original claim (that, in effect, heroin addiction leads to burglary) were true, then the route to treating that is not to legalise heroin, but rather to try to change to society in such a way that fewer people start taking the filthy stuff in the first place.
In passing, I can hardly let the ‘weekend smack user’ myth go by. The numbers who manage to do that successfully are infinitesimally small and the risks almost incalculable.
To suggest that subsidising anything ensures more of the same is stupid too; if we subsidised suicide, would we get more of it?
Good heavens yes! (On a related note, I understand there’s been some trouble recruiting suicide bombers in Palestine since Sadam isn’t available to dole out rewards).
Subsidized medicine means more people claiming to be sick. Subsidized single motherhood — voila! more single mothers. Subsidized incapacity, more people on long-term disability.
One of the most uncomfortable doses of medicine our social engineers have had to take was the result of welfare reform. Even the modest reforms passed in the ’90s making it more difficult to stay on welfare long-term have resulted (as you expect) lower numbers of people on welfare. But a follow-up has shown those people kicked off welfare doing better than would do on the dole and moving up the ladder. Because nobody welfares their way to the top.
Hmm GCooper, I must have known a disproportionate quantity of that “infinitesimaly small’ number then.
I will freely admit, I was worried for them at the time, & would not have done it myself, but as far as I’m aware, several years on, none of them has gone on down the slippery slope.
I agree though that, given the nature of society in the late 60s, one cannot pin the blame for the increase in heroin addiction on drug policies alone, but it *is* interesting to note how much less troublesome to society addicts are in countries which are currently engaged in prescription (along with the weaning off etc., when the addict wishes to quit; forcing people to quit has a very bad track record of success). I’m glad you share my view of methadone, a substance in many ways more dangerous than heroin.
However, with your main point… How does one “try to change to society in such a way that fewer people start taking the filthy stuff in the first place.”?
Again, i’m not having a go; genuinely interested to know what you think.
A_t writes:
“How does one “try to change to society in such a way that fewer people start taking the filthy stuff in the first place.”?”
Self-evidently, it’s impossible to answer that question fully (perhaps even cogently) in the space available, but I’ll suggest two ideas as examples of potentially useful social policies.
The first would be to change some fundamental aspects of education, which should be geared to the maximum achievement possible for each child – whether academic or vocational. Great emphasis should be laid on that second part, incidentally – many of the UK’s “yoof” problems stem from a failure to provide decent vocational education to children who will never be academics. Give a disaffected “yoof” the chance of earning a damn good wage as a plumber and he won’t be quite so keen on hanging round the shopping centre snorting the odd bit of smack. Lack of belief in the possibility of a better life is the prime characteristic of the UK’s sink estates. If we can restore that sense of hope, it will make an enormous difference.
We need the focus to be on the possibility of personal achievement – not the celebration of victim status. This means switching education policy from the collectivist 1960’s Labour model
to something more geared to the individual’s needs.
Encouraging family units is another step. This may actually involve penalising single parenthood, but it imposes a terrible burden on society and I know for a fact that it is fashionable in some teenage circles for girls to have babies simply so they can get housing and welfare. It is, quite simply, the best career option open to them and, like good capitalists, they go where the grass seems greenest. Unfortunately, they and their offspring then become dependants on society, usually for the rest of their lives. Stable family units are less likely (though not unknown) to produce troubled children and we need to encourage them.
This is not a plea to return to some sort of pipe and slippers 1940s fantasy. It’s about halting the Gramscian drive to invert every traditional belief. There is plenty of room for libertarian freedom in it – indeed, it would be essential as people need to be free to achieve. That this tallies perfectly with capitalism, too, should be no surprise.
Give people the freedom to believe they can achieve something they want and most will. Imprison them in victimhood and most won’t even try to escape.
Guys and gals, a terrific set of comments. I agree with A_T above about drugs. Legalising drugs, or at least some of them, might cut the price so much as to reduce the incentive for druggies to rob to pay for their habit. But that might not be the outcome.
I repeat my above point that if police encouraged householders to defend their properties by force, including lethal force, it would in my view drop the crime right in the medium term. I would also add that this effect would be even more dramatic if police actively trained citizens to use things like handguns in emergency situations, offering proper training, use of shooting ranges, and the like.
Encouraging a responsible, self reliant citizenry can produce a general public good. It is a meme we need to spread.
Jonathan, yes, this is an interesting thread. In Houston, where I lived, the police offered FREE courses to householders who wanted to know how to handle their guns properly and shoot responsibly.
This is a notion that would give the head of the Metropolitan police and all his layers of minions, Blunkett and especially arch-controller Tony Blair, a coronary. But in Texas, it was considered normal and sensible.
A-t
Whatever the connections between drug use and burglaries/muggings, I’m willing to offer a hypothetical deal to you, any smackheads out there or anyone who gives a damn.
Take drugs if you like. Its your body and its your brain. What you do to them is not my concern or responsibility. However, if you invade my home, attempt to steal my possessions, threaten me or my family or practice tap dancing on my gran’s face I shoot you.
Would you accept?
And for criminals who are caught, jail isn’t enough. Cane ’em. Make them weep. They’ll understand the consequences.
One reason why my country’s crime rates are so low. Draconian punishments work. We have yet to be infected by wishy-washy touchy feely leftist liberalism. Gun crime is also nonexistent, because that’s an auto death penalty.
GCooper, your idea of vocational education for youths seems to be lifted straight from my country’s education system, especially the Institutes of Technical Education(ITEs) for those kids who can’t pass the O levels.
TWG