Firearms, knives, police and fellons [Archive]

IAN 2411

01-04-2010, 02:32 PM

As a UK citizen I have noticed over the last few years the amount of people being shot; has I think escalated. I have also noticed that a lot of domestic kills, meaning wife and child murders are being carried out with the aid of firearms. I know from programs on TV that it is easy to get guns through our borders via the channel tunnel, if illegal aliens can get in that way, then a thing as small as a gun would have no trouble.

The UK police force have also been using firearms more since the terror campaign by shall we say people of Middle East Origen. They have made a few mistakes, and in my eyes a few is too many. I have been wondering just lately if the growing amount of fire arms in crime might be due to the corresponding amount of police carrying firearms. The British police are now at the stage of paranoia, a case I remember on the news only a few months ago where a child of six was running around in his own garden with a plastic cap gun. He was reported to the police by a so called guardian of the peace, and within ten minutes of him being outside three police cars and a police helicopter were surrounding this child all armed to the teeth, talk about overkill. They took the plastic gun off of him and confiscated it, now it’s hard enough for a determined grown up to get a real gun over here, where the hell do they think a six year old is going to get one. The police inspector told sky news that they confiscated the weapon for the child safety, they obviously thought the boy would get plastic poisoning. But on a more sinister note, it might have been that they were worried that one of their trigger happy cops might shoot first and ask questions later.

Now the question I would like to ask, is do you think the escalation in gun crime has rose because of the few police being armed? Or is it because we are now in a more sophisticated world, and it gives them the slight edge.

At this moment a life in the UK is meaningless, because there has not been a weekend go by in the last two years where a killing due to knife crime has not taken place. You cannot blame all these deaths on the underprivileged and the unemployed; it must run far deeper, because at the moment the UK is a savage country. Why am I asking this? Well at the moment a person that I know very well was stabbed three times and is very lucky to be alive, yes the unrest and knife culture has now found its way to the small villages in the UK.

Regards ian 2411

MMI

01-04-2010, 06:45 PM

I find the tale about the police confiscating a child's toy gun hard to credit unless there was more to the story than you have related. However, I do know that the Met are "trialling" the routine arming of policemen in at least one area of London, that the Greater Manchester Police have many armed response units on the streets and that Nottingham also has armed patrols in areas associated with drug crime. No doubt other cities have the same problem to a greater or lesser degree.

This in a country with the strictest gun laws in the world, I believe, although it seems to me that blades are still the weapon of choice, even though guns are easy to obtain if you want them badly enough. I like to think this makes us safer than in gun-worshiping countries where nutters go off the rails and try to go out in a blaze of gory (the "l" omitted intentionally) by killing as many innocents as possible in schools, universities and shopping malls. I think you will find that countries with little or no gun control have murder rates much higher than ours, even when looking at developed nations with stable governments and reliable police forces. However, gun controls do not solve the whole problem, and we are still a much more dangerous country to live in than a lot of others: our laws against the carrying of other weapons seem wholly ineffective.

It is my observation that the massacres mentioned above are generally carried out with guns that have been obtained legally, by people with no previous criminal records. Career criminals seem to keep their weapons out of harm's way until needed for a specific purpose, and they tend to be disposed of afterwards. In the UK, guns seem to be confined mostly to drug dealers and their associates, and Irish terrorists - Islamic radicals preferring bombs carried by brainwashed youngsters, and Turkish gangs having a predeliction for the knife.

I am tempted to believe that violence in this country is a class issue on the one hand and a youth issue on the other. There is a large underclass which has little or no contact with mainstream society and I believe that each class is tolerant of the use of violence against the other, whether through crime or crime prevention. Then there is working-class youth. There is a total lack of respect and understanding for society held by young males - white and black for different reasons - and they feel they have no roles to play in modern Britain. They may be, in fact, members of the underclass referred to above. Anyway, I feel that because they no longer have any purpose in life, and no respect for the society they live in, they have no qualms about sticking a knife into anyone they take a dislike to.

I would like to see the authorities make greater efforts to instill a civic spirit and a respect for society among the young through an effective education system which engages with our youth and gives them a purpose in life. I would also like to see real efforts made to reduce the attraction that carrying a weapon seems to have for the young, and further efforst made to prevent weapons crossingour borders. However, I realise that this is unlikely to happen. That means it is necessary for our police to be armed to protect us, but I do not think we have really reached the stage where all police constables should carry weapons routinely and I hope that day will never come.

Having said all this, I feel that most people in Britain are safe, need never face an armed robber and are unlikely to be killed by friends or family. By and large, this is a good place to live in. But not the best.

Guera

01-04-2010, 07:10 PM

wow, the USA is something else. Not even sure what words to use.

switch bitch

01-04-2010, 07:31 PM

Crime Statistics > Murders (most recent) by country

# 4 XXXXXXXXX: 21,553
anybody like to take a guess where i live ? ( clue the soccer world cup kicks off in June )

switch bitch

01-04-2010, 07:37 PM

That makes it 59 a day (non leap year) or 2.4 an hour

DuncanONeil

01-04-2010, 09:45 PM

I have some problems with SOME things in this reply. Lets start with:
The Small Arms Survey 2002 accurately observed that “The relief and development communities frequently generate inaccurate and inflated numbers, whether out of ignorance or intentionally, to justify programmatic interventions and to mobilize public opinion.”126 Some examples include bogus assertions that ninety percent of small arms casualties in war are civilians, and eighty percent of them are women and children.127
People around the world rely on the United Nations and the World Health Organization for reliable data about health issues. By extensively publicizing a figure of 500,000 annual deaths due to SALW, the UN and the WHO have not lived up to their duty to supply the public with transparent data.
Responsible researchers share their data with other researchers and explain the procedures they use to process these data. Only with such transparency can conclusions and policy implications be debated in a rational, objective manner.
Unfortunately, WHO’s violence data is quite opaque.128 It is not broken down country-by-country, or by instrumentality. No other details are accessible. The rationales for the extreme extrapolations are unjustifiably withheld from the public.

To be continued

I find the tale about the police confiscating a child's toy gun hard to credit unless there was more to the story than you have related. However, I do know that the Met are "trialling" the routine arming of policemen in at least one area of London, that the Greater Manchester Police have many armed response units on the streets and that Nottingham also has armed patrols in areas associated with drug crime. No doubt other cities have the same problem to a greater or lesser degree.

This in a country with the strictest gun laws in the world, I believe, although it seems to me that blades are still the weapon of choice, even though guns are easy to obtain if you want them badly enough. I like to think this makes us safer than in gun-worshiping countries where nutters go off the rails and try to go out in a blaze of gory (the "l" omitted intentionally) by killing as many innocents as possible in schools, universities and shopping malls. I think you will find that countries with little or no gun control have murder rates much higher than ours, even when looking at developed nations with stable governments and reliable police forces. However, gun controls do not solve the whole problem, and we are still a much more dangerous country to live in than a lot of others: our laws against the carrying of other weapons seem wholly ineffective.

It is my observation that the massacres mentioned above are generally carried out with guns that have been obtained legally, by people with no previous criminal records. Career criminals seem to keep their weapons out of harm's way until needed for a specific purpose, and they tend to be disposed of afterwards. In the UK, guns seem to be confined mostly to drug dealers and their associates, and Irish terrorists - Islamic radicals preferring bombs carried by brainwashed youngsters, and Turkish gangs having a predeliction for the knife.

I am tempted to believe that violence in this country is a class issue on the one hand and a youth issue on the other. There is a large underclass which has little or no contact with mainstream society and I believe that each class is tolerant of the use of violence against the other, whether through crime or crime prevention. Then there is working-class youth. There is a total lack of respect and understanding for society held by young males - white and black for different reasons - and they feel they have no roles to play in modern Britain. They may be, in fact, members of the underclass referred to above. Anyway, I feel that because they no longer have any purpose in life, and no respect for the society they live in, they have no qualms about sticking a knife into anyone they take a dislike to.

I would like to see the authorities make greater efforts to instill a civic spirit and a respect for society among the young through an effective education system which engages with our youth and gives them a purpose in life. I would also like to see real efforts made to reduce the attraction that carrying a weapon seems to have for the young, and further efforst made to prevent weapons crossingour borders. However, I realise that this is unlikely to happen. That means it is necessary for our police to be armed to protect us, but I do not think we have really reached the stage where all police constables should carry weapons routinely and I hope that day will never come.

Having said all this, I feel that most people in Britain are safe, need never face an armed robber and are unlikely to be killed by friends or family. By and large, this is a good place to live in. But not the best.

DuncanONeil

01-04-2010, 09:46 PM

Continuation from message #6
Many governments of U.N. members have been affected by armed conflict.129 Many of those conflicts involved uprisings by oppressed civilians. It is easy to understand why the nondemocratic governments that comprise a majority of the General Assembly might wish to prevent forceful challenges to incumbent governments. Yet as Zwi points out: “there are occasions when such conflicts yield desirable social change, such as the anti-colonial struggles, or where they are necessary for protecting the victims of inequitable social and political processes.”130 The incessant repetition of the “500,000” factoid by the UN/WHO and their allied NGOs and academics ignores this essential moral point—a point that is crucial to resistance to tyranny, to deterrence of genocide, and to reduction of murder-by-police.
Currently available data support the claim that small arms in the hands of civilians do not cause 500,000 needless deaths each year. Moreover, firearms prohibition would prevent only a small fraction of deaths caused by civilian-owned firearms. Firearms prohibition would worsen the balance of power between oppressive governments and victim populations.

127 SMALL ARMS SURVEY 2002, supra note 1, at 158.
128 Global Burden of Disease 2001, World Health Organization, at http://www3.who.int/whosis/menu.cfm?path=evidence,burden,burden_estimates &language=English (last visited Feb. 12, 2003) (on file with author).
129 Anthony B. Zwi, Numbering the Dead: Counting the Casualties of War, in DEFINING VIOLENCE 99 (Hannah Bradby ed., 1998).
130 Id.

More can be said if needed!
(http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/Global-Deaths-from-Firearms.pdf)

DuncanONeil

01-04-2010, 09:50 PM

As for strict controls, I believe Japan has reason to claim that badge. Their Olympic shooting team can not practice in their own country!

I find the tale about the police confiscating a child's toy gun hard to credit unless there was more to the story than you have related. However, I do know that the Met are "trialling" the routine arming of policemen in at least one area of London, that the Greater Manchester Police have many armed response units on the streets and that Nottingham also has armed patrols in areas associated with drug crime. No doubt other cities have the same problem to a greater or lesser degree.

This in a country with the strictest gun laws in the world, I believe, although it seems to me that blades are still the weapon of choice, even though guns are easy to obtain if you want them badly enough. I like to think this makes us safer than in gun-worshiping countries where nutters go off the rails and try to go out in a blaze of gory (the "l" omitted intentionally) by killing as many innocents as possible in schools, universities and shopping malls. I think you will find that countries with little or no gun control have murder rates much higher than ours, even when looking at developed nations with stable governments and reliable police forces. However, gun controls do not solve the whole problem, and we are still a much more dangerous country to live in than a lot of others: our laws against the carrying of other weapons seem wholly ineffective.

It is my observation that the massacres mentioned above are generally carried out with guns that have been obtained legally, by people with no previous criminal records. Career criminals seem to keep their weapons out of harm's way until needed for a specific purpose, and they tend to be disposed of afterwards. In the UK, guns seem to be confined mostly to drug dealers and their associates, and Irish terrorists - Islamic radicals preferring bombs carried by brainwashed youngsters, and Turkish gangs having a predeliction for the knife.

I am tempted to believe that violence in this country is a class issue on the one hand and a youth issue on the other. There is a large underclass which has little or no contact with mainstream society and I believe that each class is tolerant of the use of violence against the other, whether through crime or crime prevention. Then there is working-class youth. There is a total lack of respect and understanding for society held by young males - white and black for different reasons - and they feel they have no roles to play in modern Britain. They may be, in fact, members of the underclass referred to above. Anyway, I feel that because they no longer have any purpose in life, and no respect for the society they live in, they have no qualms about sticking a knife into anyone they take a dislike to.

I would like to see the authorities make greater efforts to instill a civic spirit and a respect for society among the young through an effective education system which engages with our youth and gives them a purpose in life. I would also like to see real efforts made to reduce the attraction that carrying a weapon seems to have for the young, and further efforst made to prevent weapons crossingour borders. However, I realise that this is unlikely to happen. That means it is necessary for our police to be armed to protect us, but I do not think we have really reached the stage where all police constables should carry weapons routinely and I hope that day will never come.

Having said all this, I feel that most people in Britain are safe, need never face an armed robber and are unlikely to be killed by friends or family. By and large, this is a good place to live in. But not the best.

DuncanONeil

01-04-2010, 09:51 PM

Not sure what you mean but if you are talking about gun fatalities the rates are comparablke to other countries!

wow, the USA is something else. Not even sure what words to use.

Guera

01-04-2010, 10:12 PM

i was thinking that it would be like a dream to have the problems with gun violence that the UK has

IAN 2411

01-05-2010, 01:33 AM

MMI
The story about the boy was true, and at the time i read the newspaper i sat in disbelief at the actions taken. However to put you on a the right track, you must remember the story about the man on the station with a table leg in a parcel, the police shot him dead thinking it was a gun, but i must admit they did appolagise for the mistake, big deal. I am not saying that the police shouldnt be armed in certain circumstanses, what i am saying that until it is second nature for the police to carry a loaded weapon there is always going to be paranoia. Knife culture is not a class issue, it is a cult, look at some of the blogs on face book with the idiots holding the knives. There is no statement written just a picture of a person [and they are not all black] holding a knife that is bigger than they are. the statement should read [look a me mum i have a big knife and i prepared to use it, just to show how hard i am, i am also a thick dick head that left his brain in school]. It is useualy those that are the ones that are knifed and killed, and come from good families and good backgrounds, they are doing what they do to conform with the other idiots. Knives and guns are gang related and it is not because they are bored and there is nothing else to do, if they are that bored instead of killing the innocent why dont they make a name for themselves in the middle pages of the press by commiting hari kari. I am not running the UK down, i am saying that is now tainted with a new breed of youths, and it does put us all in danger. I live about 16 miles from Brighton, and i can asure you that you would not find me on any of their streets after 7 in the evening, and especialy in the residential areas. We have a delapidated police force that can only just look after the bigger crimes, the policeman on the street has been replaced by a police comunity officer that is ruled by health and safety. the truth is the police in the UK are becoming more like the joke: -

A woman rings the police, hello i have just caught a thief trying to rob my house and is tied to a chair in the kitchen, i have to go shopping so would you please come and collect him.

Sorry madem there will be no one available for 5 hours, and the phone went dead.

Ten minutes later the woman phoned them once more, you can take your time now love the thief tried to escape so i shot him with my husbands shotgun.

Withinn ten minutes of putting the phone down, there was a helicopter hovering above and the farm was surounded by ten police cars, with the woman standing by the front door dressed up ready to go to town.

The chief of police asked where is the body madem?

She replied in the kitchen shouting that his bonds are to tight.

I thought you said you had just shot him the policeman replied.

The woman smiled and answered, i thought you said you had no one available to pick him up.

Regards ian2411

fetishdj

01-05-2010, 04:20 AM

Knife crime: The laws in the UK banning juveniles from carrying knives are ridiculous and impotent because a) it prevents law abiding teenagers (i.e apprentice butchers or simply someone who needs to use a knife for cooking as some teenagers need to do) from acquiring necessary equipment and b) most criminals, including most kids who own knives for kicks, pay no attention to the law and carry them anyway (in fact, most carry them *because* it is illegal) and c) it is already illegal to attack someone with a deadly weapon and the possession law is more or less unenforced because the police do not have the manpower or resources to trawl every school yard and back ally for knife toting teenagers.

I think the same argument can apply to guns - possession laws are actually difficult to enforce and criminals always ignore the law, that is why they are criminals. The main reason why guns are rarer here is that it is more difficult to get them over a marine border (and as stated, the Channel Tunnel may make that easier now...). Not convinced that legalisation and regulation work either - read a report this morning about a young kid in Georgia who was shot by a stray round from an AK47 fired in the air 'up to 3km away' by someone using it to celebrate the new year. This was a legal firearm fired in what the owner clearly thought was a safe way (despite the fact that you can have the same effect with a perfectly safe blank firer that fires no pellet). Some of the regulations I have heard about in some states of America, for example, either invite the owner to break the law or be unable to use the gun for the purpose it was purchased (i.e. if you have to keep the firearm in a locked case with the ammunition in a seperate case such a weapon is no use for home defence so you have to break the law and keep it loaded in an unlocked case).

As for the police... It used to be the case in this country that the first time you saw a gun of any form was when you travelled abroad to somewhere like Spain where the police are armed as a matter of course - I remember being astounded at the age of 10 by Spainish police carrying pistols. The last time I went on holiday, I saw several police officers in the UK airport carrying machine guns (not sure what sort but they were similar to the ones carried by infantry) as well as pistols. This was not an unusual thing, either - it was not after a major terrorist attack (we travelled not long after the twin towers thing and there were a lot more armed police then) and as far as we knew there had been no alert - they were just normal police officers walking a beat inside an airport.

IAN 2411

01-05-2010, 06:25 AM

reff: - fetishdj above,

I am not sure but if i remember correct by watching a CSI program if that person that fired the AK47 is found then he will be prosicuted for murder. It might have been a legal firearm, but any idiot knows that what goes up has to come down eventualy. He was not a responsible person and his idea of safe discharge begs belief, and he should have no rights to be near a firearm let alone own one

Regards ian2411.

fetishdj

01-05-2010, 06:49 AM

denuseri

01-05-2010, 06:55 AM

<<didnt see anyone using a firearm to celebrate new years eve where I was.

IAN 2411

01-05-2010, 08:30 AM

Oh, I have no doubt that it comes somewhere in the many degrees of homicide under the American legal system (as opposed to our 2 level system of murder or manslaughter). Assuming, of course, they find out who did it which was part of the point of the article I read - gun owners in Georgia within a 3km radius of where he was at the time is, I imagine, a fairly large population to investigate... it is unlikely that they will find who is responsible, especially as the person responsible may not even know they are responsible. Apparently it is a common way to celebrate the new year in Georgia much as it is a common way to celebrate marriage in Afghanistan.

Once an idiot always an idiot, anyone that does such a stupid act whether in a built up area or not, will more than likely do the same again. I would also hazaed a guess that not many American citizans own MK47s, and there is always that one person that holds a grudge against the person that fired the thing in the first place.

This is also getting away from the point of the thread and the question asked.

Regards ian2411

IAN 2411

01-05-2010, 08:57 AM

As for the police... It used to be the case in this country that the first time you saw a gun of any form was when you travelled abroad to somewhere like Spain where the police are armed as a matter of course - I remember being astounded at the age of 10 by Spainish police carrying pistols. The last time I went on holiday, I saw several police officers in the UK airport carrying machine guns (not sure what sort but they were similar to the ones carried by infantry) as well as pistols. This was not an unusual thing, either - it was not after a major terrorist attack (we travelled not long after the twin towers thing and there were a lot more armed police then) and as far as we knew there had been no alert - they were just normal police officers walking a beat inside an airport.

One other point I would like to make about the British police carrying firearms; and it is that in the short time they have done so they have carried out far too many mistakes. There have been several times that more than one officer has fired at a supposed gunman, and when it has been one firearms expert there has been more than one shot fired, proving yet again overkill, and trigger happy police.

I was out in Belfast with the Special Forces; we were carrying at the time Belgian 7.62 FNs. They were more powerful than most assault rifles that the armies of the world have now. If you could see and aim that far with the naked eye, this weapon had the killing range of 5 miles. Put 6 people 6feet apart and with one shot you would kill them all, it would go through a half inch of steel at 100 yards and 6 feet of packed sand. I like others in my section and battalion kept my rifle loaded but ready at a seconds notice. We had no need to ask for permission to shoot, it was written in black on a yellow card for us to read, and it was in our pockets at all times. I cannot remember a time when we abused the card and fired the weapon without being fired at first, and the reason was, that weapon was part of us, we trained with it and we slept with it, and we respected the firepower we held in our hands.

The police however don’t have this luxury, and are a very unstable to be using a firearm, unless you have a certain mentality in the army, you will not get to hold a position of responsibility with a firearm.

Regards ian2411

steelish

01-05-2010, 09:17 AM

<<didnt see anyone using a firearm to celebrate new years eve where I was.

Me neither!

fetishdj

01-06-2010, 02:27 AM

Me neither!

Only going on what the article said: "Ballistic experts say it came from an AK47 assault rifle fired more than 3km (two miles) away from the church in Atlanta, Georgia. It is common for people there to fire guns in the air during New Year celebrations" was the exact quote.

And re-reading the article, I noticed it said 'more than' 3km not 'up to' as I originally said...

I am, of course, not discounting editorial bias or inaccurate reporting. It may also have been referring to a particular locality in Atlanta and not the entirity of Georgia.

fetishdj

01-06-2010, 02:36 AM

One other point I would like to make about the British police carrying firearms; and it is that in the short time they have done so they have carried out far too many mistakes. There have been several times that more than one officer has fired at a supposed gunman, and when it has been one firearms expert there has been more than one shot fired, proving yet again overkill, and trigger happy police.

I was out in Belfast with the Special Forces; we were carrying at the time Belgian 7.62 FNs. They were more powerful than most assault rifles that the armies of the world have now. If you could see and aim that far with the naked eye, this weapon had the killing range of 5 miles. Put 6 people 6feet apart and with one shot you would kill them all, it would go through a half inch of steel at 100 yards and 6 feet of packed sand. I like others in my section and battalion kept my rifle loaded but ready at a seconds notice. We had no need to ask for permission to shoot, it was written in black on a yellow card for us to read, and it was in our pockets at all times. I cannot remember a time when we abused the card and fired the weapon without being fired at first, and the reason was, that weapon was part of us, we trained with it and we slept with it, and we respected the firepower we held in our hands.

The police however don’t have this luxury, and are a very unstable to be using a firearm, unless you have a certain mentality in the army, you will not get to hold a position of responsibility with a firearm.

Regards ian2411

[This is relevant.... just bear with me...] One of my essays subjects was on the inclusion of IT in schools and one journal article I read referred to the Labour government's IT education policy which was, in effect, to get computers and interactive whiteboards and all that sort of stuff in to every school. The article was looking at the effect of that policy 10 years after it was implemented and made the claim that while it had been successful in getting physical hardware into the schools a lot of it was lying about unused or not used to its full potential because there had not been a conconimant training budget to go with the hardware budget. Teachers were therefore either unwilling to use the computers or did not understand them enough to use them effectively. Can you see why this may be relevant?

I reckon that what may have happened is that the police have been given a massive budget for ballistic hardware - and the way these things tend to work, this money would have been specifically earmarked for that purpose only. So, every police force in the country has a surfeit of firearms. However, I wonder if there has been an adequete training budget to go with that?

steelish

01-06-2010, 03:36 AM

I am, of course, not discounting editorial bias or inaccurate reporting. It may also have been referring to a particular locality in Atlanta and not the entirity of Georgia.

I bet it is something found only in a specific locale. You can be sure that if the whole of Georgia celebrated the 4th in such a way, most of America would have heard about it long ago. Something like that makes headlines everywhere.

IAN 2411

01-06-2010, 06:30 AM

By fetishdj: -

I reckon that what may have happened is that the police have been given a massive budget for ballistic hardware - and the way these things tend to work, this money would have been specifically earmarked for that purpose only. So, every police force in the country has a surfeit of firearms. However, I wonder if there has been an adequete training budget to go with that?

__________________________________________________ ___________________

It is the point that i tried to make, that is shoddy if not a disgraceful atitude to be in by HM Government. You would not give an army recruit a rifle and say we haven't got enough cash to train you, so learn all about its value when you get to Afghanistan/Iraq, there is bound to be someone there thaty will show you what to do with it. Remember though dont point it at anyone if its loaded, unless you are thrown into a fire fight, then you can shoot anything that is in front of you unles its your mates. The excuse you gave fetishdj is a poor one, but having said that, you are more than likely correct.

Regards ian2411

DuncanONeil

01-07-2010, 08:46 AM

i was thinking that it would be like a dream to have the problems with gun violence that the UK has

Really! The reports I read indicate that it is pretty bad in the UK.

DuncanONeil

01-07-2010, 08:54 AM

Not intended to be anything other than information. The attempt to make guns "safe" in the US are kepp the firearm in a locked container, WITH TRIGGERLOCK INSTALLED. Ammo in a separate locked container. Yeah foolish. There are only two states in the US that prohibit citizens from carrying a handgun on their person in public, in a concealed fashion. In my state I can not carry a handgun concealed, but it is not illegal to carry it in an open holster. Although, I would not reccomend trying such!

Knife crime: The laws in the UK banning juveniles from carrying knives are ridiculous and impotent because a) it prevents law abiding teenagers (i.e apprentice butchers or simply someone who needs to use a knife for cooking as some teenagers need to do) from acquiring necessary equipment and b) most criminals, including most kids who own knives for kicks, pay no attention to the law and carry them anyway (in fact, most carry them *because* it is illegal) and c) it is already illegal to attack someone with a deadly weapon and the possession law is more or less unenforced because the police do not have the manpower or resources to trawl every school yard and back ally for knife toting teenagers.

I think the same argument can apply to guns - possession laws are actually difficult to enforce and criminals always ignore the law, that is why they are criminals. The main reason why guns are rarer here is that it is more difficult to get them over a marine border (and as stated, the Channel Tunnel may make that easier now...). Not convinced that legalisation and regulation work either - read a report this morning about a young kid in Georgia who was shot by a stray round from an AK47 fired in the air 'up to 3km away' by someone using it to celebrate the new year. This was a legal firearm fired in what the owner clearly thought was a safe way (despite the fact that you can have the same effect with a perfectly safe blank firer that fires no pellet). Some of the regulations I have heard about in some states of America, for example, either invite the owner to break the law or be unable to use the gun for the purpose it was purchased (i.e. if you have to keep the firearm in a locked case with the ammunition in a seperate case such a weapon is no use for home defence so you have to break the law and keep it loaded in an unlocked case).

As for the police... It used to be the case in this country that the first time you saw a gun of any form was when you travelled abroad to somewhere like Spain where the police are armed as a matter of course - I remember being astounded at the age of 10 by Spainish police carrying pistols. The last time I went on holiday, I saw several police officers in the UK airport carrying machine guns (not sure what sort but they were similar to the ones carried by infantry) as well as pistols. This was not an unusual thing, either - it was not after a major terrorist attack (we travelled not long after the twin towers thing and there were a lot more armed police then) and as far as we knew there had been no alert - they were just normal police officers walking a beat inside an airport.

DuncanONeil

01-07-2010, 08:54 AM

Negligent Homicide!

reff: - fetishdj above,

I am not sure but if i remember correct by watching a CSI program if that person that fired the AK47 is found then he will be prosicuted for murder. It might have been a legal firearm, but any idiot knows that what goes up has to come down eventualy. He was not a responsible person and his idea of safe discharge begs belief, and he should have no rights to be near a firearm let alone own one

Regards ian2411.

DuncanONeil

01-07-2010, 09:03 AM

It is unfair to make the comparisons that your are making. There is a quantum difference in the "rules" of use between the military and police. There are specific rules for the military and when those rules are in place action can be taken. And that action is shoot to kill.
It is not the same with police. Also all of the stories about "police error" never have all the information. We never hear about how long this situation went on and what the police did prior to shooting nor what the victim did or did not do. If the deceased had followed the instructions of the police there would have been no shooting. Police firing their weapon is in the same category of the country putting its military in harms way, last resort.

One other point I would like to make about the British police carrying firearms; and it is that in the short time they have done so they have carried out far too many mistakes. There have been several times that more than one officer has fired at a supposed gunman, and when it has been one firearms expert there has been more than one shot fired, proving yet again overkill, and trigger happy police.

I was out in Belfast with the Special Forces; we were carrying at the time Belgian 7.62 FNs. They were more powerful than most assault rifles that the armies of the world have now. If you could see and aim that far with the naked eye, this weapon had the killing range of 5 miles. Put 6 people 6feet apart and with one shot you would kill them all, it would go through a half inch of steel at 100 yards and 6 feet of packed sand. I like others in my section and battalion kept my rifle loaded but ready at a seconds notice. We had no need to ask for permission to shoot, it was written in black on a yellow card for us to read, and it was in our pockets at all times. I cannot remember a time when we abused the card and fired the weapon without being fired at first, and the reason was, that weapon was part of us, we trained with it and we slept with it, and we respected the firepower we held in our hands.

The police however don’t have this luxury, and are a very unstable to be using a firearm, unless you have a certain mentality in the army, you will not get to hold a position of responsibility with a firearm.

Regards ian2411

DuncanONeil

01-07-2010, 09:12 AM

This is foolish! I had occasion, recently, to discuss with an officer the length of time a magazine can remain loaded before the spring begins to lose its effectiveness. His response was that it was not an issue. He was required to go through firearms training three to four times each year.
But then again in WWII it took 15,000 rounds to kill one enemy soldier, in Vietnam, 50,000. And now the estimate is 250,000. One could claim that the military is getting worse at its job!

[This is relevant.... just bear with me...] One of my essays subjects was on the inclusion of IT in schools and one journal article I read referred to the Labour government's IT education policy which was, in effect, to get computers and interactive whiteboards and all that sort of stuff in to every school. The article was looking at the effect of that policy 10 years after it was implemented and made the claim that while it had been successful in getting physical hardware into the schools a lot of it was lying about unused or not used to its full potential because there had not been a conconimant training budget to go with the hardware budget. Teachers were therefore either unwilling to use the computers or did not understand them enough to use them effectively. Can you see why this may be relevant?

I reckon that what may have happened is that the police have been given a massive budget for ballistic hardware - and the way these things tend to work, this money would have been specifically earmarked for that purpose only. So, every police force in the country has a surfeit of firearms. However, I wonder if there has been an adequete training budget to go with that?

DuncanONeil

01-07-2010, 09:13 AM

I have heard reports over time in both Chicago and Milwaukee. It is possible that I even personally heard this activity for New Years.

I bet it is something found only in a specific locale. You can be sure that if the whole of Georgia celebrated the 4th in such a way, most of America would have heard about it long ago. Something like that makes headlines everywhere.

IAN 2411

01-07-2010, 12:00 PM

It is unfair to make the comparisons that your are making. There is a quantum difference in the "rules" of use between the military and police. There are specific rules for the military and when those rules are in place action can be taken. And that action is shoot to kill.
It is not the same with police. Also all of the stories about "police error" never have all the information. We never hear about how long this situation went on and what the police did prior to shooting nor what the victim did or did not do. If the deceased had followed the instructions of the police there would have been no shooting. Police firing their weapon is in the same category of the country putting its military in harms way, last resort.

I would like to point out that two times that were talked about afterwards the supposed terrorist shot three times on the train in London, by the Met Police. They gave him no chance, and all because the idiots hadn't seen him leave the flat, they had not done their homework. The people in the train spoke against the police saying that there was no warning. Please for god sake dont come back and say well he could have been, it was safer to be sure than sorry. It is like hanging someone for murder, and then finding out the man had the right name but it was a different man with that name that carried out the crime.

The man on the station with the wrapped up table leg, the police shouted out, [now listen carefully] put the rifel on the floor and step away, second warning if you dont put the rifel doown i will open fire, Bang, one man dead carrying a wrapped up table leg. Now the reason for this is, if you are not carrying a rifle then there is not a lot of chance that you know what trigger happy plod is talking about. The police were only there because a member of the public said they thought he had a rifle.

The army over in Northern Ireland were on security roll and that of policing the province, at no time were the army on a war footing with them, we were nothing more than armed police.

Regards ian2411

fetishdj

01-08-2010, 02:43 AM

IAN 2411

01-08-2010, 05:43 AM

There was a full (and much publicised) enquiry into the tube shooting and it was found that the police did not act appropriately and were therefore culpable. As for the table leg, I am not sure I agree with Ian on this so much. If the police are pointing guns at me, my response would be to drop everything (no matter what it is) and do what they say.

Bullshit, it was a police whitewash, i knew right from day one what the verdict would be and like so many others in the country are dismayed at how they came to a verdict of blatent stupidity. The persons that were that were supposed to be watching the flat had not been doing their job correct, in the fact that they openly stated at the inquest, they had no idea who the armed police were following. So just as a [i better save my ass atitude] they said it could be the suspect, and were told by the dumb bitch in charge of the operation, that they had permission to open fire if need be. That was brought out in the inquest that i did follow closely, unlike you fetishdj. A UK gun toting cop is just as dangerous as a bomb throwing terrorist.

I will give you example of knowing when and when not to fire. While in Belfast in Lieson street just off the Falls road, there was a riot taking place with all sorts of things being thrown. I was sitting in the back of a landrover working a radio, and a young boy of about ten years old walked up to the back of the open vehicle, and he had a molitov cocktail in his hand with the wick already alight. He pulled his hand back and said, "British soldier i am going to throw this and kill you,". I flicked of the safety catch on my Belgian FN rifle, and with my finger on the trigger put the barrel on his forehead saying, "Then let's see who will die first." We both looked at each other for a short time that felt like half my life, and then he smiled and after putting his arm down ran off. That is restraint and knowledge of the power that a fire arm gives the person carrying it, i would hate to think what would have happened if he had thrown the bomb, because i would have shot him and make no mistake about it, but i gave him the choice. Children on the Belfast streets were not only street wise but just as dangerous as the IRA. I still have dreams but not nightmares about it, but i feel that i still did the right thing, you could say that we saved each others lives.

fetishdj

01-08-2010, 06:01 AM

I was not aware of disagreeing with you in any way - what I said was in support of what you said, that the police had been wrong and been found out to be wrong in that case, that there was a need for better training and procedures in police work involving firearms and that without these the police are more of a danger because a firearm in the hands of an untrained user is a liability rather than an asset.

I also think that the level of paranoia created by terrorism the past few years is excessive (and may be fuelled somewhat by government agendas such as pursuing an ID card scheme which would not stop terrorism because terrorists can easily get ID and suicide bombers will, by definition, never have 'previous' on their records) and is what is leading to incidents like the tube shooting. It is too easy to create a situation where terror and panic leads to accidents and if we allow the situation with the various middle eastern terrorists to let this to happen then they have won because they have done what they set out to do - created terror.

Thorne

01-08-2010, 06:23 AM

I also think that the level of paranoia created by terrorism the past few years is excessive (and may be fuelled somewhat by government agendas such as pursuing an ID card scheme which would not stop terrorism because terrorists can easily get ID and suicide bombers will, by definition, never have 'previous' on their records) and is what is leading to incidents like the tube shooting. It is too easy to create a situation where terror and panic leads to accidents and if we allow the situation with the various middle eastern terrorists to let this to happen then they have won because they have done what they set out to do - created terror.

Don't leave out the media. They sensationalize every little threat to increase sales, never considering the effect this has on some people. And this also allows government agents to clamp down on peoples rights in the name of "safety".

IAN 2411

01-08-2010, 09:50 AM

My apology fetishdj you are correct, i missread your statement, but the table leg incedent was over the top. The police were also prooved wrong in that case and paid a large sum of money to the man's imiedeate family, but the money will never bring him back. I am also lead to believe from a friend of mine, the the person with the chair leg had also been drinking, which we all know dulles the sences and slows reaction.

Regards ian 2411

Thorne

01-08-2010, 11:32 AM

I am also lead to believe from a friend of mine, the the person with the chair leg had also been drinking, which we all know dulles the sences and slows reaction.

Not only that, but the way the police "attack" these situations generally involves a lot of yelling, contradictory commands from different officers, all designed to confuse and disorient perpetrators, to slow their reaction times. This also tends to ramp up the adrenaline of the officers, leading to the potential for serious problems when they lose control. Only through training can these effects be minimized, though not eliminated completely.

MMI

01-08-2010, 03:43 PM

Bullshit, it was a police whitewash, i knew right from day one what the verdict would be ...

Just think of how much public money would have been saved if only the Government had thought of asking you first ...

I agree with your sentiment that the police, generally, are not adequately trained to handle firearms, but isn't that why individual policemen who do carry weapons have to pass a fairly rigorous training programme? I wouldn't expect it to be as thorough as the training given to members of the Special Forces, because they wouldn't be likely to have to use guns with the power you described your own weapon as having: most British constables have never been to Ulster and would have no need for such arms, even in a shoot-out with a bunch of bank robbers. Besides, I seem to remember the RUC was routinely armed as it had to deal with various republican movements from tme to time, and I imagine their firearm skills were as good as any.

I think the comparison between the gun handling skills of the British police with the standards expected from the Special Forces is not at all enlightening. There is a world of difference between dealing with a junkie threatening to blow out the brains of a hostage, and a hardened terrorist with 30 years' experience of ambushing and bombing British soldiers. Perhaps our American friends can tell us if they would expect a member of the NYPD to be able to handle some of the US Army's most powerful weapons as proficiently as someone in Delta Force.

I was reminded of something I was told about the Isle of Man's police force. It may be true; it's probably not, but it's amusing anyway. It seems the IoM's gun laws are pretty lax, and as a result, the police force there decided it needed an arsenal in case of need. Because the island is extremely wealthy, it was able to lash out an enormous sum of money to buy the weapons it wanted, and it duly took delivery of a mind-boggling array of weaponry. It was then realised that there was no-one on the whole force who was capable of using the weapons, or who was authorised to do so, and so, if it is necessary to ever issue weapons to deal with an "incident" they have to call a policeman from Manchester over to supervise the issue and use of the guns!!!!

MMI

01-08-2010, 03:55 PM

IAN 2411

01-08-2010, 04:26 PM

MMI,
You are correct of course there were some police with fire arms in Ulster. The Belfast Specials or the B Specials as they came to be known, but they were disbanded, and probably a good thing it was too. Most of us thought that they were more dangerous than the , conflicting paramilitary organisations, they were like a law unto themselves.

Regards ian 2411

Thorne

01-08-2010, 08:07 PM

I don't know anything about the circumstances of the person killed by a bullet fired into the air some 3 km away, but in this country I think the coroner would have to return a verdict of accidental death.

I don't think he could say the man was unlawfully killed because there was no intention to kill, nor was it reasonably foreseeable that someone would be killed. I don't even think you could say that the shooter fired recklessly, without caring whether or not someone would be killed, because it would not be within anyone's reasonable contemplation that there could be someone standing precisely where the bullet would land, so far away.
I'm not so sure about that. Regardless of his intent, his actions were reckless at best. An example can be taken from automobile accidents. A person driving responsibly, obeying the traffic laws and showing due care, would not be held responsible for someone stepping out in front of his car and being killed. A person driving at excessive speed and weaving in and out of traffic probably would. By violating the rules of safe driving he puts others at risk.

The same should apply here. If the shooter had been practicing at a range, for example, and a stray bullet killed someone, chances are it's a tragic accident. But firing a bullet into the air is reckless and a danger to the public. The person responsible should be charged with involuntary manslaughter, at least, and reckless endangerment. And there's a good chance that, even if he manages to avoid jail time, he'll be the subject of a civil suit by the victim's family.

MMI

01-09-2010, 09:37 AM

That's fair comment. Is it your contention that if a gun is fired without being aimed at a specific target, and someone is killed or injured by the bullet, it is involuntary manslaughter/assault, but if it is aimed at a target and misses, it is accidental? Perhaps you are right - I'm not so sure, however.

Is your postion different where the victim is within normal range, or where, due to the weather and/or other physical conditions the bullet is carried far beyond its normal range.

Likewise, is your postion different if the victim was known by the shooter to be in the line of fire, or was not known to be there, or where the shooter couldn't have cared less whether the victim was there or not?

Another thought: where police or soldiers fire into the air to deter a crowd or to prevent a riot, are they behaving recklessly? Someone could easily be killed who was taking no part in the public disorder.

IAN 2411

01-09-2010, 11:45 AM

Another thought: where police or soldiers fire into the air to deter a crowd or to prevent a riot, are they behaving recklessly? Someone could easily be killed who was taking no part in the public disorder.

Very few Police or soldiers fire their weapons over the heads od rioting crowds or other disorder. All police and soldiers that are armed are tested, and irispective of how much training they have, it is a no go area, all know the consequencies of a lose round. I am not saying that it would not happen in a third world country, but it would never happen in the Western free world, i dont think any police force or army would be that stupid. While in the army my orders were if fired on, shoot to kill, public order even in Ulster only battons were used by the army.

Regards ian 2411

Thorne

01-09-2010, 01:56 PM

That's fair comment. Is it your contention that if a gun is fired without being aimed at a specific target, and someone is killed or injured by the bullet, it is involuntary manslaughter/assault, but if it is aimed at a target and misses, it is accidental?
No, I'm saying that if the gun owner is using his weapon properly, obeying all the safety requirements, and something unexpected causes a bullet to injure someone it is an accident. Firing your weapon into the air is not following safety requirements, and is therefore reckless by nature.

As another example, several years ago a young girl was tragically killed by a hockey puck when the shot was deflected into the crowd. Is the player who shot the puck responsible? What about the player who deflected the puck? Legally, as determined in the case, neither was held legally responsible. They were participating in the sport and doing what they were supposed to be doing. If, however, a player for some reason should deliberately shoot the puck into the stands and kills someone, even if he claimed to be aiming at empty seats, he would be held responsible because he was not conforming to the rules of safety or of the game.

Is your postion different where the victim is within normal range, or where, due to the weather and/or other physical conditions the bullet is carried far beyond its normal range.
Again, the question is whether or not the firearm was discharged in a reasonably safe manner following legal guidelines. Under any conditions, firing one's weapon into the air is unsafe.

Likewise, is your postion different if the victim was known by the shooter to be in the line of fire, or was not known to be there, or where the shooter couldn't have cared less whether the victim was there or not?
This is more to the point. If, for example, the shooter was on a legal firing range and knew that the victim was in the line of fire then yes, he would be responsible for discharging his weapon in an unsafe manner. The fact that someone is in the line of fire makes it an unsafe condition. If he did not, and could not, know that the victim were there, say the victim was hiding behind some targets, then he could not be held liable, though the range owner might be for allowing such a situation to occur.

Another thought: where police or soldiers fire into the air to deter a crowd or to prevent a riot, are they behaving recklessly? Someone could easily be killed who was taking no part in the public disorder.
Yes, I would consider this to be reckless and unsafe. I am not aware of any police departments which would condone such an action, though, certainly not in the US. I would presume that most police officers would not discharge their weapons in such a manner. Those that would should probably not be police officers.

Soldiers, on the other hand, might not be trained to avoid this kind of behavior, especially when they are being used as an auxiliary to the police, such as in a riot. It's still unsafe, however, and the soldiers should be held accountable.

IAN 2411

01-09-2010, 02:59 PM

[QUOTE=ian 2411;835497]Very few Police or soldiers fire their weapons over the heads of rioting crowds or other disorder. All police and soldiers that are armed are tested, and irrespective of how much training they have, it is a no go area, all know the consequences of a loose round. I am not saying that it would not happen in a third world country, but it would never happen in the Western free world, I don’t think any police force or army would be that stupid. While in the army my orders were if fired on, shoot to kill, public order even in Ulster only batons were used by the army.

Regards ian 2411

Soldiers, on the other hand, might not be trained to avoid this kind of behavior, especially when they are being used as an auxiliary to the police, such as in a riot. It's still unsafe, however, and the soldiers should be held accountable.

I have quoted myself in this post, because I don’t think that it was read by you Thorn before you wrote the paragraph above. Have you been in the forces? If you have then you have never done United Nations duty? All soldiers of the NATO alliance are trained in home security, IE : - rioting, looting and disorder. I would think that even your own Marines would have been taught the basics of policing, and to make that remark is insulting to your own forces and that of the UKs from where this discussion started. Firing into the air has nothing to do with not being trained to avoid this behaviour, because that order would never be given, as it is pure stupidity and is done through ignorance. Soldiers would not be accountable in the western world because it would never happen, and just to make a point. In Ulster where the British army was policing, all shots fired by the troops were at legitimate targets, but in a riot or disorders a firearm was never used because of harming innocent bystanders.

Regards ian 2411

DuncanONeil

01-09-2010, 04:35 PM

I would like to point out that two times that were talked about afterwards the supposed terrorist shot three times on the train in London, by the Met Police. They gave him no chance, and all because the idiots hadn't seen him leave the flat, they had not done their homework. The people in the train spoke against the police saying that there was no warning. Please for god sake dont come back and say well he could have been, it was safer to be sure than sorry. It is like hanging someone for murder, and then finding out the man had the right name but it was a different man with that name that carried out the crime.

Entirely possible. Never said mistakes do not happen. But at the same time you can not extrapolate on the basis of the exception. And the previous message was posulating generalities based on a very small sample.

The man on the station with the wrapped up table leg, the police shouted out, [now listen carefully] put the rifel on the floor and step away, second warning if you dont put the rifel doown i will open fire, Bang, one man dead carrying a wrapped up table leg. Now the reason for this is, if you are not carrying a rifle then there is not a lot of chance that you know what trigger happy plod is talking about. The police were only there because a member of the public said they thought he had a rifle.

Regardless of what the inquest said I will fault the citizen in this case. If he was so obtuse as to believe that his package could not be perceived as something other than what it was. If, perchance, the citizen thought the reference was to someone else to just stand there was also foolish. Either responding to the officer, or getting out of the line of fire of the "rifleman" by going prone would have altered the outcome.

The army over in Northern Ireland were on security roll and that of policing the province, at no time were the army on a war footing with them, we were nothing more than armed police.

Regards ian2411

Security role or not they still have rules of engagement. Military does not go live ammo with out a briefing on what they can do when. Even snipers in Iraq are not on free fire. They must call up chain for permission.

DuncanONeil

01-09-2010, 04:41 PM

I understand, all to well, about appropriate reactions to cops. Well in the past I had a female dog in heat that I was walking. A bit before restrictive leash laws. As she was in heat I took my personal nightstick out just in case some randy male dog showed up.
Playing with the dog I was hiding alongside a building when a squad drove down the street, stopped, backed-up, officer got out and proceeded around the back of the car. I noted that his weapon, not readily visible, was no longer in his holster. My reaction I dropped the nightstick.

Hard to convince him I was walking a dog and the reason for the stick until I was able to whistle up the dog.

Being stupid with a cop is not a reasonable course of action!

There was a full (and much publicised) enquiry into the tube shooting and it was found that the police did not act appropriately and were therefore culpable. As for the table leg, I am not sure I agree with Ian on this so much. If the police are pointing guns at me, my response would be to drop everything (no matter what it is) and do what they say. You can discuss the specifics later and even take the police to court for mental anguish or similar but at least you CAN do that rather than having to rely on your bereaved family to do it.

Though there is always the panic... I did a personality test recently which said that I have the sort of personality which reacts well to crisis (thinking rationally rather than irrationally) so I am more likely to think clearly unlike some who may do something stupid and maybe the police need to think about those who react that way and take that into account.

DuncanONeil

01-09-2010, 04:48 PM

Bullshit, it was a police whitewash, i knew right from day one what the verdict would be and like so many others in the country are dismayed at how they came to a verdict of blatent stupidity. The persons that were that were supposed to be watching the flat had not been doing their job correct, in the fact that they openly stated at the inquest, they had no idea who the armed police were following. So just as a [i better save my ass atitude] they said it could be the suspect, and were told by the dumb bitch in charge of the operation, that they had permission to open fire if need be. That was brought out in the inquest that i did follow closely, unlike you fetishdj. A UK gun toting cop is just as dangerous as a bomb throwing terrorist.

I think ian is a bit confused here. Fetish, I believe, indicated that the inquest found the police culpable in the tube shooting and Ian claims that he knew from the start it would be a whitewash? Ian, you do know that culpable means responsible. Or to be more blunt "meriting condemnation or blame especially as wrong or harmful"

I will give you example of knowing when and when not to fire. While in Belfast in Lieson street just off the Falls road, there was a riot taking place with all sorts of things being thrown. I was sitting in the back of a landrover working a radio, and a young boy of about ten years old walked up to the back of the open vehicle, and he had a molitov cocktail in his hand with the wick already alight. He pulled his hand back and said, "British soldier i am going to throw this and kill you,". I flicked of the safety catch on my Belgian FN rifle, and with my finger on the trigger put the barrel on his forehead saying, "Then let's see who will die first." We both looked at each other for a short time that felt like half my life, and then he smiled and after putting his arm down ran off. That is restraint and knowledge of the power that a fire arm gives the person carrying it, i would hate to think what would have happened if he had thrown the bomb, because i would have shot him and make no mistake about it, but i gave him the choice. Children on the Belfast streets were not only street wise but just as dangerous as the IRA. I still have dreams but not nightmares about it, but i feel that i still did the right thing, you could say that we saved each others lives.

And what would have done were he 30 feet away, said and done the same thing?

DuncanONeil

01-09-2010, 04:55 PM

Getting a little pendantic I know but.

"Reckless homicide is the killing of another person by a reckless act. In some states, involuntary manslaughter committed by use of a motor vehicle is called reckless homicide. Laws governing reckless homicide vary by jurisdiction.

In general, "recklessly" means that a person acts recklessly with respect to circumstances surrounding the conduct or the result of the conduct when the person is aware of, but consciously disregards, a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that its disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the accused person's standpoint."

It would not be hard, in my opinion, to conclude that firing a weapon in the air is a reckless act.

I don't know anything about the circumstances of the person killed by a bullet fired into the air some 3 km away, but in this country I think the coroner would have to return a verdict of accidental death.

I don't think he could say the man was unlawfully killed because there was no intention to kill, nor was it reasonably foreseeable that someone would be killed. I don't even think you could say that the shooter fired recklessly, without caring whether or not someone would be killed, because it would not be within anyone's reasonable contemplation that there could be someone standing precisely where the bullet would land, so far away.

DuncanONeil

01-09-2010, 05:03 PM

I would think that even your own Marines would have been taught the basics of policing, and to make that remark is insulting to your own forces

Regards ian 2411

US troops are not taught the skills and techniques of policing, unless that happens to be their specialty, i.e. MPs and SPs. Even in the Air Force even that job is subdivided into "security" and "law enforcement"
To put it in the simplest terms possible the job of the military is to blow things up and kill people. Neither of those is the role of the police.

Peacekeeping missions are a different animal altogether!

MMI

01-09-2010, 05:12 PM

OK - I accept it is reckless to fire a gun into the air, and that a person should pay the consequences for whatever reasonably foreseeable harm results from shooting into the sky. I confess I am utterly ignorant about guns and their handling. I can see that it is quite possible that injury or death might result from firing over the heads of rioters (rather than upwards). But is it a reasonably foreseeable consequence that someone three kilometres away and at right angles to the line of fire is going to be hit by a bullet shot into the sky? Wouldn't the shooter be more concerned by those directly underneath the point in the sky the shot was pointed towards?

Is your postion different where the victim is within normal range, or where, due to the weather and/or other physical conditions the bullet is carried far beyond its normal range.

Again, the question is whether or not the firearm was discharged in a reasonably safe manner following legal guidelines. Under any conditions, firing one's weapon into the air is unsafe.

I have accepted that firing into the air is unsafe and potentially culpable. However, are you saying that, because I have fired it, I must accept the consequences even if the death could not have resulted but for the effect of additional factors. Let us imagine that I fire tha gun into the air where conditions are apparently normal for the location. However, higher in the atmosphere, winds are unusually strong. In ascending, the bullet I have fired is deflected from the vertical to some extent, and in descending the bullet, its power spent, is deflected a bit more. Just as it is about to hit the ground, the victim moves into its path and is killed by the energy the bullet has gathered in its fall. Now I, as the shooter, must be aware that some "drift" will occur, but where the bullet lands far beyond the normal range of "drift", can I not defend myself by saying that, but for the effect of the strong winds at altitude and the extra energy gathered by the falling bullet, the death could not have occurred? Perhaps there is a mathematician here who could calculate the area around the point of firing within which it would be reasonable to expect the bullet to land.

Otherwise, you seem to be saying that, even if the bullet was carried by freak winds to Australia and killed someone there, I would be wholly responsible.

(I suppose I should state that I am assuming that for a person to be killed by a bullet 3 km from the shooter is an extraordinary occurrence and beyond the gun's normal range.)

IAN 2411

01-09-2010, 05:30 PM

Do you know Duncan i will take your posts as the ramblings of a fool, because if you had read all the posts, instead of the ones you want to comment on, you would have realised that in the forth post from the top i apologised to fetishdj for my mistake, dont call me confused at least i can read.

2/ The Man was found at the inquest to be three times over the limit for alcohol, he hadn't a clue what the police were talking about, and if you had read the forth post you would have seen that in there also.

3/ If you had read one of my earlier posts, you would also have seen where i explained the rules of engagement in Ulster. I wont duplicate the post i will let you use your eyes and read it yourself.

4/ If that boy had been thirty feet away he would have been shot dead by my mates on the main street, the British army do not put their comunications in the line of fire, this boy came out of a house in the blocked street were my vehicle was. Because at the same time the riot was going on, there was a tompson machine gun being fired at the British troops. In answer to your question; would i have said and done the same thing if he had been thirty feet away? Don't take the piss out of me, i am not in this thread to be insulted and made to look stupid by you. If you can do no better than come into a thread, and ridicule people, then i think it best if you stay out.

Regards ian 2411

MMI

01-09-2010, 06:08 PM

As Northern Ireland does not reflect the British Army's most glorious period, I do not think it is appropriate to compare police ineptitude or incompetence in killing innocent individuals with the reprehensible behaviour of the British Army in Ulster, where it not only took part in incidents like Bloody Sunday, but colluded with Loyalist paramilitaries to create, train and arm murder squads, and then gave them the freedom to operate and escape. It's hard for me to criticise the USA's Republican supporters, or Colonel Gadaffi for financing the PIRA when the British Army itself sponsored Loyalist terrorism.

The British police do not sponsor crime or arrange for dangerous criminals to be murdered. They just fuck up now and then.

If a child holding a lit petrol bomb appeared likely to toss it towards a British soldier back in those days, I'm quite sure he would have been shot before the bomb left his hand, and I think ian confirms this. Fortunately, in ian's case, he managed to talk the child out of it. But I doubt he was following standard procedure and I commend him for his action. (Soldiers are not the same as the Army.)

DuncanONeil

01-09-2010, 06:20 PM

MMI;

Even if a person were to fire directly up at a 90 degree angle the bullet will still fall to the east of where fired. But few people actuall take such foolish action at a precise 90% vertical angle!

DuncanONeil

01-09-2010, 06:23 PM

I apologise but you assumption is incorrect. I deal with each message as it comes across the screen. And since I usually try to measure my time here it is in my best interests to respond to material as it comes across my desk.

Do you know Duncan i will take your posts as the ramblings of a fool, because if you had read all the posts, instead of the ones you want to comment on, you would have realised that in the forth post from the top i apologised to fetishdj for my mistake, dont call me confused at least i can read.

2/ The Man was found at the inquest to be three times over the limit for alcohol, he hadn't a clue what the police were talking about, and if you had read the forth post you would have seen that in there also.

3/ If you had read one of my earlier posts, you would also have seen where i explained the rules of engagement in Ulster. I wont duplicate the post i will let you use your eyes and read it yourself.

4/ If that boy had been thirty feet away he would have been shot dead by my mates on the main street, the British army do not put their comunications in the line of fire, this boy came out of a house in the blocked street were my vehicle was. Because at the same time the riot was going on, there was a tompson machine gun being fired at the British troops. In answer to your question; would i have said and done the same thing if he had been thirty feet away? Don't take the piss out of me, i am not in this thread to be insulted and made to look stupid by you. If you can do no better than come into a thread, and ridicule people, then i think it best if you stay out.

Regards ian 2411