From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@lorrey.com)
Date: Tue Jun 01 1999 - 10:13:15 MDT
Rick wrote:
> > Charlie Stross [charlie@antipope.org] also wrote:
> > >If widespread gun ownership deters crime, then one would expect the USA
> > >to be a crime-free zone compared to the UK
>
> <SNIP>
>
> Remember the Dunblane massacre in Scotland where so many infants were shot
> and killed? After that there was an uproar and the government acted on it.
> Now the UK has probably the toughest gun laws on the planet. Freedom?
> Despite these laws, we are not any less free than those in the US. We're
> just free without worrying so much whether our kids will be shot to death at
> school or whether a burglar will easily shoot us to death when they break
> into our homes.
If Britain is so safe, why are gun crimes still happening? I have not heard of a
single instance of a Brit successfully defending themselves in many years.
Additionally, no you are not as free as an American. You are a subject, not a
citizen. Your rights only exist as a matter of statute, not as a matter of
Natural Law. You did once have a similar level of freedom, but it was severely
eroded under Charles I and James I. You have no freedom of speech except for in
one location on some stone in a park somewhere. Everyplace else your speech is
only what the government allows you to say. The illusion of freedom is not the
same as actual freedom. Actual freedom survives tests of its limits. Illusiory
freedom triggers additional limitations on that freedom. Granted that things
here have been becoming more and more illusiory the last few decades.
> I cannot believe people use freedom as leverage behind having the right to
> carry a gun. It is pointless in this day and age. Sounds to me like many
> people believe they are still living in the world as it was 200 year ago.
Has the human animal significantly changed over the last 200 years? No it has
not.
> In the UK, when crimes involve guns special police units take care of it.
As stated repeatedly here, there have been numerous Supreme Court rulings that
specifically declare that no police unit or personnel at any level of government
in the US is permitted or delegated the authority to protect individuals from
crime, or to prevent criminals from commiting crimes. They are only authorized
to catch criminals once they have committed crimes. Part of the whole 'innocent
until proven guilty' tradition that you all seem to forget so easily. The
presumption of innocence dictates that you cannot apprehend anyone for the
crimes they have not yet commited. You can only apprehend them while in the
commission or after the commission of a crime.
It is a recognized fact that 2.5 million crimes are prevented by private
citizens with guns here in the US each year, most of these WITHOUT DISCHARGING
THE WEAPON. Some 60,000 people are killed every year with guns. Half of these
are suicides and should not be counted as crimes. At least half of the remainder
are the offenders being killed by law abiding citizens. Of the remaining 15,000,
90% are themselves criminals who are killed by other criminals, leaving around
1500 innocent civilians who are killed by guns each year. So we have 1500
murders/homicides by guns countered by 2.5 million crimes prevented by guns.
> You see, in the UK they actually employ police officers that are trained for
> those situations. Unlike in the US where people obviously have so little
> faith in the law enforcement agencies that they feel they must deal death
> themselves. As for protecting yourself, chances are, in a situation where
> they police don't have time to respond, you'd probably be dead anyway before
> you have a chance to brand your gun and do that bit of shooting which people
> are just dying to do (no pun intended). Is that a wrong perspective? Well,
> then why dictate you need a gun to 'defend' yourself, what else do you plan
> on doing with a gun?
Its a proven fact that in any given crime situation, a police officer is five
times more likely to kill an innocent civilian that a law abiding citizen in the
same situation. What sort of special training does it take to do THAT badly? Its
also proven fact that a person carrying a gun is 29% more likely to survive a
given crime situation than without a gun (you are only 16% more likely to
survive if you have a knife.)
Before I carried a gun, I was a victim of crime on three occasions. Only once
did I come out on top, after police luckily arrived on the scene. I was getting
a bit tired beating on this acid tripping nut job who assaulted me, and probably
wouldn't have lasted much longer. Since I started carrying regularly, I have
been in two situations that would have evolved into much more severe crime
scenes had I not been carrying. On both occasions the situation was dissipated
before it got a chance to go far enough.
Rather than a danger to the community, I am an asset. I know the people and the
geography, and function much like a plainclothes police officer, although as a
private citizen I am limited to making citizen's arrests. The only people in
government who will look at me as a threat are the types who have really nasty
things in mind to do with their government authority.
Mike Lorrey
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