From: Russell Whitaker (russell_whitaker@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jan 24 2001 - 14:22:39 MST
The following is forwarded with the explicit persmission
of my friend Jim Bennett, a UPI columnist living in London,
in response to Steve Nichol's blanket misrepresentation of
gunowners and libertarian/gun rights writers in the U.K.
To add my own: assuming you read all the way down the forward,
where Jim recounts his experiences in Warwick, I've had
similar experiences in Ipswitch and Cambridge.
Steve, I'm not going to the point-by-point on your
response, as you seem to have not even glanced at any
of the references I took great pains to dig up and pass
on. I take it you're too "enlightened" to sully yourself
with research.
Russell
>From: "James C. Bennett" <bennett@transnational.net>
[Personal aside snipped for re-posting]
>
>The point he [Steve] made about America having a "completely different
>culture"
>shows he doesn't really understand either Britain or America. America
>isn't
>just one culture, it's at least five or six, all of which are essentially
>derived from different British Isles cultures, which also remain distinct.
>Things like degree of interpersonal violence vary from culture to culture;
>the most violent in the States are the Southern and the Scots-Irish.
>Interestingly enough, the Scots-Irish, or Ulster culture today retains the
>highest levels of interpersonal violence in the UK, and is generally armed,
>despite all the (entirely ineffective in Ulster) gun control laws of the
>UK.
>
>So gun control laws and lack of gun violence tend to have the same relation
>as wet streets and rain -- the causal relationship is not reversible! Gun
>control laws "work" only in cultures which already don't use violence very
>much (and probably didn't "need" them in the first place.
>
>As far as the effectiveness of the pistol ban in the UK -- tell it to Jill
>Dando!
>
>Russell Whitaker wrote:
>
> > Hi Jim,
> >
> > Good to hear from you. May I pass this on to the Extropians
> > list?
> >
[More personal stuff snipped]
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Russell
> >
> > >From: "James C. Bennett" <bennett@transnational.net>
> > >
> > >Russ:
> > >
> > >This guy is living in dreamland. I recall talking to some of my wife's
> > >former neighbors at a party she gave in Warwick, where she used to
>live,
> > >and it included one gunowner (out of maybe five families on her
> > >cul-de-sac) who was vocally critical of the gun ban, and most of the
> > >rest were at least mildly skeptical of it. Just a random survey, to be
> > >sure, but indicative that pro-gun, or at least skepticism of gun
> > >prohibitionism, is not hyper-rare in the UK. And many, if not most,
> > >country families have a double-barrled shotgun in the house.
> > >
> > >Hope all is well.
> > >
> > >Jim
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