12-04-2009, 02:56 PM
Magda
I am somewhat ambivalent about gun control too. However, what I DO know is that our present attitude to guns in the UK is absurd, unhealthy and grossly unjust. It is one thing to be carrying a concealed handgun in a city street; quite another to keep one at home for personal/home protection - and yet our laws makes no such distinction even though judges are allowed a minimal degree of sentencing discretion. Historically gun owners in this country have been among the most law-abiding citizens of any category. They have no objection whatever to being subjected to a rigorous licensing regime either - In fact they would demand and expect such.
In that regard it is interesting to note that the immediate proximate cause for the last draconian gun legislation was the 1996 Dunblane School massacre. The guns used were legally held. But, as it turned out, the killer, Thomas Hamilton was well known to the police and had they carried out even the most rudimentary checks in connection with his multiple licence applications there is little doubt he would not (and certainly should not) have been allowed to hold any guns legally.
There have also been mutterings about Masonic/police favours, Hamilton having been a Lodge member. Also, he was involved in numerous paedophile related complaints regarding his boys club activities - one of them from George Robertson who lived in Dunblane concerning his son. The same George Robertson who later became UK Defence Secretary and then Secretary General of NATO. It's also disturbing to note that parts of the official 'Cullen Inquiry' into the tragedy have a 100 year publication embargo on them.
I agree your characterisation of police use and handling of guns too. A cursory look at the cold-blooded public execution of Jean Charles de Menezes confirms their incompetence - or rather their knowledge that, because they will always be given the benefit of any doubt, they can afford to behave like their Chicago-style gung-ho cop heroes - which is exactly what they do when they have been sufficiently pumped up by their terrorist-fearing controllers.
I am somewhat ambivalent about gun control too. However, what I DO know is that our present attitude to guns in the UK is absurd, unhealthy and grossly unjust. It is one thing to be carrying a concealed handgun in a city street; quite another to keep one at home for personal/home protection - and yet our laws makes no such distinction even though judges are allowed a minimal degree of sentencing discretion. Historically gun owners in this country have been among the most law-abiding citizens of any category. They have no objection whatever to being subjected to a rigorous licensing regime either - In fact they would demand and expect such.
In that regard it is interesting to note that the immediate proximate cause for the last draconian gun legislation was the 1996 Dunblane School massacre. The guns used were legally held. But, as it turned out, the killer, Thomas Hamilton was well known to the police and had they carried out even the most rudimentary checks in connection with his multiple licence applications there is little doubt he would not (and certainly should not) have been allowed to hold any guns legally.
There have also been mutterings about Masonic/police favours, Hamilton having been a Lodge member. Also, he was involved in numerous paedophile related complaints regarding his boys club activities - one of them from George Robertson who lived in Dunblane concerning his son. The same George Robertson who later became UK Defence Secretary and then Secretary General of NATO. It's also disturbing to note that parts of the official 'Cullen Inquiry' into the tragedy have a 100 year publication embargo on them.
I agree your characterisation of police use and handling of guns too. A cursory look at the cold-blooded public execution of Jean Charles de Menezes confirms their incompetence - or rather their knowledge that, because they will always be given the benefit of any doubt, they can afford to behave like their Chicago-style gung-ho cop heroes - which is exactly what they do when they have been sufficiently pumped up by their terrorist-fearing controllers.
Peter Presland
".....there is something far worse than Nazism, and that is the hubris of the Anglo-American fraternities, whose routine is to incite indigenous monsters to war, and steer the pandemonium to further their imperial aims"
Guido Preparata. Preface to 'Conjuring Hitler'[size=12][size=12]
"Never believe anything until it has been officially denied"
Claud Cockburn
[/SIZE][/SIZE]
".....there is something far worse than Nazism, and that is the hubris of the Anglo-American fraternities, whose routine is to incite indigenous monsters to war, and steer the pandemonium to further their imperial aims"
Guido Preparata. Preface to 'Conjuring Hitler'[size=12][size=12]
"Never believe anything until it has been officially denied"
Claud Cockburn
[/SIZE][/SIZE]