England Used to Be a Country of Men

Thats false. Lunatics are not allowed to have guns in the U.S.

Quantrill

 

HO - HO - Ho , Ooooo-Hoooo I've heard of some black neighbourhoods in American cities , and some Black townships in Sth Africa, where you'll not only loose your pants but yr treasured nuts as well,


lol

...

 

Queertroll , blabbers :

Yeah , guns are sold to sane people who then go out, become and behave like lunatics.

bang - bang - .


btw - You're not trying to pass yourself off as being sane , are you ?


...

 

yes and i would be royally screwed if i were in that situation because i wouldn't have my pants removed from my conscious body.

 

Just correcting a mistake. Seems your always in that general area though.

Quantrill

 

100 percent incorrect

ian

 

Quite sane schoolkids go around shooting up their schools?

 

It is the American Way. You some sort of socialist -liberal-abortionist or something?

 

They don't seem to have any problems getting them...normal people don't go on shooting sprees.

 

Are you suggesting that the 'American way' is insane?

"You some sort of socialist -liberal-abortionist or something?"

No Sir, I am a British Conservative.

 

The US, unfortunately, has gun control laws, if relatively liberal ones. The UK, on the other hand, one of the strictest gun laws in the world, easily stricter than the vast majority of other western nations. So maybe it's you who need to get with the rest of the world.

Whereas you have a society where ONLY lunatics have guns, and we're witnesses the results right now.

Yet again, you only have two choices: ALL people being able to have guns or SOME people being able to have guns while keeping all the others from having them. Any fool should be able to see that the latter is both dangerous and tyrannical.

You may not live in fear of it, but the risk is still there whether you admit it or not. I guess you believed that the second the state passed the gun control bill, ALL GUNS IN YOUR COUNTRY MAGICALLY DISAPPEARED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

Of course, and of course the madman could be wearing a government-issued costume, but I guess you'd be thankful if you were murdered at the hands of your government because that's "the will of the people," right?

 

The risk is there anywhere on earth, but it is a matter of degree. The statistics indicate that you are 28 times more likely to be shot dead in the USA, than in the UK.

So Snakestretcher can walk anywhere in the UK, day or night, with an incomparably higher level of confidence that some madman will not shoot him dead.

 

Thank goodness the UK never has shooting sprees. Oh, no wait, that's wrong:

Twelve killed in Cumbria shooting spree

Man shot dead in street in Easton area of Bristol

Murder rate in London is lowest since 1978, but gun killings rise

Father of four shot dead in street after queue row at McDonald's

Wood Green gang involved in Tottenham gun murder, court told

Gun crime soars by 35% (6 years after the 1997 handgun ban)

Police Shooting Leads to Massive Riots, Looting in London (OOPS! Looks like people in government-issued costumes can still shoot people in Britain!)

Yeah, it must feel oh so safe in Britain, since there is simply no chance a gunman will every shoot you on the street. Or stab you for that matter:

Fatal stabbings at 30-year high

 

As it was over a hundred years ago, long before the UK had any kind of significant gun laws. Crime's ALWAYS been higher in the United States and has gone up and down in both countries throughout that whole time, despite these laws. The only thing the laws have done is make it far more difficult for people to defend themselves against criminals, not to mention potential state tyranny.

 

Good on you.

 

Criminals can always get a gun. Even when you outlaw guns.

Quantrill

 

Sorry, but that is nonsense. Gun control laws make perfect sense under the moral premises I've already outlined in a previous post.
Our police-men are not supposed to shoot non-violent people but to protect them against those that are violent. It's the kind of society you're advocating that's armed to its teeth and where non-violent people have to become equally violent to the biggest thugs if they want to have a chance of survival.

The thing is that I don't perceive my countries gun control laws as unjust, just as I don't perceive it as unjust that I had to pass a driving-test before being allowed to drive a car. If I really wanted to I could get a licence allowing me to own a gun. But why bother? The fact that the vast majority of my fellow citizens does not bother either has the nice side-effect that the society I live in is indeed much safer than yours:

http://atlanticreview.org/archives/434-Murder-Rate-in-the-United-States-and-Germany.html

No smugness involved, just stating a fact. If you guys are willing to accept your high rate of gun crime because any restriction on owning weapons would kind of taint your cultural want for them, that's fine with me. As I said: each country sets its own priorities. A lot of Germans are rather keen on their freedom to drive as fast as they want on their autobahns and I must say I found US tempo-limits painfully restrictive. I won't call you a „serf“ if you support them though. While fast driving is a lot of fun, I won't kid myself into thinking it's sensible.

 

That moral premise is tyranny of majority. You said, "Well, good democracy is subject to restrictions protecting individual rights." But individual rights necessarily include the right to arm oneself for purposes of self-defense. Anything less is tyranny of the majority.

As I pointed out in another post, restrictive gun laws do not correlate to a decrease in crime. The United States has always had a relatively high crime rate, even before must countries had modern gun law.

Even if this were not the case, I still wouldn't be entitled to violate someone's rights because I wanted to feel safer, anymore than I'm allowed to ban all stairs to reduce my risk of falling down them.

Each individual should set his own priorities over his own person and property, not each country (which really means each government). And I disagree with the dopey US speeding laws, and I don't say "Well, it's okay because it's the country." I say it's a stupid rule and would be a stupid rule in any country. Right and wrong aren't dependent on geographic area.

 

I am very happy to live in a country where there are strict gun control laws.
The number of unarmed people who have been shot in error by the police in this country would multiply dramatically if every policeman carried a gun.
There are specialist armed units to deal with criminals who are armed.

 

Well if this a topic about what qualifies as the qualities of a real man, it seems a bit random to be talking about gun control. But whatever sparks your powder.

Regardless if others define real men in their ability to defend themselves from aggression by gun or toothpick, what makes up a 'real man' is going to be different things to different people at different times.

For me, one test of maturity and manhood is how likely you are to let others impose their definitions on you. That can be in the aftermath of a robbery where the crim wants you to live life as a victim or on a forum where someone wants to judge you for your actions in a snapshot without knowing anything else about you.
If we can stand and laugh at others seeking to tell us who we are or what we are, we possess some of the qualities of a 'real man' in my book.

Besides this whole thread is a little disappointing to me as I thought it was about the effects of my emigration from the UK to Aus. Oh well.

 

I am honestly embarassed for most of Europe. That continent once held some of the mightiest empires in the history of the world. And now virtually every country has been reduced to helpless, effeminate girly men who actually view weakness as a virtue. The more you allow yourself to get walked on, the more superior you are to everyone else. It's a ridiculous elitist culture that borders on self-parody.

There are no more warriors in Europe. Only hair dressers.

 

Hmm..."The more you allow yourself to get walked on"

Now let me see. The definition of allowing yourself to get walked on is not having a trade union. In America only 7% of the private sector is unionised. 93% allow the bosses to sit on their faces, never mind walk on them. The UK figure is 15%.

Also, we Brits don't need guns to defend ourselves, you Americans apparently do. But are we more likely to be victims? Well you Americans are 5 times more likely to get murdered than us, so apparently not.

Actually, Professor Geert Hofstede has rated countries for Masculinity (MAS). "This dimension pertains to the degree societies reinforce, or do not reinforce, the traditional masculine work role model of male achievement, control, and power."
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/intercultural/dimensions.html
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/map/hofstede-masculinity.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Hofstede

The UK scores higher (66) than the USA (62). The UK is officially more masculine than the USA.

 

No this is what my moral premise was:
"I'm all for individual freedoms. We should all have as many as possible. But I'm sure you know the saying that one man's freedom ends where another man's freedom begins."

I hate to break it to you but there's no such thing as unlimited individual freedom unless you choose to live as a hermit with no other persons around who also cherish their individual freedom and whose interests will invariably differ from yours here and there.

So people have to compromise: you don't want to compromise on your right to carry a gun, I don't want to compromise much on my right not to be threatened with one, so it's a good thing we live in different societies catering for our different needs.

So you're suggesting that US-citizens are simply more prone to violence than Europeans? Maybe, I don't know. If I was American I wouldn't give up hope though that that may change.

So the council wouldn't be entitled to set up a 30kmh play-street where your kids can play without risking to be run over, because that would infringe on my right to speed wherever I please?
And if I ignore your warning signs and kill one of your kids with my car, I'd be a heroic 'freedom-fighter' for my freedom to speed? Bad luck for your kid that paid for its right to play with its life. Surely its right to be safe was not as important as my right to speed?

To disagree and to discuss things are part of democracy, that's fine.
The interesting thing about our little argument for me is that I usually take the individualist side and I thoroughly agree that each and every one of us should have the utmost autonomy - up to the point where our our autonomy ends because we'd hurt the rights of others. Where this point begins is a matter of discussion. I see that regarding guns we won't reach an agreement.
To go back on topic: Personally I'm glad that the average Londoner does not own a gun, because if they had as many guns as Americans do the riots would surely have cost more lives. And the individual's right to live is the one I value above all others.

 

Deary me, nothing against this Professor Geert Hofstede, but maybe it's time we question our idea of masculinity. I don't find my husband any less manly because I'm the main bread-earner of the house. And one of the things I love about him is that he's more into manly reasoning than into boyish fist-fights.

 

Pse forgive me but I cant resist. Some Years ago someone said that the only man in England was Margaret Thatcher!