I hear from a (British) FB buddy of mine that "apparently, the wise lawgivers of Texas are legislating to allow the carrying of guns on campus. Students, professors, tourists, the lot!" As Troll works with Texans and I therefore am treated to endless tales of their outlook on life, this doesn't entirely surprise me, and I may in fact be tempted to open a book on when the first campus massacre is going to take place in the Lone Star State following this latest bit of gun-craziness...
Whenever I try to discuss the subject of guns with American friends you can see their eyes glazing over as they believe they're about to get another lecture from another gun-hating Brit. This isn't entirely fair - I'm broadly in favour of guns if they're used as a means to getting cute fluffy animals or helpless little birdies one step closer to my Aga and therefore my stomach. Being farmers, most of my family had/have guns for precisely this purpose (and of course the odd bout of rat-shooting if the dogs/cats haven't kept up with the growth of the rodent population). What my family DON'T have lying around are automatic weapons, and to be frank I don't really see why ANYBODY needs to keep these items in the normal domestic setting: if you want to use the things, go to a range or gun club which can store them safely. And presumably have procedures in place to prevent your random nutter going on a spree...
The Americans obviously don't agree: for some peculiar reason even the most intelligent of my Yankee pals thinks it's perfectly reasonable to allow people to have any type of gun they fancy lying around the place; even if the said weapon is capable of replicating a scene from Vietnam in one little touch of the trigger. I used to argue the point with them, but time and experience has taught me I'm wasting my breath; these days I merely let them get on with it and indulge in a volley of 'I told you so' emails whenever the latest maniac goes on a rampage with his M1911.
It is true to say we aren't entirely rampage-free in the UK - look at the situation in Cumbria last year when Derrick Bird killed 12 and injured 11 with his shotguns. My response to that would be that the carnage would have been so much greater if he'd had the sort of access to automatic weapons which is 'enjoyed' as a matter of course in the States. In addition I'd draw attention to the fact that whenever incidents of this nature do occur in the UK they are so rare they are remembered for many years afterwards - Dunblane (which resulted in much tighter controls on handguns being put in place) was in 1996 and is still often mentioned whenever discussions on gun law occur. Hungerford in 1987 - coming up to 25 years ago - is still very much in the public mind. Can Americans honestly say the same, when there are so many more gun-related tragedies happening in the US?
It's a mystery to me. Why do otherwise intelligent, thinking, people have such a blind spot on this issue? Because blind spot it is... an earlier post from an American friend of mind on FB in connection with the shooting of the Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in January 2011 read thus:
"A friend posted this: "A fitting tribute to Dr. King: 'Last week we saw a white Catholic male Republican judge murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year-old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean American combat surgeon, and this all was eulogized by our African American President."
I refrained from comment - uncharacteristically - but my actual thoughts were 'This is all very nice and lovely, but does it not occur to you people that the incident probably wouldn't have happened at all if you had effective gun controls and couldn't buy your ammunition from Walmart along with your weekly groceries?'. Not ONE person made anything like that connection in the comments following my friend's posting, rather it was all a load of congratulatory back-slapping on what a jolly-lovely-integrated-harmonious place America is.
I've quoted the film The American President before in this blog, but it bravely (and almost uniquely in my knowledge of film) makes the point that US citizens do not 'connect gun crime with the possession of guns'. And judging by the events in Texas they aren't going to any time soon... anybody care to take a punt on my book regarding the timing of the next Texan campus massacre??
Monday, 21 February 2011
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Just a quickie..
... to say I'm back. Ranting has not ceased at Chateau Angevin during my absence from this blog, just the time available to type about it has. Also Facebook is a rather quicker method. Just so I don't disappoint my erstwhile readers, a (mercifully brief) observation on one current topic...
There has been a lot of handwringing and bleeding-heart-bleating about the fact the European Court of Human Rights has told Britain we can't deny our banged-up prisoners the vote. I'll let my gentle readers imagine what I SAY, in person, on that particular topic, but take the expletives and bombast out for the purposes of this blog and the remaining thrust of my argument is simply that it seems the epitome of common sense to state that people who pay scant attention to the rule of law can't reasonably expect to have a say in electing those who formulate those laws. However, much as I can see the attraction in Cameron and Clegg sticking two fingers up at Brussels in a sort of Gieves-suited-rerun of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I can also see that Euro-politicos have long memories - we'd probably suffer in the long run when there was something WE wanted out of THEM. That's the way the Euro-cookie crumbles, unfortunately, and there are plenty around who still would love to stick the knife in to the UK as a reprisal for Reichsführer Thatcher's antics in the 80's...
So... my suggestion to get Cameron and Clegg out of the Euro-Alamo is that we sit our little miscreants down on their first day in the slammer and ask them to make a straight choice; namely TV or the vote. Let's see how much the francise means to them when it's up against losing Eastenders, X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent (sic) for the duration of their sentence...
This ruse also has a few added-value aspects -
1. We are treating prisoners like adults and asking THEM to make a choice, rather than imposing our naughty paternalistic will on them. Which is a good thing, yes??
2. The magic buzz-word CHOICE is in there. The last 20 years we have been bombarded with this as our legislators keep hitting the 'giving more choice to ordinary people is a fabulous idea' button in a mistaken impression it makes their crazy expensive schemes more attractive. For once, put 'giving people a choice' to GOOD use...
3. It potentially gives the do-gooding-lentil-knitting mob something to occupy themselves - ie. they can develop programmes to attempt to educate prisoners about the franchise and its importance in an (almost certainly vain) attempt to persuade them to resist the siren call of Rupert Murdoch and his evil empire...and thus gets the irritating, smug, sanctimonious buggers off everybody else's backs for a bit.
Finally. Somebody really needs to point out to the Eurocrats that only 65% of the entire UK population bothered to turn out to vote in the 2010 election - and that was UP on the previous two and at a time when arguably more was at stake for the country at any time since WWII. Why on earth they imagine your average convicted villain gives a tinker's cuss about voting is beyond me; but unfortunately now they have pointed out the little darlings' human rights have been infringed I suspect ALL of the latter will spot the opportunity for state-funded compensation. Ta very much, Europe: I hope we'll remember this cock-up the next time we have to listen to all your excuses when it transpires you've waived hordes of economic migrants through your borders so they can turn up at Calais and be OUR problem. Much as I love the idea of Europe generally, it's the same with any club - it only works if ALL the members abide by the rules... and if the rest of Europe want the UK to be good boys and girls it's about time they set us an example...
There has been a lot of handwringing and bleeding-heart-bleating about the fact the European Court of Human Rights has told Britain we can't deny our banged-up prisoners the vote. I'll let my gentle readers imagine what I SAY, in person, on that particular topic, but take the expletives and bombast out for the purposes of this blog and the remaining thrust of my argument is simply that it seems the epitome of common sense to state that people who pay scant attention to the rule of law can't reasonably expect to have a say in electing those who formulate those laws. However, much as I can see the attraction in Cameron and Clegg sticking two fingers up at Brussels in a sort of Gieves-suited-rerun of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I can also see that Euro-politicos have long memories - we'd probably suffer in the long run when there was something WE wanted out of THEM. That's the way the Euro-cookie crumbles, unfortunately, and there are plenty around who still would love to stick the knife in to the UK as a reprisal for Reichsführer Thatcher's antics in the 80's...
So... my suggestion to get Cameron and Clegg out of the Euro-Alamo is that we sit our little miscreants down on their first day in the slammer and ask them to make a straight choice; namely TV or the vote. Let's see how much the francise means to them when it's up against losing Eastenders, X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent (sic) for the duration of their sentence...
This ruse also has a few added-value aspects -
1. We are treating prisoners like adults and asking THEM to make a choice, rather than imposing our naughty paternalistic will on them. Which is a good thing, yes??
2. The magic buzz-word CHOICE is in there. The last 20 years we have been bombarded with this as our legislators keep hitting the 'giving more choice to ordinary people is a fabulous idea' button in a mistaken impression it makes their crazy expensive schemes more attractive. For once, put 'giving people a choice' to GOOD use...
3. It potentially gives the do-gooding-lentil-knitting mob something to occupy themselves - ie. they can develop programmes to attempt to educate prisoners about the franchise and its importance in an (almost certainly vain) attempt to persuade them to resist the siren call of Rupert Murdoch and his evil empire...and thus gets the irritating, smug, sanctimonious buggers off everybody else's backs for a bit.
Finally. Somebody really needs to point out to the Eurocrats that only 65% of the entire UK population bothered to turn out to vote in the 2010 election - and that was UP on the previous two and at a time when arguably more was at stake for the country at any time since WWII. Why on earth they imagine your average convicted villain gives a tinker's cuss about voting is beyond me; but unfortunately now they have pointed out the little darlings' human rights have been infringed I suspect ALL of the latter will spot the opportunity for state-funded compensation. Ta very much, Europe: I hope we'll remember this cock-up the next time we have to listen to all your excuses when it transpires you've waived hordes of economic migrants through your borders so they can turn up at Calais and be OUR problem. Much as I love the idea of Europe generally, it's the same with any club - it only works if ALL the members abide by the rules... and if the rest of Europe want the UK to be good boys and girls it's about time they set us an example...
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