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[Mighty Hatfield]

Funny isnt it that 100 years ago to all intents & purposes there was no gun control in this country and yet gun crime was all but unheard of.

What a daft thing to say. As long as guns have been around, they have been used in criminal acts. I suppose Dick Turpin used a frilly hanky. 

[Khaos]

Not the public - yes, this murderer is off the streets, but is it useful that thier taxes pay for his life in prison?
Given the alternatives are to allow the state to murder the criminal (and use a different word in order to pretend it is something else) or to allow someone who clearly does not care for the lives of others, back into society, then it seems an excellent use of taxes.  Punishment has more than one aim.  Reformation is only applicable if you believe the criminal can become a suitably low risk to society, not if they appear to be a lost cause.

[ClearThinking]

I am not an advocate of the Death Penalty, and never will be - I agree it is murder by the state.
I never suggested that all criminals would be suitable for rehabilitation and release, I simply stated that locking them up and throwing away the key defeated the premise of the modern justice system.

-CT

[AL9]

Only just noticed this pearl of wisdom from Mighty Hatfield

Me: "Funny isnt it that 100 years ago to all intents & purposes there was no gun control in this country and yet gun crime was all but unheard of."

MH replies: "What a daft thing to say. As long as guns have been around, they have been used in criminal acts. I suppose Dick Turpin used a frilly hanky."

Well what a daft response. You are really prepared to argue that gun crime is lower now than 100 years ago are you? Or merely just the same?

(If you want to go back 270 years, thats a different story, figures for then are more hazy. Or are you implying Turpin was operational as recently as 100 years ago?)

Did I say guns were not used in crime, why would I even bother asserting that, I would have to be stupid. Of course guns were used. But not to the extent they are today, I guess thats the point you are anxious to avoid.

OK lets kick off with this link:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/graham_stewart/article1464478.ece

Check out this paragraph:

There were a quarter of a million registered firearms in private hands before the First World War and the true figure was almost certainly far higher. In those years the average number of crimes involving firearms in London was 45. In 2006 it was 3,350.

BTW Dick Turpin had been dead for 170 odd years at this point.

So in 100 years gun crime is up by over 7000%. Yet 100 years ago guns were legal for law abiding citizens, now they are not. Gun crime should be down 7000% whats going on?

An ineresting article on the Beeb site:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2656875.stm

Interesting to read some of the comments, the outraged liberals huffing & puffing their indignation, as if Britain had always had strict gun control and no self-defence in law.

In many ways its the presumption about self-defence which has caused the problems we have rather than the partuicular weapons used, taking away the guns is just tying up the most obvious loose end. Roy Jenkins changed that to reasonable force (in 1968 I believe) up til then shooting a burglar in your own home (or dispatching them with any other weapon) would have been regarded in the same way as it is in much of the US. An understandable act of self-defence. Thats how recent the change is. Yet we are encouraged to believe that we have always had these restrictive arrangements.

[Mighty Hatfield]

YOU - "Funny isnt it that 100 years ago to all intents & purposes there was no gun control in this country and yet gun crime was all but unheard of."

ME - It wasnt unhead of , even longer than 100 years ago, gun crime was clearly heard of. e.g dick turpin.

and that was all i said, i didnt say it was lower now, or anything else at all.

Capice?

It really is hard trying to explain things to you sometimes.

[Kay]

MH "What a daft thing to say. As long as guns have been around, they have been used in criminal acts. I suppose Dick Turpin used a frilly hanky.  "

Did he really? 

tt4n
Kay