Posted on 12/20/2001 12:06:39 PM PST by 45Auto
Revenge killings among drug gangs have fuelled an explosion in gun murders in Britain. According to latest figures the number of gun murders in London has leapt by 90% this year.
In April to November 2001 there were 30, compared to 16 in the same period last year. This year 16 of the murders were 'black on black' killings compared to nine last year, an increase of 77%.
All-night garages
There were more shootings in the trendy West End rather than in boroughs like Lambeth, Hackney and Brent.
At least two people a day are now robbed at gunpoint in London.
Armed robbers are also increasingly targeting all-night garages, off licences and shops rather than banks and cash in transit.
Jamaica drug route
Commander Alan Brown of Operation Trident said there were "clear links" in many gun murders to Jamaica, the major drug route into this country. But he added: "If we take someone out there is an immediate struggle to take over the drug dealing of that particular gang." Detectives estimate as much as four tonnes of cocaine is making its way into London through drug mules - mostly women - travelling from Jamaica on commercial flights each year.
Well, believe it or not, I didn't get it from the net. I remember reading it to my wife from a magazine. She thinks it was in Reader's Digest, I thought it was in one of the gun rags. I still think I'm right, there is usually a column in Shooting Times which reports stories like this. Anyway, it's supposed to be true, but who knows.
(And you really should've compared capital city to capital city... DC's gun-related crime rate would dwarf just about any other city in the world, except maybe Johannesburg)
Fine, it's your country, run it as you like. It doesn't bother me a whit how you folk feel or believe about the right of self defense as long as you don't try to export those beliefs over here. I understand that an elderly man is now imprisoned for the remainder of his life somewhere in your peaceable land for the "crime" of defending himself and his home with a shotgun. If that sort of thing sits well with you folk, fine, but it provokes sadness and outrage in my less cultured American mind. But as I said, it's your country.
I do however sympathize with the people over there who don't believe as you do about the matter but are overruled by the majority who do. Over here we believe, or at least many of us do, that basic human rights such as the right to self defense are God-given and are not subject to the will of the majority. That was a primary belief of our founding fathers as well, and one which they expressed so succinctly in the Bill of Rights amendments to our Constitution. Granted, that concept is under severe attack and may not hold sway much longer, but for now it still lives on in many of us, and will as long as I am alive.
It is probably well that there are nations which differ so much in their beliefs about government and it's proper role in the lives of the people. You would most likely be horrified by the relatively, emphasis on relatively, low level of governmental intrusion into people's lives and property over here, and I would surely be very dissatisfied living under the benevolent thumb of your beloved UK nanny state. In the parlance of the 1960's libertines, "different strokes for different folks". For my part, I am not yet willing to trade my God-given liberties for an illusion of security. Far too many times around the globe that type of governance has miserably failed to provide the security it promises, while it must, by necessity of it's very nature, always suppress individual liberty. And it will do so by brute force if necessary, as has been amply demonstrated in so many instances.
In any event, I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year. I am assuming that you do still celebrate a proper Christmas over there in the land of Dickens and Tiny Tim? Sadly, here in the once-Christian USA we are now supposed to just celebrate a generic winter holiday season rather than the birth of our Lord.
Brits don't have those evil guns.
Dang straight. That'll teach them good.
Wow. That is an OLD thread.
Looks like you have adopted my hobby: Resurrecting old threads. :)
Honestly, I don’t have a clue how i stumbled onto it and never thought to check the date. This is from well before I was born.
Never mind then..........
Even though it probably is still true.
Here are some more statistics to add to your list:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ooa98FHuaU0
There is a reason why there is a long tradition in the South of white fathers teaching their daughters to shoot.
England doesn’t worry about gun crime since Piers Morgan says it is nonexistent.
Obviously what is needed is more money spent on education so these criminals can learn to read the laws that ban guns.
I am sure they will be shocked to learn that they are breaking the law!
Impossible. Guns are outlawed over there.
Don't confuse them with facts.
But of course, their bodyguards all carry firearms.
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