| Author | Message | ||
     Rocket_in_uk |
unlimited speed. I've been an advocate of this for bikes for a long time. I've mentioned it on BadWeB several years ago - and got stick for doing so! Motorcycle cops belonging to some UK forces conduct road safety training sessions for bike riders. There's no rewards - just the learning. It does give a friendly face to the same cops that are out in force on Sunday afternoons, riding in black leathers on unmarked Busa's and Blackbird's though. Many rural roads are biking mecca's in the UK. Some offer good high speed riding in relative safety. They're also the same roads cops often hide or go undercover on. But it's these roads which should be unlimited to bikes. Think of it as a huge majority of riders don't want to go hyperspeeds - or at least if they do, they don't for more than a few seconds to as much as the odd minute or three. Where is the sense in policing this behaviour when at best it serves to bring misery to the biker. Anything 100mph and more, and more often these days, even close to 100mph is an instant ban. Never mind high fines, insurance increase when you get your license back eventually. For many, loss of license is also potentially a loss of job too. This for what is often branded by police as a moment of madness. The reality is though, there are many many bike riders who exceed the speed limits all the time but they don't get caught, and more importantly, they make it home. The only reason it's referred to as a moment of madness is sometimes it goes wrong. But this will never stop no matter how much the law is present and enforced. So if you can't stop high speed riding why not do something good with it. Most accidents involving bikes happen in built up areas. So why not have a system where severe penalties are handed out for speeding, and poor riding, in these areas instead. But to qualify to speed on the open roads you must attend a police speeding awareness class, like the ones dished out now to speeders who only exceed the limit by 2mph + 10%, and a police motorcycle training course. When completed you're rewarded with a badge. This badge is your get out of jail free badge should you get caught riding poorly or minor speeding offense in built up areas. No prosecution but you hand your badge in. Then you have the option to pay for another course to get another get out of jail free badge. But these badges won't save you from more serious speeding or dangerous riding in built up areas - in which case when caught, you suffer the full consequences of the law. But at least this system permits the unlimited speeds on rural roads. And let's face it, riders for the majority will not exceed the speeds they're already riding at when police are not present anyway - as this is their comfort zone. No one is ever going to ride around at 130 or 150 mph all of the time except an absolute fool - in which case the system as described here will catch up with them in the built up areas if they live that long. But the point is, the bad riders will ride this way regardless of whether there's a limit or not, just not when police are looking. Rocket in England | ||
| Alfau |
Whatever your on, it makes you cover your point so well that no one can see it! | ||
| Aesquire |
I get his point but the problem is not speed. It's the mix of fast & slow. Speed doesn't hurt it's sudden deceleration. | ||
| Kenm123t |
Did every one forget the Mr Brown had tried to take the officer's gun in the car and it was fired while inside the car? And the second contact Sheep dip is just that sheep dip This is a continous event Mr Brown meets the critera for a dangerous felon in flight. Attempted homicide of a police officer meets the shoot on sight law in some states. Shooting suspects is defined by the laws of every state. What is Missouri's | ||
| Aesquire |
Kenm that argument is over. We are into changing traffic laws so we can speed now. | ||
| Reepicheep |
There was another local situation here about the same time that was a genuine tragedy all around. Young guy gets a case of the stupid (haven't we all) and is bored at WalMart while his girlfriend shops. He finds a BB gun that looks just like an M16 that (I'm guessing) some other ••••••• unboxed and left out for some reason. The guy picks it up, leaves the sporting goods section an walks over to the pet section, and proceeds to screw around with it for the next 10 minutes. Another person at the store calls 911, because, well, duh, there is a guy that appears to be screwing with an M16 in the pet section of Walmart. Cops come, and charge the guy, who wasn't a criminal, just a ••••••• for a moment who didn't understand the risk he was putting himself into. He throws the gun and dives around the isle (I don't think he was shot yet) and then for some reason (maybe because he sees a second cop coming the other direction) pops *right* back out towards the original cop and the gun he threw on the ground. That cop is then screwed. He can wait long enough to see if the guy is going to grab the gun and shoot, but if he does that he is a dead man if that was the case. Or, he can shoot to stop the threat. He shot to stop the threat, and the guy is now dead. The cop shot of course. Watching the 10 minute video before hand (that took weeks to put together and edit down), it's pretty clear the guy was being stupid, but not really being a threat. But the cop had no way to know that at the time. The cop just comes around the corner, sees a guy throw an AR15 down (a heavier pellet gun, not just an injection molded toy), dive around the isle, then a half second later come flying back around the isle directly towards the gun and the cop. Of course he shot. It looks to me like it was just a terrible tragedy that cascaded out of control from an initial act of bad judgement. I equate it with somebody texting while driving, drifting left of center, then getting killed when being hit by an oncoming truck. Did they deserve to die for texting and driving? No, of course not. Could the truck driver have maybe reacted faster or careened into a ditch during that surprise split second and prevented the fatality? In hindsight, maybe, but this wasn't an action that could be taken in hindight, it had to be taken in a split second it occurred without notice or time for reflection or analysis. Obviously, the conclusion here is that walking around WalMart in a way that would lead a reasonable person to think you will shoot them is creating a very high risk situation. And that sometimes, that high risk situation will result in a tragedy. My prayers for the family and friends of the dead guy, and my prayers for the cop and his family and friends as well. So sad. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
As long as a society permits its citizens the right to own and use guns, there will always be tragedies, lawful killings, and unlawful killings. This is no different in the UK except gun control here means those shot are relatively fewer than say in the U.S. No I don't want a gun argument. Just saying. Rocket in England | ||
| Oldog |
As long as a society permits its citizens the right to own and use guns, there will always be tragedies, lawful killings, and unlawful killings. This is no different in the UK except gun control here means those shot are relatively fewer than say in the U.S. No I don't want a gun argument. Just saying. Sorry Pal, As Bill Said the victim made a number of spectacular bad choices, and then a fatal blunder. If you could get or read much of our news, you would find that in places where folks are publicly banned from carrying arms the shooting incidents are going up, I was in a wall mart last weekend (I am in the S.E. USA, Rocket) a man was openly carrying a pistol, no notice was taken of it by any of the folks around him.. some of the news surrounding the Ferguson shooting coming out now is beyond absurd, if the locals are actually threatening more violence if their various demands are not met..... well good luck with that... Oh BTW cant brits own arms that have to be kept at a "club" for hunting / shooting or the like. } | ||
| Reepicheep |
I don't know that there is a "right" answer. You can say that the prevalence of guns in the hands of citizens causes more deaths because there has to be a greater assumption of the possibility of suddenly bad outcomes. A cop has to assume that somebody carrying what looks like an AR15 in Wal Mart is carrying an AR15 in Wal Mart, and so there is less time to think and stuff like this is more likely to happen. I wouldn't argue with that. But that's a handful of tragedies a year, and you also have to look at the number of times a smaller innocent potential victim was able to use a gun as a force equalizer against a larger criminal, or just the existence of that potential force equalization prevented a crime from occurring in the first place. That's much more than a handful. And then lump in Stalin and Hitler, and the MILLIONS of people they murdered, that may not have been possible with a populace armed against tyranny, and you would have to have many hundreds of thousands of years of these tragedies without any more tyranny at the current rate just to reach even. The odds of that are low, given tyranny is still pretty much the rule in much of the world. | ||
| Reepicheep |
And if we are getting down to brass tacks and cold math here, we really don't need to individually drive either, and between drunk driving and driving while texting, the number of people killed as the result of our right to bear vehicles is orders of magnitude higher than those killed as a result of our right to bear arms. | ||
| Aesquire |
God didn't make man equal. Sam Colt did. Tyrants always disarm the peasants. Swords were restricted to the upper castes in multiple places ten thousand years before guns. India China Japan all had weapon control laws when England had not been found by Rome yet. All weapon control laws ever written had one purpose. To keep the aristocrats in power. All excuses other than that are lies. It takes intensive training to get good with a sword. ..or knife...or axe....or spear. Good enough to take on a thug with same with any hope of survival. Years and years plus native talent to expect to not die fast against a pro. The 2 technologies that allow a woman to walk the streets and have any control over their lives are birth control and repeating handguns. | ||
| Reepicheep |
And to show that I'm not just "cops can do no wrong"... http://www.wltx.com/story/news/local/2014/09/24/vi deo-released-released-of-trooper-involved-shooting /16187305/ This trooper was fired, and charges are pending, and I am glad. I don't think he set out to murder a black man, but I do think he was criminally negligent in creating and then improperly managing a very dangerous situation which lead to an innocent person being shot. I support the full investigation of all facts (like I do in Ferguson), but I am pretty sure I can guess right at what happened and the right outcome (like I do in Ferguson). In Ferguson, a thug rolled the dice again and got shot for his trouble by a cop doing his job. In this latest case linked above, a cop should be fired and prosecuted for criminal negligence in execution of his duties. | ||
| Sifo |
I saw that video of the shooting at the gas station earlier. Sad in that he was attempting to comply with what the officer told him to do. Very wrong outcome. A couple of things to learn though. He moved quite quickly without telling the cop what he was going to do. He was also doing that out of the sight of the cop. He then got back out of the truck very quickly. Yes the cop was screaming for him to do just that. Think about it from the cop's perspective though. If this guy had been going for a weapon, look at how long the cop has to react. Imagine how fast it could be with a guy trying to out gun the cop. My point here isn't to blame the victim, but to learn from it. When I get pulled over, I try to communicate what my actions are to the cop. Get my license! Yes sir, I have it in my wallet in my back pocket. Pull the wallet out slowly with an effort to give good visibility to the cop. If it's night time in the car, the dome light goes on. I don't think the guy in the video meant to move quickly in a manner that would alarm the cop, but he did move quite quickly. Doing exactly what the cop asked, but the cop couldn't know that for sure. Far better to move slowly and tell the cop "my wallet is on the seat of my truck", pointing to where it is. Wait for the cop to give you permission to reach back into the vehicle. Hope this guy heals up OK. I'm willing to bet that if he could do it all again, he would take the above advise, even though he didn't do anything wrong. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
Oh BTW cant brits own arms that have to be kept at a "club" for hunting / shooting or the like Yes, black powder only! That's the old fashioned stuff to me. All guns were banned here years ago. The exceptions are legal shotguns, hunting rifles up to .22 bullet (is that the correct terminology). That's about it. Air type guns are in but only up to a certain poundage I believe. Guns have to be stored locked away with ammunition somewhere else. I'm no expert in these matters. My shotgun is an antique display item, which I also have (but not by law) a document to say who (approved specialists) welded the slugs into the barrels etc. Rocket in England | ||
| Blake |
>>> As long as a society permits its citizens the right to own and use guns, there will always be tragedies, lawful killings, and unlawful killings. Freedom isn't free. Yet, Sweden. | ||
| Aesquire |
Our Vice President would tell you to shoot an intruder through the door with that shotgun. ( actually he already has ) He wouldn't understand what "welded the slugs" meant. Which, if the gun functioned, is a felony. And if the intruder ( probably a child ) dies, Murder. Joe Is Obama's Insurance policy. NO ONE wants that insane grinning fool to be in charge of anything. | ||
| Aesquire |
As long as a society permits its citizens the right to own and use guns, there will always be tragedies, lawful killings, and unlawful killings. Untrue. There will always be tragedies and murders. Before bronze, before glass, before steel, before guns, people killed, lawfully and criminally. It's not that police officers are allowed to kill, Any citizen in a free country can kill to save himself and others. It's manslaughter, and you have a hearing/grand jury/trial, every time. The original Aramaic that the Bible was originally written in, has the Commandment, "You shall not murder". Murder is intent and action. It's not guns, it's control of the masses. In Japan, they mostly murder with knives. And you need a permit to own a sword. The rich have heavily armed guards to protect them from you. You spout propaganda of the aristocracy with ignorance. Can't you see that the demonization of guns is the trick of people who want you to be a slave? I'm a gear head for engines, flying things, computers, catapults, guns, relativistic kinetic kill weapons and those little metallurgical tricks you need to make a Samurai Sword or a crank shaft. Take my word for it. After they take the guns, they look at how long a kitchen knife you have. Did that ban on murderous kitchen knives become law in England? Do you have a legitimate sporting purpose to own a motorcycle? Doesn't the possession of such a dangerous weapon make you sick? You can kill several people with that thing in a heartbeat. I bet it goes over 100 miles an hour! How socially irresponsible are you? THINK OF THE CHILDREN! or, in real you and me English, "That's too free for a peasant. Stay in your place" | ||
| Torquehd |
Freedom isn't free. Yet, Sweden. according to the Wiki, "During the period 1997–2001, 25% of the almost 1,520,000 offences for which a perpetrator was convicted were committed by people born in the Middle East or Eastern Europe, while almost 20% were committed by people with a foreign background who were born in Sweden. Those from North Africa and the Middle East were also overrepresented. " Wikipedia, you are so very racist. Or is truth sometimes racist? | ||
| Aesquire |
It's the Culture Stupid. Color of skin, of eye, of hair, makes no real difference in the America I love. Yes, there is racism, mostly old farts of a certain culture, and a larger number who are really meanly racist, exploiting old wounds... .. but they too are a Culture Problem. Not all cultures are equal. The traditional Muslim slave owning Culture is alive and well. You can still buy slaves... in fact some of the European thrill tourist Jihadis were tweeting about it. It's aggressively spreading which is bizarre because that culture can't even make cars. The Urban Welfare Culture in the US is an engineered one, just as the "exclusion zones" mentioned by the blonde lady above. The French "pensions" ( is that spelled right? ) where the police don't go unless in armored cars, in force, and cars burned daily, same thing. What would you call it? "immigrant public dole slum" culture where politicians use social programs to create a cheap servant class and the sheer number become a pandered voting block? Never a good idea to have large numbers of people sharing your land who don't share your love of freedom to be what you want and go where you please. Especially bad if they are the exploited masses. They hate you, because you look like the politicians that put them there. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&load=10289&mpid=56 | ||
| Torquehd |
It's the Culture Stupid. First of all, I hope that's some sort of quote, and not: 1. The use of junior high level name calling, and; 2. Unnecessary capitalization of words that aren't proper nouns or the first word of the sentence. Yes, you are exactly right. Scandinavians were utilizing trial by jury, exercised by regional courts, under the authority of a king, in a time when many cultures (or races) in the world were under the control of vile warlords with no concept of justice. Most western cultures have a higher moral compass than most of the cultures south or east of, say, Germany. Until you hit far eastern Asia, but even to this day, they still (on the cultural level) commit more crimes against humanity than the western world. I don't care if you say "culture" or "race". Facts stand for themselves. Per capita, certain races of people tend to produce more criminals. That is a fact. My point was... if you think the ferguson thing is racist, you're also likely to think that wiki excerpt is racist. And you're also likely to think that facts are racist. Never a good idea to have large numbers of people sharing your land who don't share your love of freedom to be what you want and go where you please. In this day and age, they're called "democrats". The French "pensions" ... where the police don't go unless in armored cars, in force You just solved the thread on militarizing America's LEO's. | ||
| Aesquire |
"It's the economy stupid" Not race, culture. Take the child of a Bantu or Yellow river Chinese peasant. Raise him in Mayberry with Opie. The Chinese kid might have the highest IQ but any of them could be an astronaut or doctor or auto mechanic with no different odds of being a violent felon than Opie. Raise Opie in East L.A. and he might always wear blue and have killed dozens holding his crack turf. Take anyone and raise him like John Kerry and you have the same odds on being a treasonous parasite. Take John Kerry and raise him in the ghetto in Philadelphia and he'd still be a treasonous parasite. ......wait......bad example. You get my point. Nurture vs. Nature. I was never going to be a winning jockey. Nature rules and because I had an ok diet I wasn't stunted. 6 foot mesomorphs don't win the Kentucky derby or break records for NBA contracts. I have equal opportunity to be mediocre at either. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
Instead of boasting how much freedom the gun gives anyone, how about, if no one had a gun why would you need one? This is pretty much how the British system works. Of course, illegal guns find their way into criminal hands, but at least I know I can walk the streets relatively safe knowing it's highly unlikely I'll get shot. You could not say the same in America, though I'm sure someone will point to the statistics which show hardly anyone gets shot that doesn't deserve to. If we all walked around with knives it's highly unlikely knife crime would rise to anywhere near the level of gun crime. As for British law on knife carrying. The law was introduced as a proactive measure, thus those found to be carrying knives illegally usually have criminal intent on their agenda at some time. So it becomes another string to the bow for police to work with if nothing else. Rocket in England | ||
| Reepicheep |
Part of your drivers license test ought to be instruction on how to respond to a police stop. | ||
| Gaesati |
Having done a bit of research about gun ownership in the U.S in comparison to my own country, it seems that the big difference is that with a vast number of guns in private hands that the high rate of death and injury in the U.S. Is not due to murder or malicious wounding but rather, self harm and accidental shooting. Unlike, rocket, when I visit the U.S. I don't feel any less safe wandering around the streets than I do in Australia or England. P.S. This is not a comment about the 2nd amendment or why Americans feel the need to own weapons. It is just an observation about the side effect of lots of guns in a law abiding society. | ||
| Aesquire |
if no one had a gun why would you need one I'm betting that you will insist that the genocidal, poison gas using, Imperialist conquerors of a planetary Empire are far too genteel and kind to be violent with one another, excepting football games. And that had a ring of truth back in the days when you had a fairly monolithic culture, ( with the usual regional quirks.... City vs. Country, Scots vs. Anglos, Welsh vs. Dr. Who fans ) and the only beheadings you had were nice and official at the Tower. You don't live in that country anymore. That aside, if you were a woman, or a cripple, or a small, slight man, you were a target for thugs with clubs, knives, or just fists, and were at the mercy of larger, stronger men. This has been true for the 14 odd thousand years Man has had cities and the several ice ages and short intervals between that erased all traces of any previous civilizations. ( except, perhaps in India, where they have myths about those previous cycles that form much of their religions ) Until we had guns, and in specific, the repeating hand gun. I MEANT the Sam Colt line above. With the repeating hand gun a woman had a chance against the multiple attackers that would gang rape her, and murder her. ( or leave her to lie there, bleeding and half conscious, to be killed by her family in Muslim lands for the shame of being raped.... as happens today with depressing frequency ) With the repeating hand gun a 5'2" clubfooted man has a chance against the 4 street thugs that want his wallet, and a bit of play making the cripple dance with a touch of the club. Freedom from fear comes from the leveling of the field of combat against multiple attackers that just isn't there with a can of pepper spray or a taser that can slow one person. I say again the greatest technological aid to women's equality is a repeating handgun. It's the traditional English Culture that made in a now far distant nostalgic time a homogeneous people who were generally nice and peaceful with one another. The violent criminals in the UK and US both are a tiny minority, and studies show that for a thousand violent crimes there are a few hundred perpetrators. Because most violent crimes are repeat offenses from a small group. As the Blond Swede above points out, when you encourage immigrants to come to your land but not become one of you, you break down that social contract. | ||
| Aesquire |
To pick on a different land, Germany imported many guest workers, from Vietnam, then Turkey, to work in the factories and pay the taxes to support the social systems. Partly because the birth rate for Germans was not enough to keep the Ponzi scheme of Social Democracy going, partly for cheap labor, which displaced the young Germans out of industrial and service jobs. So they now have a foreign culture that because of racist German citizenship laws, is not allowed to become German, and thus resents the a00holes that oppress and exploit them. They ask why should we pay for old folks homes we won't be allowed in? The Ponzi scheme is strained.... how soon will it shatter? In a Social Democracy, a Ponzi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme you need more and more suckers to pay in to support the ones who are on the dole, or earned pensions, once the government has stolen all the money saved by the pension funds and put them on the government program. If you don't have an expanding, producing population it all breaks down. When you run low on investors in a Ponzi, you can't maintain the illusion. Then you get arrested, or if a government, have a mass breakdown. See the fall of the Soviet Union where a combination of falling birthrate, pressure to keep building a military to oppress the people and threaten your evil European neighbors, and the theft of wealth by the Glorious Leaders crashed the system. You may believe it can't happen where you are, that England, ( or Australia, or Spain ) is different... but it's not. When you can't pay for the payments out you borrow ( causing inflation ), cut payments, raise taxes... in a spiral that always crashes. Culture... when in US Urban On the Dole area schools you are outcast if you get good grades, you see the end of the good times. Leftist Welfare State fans and government workers don't want good education and productive people because ignorant people on the dole are how they get paid. If you "solved poverty" you'd be out of a job, so that entire sick culture not only does not try and end poverty, it has to increase it to support their own lifestyles.... sick, huh? I don't claim to have all the answers but you have to be blind, or so misinformed you believe the century plus old movement that promotes these Ponzi schemes not to see the results. | ||
| Sifo |
if no one had a gun why would you need one In the city of Furgeson, With guns...  Without guns...  In the country, bear, wild cats, etc. | ||
| Sifo |
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| Oldog |
Rocket, thanks for the reply, I new that the arms had to be locked up, .22 caliber is legal to have as a hunting rifle?, how do you hunt deer? Shotgun, BTW a shotgun is a good home defense weapon. Black powder is used for hunting here by some yet today. Before modern metallic cartridges were made we had revolver type black powder weapons, look into Sam Colt... |
