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Britain as Cautionary Example
A century of “Common Sense Gun Laws” on Airstrip One:
1920 – In the interest of public safety, all firearm owners must be licensed.
1937 – Personal defense is no longer a valid reason for a firearms license. “Firearms cannot be regarded as a suitable means of protection and may be a source of danger.” (Which, I believe, is the IngSoc equivalent of “No one needs an AR-15.”)
1968 – All rifles and pistols must be registered with the Government in the interest of public safety.
1988 – For the good of public safety, semi-automatic rifles are banned. Shotguns must be registered.
1997 – Thank you for registering your guns. Now turn them in or go to prison. Because public safety.
2018 – Knife violence is out of control. “No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife. Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law.”
I am told the slippery slope is a fallacy, but damn if it doesn’t look like our British cousins slid right down one. So, what’s next? Outlaw hammers and bottles? Outlaw sharp pointy sticks? Outlaw rocks? Outlaw weightlifting because big, strong men are intimidating?
Note to leftists; this is why no one believes you when you claim you don’t want to confiscate guns.
P.S. With London’s crime rate now exceeding New York City’s, the Metropolitan Police Department is tasking nearly 1,000 officers to investigate people who make politically incorrect comments in social media.
Published in Guns
Has crime gone up or down in England? Also didn’t the British people vote for these laws? Slippery slopes and all but if you climb to the top of the slide, jump on, and yell weeeee all the way down maybe no one has tricked or abused you into anything?
I believe they initially did (and still do) voted for people who enacted these laws. However, laws once enacted are very difficult to repeal, as demonstrated by our own spineless Republicans when it came to repealing Obamacare.
My guess is the British system prevents real opponents from even standing for office. After all, to voice a contrary opinion is to land you in jail thanks to the thought police. It’s the same with their National Health Service. Everyone complains about it, but nothing ever gets fixed . . .
The Firearms Act of 1920 was the first of many salami slices. The changes are gradual enough to avoid serious counterarguments. Within a lifetime the population was disarmed.
The socialist/fascist homeland has become the US. Our media and intellectuals set the agenda globally. Not in a global conspiracy, but in spreading political correctness, the theme proper people show publicly. It’s all mindless, learned by osmosis. It won’t change until we take our schools and the media back because it’s all driven by group think until it becomes a mob. I’m seeing it every day in Colombia where we’re spending the winter. Even conservative media and politicians here reflect views of the us news on us themes, all of them Democratic Party spin of the worst kind. Of course they lost their guns a long time ago and in spite of increasing urban violent crime few want them back. However petty criminals find guns expensive and have to rent them by the hour. The drug lords and terrorists have state of the art weapons.
Let’s just cut to the quick: Outlaw people.
The slippery slope argument is not a fallacy unless it’s used as described in examples given by those who claim it is a fallacy. I have never observed it used in that way.
Obligatory comment: You can’t have a welfare state without a police state.
This is the problem with democracy isn’t it, there is no real collective answer to that question.
Some people voted for it, others didn’t. If one climbs to the top of the slide dragging one’s friend kicking and screaming, throw him down the slide, and jump down after him, you may have been abused into something depending on which of the people you are in the example.
Democracy isn’t a magic potion that makes all things OK.
The famous John Adams quote:
He also stated that the U.S. was not founded as Christian nation, but he obviously expected that the morals would be based on a Judeo-Christian understanding.
Britain lost so much after the First World War, and if it wasn’t for Churchill, would have made peace with Germany during WWII, inevitably absorbing Nazi values. With Islam, it’s closely there now.
Question: If knives are outlawed in London, how are they going to perform all the clitorectomies?
Just got back from London yesterday. The some of the big stories during the week were
Knife attacks are up so new drastic anti knife policy including random searches.
Mayor of London says no reason ever to carry a knife .
78 yo pensioner stabbed two 30 year olds who were burglarizing his home, killing one, and was arrested on murder charges.
Broken bottles are still an option.
Isn’t that the plan? Population control and free abortions to stop “global climate change” and crime and everything?
Silly goose! You know that it won’t apply to the good people performing clitorectomies. Just like the laws that didn’t apply to the good men in Rotherham preparing young infidel girls for a life of dhimmitude.
Not a fan of stop and frisk?
No, not a fan of it.
First guns go away, then free speech is lost. As it tis the same type of mentality that brings about both.
And knives are replacing guns in Great Britain. So read this:
The London Times: London overtook New York in murders for the first time in modern history in February as the capital endured a dramatic surge in knife crime. Fifteen people were murdered there against 14 in New York. Both cities have almost exactly the same population. London murders for March are also likely to exceed New York’s. By late last night there had been 22 killings in the capital, according to the Metropolitan police, against 21 in the US city. Eight Londoners were murdered between March 14 and March 20 alone and the total number of London murders, even excluding victims of terrorism, has risen by 38% since 2014.
Gun rights activists have used this fact to underscore truism that gun control does not necessarily equate to murder control… With an uptick in violent crime in the UK’s largest city, public officials are scrambling to find things to blame, ranging from police budget cuts, to restrictions on certain police practices, to the tools being used by criminals… Their “solutions” are really quite something… When weapons other than firearms are used in murders, conservatives dial up social media snark, suggesting that perhaps politicians push for further bans. “Time for some common sense knife control,” is a typical tweet… But what happens when satire becomes reality? Ta da:
Anyone buying a knife online will be banned from having it sent to a residential address, under a government crackdown following a surge in street stabbings. New legislation will also make it illegal to possess zombie knives and knuckledusters in private – or any knife at a school… The measures – which also include a ban on acid sales to under-18s – will all be included in a new “serious violence strategy”, to be launched by the home secretary, Amber Rudd, Monday…“This government has always stood for law and order. To tackle violent crime effectively, robust legislation and powerful law enforcement must be in place,” the home secretary said. “That’s why we will introduce a new offensive weapons bill that includes a new offence of possessing acid in public without good reason, prevents sales of acids to under 18s and stops knives being sent to people’s homes when bought online.”
That’s the program being supported by the conservative government… The left-wing Labour Party has “welcomed” the proposal, but also want the Tories to spend more money on policing. __________________________________________________________
Mark Meechan taught his pug dog how to make a Hitler salute. It was a joke. The guy has now been convicted of a hate crime. Like Jonathan Pie goes on to state: this joke is only offensive to Nazis. No other group would be offended by it. (Except of course, Big Brother.) Four minute video:
Google “baseball bats UK.” In 2011 US manufacturers saw a spike of sales in aluminum bats to a country that plays cricket.
Britain is becoming North Korea with a parliament.
There’s a Conservative Party in the UK but very little conservatism that would resonate with an American conservative. Next to nothing for the libertarian. Here’s the homepage of Britain’s most renegade yet respectable conservative opinion site. Last night there wasn’t a single conservative point of view on offer. Today is little better. It’s not par for the course. More like a double bogey the past two days. Yet this is not conservatism.
Here’s a terrifying thought: if you want to resurrect British conservatism in full you would have to start cloning James Delingpole on a bioindustrial scale.
Pretty stupid to do them randomly. The only way it’s effective is if you profile.
That’s different.
See?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaTWaX9Aslg
Exactly, but that’s racist.
No that’s common sense. But that’s no longer common.
I’m a fan, but only if the searches are not random. There has to be some probable cause, such as suspicious behavior.
FYI, I’m not in favor of license checkpoints because there’s no probable cause.
Just a historical observation*: in June 1940, the British Isles were facing a very real threat of invasion by the German Army (“Operation Sea Lion”). In those tense months following Dunkirk, the planned defense of southern England was founded squarely upon the expectation that there would be adequate numbers of personally-armed civilian militia willing to stand and fight to defend their homes and farms.
So, of course, “No one needs an AR-15″…
*Please forgive the double-tap if someone else has already made this point. I didn’t read the comments yet.
Good comment. I will add this for younger people who don’t understand the way things were back then: When the Nation of Germany sent in its troops to the Western coast of Norway, the soldiers who disembarked from their ships climbed the hillsides and sought out the bus stops. That way the local Stavanger and Bergen bus lines could bring the troops to the center of those towns. I believe the troops were provided with Norwegian kroner so that the bus lines would not be ripped off.