No ya didn’t. (assuming you transposed the r & i).
Carrying weapons is itself a violent crime here. If you get caught with a knife in public it is automatically assumed you’re going to use the knife as an offensive weapon, not a defensive one, and you will be prosecuted.
Blyth has a population close to 40,000 and according to the ONS having <800 crimes per month puts us way, way below national average. Which is interesting in itself, and just goes to confirm my default prejudice that the South is a horrible place.
Heh. Well now. I think the police made a mistake clumping these two together, especially since if you look at their breakdown on the community pages, this number becomes rather silly. Especially when “sexual offences” include public urination, public nudity, public sex… and we live on an award winning beach where… heck even I’ve [redacted, I plead the 5th, or whatever].
The other problem is “violent offences” simply because this is Northeast England, and we have pubs and an alcohol problem. Even if you don’t press charges because your best mate broke your nose over a disagreement about the Spartans (local football team), it counts as a violent assault if it gets reported.
Zero weapons crimes surprised me too. Especially since in the mid-00s they changed the law about knives to include blades down to 2.5" which makes my work knife illegal to carry in the streets. Then again, we have so few stop-and-searches here maybe all the knives and maces and sharpened bottle necks go unnoticed 
Edited: I can grammar.
I meant we’re not all that trusting of each other. But I mostly blame the government (and the media) for that too since they’re always fearmongering.
If you are just talking about mass killings, then this table is applicable.I haven’t seen the statistics for other forms of murder, I know the bombings in Russia over the last 10 years dwarf our gun attacks, and China has always had knife attack issues, as well as Japan. Both countries are a bit less than candid on their reporting as well.
I was assuming we were still using the Vox figures.
The watch list controversy isn’t about the 2nd Amendment, but about due process.
Hard and sometimes counterintuitive truths:
- Even if we repealed the 2nd Amendment today, firearms would not go away. You can’t confiscate them all. You can’t prevent people from making them. You can’t even find them.
- Gun sales here have absolutely exploded over the last decade. Several years of record numbers of background checks to purchase. Overall, violent crime is down over the last few decades. More guns do not correlate with more crime in the United States. This has been extensively studied by people desperate to find a link.
- Rifles (including scary black rifles) are used in so few murders that the FBI does not even break them down by type in its statistics.
- Differing definitions and intentional conflations of “mass shootings” and “terror attacks” make real and meaningful comparisons and evaluation of data very difficult. [Look at how many definitions of “violent crime” we’ve seen mentioned just in this thread.] This is often intentional on the part of people (on both sides) who have an agenda.
- Most people with strong opinions about gun laws here don’t have the foggiest notion of what the current gun laws are or what one has to do to buy a gun. People on television (politicians, pundits, etc.) are mostly ignorant or intentionally lying about it.
- Short of magically wishing away all of the weapons, no realistic registration or background check scheme would have prevented the latest shooter (who had to pass several background checks) from getting a weapon.
We will never be able to remove the means of violence from those who would do violence, and we will never be able to prevent them from carrying out attacks. The fundamental question is how we respond to these facts. Some will refuse to see them and will reframe the discussion (e.g. “gun violence” instead of just “violence”) to make a response (“reasonable gun control”) seem more viable than it is. Some will push to give the government ever more power to do the impossible. Some will conclude that personal defense is ultimately a personal responsibility and buy more ammunition.
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Some of it really is hoplophobia. I know several people that I could in theory easily take out, that don’t mind a pocket knife, or mind that I took Judo, but when I mention I own a gun they freak out.
Listen dude, I could have killed you while we are walking up the stairs. I am just as dangerous with a nuclear bomb under my arm as I am standing next to you in just a pair of shorts. And some whacko nutjob is just as dangerous to you naked as if he had a knife or a gun or a car, or a bomb, or a small baby.
Killing people is the hard part, even trained soldiers don’t aim at the enemy some ungodly percentage of the time.
And the watch list is already a stain on our country. Your’e a full citizen, except not. It’s a legal second class citizenship.
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Also relevant:
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Facebook argument. I shouldn’t have guns because revolution won’t happen because his life is so awesome.
Seriously,
And here’s the truthSomeDude and Woodman, my life is the shit. I have a brand new car and a 65" curved tv. A beautiful woman that could teach your hopeful mate everything they ever needed to know about sex, that I am just as happy with holding all night. And I have this by owning my own business that I worked my ass off to have and work my ass off every day for.
In short, my rights don’t matter because you are happy. Also, WTF? A simple I’m happy screw you, would have worked. TMI bro.
What he can’t see is that SomeDude is asking what happens if the NWO decides his business is non productive and they’d rather he work at the local factory? He’s more than happy to support any regime that keeps him his stuff and his flexible wife, and by the time anything might affect him, it’s too late.
5 dead 9 wounded in sniper attack on police at Dallas protest.
Two men shot, one of them in kind of questionable circumstances, the other in very questionable circumstances. The number of people being shot by the police is going to go up after this, not down. The guy who shot the dude in Minnesota sounded panicked as hell, shooting 12 cops is going to raise that level.
The police rule through the consent of the people, if they’ve lost that consent it’s going to get rough. I would say unless you have huge moral issues with owning a gun that yesterday is the time to get one. The time could come where you dial 911 and the police won’t come. 12 cops down is a good portion.
“Excuse me, can you tell me where the police station is?”
“No. It’s a secret.”
-Marshal Law comic
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I said it before and it was proven again just a few hours ago: those who want to hurt people will find a way to do it with whatever is available.
The person who drove a cargo truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France did have firearms and grenades with him, but even before he would have got a chance to use them, he was already using the 28-ton cargo truck as a weapon by “zigzagging” to hit as many people as he could. Current count is 80 dead, 100 injured and 18 in critical condition.
So if the thought is “get rid of the guns and we lower the number of violent crimes”, then that’s not really going to help in cases like this where people decide to switch to other objects to make them into weapons. The object, be it a pistol, grenade, cargo truck, broom handle, a handful of dirt, or what have you, is more of a symptom than a cause. We need to be looking at what prompts a person to take violent action rather than what they happen to use to commit that violent action.
“Get rid of (object) because it was used in a crime” is an easy band-aid method that doesn’t do much to fix the actual problem. Do we now go to Renault and say “because your Midlum cargo truck was used in this attack, we have to get rid of all Midlum cargo trucks”? Or do we say “we have to ban all cargo trucks worldwide so they can’t be used in a crime like this any more”?
And what of the after-effects if we were to get rid of that object? Those objects have a role and a purpose. What would be used instead to fulfill that role and purpose? If we can’t use cargo trucks any more because one was used in this crime, than what other object would be used instead to transport products from one place to another?
That’s a missing element that I see when the standard “get rid of (object)” statement is made. The people demanding its removal or destruction usually do not offer any alternatives for what we’re supposed to do without that object. They want something gone, but they won’t take the responsibility or make the commitment to follow through and provide the alternative that would convince people that getting rid of that object is a viable and practical step towards solving the problem. Tell me “we need to get rid of X and use Y and/or Z instead for reasons A, B and C that will be better than keeping X around” and yeah, I might agree with you. But if all you say is “we need to get rid of X”, then that doesn’t help me see your point of view and give me motivation to change my point of view.
It’s the old “we have to appear to be doing something” method. We need more than “something” in order to make the changes that will solve the actual cause of these problems and not just focus on the symptoms.
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Ugh, one of the retorts I saw to this was “Make the quayside an HGV-free zone, so this can’t happen again.”
I was just taken aback by the stupid. Do you really think if someone is driving a wagon full of weapons with the intent of mass murder, they’re going to abide by this:
Of course they aren’t. Heck, even regular everyday van drivers would drive past that and not think it applies to them. Just the amount of stupid in that argument makes me want to scream!
I’m guessing that symbol is a weight limit indicator, such as “no vehicles over 7.5 tons”.
When’s the last time you heard a police or government report that said, “We were able to prevent this from happening because the suspects looked at the sign we put up and it stopped them from carrying out their plan”?
From the Wikipedia article on the attack:
- the truck turned eastward on to the Promenade des Anglais, then closed to traffic
- the truck accelerated and mounted on to the kerb to force its way through the police barrier—a police car, a crowd control barrier and lane separators—marking the beginning of the pedestrianised zone
Yeah, those signs and obstacles worked really well in preventing Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel from carrying out his attack. Obviously, there weren’t enough signs. If only there had been more signs there, he would have seen them and changed his mind. Come on, people! The answer is so simple! We need more signs and that will stop the criminals!
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That was more or less my exact point. If you’re going to do terrible deed x of course you’re not going to give one flying toss about pedantry limit y.
And yes, circular roadsigns in most jurisdictions indicate limits. Weird how a concept that a farmer in Scotland came up with in the early 1920s became the standard sign design for half the world! 
Murder by cop. These people calling 911 seeing guns are the ones causing them to be shot. The guy in Walmart with the bb gun, the kid playing with a BB gun in Ohio (In that case they told 911 it was pellet gun but the dispatcher didn’t tell the cops that).
People need to realize, or maybe they already do, that if you tell a cop someone has a gun then it’s likely you might as well have shot them yourself.
If I’m a cop and I’m told someone is “brandishing” a gun, and it turns out it was a crucifix in his pocket, I’m arresting the person who called 911 and charging them with murder.
So now we have a big Scania R 450 semi that was used to commit an attack in a Christmas market in Berlin. The original driver was found dead in the cab after the attacker fled the scene. The dead person was the cousin of the owner of the trucking company.
That’s twice this year that a delivery vehicle was used as a weapon. Time to start banning delivery vehicles so they can’t be used as weapons ever again?
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Trucks… ALL trucks. Think of the children!
Start at first causes, ban the wheel if you really care.
I hope now we can give up the thought that banning guns will stop violence and public attacks.
I’ve also noticed an interesting trend because of the transgender bathroom debate. Far left and right bathroom advocates are arguing all over the internet, and I see a familiar refrain… “You think that just putting up a Women Only sign will keep people with bad intent out?” Now, because this is the internet that doesn’t stop the argument. But it certainly proves that the gun advocates have made an impact with the same argument.