Re: UK Riots
 

You can get a blackberry for a ridiculous deal from major service providers on even more ridiculous contracts. most of these scumbags are probably paying £5 a month for something like an 18 month contract. plus a free blackberry.

Re: UK Riots
 

Ahhhh, hahahaha, what have I been saying about social justice, socialism, everybody on this board was probably out getting their justice last night, weren't you.

Then tell me about how bad USA ie freedom capitalism no "free" health care are so backward, gimme a friggen break already from all the complaining about how I think, and stop watching or reading that far left propaganda.

poor little kids can't live without that ipod. social justice

Re: UK Riots
 

:facepalm:

Anyway, what's happening in the UK isn't a protest, it's just opportunistic violence and/or looting. True protests don't include trashing of other people's goods or stealing them, as they are their own people.

Re: UK Riots
 

Not according to what I hear the "protesters" are saying.

Re: UK Riots
 

You hear wrong.

As Embee has stated, the problems we've got in the U.K. aren't your typical ones. The protests in Libya, Greece, Egypt (ect) had substance and reason behind them. These riots in England are just that; riots. It's an excuse for the troublesome youth (and some) to go out on the street and cause trouble.

British law is too soft (I think) and people are making use of that.

Re: UK Riots
 

BBC News - London rioters: 'Showing the rich we do what we want'

If you can see some political agenda behind that, please do tell. Enquiring minds want to know.

The punishments available to the courts are too soft, and evidently when arresting someone takes >3 hours to do the paperwork then it's severely effecting the ability of the police to stay out on the street.

I think in the long term this has actually done us as a nation a great deal of good. If they didn't riot then the problem would have just lurked in the background mostly ignored by the mainstream politicians.

I think there is now substantial and pretty widespread public support for taking decisive action to deal with the problem, and woe betide any politician who attempts to pretend the issue does not exist.

Re: UK Riots
 

""BBC News - London rioters: 'Showing the rich we do what we want'"

How dense can you be, thickheaded, just that headline is enough proof that socialism don't work, now they think people owe them a living.

Re: UK Riots
 

How does that prove socialism doesn't work? In fact, what does it have to do with socialism in the first place?

Re: UK Riots
 

Al-Qaida says they're fighting for the Palestinians. Does that mean it's true? "Protestors" who claim they're fighting for their rights, by destroying things, aren't protesting. They're... guess what? Rioting.

Anything that doesn't suit Red_Fist seems to be painted with socialism all over.

Re: UK Riots
 

You have a point,butcha can't create a future if ya go against the status quoo.

Re: UK Riots
 

Prove it. And stop double posting.

Re: UK Riots
 

Haha yes, silly socialist UK and our widespread violence, looting and arson. Of course the situation here doesn't compare to the LA riots of twenty years ago in which about ten times the number of people died, but I guess the memory's not what it was.

Re: UK Riots
 

Oh, and does the status quo we're seeing now form a bright future for us? If you're speaking general, then I think you're awfully wrong. The Maghreb went in against the status quo, and if they can hold it a bit longer, then perhaps they will get a present, instead of a future. So your statements isn't really right. It would only be right if we lived in an utopia. Is it the case?

Re: UK Riots
 

Bring in the army with live bullets and open up on them.

Re: UK Riots
 

Can't tell if stupid or trolling...

Re: UK Riots
 

Pick your quotes, Red. That sounds more like a statement against capitalism than socialism.

Not that the people involved in the riots would even understand the difference between the two economical systems. Or even know what an economical system is. There are no socio-political motives at work here, just pure chavism.

Incidentally Red, you might be interested to know that the government brought in an NYPD cop as an advisor due to his extensive experience with rioting. Obviously Britain has a terrible rioting problem if they haven't even got any experience in dealing with riots and have to call upon the services of a riot-free country like America.

Re: UK Riots
 

These riots are the proof the Youth of Britain has no place.

Where is the Church in this time of Chaos?, rather than endless debates about the role of the Clergy and how the Church fits into modern, secular, multiculturalist society, they should be hitting the streets to attempt to give some hope to people.

Even if they fail, it should still try!

Re: UK Riots
 

You've just stated that Britain's society is secular. Even if you give these people a place in church you won't be giving them a place in society, which is what they clearly need.

Re: UK Riots
 

I hate to tell you this dude, but if you approached most of the rioters while espousing your love of Christ, you'd quite probably be called 'a gay'.

Or get your face bricked in.

Re: UK Riots
 

Unjustified hope is not a good thing, it stops people from taking effective steps linked to the reality of their situation. There's no reason to believe that God and his Kingdom are coming to save them - and anyone who tells them otherwise is a liar and a cheat.

Re: UK Riots
 

Thats what happens when we live in a country we cant back a .44 magnum.

Re: UK Riots
 

Err, what happens in a country where you can't pack a .44 magnum is that you occasionally get riots where a lot of property is destroyed, but very little death and injury is caused. I for one think this is for the best. (the lack of death and injury, not the rioting)

Re: UK Riots
 

No, because its not a lie and at some time, it will happen.

Re: UK Riots
 

Rioters would think twice if people could blow them away with shotgun when they try to smash other peoples stuff.

Re: UK Riots
 

You mean the rioters who now have much greater access to firearms? Yeah I'm sure they're going to be really intimidated.

Re: UK Riots
 

Because they live in a society when the common man hasnt got anything so them with a few guns think they rule the show.

Now if the Commonman had guns, they'd have "Victims" that can shoot back.

Re: UK Riots
 

Whether it will happen or not is besides the point. The issue is whether it is reasonable to believe it will happen on the basis of available evidence. Regardless of whether he exists, those who assert that it is reasonable to believe in the existence of Yahweh are lying.

Your belief that he actually does exist does not change that fact.

You can't just declare open season during riots. You have to be able to account for all the people who get shot.

Re: UK Riots
 

Doesn't England have very strict laws when it comes to defending ones property?

I thought that you had to be in active danger before you are allowed to defend your property. If I am right, your argument is incredibly flawed.

Re: UK Riots
 

thats why I said "if they could"

The law here doesnt let people defend themselves properly.

I think I make it clear that we cant have guns or defend our property, but should be able too

Re: UK Riots
 

Your use of force must be both necessary and reasonable in defending yourself or others, or in defending property, or in preventing a crime. Based on the facts as you honestly believed them to be.

There's nothing innate about British law that requires you to retreat or to let someone destroy or steal your property. There's not even anything that rules out the use of a first strike.

However, you will have to justify that use of force later as being necessary to stop the criminal. Which requires both that your use of force fall within very precise limits and - ideally - that you be able to prove it, (or at least give the jury very good reason to believe it.)

That is the step that most people fall down on. Self defence is not a warrant to just go around blowing people away.

Technically we have incredibly lax laws on self defence - if you're good at talking and setting up a situation you can get away with a hell of a lot.

Re: UK Riots
 

Yes because guns=security. Adding guns to the mix of a riot just produces more victims, and if the "commonman" could carry a weapon, that would mean that the rioters would have just as much access to firearms as this "commonman."

Re: UK Riots
 

Just to be clear here, you're not just arguing for firearms to be made legal (because it should be fairly obvious at this point in the discussion that this doesn't prevent riots), but rather, for vandalism of any sort to constitute a legal justification for shooting someone dead?

Re: UK Riots
 

Had there been more deaths, instead of violence against property, more might have come out of this debacle. Be it good or bad. Change, or crippling oppression.

Some would say this is a direct result of welfare excesses, and multiculturalism. In fact some here might have already said that. From all that I've seen. It fits.

Question is, why did it happen? It's not like this is something new, or that the outcome was to be different than all time before it. You don't import a shit load of uneducated immigrants, and subsidize them continuously without paying for it, eventually.

Either the heads of state are incompetent, or they're up to something. It's no mistake that this happened. It was engineered, to a degree. I think the only thing about it that was unexpected was the timing. Either way you can bet your ass, there's a chef somewhere who cooked up this recipe.

Re: UK Riots
 

I'm a staunch opponent of the insanely strict gun legislation that exists in Britain, but I have to disagree with this. There are riots, for various reasons, in several countries with much looser gun control, America included. It's not the same thing as personal assault or burglary. Riots tend to exhibit some degree of emergent behaviour; the added presence of guns, or police prepared to use guns on rioters, rarely seems to be a deterrent.

Rioters with access to guns, on the other hand, would probably use them. A friend of mine said he heard gunshots in Wolverhampton during their riots (followed remarkably swiftly by the appearance of armed police).

As Nem said, it's more to do with strict judges and juries demanding reasons for the use of violence, than strict legislation against violence in itself. The laws are remarkably vague on the actual subject of using violence for self-defence. An Englishman's home is most certainly not his castle in this day and age, though. There's an old urban myth about a burglar suing a home-owner for keeping stale food in his fridge which gave him food poisoning, for example.

Supposedly it's been relaxed somewhat recently though (or at least, will be soon), if our illustrious PM is to be believed.

Re: UK Riots
 

Americans don't usually understand the position about firearms in the UK. To clarify for those ignorant who are doubtlessly about to comment short (and automatic) weapons are utterly forbidden, with no exceptions.

Criminals in the UK tend to have only converted blank firing pistols or (very rarely) SMG's, and VERY few of these exist on the streets. As ammunition is impossible to procure or steal they have to manufacture it. Remember, this is not America. Reloading ammunition is not something that's commonly done and people purchasing equipment to do it can be individually checked out, precluding criminals from this route of ammo supply.

That means criminals have to fire blank rounds, and then manufacture the percussion cap, propellent (usually from old film) primer and bullet in a shed somewhere, and assemble a new live round from the fired blank. To state the obvious, this ammunition is rarely reliable, while it IS always highly inaccurate.

Any report of a firearm will result in an armed response unit (SWAT team) being deployed in strength in response. I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of such a team at all, let alone unarmoured with a dodgy weapon equipped with dodgier ammunition that is likely ballistically inaccurate and inconsistent enough for you to miss something in your sights beyond a few feet away.

That's why you see cops in the UK guarding things in armour with SMG's in public. You can figure out how much of a chance criminals stand as well as they can. =p

The UK public is happy with this status quo, and has no appetite for large scale firearms ownership. Rifle clubs do well enough, if one is interested in shooting.

All the law says is that force you use has to be "reasonable", as defined by a jury.

As defined by a jury in the recent past, juries have said that using a sword to kill one and maim another was reasonable when at the chaps house they produced a knife and threatened the mans wife.

On the flip side a separate jury resulted in a man being jailed who formed a group of vigilantes following a robbery and tracked down the robber and hit the robber over the head so many times with a cricket bat (and so hard) that the cricket bat broke, leaving him alive but crippled and seriously brain damaged.

Past reviews have ended up trying to explain how it works, but leaving the law exactly as it stands, as it's completely left in the hands of the people at the moment through the jury system.

Re: UK Riots
 

Strictly speaking it's legal to own a muzzle-loading pistol (with the right licences) as well, but that's the only exception I'm aware of.

Re: UK Riots
 

I would like to point out it was a Brit, not an American, who wanted to shoot rioters. You've got your bit of silliness on that side of the pond, too.

Re: UK Riots
 

Serious. You be trollin mon ?

Causing all that damage and disruption what would you expect ?

There's enough problems in the world and escalating peaceful protests into criminal activities deserve nothing less.

Re: UK Riots
 

To be fair, a poll at the height of the rioting revealed 30% support for putting the army on the streets with orders to shoot to kill, and far more for just letting them kick the crap out of the rioters. I was one of the people who would have supported that.

Half the reason for the riots was that the scum rioting knew full well that they wouldn't get anything done to them and the risk vs reward factor said that it was WELL worth it. When the police started getting pissed and videos like this appeared:-

Manchester Riot Police Serve Up Some Cold, Hard Justice [HD] - YouTube

The riot was over the next day. Not a coincidence. Had they have done that on day one, the riot wouldn't have lasted a full day because nobody would have wanted to get involved.

Re: UK Riots
 

So, your answer is to open fire in a built-up area? And besides, the army aren't trained for dealing with riots like this, they absolutely should not be deployed in these circumstances. There's a reason we've had a dedicated Police force for the last 150 years.

Re: UK Riots
 

Where did you get this information from? This is actually something that the British army has been dealing with for a very long time, and believe it or not, but the police usually has tasks very different from riot control in war zones.

I certainly wouldn't send the army after burglars or drunk drivers, but riots like these are ideal for military assistance. The mere sight of troops would be enough to lower the killing spirit of people who riot simply because they can do it without any consequences.

Re: UK Riots
 

They may lack the training (and rights) to detain and arrest people, but the militairy could assist in other ways sucj as blocking of streets and areas, while the police move in and sweap the streets clean.

Re: UK Riots
 

I'd been reading some discussions between members of the TA, and the general consensus seemed to be that they didn't consider the riot control training that they had received to be adequate for the situation at hand. Some of the most senior police officers are opposed to the idea of bringing in the army; I'm more inclined to listen to them than random members of the public with precisely zero experience.

Re: UK Riots
 

TA, is that the Territorial Army? I.e. the national militia in the UK, that barely receives any training at all? If this militia doesn't receive reasonable crowd control training, why not bring in the regular army? :uhm:

Sure, listen to the very same people who failed to stop or even control those riots. :lulz:

Ever realized that those guys are more politicians than police officers? They have their careers to think about, and the prestige of the force would be hurt by asking for assistance in a situation that the police should have been perfectly capable of taking care of.

TL;DR: Your argument is bollocks.

Re: UK Riots
 

As I recall the TA were sent to Iraq, with those who were unwilling to go being forced to leave - they're meant to be there just to defend the homeland but that's blatantly not what they're used for anymore. I think it's unfair to call them a barely trained militia all considered.

-------------

The police have been having budget cuts and increased hand-tying for years. I don't see how they could have controlled the riots really.

Edit: Well other than what they did of course - stripping the surrounding forces for an extra ten thousand officers so they'd actually have the numbers for a change.

Re: UK Riots
 

I was exaggerating to prove the point that a few members of the TA might not be the highest authority to judge the British Army on, but that said the TA doesn't even share basic training with the army, those sent away probably received training before their departure.

Regardless I'm fairly confident that the TA would have done well in assisting the police with the riots.

Re: UK Riots
 

Oppression is not allowing people to have guns, why would a government not trust it's people, ay ? if things are so damn fine to live their.

Re: UK Riots
 

Probably a similar reason to why Washington DC doesn't allow pistols.

In the UK the people do not want to carry firearms, thus it being a democracy the people have their wish and ownership of many types of firearms (ie, those you can conceal) are banned.

Re: UK Riots
 

I'm sorry, but that is honestly the most pointless statement I've read in this thread. If there would be a genuine oppression somewhere and the rights to bear arms, then the death toll would be much higher.

Besides, a government isn't made to talk about the trust of the people, but to serve the people. The government is ought to be made by the people, for the people. Unfortunately, the latter case is continually failing in most countries, because the government has the interest of corporations in its eyes, not the people's.

Re: UK Riots
 

In a democracy, the will of the people (in theory) is carried out. Unfortunately in the UK, the vast majority of people do not want handguns and the like legalised in any way - and even shotguns are suspect, and tightly controlled - and so they are not legal. This is the opposite of oppression, for the majority of the population anyway.

The UK has never had a strong gun culture. You're talking about gun control in Britain as though we are Americans, when we aren't. Even talking about firearms, in any way, often makes many people here visibly uncomfortable. Just bring up the topic of gun control, as though it's a thing that can be debated, with an average person and you are branded as a gun nut. I would go so far as to say that there is a general fear of firearms in Britain.

I saw a statistic quite a long time ago that suggested that gun ownership did not significantly decrease after the tight legislation we have now was put into place - because gun ownership levels were essentially microscopic to begin with. The vast majority of the British people did not notice a difference in their lives, because none of them owned firearms in the first place. I might be misremembering, and I can't find it now, but it sounds realistic to me.

Banning firearms in America would of course be a much different proposition. Large swathes of your population are active members of a (comparatively) liberal - and often passionate - gun culture. The topic of gun control in America is met with suspicion and scorn, compared to the suspicion and scorn that the mere mention of the word 'gun' finds in Britain.

And all that said, I still fail to see the relevance of your gun ranting in regards to the recent riots. To my knowledge, the topic of firearm legislation hasn't been mentioned, either by the media, the government, or even the rioters themselves.