Kill at will? America on trail

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Thanks Lee, must have missed that, puts the whole thing in a different light.

I don't necessarily agree with a blanket ban on guns here, I'd say that 95% of guns in the UK are used for 'sporting' means and with a certain degree of responsibility.

In many ways, a fair few Americans seem to think they're still in the Wild West, but like Neilrr says "Different country, different history, different rules".
 
Because they were scum and he did us all a favour by shooting the intruders to his neighbours house.

He looked after his fellow citizen. The world would be a better place if there were more people like him.

More gun-tooting rednecks who shoot first and ask questions later ??

What if the two men had been visiting a friend who was out ? Delivering a parcel and left it round the back as no one was home ? Quoting for some work that needed doing on the roof or in the back garden ?

His murderous actions would have been rather more difficult to justify. But it would have been a bit too late for the victims, wouldn't it ?
 
When you look at the challenges faced by our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq you realise that things are very difficult for a professional army. An army of teenage conscripts, many of whom would have no aptitude for the rigours of soldiering, would fare far worse.

We ended National Service once the need for manpower for our Empire had passed. And we are currently looking to cut costs by reducing the Army to an unprecedented size rather than spending billions conscripting people that we don't need.

It would mean a totally different mind set and it's not an army that could be used overseas, purely for defence of the Islands
 
People in this country don't tend to buy firearms for self-protection. But that is one of the major motivations behind many purchases in the UK. One of the reasons they have that motivation is the perception that the bad guys they encounter will be armed. Again that is not the norm here.


I think that you meant USA, rather than UK, above??
 
It would mean a totally different mind set and it's not an army that could be used overseas, purely for defence of the Islands

So you'd scrap our professional army and replace it with a Home Defence Force of unwilling amateurs ? And who exactly is going to invade us ??

Not ideal for our World commitments (Sierra Leone, Kosovo etc.) and disastrous if we have another Falklands situation.
 
The original reasons for allowing citizens to arm themselves are sound in that it meant people could oppose an oppressive Government [in the 18th Century.]

I think the reasons for it are mixed. And it's coloured by the fact that countries didn't necessarily expect (or want) to have a full time standing army. In the early US idea of maintaining a citizen militia was important to them.

I am uncomfortable with UK Governments having the monopoly on lethal force particularly when they have a habit of turning this on individual groups or communities. By example I would look to what happened in Ireland over a 30 year period the 1984/5 miners strike and the various times troops have been used in the near and distant past against strikers and protesters.

Both of these are bad examples.

I don't recall soldiers being used during the miner's strike. It would have been politically unacceptable. There was enough controversy that police were being imported from other forces.

And as for NI. If they hadn't sent in the army arguably the situation could have deteriorated to something a lot worse given that there were two opposing communities and a neighbouring foreign government in the mix.
 
Scott_F said:
More gun-tooting rednecks who shoot first and ask questions later ??

What if the two men had been visiting a friend who was out ? Delivering a parcel and left it round the back as no one was home ? Quoting for some work that needed doing on the roof or in the back garden ?

His murderous actions would have been rather more difficult to justify. But it would have been a bit too late for the victims, wouldn't it ?

It was evident this was an intruder. Hence he shot him. I don't see it as murder.

A delivery driver usually has a liveried van and a uniform. A friend wouldn't prowl around the garden and would probably ring rfe door, which said shooter would observe.

A would be intruder doesn't do any of these things but breaks windows, climbs around suspiciously.

I bet the householder would be grateful for his neighbours actions.
 
So you'd scrap our professional army and replace it with a Home Defence Force of unwilling amateurs ? And who exactly is going to invade us ??

Not ideal for our World commitments (Sierra Leone, Kosovo etc.) and disastrous if we have another Falklands situation.

Absolutely, we are not a world power any more
 
The intruders had left the property...what difference did it make to the householder having the would be intruders shot?

Yes...if they had confronted me or mine then I'd have been justified in killing them...but to act as judge, jury and executioner after the event, is unjustified homicide.
 
It was evident this was an intruder. Hence he shot him. I don't see it as murder.

A delivery driver usually has a liveried van and a uniform. A friend wouldn't prowl around the garden and would probably ring rfe door, which said shooter would observe.

A would be intruder doesn't do any of these things but breaks windows, climbs around suspiciously.

I bet the householder would be grateful for his neighbours actions.

"I can look at that flat roof of yours tomorrow"

"Great. I won't be in but you can just pop round the back and climb up"
 
It was evident this was an intruder. Hence he shot him. I don't see it as murder.

Murder: The taking of another's life.

How is it not murder then?

A delivery driver usually has a liveried van and a uniform. A friend wouldn't prowl around the garden and would probably ring rfe door, which said shooter would observe.

A would be intruder doesn't do any of these things but breaks windows, climbs around suspiciously.

I bet the householder would be grateful for his neighbours actions.

A wonderfully simplistic take ignoring the facts which show that friends and family are more likely to be killed than any intruder ever is.
There is a recent case of just that in the USA.
Family members returning home unexpectedly, getting shot. On it goes.

As it is in the UK, every week two women are murdered by their partners. Do you really imagine that wide spread gun ownership will help with that?
 
I think the reasons for it are mixed. And it's coloured by the fact that countries didn't necessarily expect (or want) to have a full time standing army. In the early US idea of maintaining a citizen militia was important to them.



Both of these are bad examples.

I don't recall soldiers being used during the miner's strike. It would have been politically unacceptable. There was enough controversy that police were being imported from other forces.

And as for NI. If they hadn't sent in the army arguably the situation could have deteriorated to something a lot worse given that there were two opposing communities and a neighbouring foreign government in the mix.

Force doesn't always involve shooting people as in the 1984/5 strike clubs and batons work equally as well. However to put some meat on it to keep you happy the use of the military against the people goes back to before Peterloo in 1819 but was fairly common in the early 2oth Century in South Wales and in Clydeside in 1919; the military were used as strike breakers in 1926 and more recently against the Firemen. The shootings in Derry on Bloody Sunday and then later targeted assasination of IRA men by the SAS would not fit you model of the peacemaker role for the military, it may have started well but the events of Bloody Sunday finished it.
 
However to put some meat on it to keep you happy the use of the military against the people goes back to before Peterloo in 1819 but was fairly common in the early 2oth Century in South Wales and in Clydeside in 1919; the military were used as strike breakers in 1926 and more recently against the Firemen.

So nearly a hundred years ago. Not much meat there.

The shootings in Derry on Bloody Sunday and then later targeted assasination of IRA men by the SAS would not fit you model of the peacemaker role for the military, it may have started well but the events of Bloody Sunday finished it.
Seemed to keep the situation from boiling over. It didn't erupt into civil war. The reality was that without the army there then a lot lot worse could have gone on.

And this is the problem with measuring the value of doing something without considering the ramifications of *not* doing it. I don't think anybody would claim for a moment that sticking the army into NI was by itself a good thing. But it was a response to a situation. And that situation was fluid in that it changed over the period the army was present (and teh army itself adapted and changed).
 
renault12ts said:
The intruders had left the property...what difference did it make to the householder having the would be intruders shot?

Yes...if they had confronted me or mine then I'd have been justified in killing them...but to act as judge, jury and executioner after the event, is unjustified homicide.

Means the intruder can't come back later to kill them or break into other houses and kill their occupiers. All in all, a successful shooting :D
 
Guns belong In the hands of responsible sensible people and should never be used to kill some one loitering around your property, cameras dogs baseball bat will be enough, once in your home and the thief is still up for it then pull out the gun.

A situation happened to me abroad where we keep a loaded gun and a well known villain came in the property with a pick axe looking for trouble, he is still recovering from his bite wounds and split head and he is now out of hospital prison and has become a friendly neighbour after a few years.

He's a dad a brother an uncle no need to be killed.
 
What is your take on the Trayvon shooting, am I correct in saying that you lived in the U.S. at some point?

I don't know enough about the case to have an informed opinion.
 

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