(Warning, some links contain adult content)
As most of you are aware by now I have over 2 hours of commuting a day to fill with entertainment of my choosing. I rotate between reading, watching 'stuff' and podcasts/music.
Relatively recently I've rediscovered Newswipe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newswipe_with_Charlie_Brooker), and for thoses that haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend it.
On the back of another book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scared-Death-Global-Warming-Costing/dp/0826486142)I've read relatively recently it's got me to a point where I'm beginning to lost faith in humanity.
It's nothing that people don't already know, but am I the only person that is completely disgusted by the way the media manipulates and handles the entire world order. The culture of everyone needing to know everything is perpetuated by the unwashed populous but surely there is some moral obligation to realise that the masses are completely incapacitated by the power of the media and as such the output of any organistaion should be considerate.
The culture of fear that is permenanty encouraged (eggs, ash, salmonella, BSE, paedophiles, rapists, murder, guns, knives ad infinitum) is so hugely detrimental to society and does nothing but perpetuate the cycle.
Now the irony is in me, having watched something on TV, now feeling the need to vent based on what it's told me.
Surely the great unwashed should start somewhere. A news site that is 'news' not soundbites, flagrant incitement to rioting/panic...imagine that. Updates for things that impact just me.
Within one of the episodes is a piece about a school shooting and some advice from a psychiatrist type suggesting how to handle the news of that.....suffice to say the media outlets did the exact opposite...
Start your journey to enlightenment here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm4GiyyVKQQ)
How the news reports things;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z4b_KMNpfs
Chris Morris saw it coming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_Today).
Bookmarked this post for my 1 hour commute home...
I share your sentiments. However I don't believe the media are into gaining some kind of collective mind control over us. There into making profits. The print media cannot do this by bringing us the news as they have done in the past. We already know the news from the web, TV and radio. We get our news 'as it happens' with satellite links and 24 hour news channels. A paper cannot just reproduce yesterdays old news. So they have to tell us what the news means. No longer are they newspapers. They have become viewspapers.
Also reader loyalty has dropped to an all time low. Few people actually have a paper delivered, we get them direct from the newsagent. And while we may normally buy the same one each day, a single shocking front page story could cause a switch to another brand. So the papers fight each other to provide the most attention grabbing headline they can think of. Then they tell us what they think we want to hear. The Daily Mirror won't report something damning about the old Labour government as most of it's readers are Labour supporters. And they Sun won't tell us when the new government makes it's first major cock-up due it's readership being mostly Tory. Never insult or upset your customer. Tell them what they want to hear and they'll be back tomorrow for more confirmation that their own personal world view is the right one.
And in very similar way the 24 hour news channels are heading down that same road. What channel do you go to all the time for your news? Sky, BBC, Channel 4, ITN? Why that one particularly? Maybe because it tells you the state of the world in a way that appeals to you. It's done in a far more subtle way than they sledge hammer approach taken by the print media, but the principal stands. "Come to us and we'll tell it the way you want to hear it."
IMHO the reason this collapse of the traditional news providers is taking place is due to the rise of the Internet. Wikipedia, Google, Twitter etc etc allow the people in the news to tell us first hand what's going on. Want to know what pilots think about the Ash cloud and its risks? Go read one of the anonymous commercial pilots forums. Want to speak to a Bangkok protester about what they really think and want? Check their Twitter feeds and personal blogs. You don't need the traditional media any more. Gone are the days when the few spoke to the many. We're living in a world where the many can speak to the many.
Sadly though I fear far too few people will be willing to invest the time to go find their news. Maybe we're all too used to getting our information in a one hour dollop at 10pm every night or from the rag we read each day on the way to work. Staying informed is hard work and I'm probably just to damn lazy to take the time to find out what I need to know. And maybe I don't want to be told something that doesn't fit with my preconceived ideas about how the world should work. For the first time in history I have the ability to bypass the normal media completely and become an educated and informed person. Shame I'm probably too idle or too frightened to bother.
Quote from: smilodon;310566Snip
Scarily I would have to agree with Smilo, although he doesn't go far enough into the psyche of "modern Britain". And Benny, the great unwashed are just that, a huge tranche of aimless people with aimless lives who celebrate an unending stream of "Celebrities" only famous for being "seen on TV".
Children aspire to be "famous" as though it was a career choice, and their parents have long forgone their parental responsibilities in an effort to embrace "Nu Labour's" vision of a fairer society for all, whilst happily allowing a Labour government to remain in power despite all of it's obvious failings.
Nobody wants an "evil B" for a boss but it is what everyone secretly craves, so they don't have to think for themselves or take any responsibility for their actions, and in that Labour have delivered all their wishes. We are now awash with a Country full of self proclaiming, media whores, whose ultimate goal is to be on the Jeremy Kyle show, not realising their "fifteen minutes of fame" has now become "fifteen minutes of shame".
Politics is no longer, by any definition, about belief systems, it's just another tawdry popularity contest where style over content will win every time........Mankind has become so shallow that it could drown itself in two inches (of water), but there is undoubtably an operation (for a price) that can make that three!!
Quote from: smilodon;310566I
Staying informed is hard work and I'm probably just to damn lazy to take the time to find out what I need to know. For the first time in history I have the ability to bypass the normal media completely and become an educated and informed person. Shame I'm probably too idle or too frightened to bother.
It raises one of the questions that was posed by the psychologist. Why do I need to know about the murder of 10 teenagers deep in the American mid west? I don't. Am I saying it's not tragic? Absolutely not, does it have any bearing on my life? No. All it succeeds in doing is instilling a culture of;
1. Fear that it could happen at any school at any time. (Newsreader "Just an ordinary boy, let's look at what made him go off the rails, he lost at monopoly and got cross, that was the first sign").
2. Copycat instances. Neo/matrix black coats and hero/pariah cultures.
If it happened in Surrey, fair enough, but whilst I'm interested in the world around me, I don't need to know what Nelson Mandela had for dinner, or indeed what Obama thinks of the medicare system. I have no American relatives or friends, if I did fair enough. How do you channel the news that people want to hear?
There used to be a website (that I posted here ages ago that had a wordmap on it based on the number of headlines and you could catergorise by country etc. I wish I could find it now.
edit, found it. http://newsmap.jp/
Aye, you suggested that site to me a few years ago - I use it everyday for a quick glimpse of what is read a lot around the globe. Sadly, it can't be adjusted to "Denmark" or "Europe" fx. despite me encouraging the developer twice.
I can still see the validity in e.g. keeping up with what is happening politically in, say, the US or how the semi-civil war is going in Thailand. I think there is some point in this buzzword of being a global citizen and how nations, people and firms are connected today. Examples:
- I keep up with how the pounds is doing (fx. after Cameron's announcements today + a flea from risky currencies) to see what it costs to buy stuff overseas.
- I keep up with how the Euro (and Greece) is doing since that could impact Denmark severely, being a tiny nation, even though our currency isn't the euro, but just pegged to it.
I think there is a big difference between your two mentioned examples of irrelevant news. What Obama thinks of Medicare can have an influence on me, although minor, while I doubt what Mandela eats has an influence... I guess I have changed over the years and my scope on news isn't aimed at specific nations but rather the scope of potential influence? Chinese news can still matter, and Danish news can still be pointless.
So the future of news is to be able to subscribe to what you want. In essence, in the UK that was done by localised news after the main news, but it's still all crap.
Filtering the news site I posted for UK I get;
Iran nuclear - relevant
China welcomes Iran - getting tenuous
Miss USA Stripper - dear god
Miss USA strip show - kill me now
Suicide attack Kabul - tragic yes, care, no.
EU-Latin summit in Madrid....yawn
A ton of football pieces, interesting for me, but not really 'news'.
We live in a sensationalist world and I'm fed up with it.
I've refrained from watching the TV or reading newspapers for years now....ignorant I know :D
All the rubbish shown on TV and especially the news is way to depressing...why I would want to see negative news stories over and over again?
I say: stay away from the fools lantern!
and if you do have to watch TV, please try and argue with it. :narnar: Never take anything they say for granted without questioning it. :flirty:
Quote from: Benny;310587EU-Latin summit in Madrid....yawn
Well, you have news you ought to know but which is dull, versus stuff you don't need to know, but which is fun, tragic or sensational. Actual news, that really impact your life, is rarely fun or sensational... EU is something I have always wanted to be in the Danish news, regardless of it being yawn x 100, so that I can keep some connection with *** is going on, but the channels say that one one bothers to watch it. So, the news channels pick what basically keeps people watching, versus what they actually should be informed about. How do you go about dealing with commercially focused channels?
The regional news bit after national we also have here. Only semi-dead people watch it.
Edit: that link you have - remember that if filters on what is most popular, not what is most relevant. So if tons of UK papers cover the Miss USA, that site picks it up... so blame the sensationalist paper, not the aggregator ;-)
Quick!! Quick!! MMR will kill us all, stop protecting your babies with death injections. Murderers all of you!
*months later
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8695267.stm
Shhhhh.....never mind it was all a mistake, let's not make a big thing of it.
/hating news.
You need a formula. Things that are near you should be prioritised. Then something further away needs to overcome a relevance threshold to show up on the news. Old woman gets mugged on my doorstep, that's news. Old woman gets mugged 576 miles away, couldn't care less.
Iran starts a war with Israel I probably should know even though it's a long way away. Farmer Starts a land dispute with ramblers in Surrey, don't care.
Next you need to strip all the bloody opinions from news. Every story about Iran for instance is "The Evil regime in Iran has..." even if they've agreed to peace talks or had a puppy parade. State what they've done, maybe summarise the facts for people, but let them make up their own mind what's going on.
After that strip away the ability to forecast news. At one o'clock today the prime minister is expected to announce "XYZ". If they're telling the press then, why leak it, just go ahead and announce it, if they don't know it then it's not news.
After that stop hiding the news with the most serious ramifications but is slightly boring. This is an example of something SERIOUS! (http://www.theworldsprophecy.com/senate-bill-s510-makes-it-illegal-to-grow-share-trade-or-sell-homegrown-food/) that I've not seen mentioned much. Surely such a fundamental erosion of human rights is news worthy?
That's my 2 cents anyway.
very extremely not safe for work, lots of swearies!!!!! you have been warned - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U4Ha9HQvMo
I have to say that's why I quite like the metro. The metro has only a couple of reporters. The rest of the staff are all sub-editors. The metro has an agreement with the News Agencies to be able to publish the wires pretty much as is. Quite often a lot of the articles are good old fashioned "Where What How Why When and Who" reporting.
It's compact, you haven't got some tosser like Richard Littlejohn spouting bigoted bile at you, and generally gets to the heart of the stories. Yes it does do some odd human interest pieces, but it's very easy to sift through, and the regionality of it by definition makes the content more relevant to the reader.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/24/charlie-brooker-norway-mass-killings?CMP=twt_iph <---------strong agreement.
Outrage / Sigh / usual.
This world is a state, but the reporters and 'news' people are atrocious.
Charlie Brooker hits the nail on the head once again.
What a sad state of affairs :(
I bailed out on TV news and the red tops years ago and become more and more confused by those who still voraciously consume this type of media output (I cannot bring myself to refer to it as news). However it's not my right to judge someone else based on what thy do or do not watch on TV over the last weekend, so I remain confused but not judgemental. More over I'm posting to a community geared towards a mature, sensible (in outlook rather than age) gamer with enough brains to be able to finance and rig up a PC i.e. people with at least as much whit as me and probably a great deal more. So I'm probably preaching to the converted anyway. More than the fact that I think our news media does more harm than good in the world I am sure we should all still be free to decide if and how we become misinformed and mislead.
The TV news services and red top dailies only report what they do because enough of us (them) continue to buy what they peddle. We get what we want from the media and what we want it seems is instant gratification and the world reduced to it's dumbest form.
I've made a point of completely avoiding this story other than the very basic facts. In a few weeks I'll return to a trusted on-line news source and review what has emerged as the truth.
I stopped watching the 'news' on TV many years ago and a few years later I unexpectedly had an explanation of why I no longer liked viewing the news on TV. A client of mine, a well-known ex-newsreader, said she stopped enjoying the job when following the retirement of one 'Head of News' the BBC appointed a new HoN who was not of a News background but instead came from 'Documentaries'. She said this changed the format of the news program - she went into considerable detail of the format change in my conversation with her, but it boiled down to the news becoming 1-2 mini-documentaries which covered the first 15 minutes of what used to be a 25 minute News & Weather program, with the actual 'news' format then starting about 15 minutes into the program.
I thought about this and she was absolutely right. I used to watch the news as it gave news in short, unbloated, un-opinionated items. I no longer watch the TV news as I do not like the mini-documentaries at the start - I watch news for news, not documentaries!
I now take news from the internet, on my own schedule and cannot recall sitting down to watch an actual news program for a long time, simply as it no longer delivers news, it mostly delivers a documentary or opinionated, non-factual guesswork (such as some of the hysteria in the evening following the attacks in Norway).
The news as it unfolds is regularly wrong. I'm not at all surprised. You don't have to be a genius to spot discrepancies with the profile of what went down and what "experts" thought was happening at the time. However when a breaking story happens people hear about it and switch on the news. If the news isn't reporting it they'll try another station to find out details. This of course means a channel will just go on and on about a piece of breaking news. And, as tends to be the problem with breaking news, people tend not to have all the facts so they speculate.
Next time you see someone on TV after a breaking news story first look at who they're interviewing. The vast majority of the time it's someone with little or no intimate knowledge of the event, know little more that has been on already and fill the gaps with speculation. It's hardly surprising they are often wrong. People believing them is the more worrying thing. If you invite Greenpeace to talk about the Fukashima accident you'll get doom and gloom, if you invite the man in charge of the plan you'll get the best case scenario from them. If you invite someone who has written a book on 9/11 to talk you'll get Muslim extremist did it, if you invite a Muslim cleric you'll get a home grown terrorist did it. The news picks the experts, so they've already pretty much decided what they'll come out with.
As long as people buy/watch it they'll keep making it.
On Sky news today a reporter quoting from Adele's tribute to Amy Winehouse said she was "brilliant and blaze" instead of "brilliant and blasé". Standards!
Quote from: T-Bag;329528The vast majority of the time it's someone with little or no intimate knowledge of the event, know little more that has been on already and fill the gaps with speculation.
It's that provision of background or opinion that turns it from interesting News to 'documentary'. That's when I switch off.
Sit down and watch an episode of Chris Morris' brilliant The Day Today.
Now watch ITV News.
Scary stuff...
Let's get her fired up......clear..
So back to the real world and I had the misfortune of having 5 minutes to spare this morning before the school run. The telly went on and I watched a bit of Daybreak, or whatever it's called now. I'm no stranger to the show, the missus watches the mindless drivel at times and I therefore watch by osmosis or some other clever use of words. Tuning in the headline story was the gas explosion and the cordoned off street. For those not in the know, have a gander here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-18623608).
So in the name of keeping us, the general population updated as to the events of the last few days, they show some long distance shots of a house that no longer exists, followed by an action shot of someone walking up to the police tape looking forlorn and pensive. Cut to the interview. This poor woman has been cadjoled into parading herself on TV and without a word of a lie, the interview followed the lines below (anything in italics is my own interpretation);
TV AM bird (or whatever she's called) - "So, you're a neighbour, can you tell us about it"
Victim shuffles nervously and replies "yes, blah blah, house gone, can just see what's left of it from here, friends nad family helping out, can't go back yet whilst they investigate, so family giving me clothes etc, all very sad"
TV AM bird - "That's terrible, so, tell us how you feel about the fact that you're alive and lucky but there was a boy next door who died"
Victim - "....." I'm ****ing overjoyed, what do you think? Jesus christ, at what point do you think I'd be anything other than well chuffed that an innocent child got killed in these tragic circumstances you ****ing clown shoe.
TV AM Bird sensing some sentimentality switches to safer ground "So you have lost all your possessions and your house is pretty much gone, that must be hard"
Victim - "erm, yes, it's not great" What else do you want me to say given there's a kid died, I'm going to look a right prick if I say I'm gutted aren't I.
TV AM Bird - "That's awful, so...I'm told you have no insurance so you'll not get it back, is that right?"
Victim - "Yes, that's right" Great, not only do I look like I'm heartless, I look stupid too, and you've just rubbed my face in the fact I've lost everything.
TV AM Bird -"Thanks for your time, let's leave it there"
What a marvellous interview, I am now up to speed on the tragedy. TV AM should stick to what it's good at. Titillation and upskirts of presenters who are just on the right side of being 'sexy aunt' material and attractive weather girls. Unless all of you people reading this stop watching this shite it will never change. Anon should take up the cause, it'll be more productive than hacking Natwest..oh.
Steps to being happy
Stop reading the Sun after Diana's death and the outpouring of bullshit - Complete
Stop watching the news - Complete
Stop watching general entertainment/news crap - Complete
Stop interacting with human society....working on it.
It's all kicking off down here (http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Special-football-day-kicks-soccer-mad-fathers/story-16463936-detail/story.html)
My great regret is that I won't be alive to read through a history text book in a hundred years, and to see what future generations make of the level we have allowed our media and news services to sink. I think it would make an entertaining read.
I refuse to believe that I am somehow more discerning or intelligent or whatever than the millions of people who happily lap up early evening current affairs programs, the red top press, Channel 4 and ITV Nightly News and increasingly even the BBC News. But I find it harder and harder to understand how more people don't call shenanigans with most of the stuff these sources report. Some of the Daily Mail/Express headlines have become parodies of themselves they are so extreme. Yet millions of ordinary people just like me seem happy to spoon it up on a daily basis.
Is it apathy? I'm pretty apathetic about a whole load of stuff, just not news and media. So perhapse each of us can only be interested in a certain amount of things and then by default we are completely apathetic about everything else. So my apathy is as great but different from a reader of the Daily Mail. I'm apathetic but just about different things. And your apathy is different than mine and so on.
This same apathy is probably the reason why no one will go out this weekend and close their Barclay's Bank Account. Anyone who disliked a greedy, immoral Bank that offered pretty poor quality services would have already left by now. The rest of us can't be arsed.
But, but, but...I'm with Barclays and I'm staying for a different reason. I don't care if they make money, as long as I'm in good standing credit wise and can get what I want, including the ridiculously cheap tracker mortgage they have me on - £295 mortgage payments all around I say. That and if I move I'll have to memorise a whole different pin number.
Smilo, your apathy makes me feel more at one with humans again, perhaps there is hope. A land of apathetic no-do gooders, not doing anything of any value and enjoying it. We can call it 'The Fens'.
I'm with Benny. I think most people vaguely interested in their affairs do more than just flip a coin to decide which bank they join and what the benefits are to them.
For example I'm with HSBC and have been since they bought out Midland Bank all those aeons ago.
Every couple of years I review things and if I tell them I'm leaving without doubt they'll refund whatever charge it was that hacked me off or give me a credit if they've messed something up and it works well.
Besides which their Premier service is darned good with things like free travel insurance and global banking. Nice having no charges for transferring money from Sterling to my Euro or USD accounts and back again (and at normal exchange rates) = means they get my loyalty. Yes they have downsides but it's all to do with what you want out of it I guess.
One thing that gets me is that so many people never change their utility companies. Competition is a good thing and if everyone changed once in a while I'm sure prices would come down...
Barclay's did bad things and it cost 'ordinary' people and their pension schemes money. Yet as long as we decide that overall we as individuals are better off dealing with them we won't do anything to show our displeasure. We send a clear message that it's OK to cheat and lie on a massive scale as we have no moral compass and we will never punish that company unless their wickedness directly harms us. We'll read the News of the World and the Sun as long as they don't hack our mobile phones, we'll bank with Barclay's as long as they don't cheat us directly. So to apathy we can add egocentrism as a basic human trait we all share.
Again I would consider myself a fully paid up member of the club, although my self serving endeavours are pointed elsewhere as I wouldn't bank with Barclay's if they gave mortgages away for free. And I'm also guilty as charged on the Utility Company front. I'm with an energy provider who was fined 1 billion Euro's in 2009 for being part of a Europe wide price fixing cartel. But the mass of other choices, price plans and such like means that my Apathy combined with my lack of a working moral compass will never allow me to change providers.
:)
Aye, you're right about the Utility companies. They should enforce a simple pricing structure that makes it easy to compare like for like. You can always try 'U'Switch (http://www.uswitch.com/gas-electricity/guides/send-us-your-bill/)though. all you need is your currently supplier and the details and it'll work out the cheapest alternative for you. You can even send them a copy of your current bills and they'll work it out from that!
While on the subject of stupid news and to illustrate my growing despair with the BBC here's an interesting link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18618521
Specifically the caption under the picture of the new Nexus 7 tablet (me wants)
QuoteGoogle opted to outsource production to Asus rather than build the Nexus itself
Would that be the same Google that has never made a piece of consumer hardware? The Google that is famous for outsourcing all it's products i.e Android phones. Chrome Books and Google TV's to third party hardware manufacturers like HTC, Samsung and now Asus? Although they sometimes don't disclose who makes their stuff, the Nexus Q is made by a 3rd party company but Google isn't saying who, Google don't make mass produced consumer products. They always farm the work out. So what's the thought behind the caption? None I think. Still it's hardly surprising when you consider that the BBC does make the dreadful TV show Click "yesterdays news today"
Quote from: smilodon;353826While on the subject of stupid news and to illustrate my growing despair with the BBC here's an interesting link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18618521
Specifically the caption under the picture of the new Nexus 7 tablet (me wants)
Would that be the same Google that has never made a piece of consumer hardware? The Google that is famous for outsourcing all it's products i.e Android phones. Chrome Books and Google TV's to third party hardware manufacturers like HTC, Samsung and now Asus? Although they sometimes don't disclose who makes their stuff, the Nexus Q is made by a 3rd party company but Google isn't saying who, Google don't make mass produced consumer products. They always farm the work out. So what's the thought behind the caption? None I think. Still it's hardly surprising when you consider that the BBC does make the dreadful TV show Click "yesterdays news today"
I Love Click!
It makes me remember stuff
Yay, faith restored. My missus had the tv am crap on this morning and they had another segment (I'm tempted to call it a skit) about the explosion.
This time the joy and relief of people as they got their pets back. Yay, they were so happy that little fluffy kitten and her sister were fine, phew! These were grown people. I'm sure they were so relieved that their cat was alive whilst next door's kid lies on a mortuary slab. ****ing A, what a result. What a bunch of syphilitic *****.
Yay, another rebirth.
I'm loving this.
http://www.dougstanhope.com/
(http://www.dougstanhope.com/)
That was a funny read and aptly described my own reaction to many so-called 'journos', which happens to rhyme with 'bozos', 'winos' and 'asshoes'. You be the judge.
Quick, send in the police complaints commission. Police shoot an armed man who was intent on hurting others.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-18994167
O (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-18994167)n a broader note, after the shootings in the US, there will be clamour for tighter gun controls. I've had this argument at N42 who argued it was safer to have guns than not. I still can't see it myself.
The gun ownership debate boils down to this in my mind: I don't want to live in a society where someone who is dangerously unstable can purchase an AR-15 and 6000 rounds legally.
The NRA should be footing the financially crippling medical bill for the victims. But they wont, because they're scumbags.
Quote from: Benny;355373Quick, send in the police complaints commission. Police shoot an armed man who was intent on hurting others.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-18994167
O (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-18994167)n a broader note, after the shootings in the US, there will be clamour for tighter gun controls. I've had this argument at N42 who argued it was safer to have guns than not. I still can't see it myself.
Not sure gun control in the US would have any effect......tis the people and not the gun that kills people and take away the gun and the nutters would find another way. There is always the strange comparison of somewhere like Canada with the US.....geographically very similar - yet places either side of the the border are very different.....US has a gun problem, Canadian side does not ( even though they also have high gun ownership ). I compare it to knife crime here........the focus is always on the weapon that does the damage rather than the person holding the weapon and the constant idea is that you take away the weapon and cure the problem......but it will always fail as the weapon was not the issue and the person is still there with the same outlooks and attitude to other people, just as dangerous but now they'll batter you over the head with a brick instead.
I'm not some pro-gun lobbyist or in favour of people walking around with swords slung..........but the real issue is not the piece of metal in whatever form, it is inside the heads of the nutters and the society that breeds them that is.
Cum Catapultae Proscriptae Erunt Tum Soli Proscripti Catapultas Habebunt
When catapults are outlawed, only the outlaws with have catapults
'nuff said
Blaming people is not an excuse for allowing guns. What positive use comes from hand guns? I'm ok with shotguns which are relatively easily obtainable in this country. They're relatively non-lethal and hard to conceal. My family own a couple for clay pigeon shooting and hunting rabbits on a local friendly farmers land, I've been to rifle clubs and have shot rifles under controlled circumstances, so what I'm about to say is not just blindly anti-gun, I'm coming at this from a position of giving things a chance.
I think the line of thought that more guns around makes people safer as criminals will be too scared it's just ridiculous. It's like taking away seatbelts and hoping it will make people drive more carefully. Criminals will still carry guns only when there's a crime so "heroic" citizen might shoot a bystander or get shot for drawing a gun. It's a non-sense argument spread by idiots. I'd rather face a brick than a bullet and I'd rather face a fist than a knife. If weapons are off the streets I'd be happier and that will never happen when people are legally allowed to conceal and carry them around with them for s**ts and giggles.
If you want a gun for hunting it's a rifle or a shotgun you need anyway. Hand guns should be illegal.
I've had a couple of shotguns for 30 years or more.
Since Dunblane, Every 5 years or so I have to re-new my licence, get a visit from Plod to check my gun security and pay a fair wedge for the privilege. (even though the Dunblane shootings weren't done with shotguns)
At any time I could go bonkers and shoot up the village. No-one checks my mental state in any depth.
The check involves a retired copper coming round for a cuppa and a chat about shoots we've been members of, and the number of pigeons that are about.
It suits me fine, but what about the nutters?
Generally I'm happy to be checked out, because I am not a nutter and have a reason to possess my guns. (I can shoot rabbits, pigeons etc. on my local farmland)
Most of the shootings that occur in this country are committed with un-licenced firearms. so should not be my problem.
In the US you can legally own an AK47 or an Uzi.
This is where their problem lies.
Why on earth would you want to possess an assault rifle? (apart from the initial fun you'd get firing off at cans etc.)
There may be a perfectly valid reason to own one, it's just I haven't heard it yet.
This wiki quote says it all
QuoteIn the United Kingdom in 2009 there were 0.07 recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm per 100,000 inhabitants; for comparison, the figure for the United States was 3.0, about 40 times higher, and for Germany 0.2.[2]
Or the table or all firearm related deaths HERE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate) shows USA: 10.27, Canada 4.78, England/Wales 0.46 (Deaths per 100,000)
Canada may have less deaths than America which has similar access to guns, but it still has 10x more deaths than the UK with tighter laws.
Just to mix it up a bit..
You need a permit to buy and own a gun in the UK. You don't need a permit to own a hunting crossbow or any other lethal weapon which can be sold to the over 18's no question asked.
Personally I think this is a no brainer, farmers need a shotgun and or a .22 rifle as their livelihood depends on it. Should they be audited on a regular basis... Yes... Should they have to undergo mental health checks... In my opinion... Yes.
The trouble is that guns are not the only tools that can be used as weapons. I would argue that you could do as much damage with a car around town.
How come nobody pulled out their own gun and shot him?
*coughs* thread drift, it'd be a shame if this topic just became about gun law as I also don't bother with the news media these days, the missus and me call our local Granada news the dead baby show as they always try to headline with a dead baby story.
I love the news :)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/let-me-explain-why-miley-cyrus-vma-performance-was,33632/?ref=auto
T (http://www.theonion.com/articles/let-me-explain-why-miley-cyrus-vma-performance-was,33632/?ref=auto)his has restored my faith in humans.
Quote from: Benny;374895I love the news :)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/let-me-explain-why-miley-cyrus-vma-performance-was,33632/?ref=auto
T (http://www.theonion.com/articles/let-me-explain-why-miley-cyrus-vma-performance-was,33632/?ref=auto)his has restored my faith in humans.
It's so very true. When I see a slideshow on a website I know it's just to increase their page views. I deliberately avoid them. If I were less lazy I'd set up some sort of block on sites that tuck all their 'content' behind slideshows and social media login so I don't help their figures in any way.
Bugger, faith decimated again.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2415501/Kyle-Walker-apologises-inhaling-hippy-crack.html
[URL=http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/12016/8913570/tottenham-and-englands-kyle-walker-avoids-fa-disciplinary-action-over-legal-high]http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/12016/8913570/tottenham-and-englands-kyle-walker-avoids-fa-disciplinary-action-over-legal-high
B (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2415501/Kyle-Walker-apologises-inhaling-hippy-crack.html)l[/URL]oke inhales balloon and talks like Joe Pasquale shocker. Clowns.