Larf of the day

From The Tele:

The Prime Minister disclosed that he would not rule out “the use of military assets” as Britain “must not tolerate this regime using military forces against its own people”.

Er, Dave? What military assets? Sure, you can send a sub to lob a Tomahawk or two in Gaddafi's direction, though at more than half a million dollars a shot you probably need to ask the bank manager first. Other than that Britain has one aircraft carrier, which an ex-navy mate once told me is not a proper aircraft carrier anyway, but with all the Harriers gone it's not quite clear what use it'd be. You have a couple of landing ships plus HMS Ocean, but of course the Army is still busy fighting Tony Blair's pet war or enjoying the finest German porn the Rhineland's cities have to offer while helping guard them against any East German force that attempts to cross No Man's Land. You do have more than a hundred Tornado ground attack aircraft, though presumably some of them are in the 'Stan and Germany too, but of course you're getting rid of a load of pilots of all types which eventually restrict your ability even to have cargo aircraft dropping manure on people. And you still can't do that anyway as it probably counts as bio-war, and in any case you're years away from having Airbus's bigger, better, pricier, later version of the Hercules to help.

So don't you think you're stretched a little bit thin for credible sabre rattling, Dave? Or are you planning to ask the Libyans if they wouldn't mind waiting another 5-10 years, because with the mess that Colostomy Brown left for you to clear up you really can't manage anything much more beyond a marathon session of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare?

Take your hand off it, Dave. Nobody's fooled.

A league table position brought to you by Tony and Gordon.

Via Thoughts On Freedom I see that Britain's position on the Heritage Foundation's 2011 list of countries ranked by economic freedom is a comparatively lowly 16. And in all fairness to the massive foreheaded prick Cameramong, and though I can't see much sign of him doing anything to change it, it's too early to blame him for this. Tony? Gordon? This is on you.

A dramatic expansion of government intervention has taken place in the U.K. in response to the global financial and economic crisis. The government has nationalized or seized ownership positions in some of the major banks. Public finance has deteriorated markedly. Welfare benefits have become a daunting burden. The government deficit has widened sharply, and gross public debt has climbed to over 70 percent of GDP.
...
The U.K. has a high income tax rate and a moderate corporate tax rate.
...
Government spending has risen steadily since the 1990s. In the most recent year, total government expenditures, including consumption and transfer payments, climbed to 47.3 percent of GDP. Fiscal stimulus measuring 2 percent of GDP has aggravated the deficit and national debt.

Mind you, they make some absolute howlers so there's room to doubt their accuracy.

The U.K. has long had an efficient regulatory framework.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Oh, but then there's this.

Corruption is perceived as minimal.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Oh God, I may need medical attention.

Tony? Gordon? This is your work, you worthless wastes of pig feed. And Dave, for fuck's sake wake up and stop carrying on their "good" work. What the fuck did Britain do to deserve these bastards, eh? Oh yeah, that's right. Millions voted for them, didn't they?

'Kinell!

A pathetic bellend with an uninspiring career who deserves to disappear up his own arse with alacrity...

... meets David Hasselhoff.

After you, Dave.

According to The Teletubbygraph David Cameramong is shortly going to be talking about freedom.

British Muslims must subscribe to mainstream values of freedom and equality, David Cameron will say as he declares that the doctrine of multiculturalism has “failed” and will be abandoned.
...
He will also warn that groups that fail to promote British values will no longer receive public money or be able to engage with the state.

Well, that sounds a nice idea, Dave. I'm all for the state not funding any groups promoting anything at all, much less those promoting things that go against British values - if they can't get funding from people who see things their way then they sure as hell don't deserve a penny of taxpayers' money.* And I certainly won't argue that the whole multiculti dream has created more problems than it solved or that those who don't like living in a free country and refuse to adapt are, ironically, free to leave it. But I have a question for you: when are you going subscribe to the values of freedom and equality you're lecturing others about?

No, I am deadly serious. Britain is a country where speaking your mind risks legal action if other people don't like what you say, which means that there is no freedom of speech - say the wrong thing and someone may use the courts and the legal system to silence you. The same courts protect slebs and shag-happy bootfallers from having their embarrassing lives discussed in the media, and while I have no interest in reading about them anyway it means that there's no freedom of the press either. While in theory law abiding citizens have the right to defend themselves against violent attack they are in practice denied almost all means of doing so effectively, so the freedom to defend oneself is extremely shaky. Even aside from the ridiculous detention of people for taking photos and buying tobacco or because the police can't remember the difference between a suspect and a witness, there is no freedom from malicious arrest or from cruel and unusual punishment since UK police forces, when they're not delaying the proles for the convenience of surgically enhanced minor slebs, may be required by foreign law enforcement to arrest British citizens or residents with little in the way of prima facie evidence and for offences that need not be crimes in the UK.** If you are of a religious persuasion and hold certain disagreeable views about homosexuals you are not free to allow them to influence the way you choose to do business or with whom, which means Britons do not have freedom of religion or association either and are not free to exercise property rights. The drugs laws mean that people aren't free to decide what to put in their own bodies and the persistent belief in the state as moral guardian and arbiter means that those with vaginas aren't free to use them to earn a quid from those without one. For heaven's sake, even consensual sex requires an IQ test now. And don't get me started on how completely not-at-all-like-being-free it feels to fucking fly anywhere these days because I might not stop for a while.

Want me to carry on, Dave? Want me to look at the lack of freedom British citizens have when it comes to being heard over Britain's EU membership despite the promises of both Cobbleition parties? Or the apparently shelved, or at least vastly watered down, Great Repeal Bill that you promised would be used to sweep away much of the most pointless and egregious legislation put on the books by previous governments? Or the way the promise that that would be open to public consultation was broken almost as soon as it became clear that many people wanted the smoking ban reconsidered? Freedom to for business owners and patrons to choose for themselves - no, can't have that, can we?

And it gets worse.

Entering the debate on national identity and religious tolerance, the Prime Minister will declare an end to “passive tolerance” of divided communities, and say that members of all faiths must integrate into wider society and accept core values.
To be British is to believe in freedom of speech and religion, democracy and equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality, he will say. Proclaiming a doctrine of “muscular liberalism”, he will say that everyone, from ministers to ordinary voters, should actively confront those who hold extremist views.

See what I mean? To be considered properly British in Cameramong's Britain you have to believe in mutually incompatible ideals. You have equal rights subject to them clashing with someone whose rights are more equal than yours. You have freedom of speech provided you don't say anything unacceptable. You have freedom to believe in whatever god or gods you like and practice which ever flavour of religion that appeals to you providing you don't believe in the bits that the British state aren't comfortable with. And what the fuck is "muscular liberalism"? I'd really love to know because it sounds awfully like a doctrine of the state being free to exercise force against citizens until they are made to see things its way, and if so I don't think there's anything remotely liberal about it.

These freedoms are fucking absolutes, you hateful authoritarian prick. You are at liberty or you have restrictions. You are free or you are not. It's that fucking simple, Dave, and if you can't or won't practice what you preach then I rate you as little better than those you have the chutzpah to lecture about it.

Bastard!


* Since I'd hold libertarian organisations to that principle I'd sure as fuck say it applies to any group that exists to tell other people what to do and how to live. Get by on voluntary donations or get lost.
** As the case of the Natwest Three showed us, it's not always even necessary for any offence to have taken place in the jurisdiction that asked for the arrests to be made.

Professional offence seeking reaches new heights.

Okay, maybe I should have put that another way because no doubt the Campaign for Equal Heights, ah, sorry, I mean the Walking with Giants Foundation would probably be upset if they read it.

The charity said it considered all such jokes as a form of harassment, contrary to equalities law, that enhanced negative stereotypes.

Oh, that's a bit of a stretch, isn't it?

Shit. Done it again, and clearly having no intention to offend makes no difference at all.

Mr Cameron's spokewoman said he had made ''light-hearted comments not intended to cause offence''.
But John Connerty, WWGF co-founder and charity secretary, launched a fierce condemnation of the Prime Minister's decision to ''glorify'' the previous incident.

Look, John, I honestly feel you'd be better off talking about the work your charity does for people who actually suffer from dwarfism rather than taking offence on behalf of all of them over a comment aimed at someone who is perfectly normal but a bit of a short arse. Bercow should certainly not be confused with a dwarf when he's plainly just a pint sized twat. Anyone who thinks otherwise is clearly Dopey.

Shit. Done it again.

Wills and Kate.

Don't know 'em so don't care, and please get it off the front pages as quickly as possible. I don't have anything against either of them but since I don't know them personally I care about their engagement roughly as much as I do that of any other couple that I've never met in my life. The fact is that the sum change of this event on the lives of everyone in Britain is zero but it'll be covered in depth in print and eventually on TV right up to the altar, and you just know that if the tabloids could get a long lens shot of the wedding night root then some of them probably would. Benedict Brogan has pointed out how the Elder Twin is likely to get some political benefit from it without actually doing anything much other than offer his congratulations:

The Prime Minister led the rejoicing this morning for the royal couple to be. “A great day for our country,” he said. What he won’t add is “and a great day for me”, not only because he is too polite to think in such crude terms, I’m sure, but because we can’t be entirely certain that there will be political advantage for the Coalition and the PM. But we should consider what benefit there might be for a government when the heir to the throne gets married. It will be a moment, like the Olympics no doubt, for national jollity and mutual back patting. Weddings generally are... In what will be a year dominated by cuts and austerity, we will be grateful for an interlude of celebration. And it will be unsurprising therefore if an uplift in the national mood doesn’t benefit to some extent the government and the politician presiding over this moment.

He's probably right, but surely I'm not the only one close to punching the floor in abject rage at the shallowness of so many fellow Brits.

"Royal wedding, hooray!"

Wake the fuck up, people! Britain is still buggered financially and run by a collection of idiots, liars and authoritarians (often embodied in a single person). One royal wedding or a thousand of them won't change that. If you love the royal family and think this is wonderful news, fine, but for Christ's sake treat it as what it is: a momentary distraction. It won't change your lives one iota and if you're daft enough to let the euphoria of the event and months of non-stop media obsessing over it overwhelm any urge to demand the Cobbleition actually fix a few fucking things you'll eventually come to regret it.

Having just done something I found vaguely admirable it was never going to be long before the walking forehead reverted to type and did something to piss me off all over again. Actually that's not quite accurate since this headline in The Age doesn't annoy me so much as induce a fit of the giggles.

British PM warns China on freedom

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Ahahahahahahaha

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Yeah, remind me, Davey, how's that 'Great Repeal Bill' coming along? Your Cobbleition made a good start on scrapping ID cards but much of the rest of NuLabour's anti-freedom legislation, all its little mini-enabling acts for example, remains intact. And you didn't exactly cover yourself in glory with your attempt at consulting the public with the comical Your Freedom webshite, especially with the refusal to even consider the idea of any freedom for private businesses to decide for themselves whether they want the custom of smokers. But here you are in China, Prime Minister of a country claimed to have more CCTV cameras per capita than anywhere else, leader of a state noted for its anti-free speech libel laws, its relatively easy ability to gag the media when it feels the need, its regular harassing of photographers by police and quasi-police, and its use of 'control orders' and detention without trial, and you're lecturing the Chinese about freedom issues? Not that China is any paragon but coming from you it must be hard for them to take seriously. As for this American style unequivocal adoration of democracy, a system that at best is a genteel form of mob rule and at worst gives a minority of the population the whip hand over everybody else, you have to be fucking kidding. I'll credit the Chinese with this: at least they don't stand there telling their citizens that they're free while demanding more and more of them at gunpoint.

You, Davey, are a cheeky cunt who should fuck off toot-sweet and get his own house in order - which I suspect has probably been said in Mandarin a fair bit since last night.

Life's full of surprises.

Not the least of which is that when asked to remove their poppies by their Chinese hosts David Cameron and his ministers politely but firmly refused. It'd be a bit churlish to suggest that had they complied there'd have been hell to pay with the media back home and that might have been the main reason, but I can't help but feel Cameron is far enough away from an election to expect early controversies to be largely forgotten by the time they'd be really damaging. Besides, I'm not sure that he, like his predecessors, really gives a rip about public opinion unless it agrees with government policy (cf further powers to Europe, referendum U turn, all the illiberal laws passed by NuLabour that we're still waiting for the Cobbleition to repeal, and so on). The most likely explanation seems to me to be that he has unexpectedly grown a set.

'Nothing he can do.'

Prisoners in Britain will soon be able to vote, thanks to the European Court, and apparently David Cameramong is exasperated and furious. Good. He bloody should be. Plenty of other people have been exasperated and furious for bloody years that Europe has so much say over British law, and it's more than time the Prime Minister of the day got a taste of it. What's worrying is Cameramong's admission that there's nothing he can do about it.

Nothing the Prime Minister can do about it? Or nothing that David Cameramong can do about it? They don't have to be the same thing, and if it's the latter we've clearly got the wrong man in No. 10. On the other hand if it's the former then that's something that needs to be changed, in which case I think we've still got the wrong man in No. 10.

'kinell!

I'd be lying if I said I was surprised - UPDATED.

I don't have much time to rant at length about the further selling out of what was once the United Kingdom but is presumably now Europe West Zone Two or something, but it's pretty much what I expected as soon as the worthless prick went back on his campaign promise to hold a referendum on the European Treaty. As I wrote more than a year ago, once it was clear that the Irish and Czechs weren't going to the only thing the UK had left that meant it would remain the UK in any meaningful sense was the thickness of David Cameramong's spine.

... Cameron is going to have to grow a set and actually say what he plans to do before the election. I'm sure he's looking forward to that like a cat looks forward to going to the vet, but since the Consititreaty is expected to become law across the whole EU within weeks I imagine Cameron will simply wring his hands and wail that nothing can now be done and if only the country had not voted the wicked wicked Labour government the UK would not have been sold to the Eurocrats on the cheap, so awfully sorry about it but we're not going to have that referendum. I may be 100% wrong about that - I hope I'm 100% wrong and I'm halfway to praying to a God I don't even believe in that I'm 100% wrong - but I can't help feeling that if Cameron was serious about it he'd simply have said that there would be a referendum no matter what.

And of course we all know what the result was: just as expected he wrung his hands and said it was too late and that nothing could be done. Since then we've seen even further concessions made and it's looking more and more like the choice back in May, at least as far as the EU was concerned, was not whether the UK was for or against more integration but whether more integration was to happen quickly, very quickly or very very quickly. Christ, it's not even been a year and the Cobbleition have already extended the European Arrest Warrant and coughed up more money Britain hasn't got to the EU, with commitments for yet more in the not too distant future. So it comes as no surprise at all that more power is quietly being transferred to the EU on the quiet (see Douglas Carswell's blog here, here and here).

So what the hell was the election for? It didn't decide who governs Britain, did it? And what the hell is the government and Prime Minister for? Because as far as I can see it's not running Britain so much as being the PR department for the Civil Service and the EU bureaucrats who really decide how things go in European West Zone Two these days.


UPDATE - The Grim Reaper has noted a particularly astonishing piece of chutzpah on this from none other than the Labour Party in this report from Auntie Beeb.

The PM spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy among others and argued for the 'lowest possible' increase. His plea came amid fears that a 6% rise would cost the UK another £900m a year. Labour has accused him of failing to stand up for British interests.

Something on which Labour are the world renowned fucking experts, though how they've found the gall to actually come out and say that is quite beyond me.

Light scorching of the quangos.

So much for buggering off for a blog free weekend, but there's just a couple of things I want to touch on before I look up directions to the town of Off in the atlas and fuck there with alacrity. For this post that's the not-quite-bonfire of the quangos.

Sounds good, eh? Well, no, not really. For starters twice as many will survive as will definitely be chopped, and that's nothing to get excited about. Maybe there'll be more abolished, possibly as many as 94, but maybe that'll be the lot. And secondly, a lot of the functions of those quangos are not being abolished at all, just brought back into Whitehall (my emphasis).

The biggest cuts concern the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with more than 50 bodies to be abolished, and the Department of Health, where about 30 bodies will be cut or have their functions transferred back to the department.

For which the department will no doubt demand an increase in its budget so as to take on staff to deal with the increased workload, and if DEFRA is the only one I'd be very surprised. The Cobbleition have failed to realise that it's not just the quango that must be made to justify its continued existence and funding, it's the function being carried out that must be justifiable as well, as explained by Raedwald.

... the test applied, you see, is whether the quango has been shown to perform a technical role that cannot be better discharged by government, or sufficiently demonstrated their independence from government, i.e. from tax funding. Not whether the technical role is necessary at all, or can better be discharged locally, or whether the function needs to be discharged at a national level.

Which means, as he says, that the state has at best lost a little weight, but retains almost all of its strength and its grip on power. The Cobbleition Twins will no doubt present it as a great reform that blahblah and blah for the blahblahblah people but the reality is that it's probably no more than a minor set back for the quangoracy. The powers aren't gone and they can be re-issued to new quangos by future governments, and possibly even by this one when everyone's forgotten and it can be done without attracting attention.

Nice opportunity squandered, fellas. Fuck you. Fuck you very much.

How much? (Part 2)

Temporarily removed for correction

As bad as each other.

That politicians of left and right are as bad as each other is a recurring theme here at Chez Exile, though with a federal and a state election coming up the last couple of posts have been about Australian politicians. So it's a well timed reminder, via the LPUK blog and Al Jahom, that the new British Cobbleition is just as bad as the Labour fucknuts that were so recently shown the door. The fucking maniacs still spending more than they raise in revenue, just as Labour did before them, and this is not only going to continue but it's going to continue to get worse (hilariously this continued increase was somehow considered to be a cut by BBC drone Kirsty Wark and the BBC Overmind). At the same time The Elder Twin is showing his authoritarian credentials by siding with the taxpayer funded nannying bignose lobbyists in the north-east who want minimum alcohol pricing in Manchester. That EU rules look like preventing this sort of thing either hasn't occurred to the freakish foreheaded fuckwit or he does have the balls to tell Europe to go piss after all, but only when it suits him. All this after the very Labour style threatening of to interfere with bonus systems in private banks if they didn't lend enough to please the Cobbleition, i.e. Vince Cable, who I'm fairly sure was one of the people who damned the banks for lending too much not so very long ago. Vince is apparently over to the left of his party and might therefore be expected to be an authoritarian prick who can't understand that private companies are supposed to answer to their shareholders and customers first rather than the fucking government, but that an allegedly Tory PM is carrying on the same kind of NuLabour style policies of unsustainable spending, taxpayer funded fake charity lobbying, market interference and intrusive nannying shows that the Tories, at least Cameramong's Tories, really are little better than the bastards they took over from.

Meet the new boss, just another complete cunt.

Quote of the Day.

From cracked.com.

Kids today know so little about history that they probably couldn't even tell you what year Abraham Lincoln defeated Napoleon during the Battle of World War I.

I'm sure David Camermong knows the feeling.

Facebook grows a set.

'Facebook is a place where people can express their views and discuss things in an open way as they can and do in many other places, and as such we sometimes find people discussing topics others may find distasteful, however that is not a reason in itself to stop a debate from happening.''

Good for them but it's funny, isn't it? Sometimes companies like Facebook find it easy enough to get all worked up about free speech and tell governments to stuff off, and I'm right alongside them when they do. But the same companies will freak out and cave in when confronted by a small number of complaints from misogynists, prudes and tittyphobes who object to photos of slightly too anatomically correct dolls or new mothers breastfeeding their babies. This might make sense if most of the whiners were paying to book their faces, but it's a free service so what are they losing if the tittyphobes all sod off somewhere else?

Personally I carry no brief for Raoul Moat or anyone else who goes around shooting unarmed people in revenge for perceived wrongs, and I'm generally inclined to support the police when they're not harassing innocent photographers and chasing victimless crimes that help the clear up rates but are in reality, as the Guide says, mostly harmless. But I accept that not everyone will be of the same opinion and they have as much right to express their thoughts as I do mine. Equally I feel that photographs of breastfeeding mothers can occupy a spectrum from yawn inducing cack that only their family members will be interested in all the way to moving and beautiful (and in keeping with the H2G2 theme I really don't give a pair of foetid dingo kidneys about nipples on dolls). Why can't the tittyphobes and prudes take the same attitude and either stop whining about images that offend them (and almost nobody else) or stop fucking looking at them? For that matter, why can't the Elder Twin start living up to some of these ideals about freedom he espouses from time to time?

Freedom, as I've said before, tends to be pretty black and white, and freedom of speech is no exception. You are free to say what you think or you are not - it's that fucking simple. You are certainly free to say that something someone else has said offends you but that doesn't give you the right to shut them up. It's at the top of the page: there is no right not to be offended. If you can't deal with that without demanding other people's freedom is restricted to suit you and your tastes I'd suggest you go live in a cave somewhere where you can't see or hear the rest of the world not agreeing with you. That goes double if you're a tittyphobe and treble if you're a politician sucking up to tabloid readers.

Un-control - UPDATED

On a more serious, note the murderous rampage of another fucknuts with a couple of guns has made news here too, and I couldn't help but notice that the echoes of the shots were barely over before the first calls for a review of Britain's gun laws were made. If the word 'review' was meant literally, i.e. a full and unbiased look at what's working, what isn't and what does nothing but pander to idiot tabloid journos who seem get most of their knowledge about guns from Bruce Willis movies, then I'd be all for a review as well. However, I suspect 'review' in this instance is actually code for 'let's ban the small number of guns we hadn't already got round to', and if so they need to understand that like most (all?) bansturbation it's at best useless and at worst counterproductive. As far as gun control goes I explained why at some length more than a year ago and so I really can't add much to what I said then.

... the next Michael Ryan or Thomas Hamilton will not be prevented from killing by the UK’s strict gun laws when they can achieve as much carnage or more by means of a home-made bomb constructed from legal, easy to obtain products. The IRA have proved that with diesel/fertiliser bombs, David Copeland proved it with bombs made from fireworks, and of course more recently the London suicide bombers in 2005 murdered more than 50 with peroxide based bombs followed shortly after by a similar unsuccessful attack and further attempts in 2007 using gas cylinders in cars. Frankly if I went nuts and wanted to maim and kill as many people as possible guns look like the second best choice anyway. So what do we do if we are trying to legislate away the dangers of madmen? Ban motor fuel, fertiliser, fireworks, hair products and barbie cylinders? That’s obviously ridiculous, though there’s perhaps an argument for restricting fireworks to professional displays in Australia where the whole bloody place might go up in smoke. The only real difference is that such things, along with the more mundane items like golf clubs and kitchen knives used in one-off murders, lack the emotive element that has been attached to guns in relatively recent times (more on that later).

...

But let’s assume that deranged lone psychos are different. I think there’s some justification for it. Mostly they almost certainly intend to take their own lives and to murder as many people as possible beforehand, and I think that creates a terrible freedom inside their own heads. Laws and morals and the ability of the criminal justice system to arrest, try and imprison them have absolutely no meaning anymore, and that sets them aside. The IRA and similar terrorists are politically motivated and generally intend both to live and to evade arrest, unlike the gun wielding nutjobs. Copeland had more in common with the Ryans, Hamiltons and Kretschmers of this world in that his crimes were driven by an insane hatred but again, it’s likely that he intended to get away with it. The London suicide bombers certainly intended to die in the process of committing their murders but differ from gun wielding nutcases in that their chosen means of murder prevents them from seeing the results. I suspect the lone psycho likes guns as they derive a twisted pleasure or sick satisfaction every time they aim at someone and pull the trigger. While this initially sounds like a good argument for removing guns as a means for these maniacs to commit mass murder the best such laws can achieve is to make them choose what they would view as a less satisfactory method. I doubt they’d be too disappointed if they listened to an explosion they’d caused from a distance and maybe got the kicks from watching the news reports. But let’s say they really want a gun. Well since they’re planning to break laws about killing people should we believe that the law banning guns is going to put them off for one nanosecond? If a gun is what they really want then won’t they simply try to get one (or more) illegally? It’ll be harder, but how hard is it really? Currently this guy is on trial for ordering gun parts from outside the UK and having them mailed – yes, mailed – to him. He says he planned to kill himself and while he may well honestly not have intended to hurt anyone else you have to wonder a bit about his state of mind. Still, the point is that he succeeded in getting a couple of guns and was in the process of getting at least one more. This kid bought a Taser, illegal under firearms laws in the UK, on holiday and simply brought it home. From time to time investigative journalists in the UK have shown that getting illegal guns is far less difficult or expensive than we’d like to think, and I think it’s safe to assume that the Northern Irish Peace Process didn’t allow legal ownership of the weapons used to kill two soldiers (and injure a couple of pizza deliverymen) and a police officer recently. So illegal guns are there for those who really want them. Now since we are talking here about someone who is planning nothing less than a massacre should we imagine that the fact that guns are illegal would put them off? They won’t care what’s banned - that terrible freedom they have renders all laws impotent. The absolute best society can hope for is that by trying to get illegal guns they would come to the attention of the police (like the guy in Scotland ordering gun parts, though remember he did get two guns before he was caught) and be stopped in time, but in the real world the ability of law enforcement to control the supply of illegal guns is a numbers game... If enough come in some will get through, and if a small, heavily populated and fairly wealthy island nation like the UK can’t prevent it then what country can? ... Passing a law won’t help when there are people willing to ignore it ...

Okay, since we don’t try to ban or restrict other items misused for murderous purposes why does society treat guns differently? Well guns kill people, the banners say. Pro gun people invariably reply that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. A variation is this:

"You take two people. You give one a gun, you give one not a gun. The guy with not a gun goes up to the person. 'Bang,' he shouts. 'Bang, bang, ratatatt, bang. Boom. Explosion. Your hair's exploded. Bang, you're dead now.' The person is still alive. Then the person with the gun comes up. Boom - they're cut in half. And I think the gun may just have helped with that." – Eddie Izzard

Well yeah, Eddie it did help, but that’s all it did isn’t it? And are you forgetting the role of the guy who pulled the trigger? I guarantee the gun didn’t pull it’s own trigger and only wanted the guy there to carry it around. And what if it wasn’t a gun at all? What if we say:

You take two people and you give one a cricket bat and one not a cricket bat. The guy with not a cricket bat goes up to the other one and says ‘Thump. Thump, thump, crunch, splat. Squelch. Your head’s split open. Thump, splat, you’re dead now.’ The person is still alive. Then the person with the cricket bat comes up. Wallop, their skull’s caved in. And I think the cricket bat may just have helped with that.

Substitute gun with cricket bat, golf club, car and a million other things and you can always say that those other things helped, but it doesn’t make anyone but the user culpable. Never mind, Death Star Canteen was hilarious. Perhaps Eddie or someone else trying to prop up this argument might say that guns are different because they’re designed with the sole purpose of killing. Nope, sorry but that does not hold water either. Even ignoring guns intended for defensive/non-aggressive use against people (e.g. police weapons, sidearms for military aircrew or other vehicles where they don’t have room for rifles) when sporting guns are considered in detail it falls apart. Yes they certainly can be used to kill, but so can kitchen knives, golf clubs, broken beer glass or even a heavy ashtray. Yet the kitchen knife is not a sword, the beer glass is not a dagger and the ashtray is not a club. So it is with sporting guns, which I believe should be distinguished from true weapons since their designers clearly made them with something else in mind. ... What if the anti gun people suggest that since the first guns were intended to be weapons all guns should be banned? Sorry, but we should no more hold that against their sporting descendants than we should blame 21st Century Germans for the Holocaust or the current Pope for the Crusades. If we do we might as well consider that the javelin was a weapon before it was an athletic event and that Olympic archers are use bows not fundamentally different from those that killed thousands at Agincourt alone. But neither javelins nor archery attract the emotion attached to guns. And I can’t think of anything but that emotion that causes people to want to ban one thing with a deadly use and ignore vast numbers of others.

[There's an element of this hoplophobia being media driven.] People now can grow up in the most peaceful area but see and hear news of violent death on a daily basis in their living rooms, and the media have a fixation when guns are involved. Even in the “culture of gun ownership” that many Europeans view the US the media have been known to report gun murders luridly and overlook similar body counts achieved by more mundane means. For example, on August 10th 1999 a racist madman in California by the name of Buford Furrow wounded 5 people, 3 of them children, at a Jewish community centre and murdered a Hispanic postman about an hour afterwards. This was barely 4 months after Steven Abrams, also of California, killed 2 children and injured 4 others along with a teaching assistant, apparently on the spur of the moment. Were we to go by the numbers of victims we would expect roughly equal reporting with perhaps slightly more given to the Abrams case just because of the body count. In fact one received nationwide media coverage and the other barely made any news outside California. One of these headcases has a Wikipedia entry and one doesn’t. The difference – Furrows used a sub-machinegun and pistol while Abrams simply drove his car through the playground fence and mowed down as many as he could before crashing. It seems that even in the supposed home of the gun the means of murderous crimes are what makes the news rather than the number or age of the victims. ... it’s hardly surprising that society as a whole has become gun phobic despite the plain fact that though guns have been the means by which many people put many others to death a gun itself is little more than a few lumps of metal, wood and plastic if not actually being held. If this sounds strange consider that a parked car with the engine off and the handbrake on is physically incapable of crashing into anything, but when driven can be quite deadly either through design (e.g. Steven Abrams) or negligence (e.g every careless twat on the freeway).  

...

Probably the best argument against privately held guns, recreational or otherwise, is that the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few and that it’s necessary for public safety, but if you think about it that’s not an argument that’s healthy for civil liberties because you can apply it to so much more than just guns. Where do you want to draw the line and what’s to stop it being moved by someone else in the future? I believe that the individual has the natural right to do whatever they want providing it doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s right to do likewise, and I rank that principle rather higher than the idea that the many need anyone who wants a gun to be presumed potentially guilty of a future gun crime. Still, I might be swung if it could be demonstrated that high rates of gun ownership inevitably accompanies high rates of gun deaths, and that’s where it goes a bit wobbly. We should count only homicides and maybe accidental deaths because a fair number of gun deaths are suicides, and it’s a reasonable assumption that in the absence of guns they’ll just stick their heads in the oven or something and the number of deaths won’t change. Normally the rate of gun violence in the USA is brought up at this point, and it is true that America has both a very high level of gun ownership and a much higher rate of gun deaths than most western nations. However, when looked at in detail the correlation between gun ownership and violence breaks down. Firstly, if 2001 is a typical year, and I don’t know of any reason why it wouldn’t be, well over half are suicides. The level of accidental deaths is about 2.5% of the total, which is pretty bad but arguably could be improved with better training for gun owners. It’s also worth mentioning that it’s very very low compared to car crash deaths, almost all of which are going to be unintentional. That’s despite there being more guns (PDF) in the US than cars, bikes, trucks and buses put together. Secondly, while the famous Second Amendment and various federal gun laws apply in all states, both local gun laws and rates of gun violence vary from one state to the next. Washington, DC has a shocking homicide rate (nearly 6 times the national average and about 400 times that of the UK), often involving the use of guns, and yet until recently had extremely strict gun control laws that were comparable with those in the UK. In fact handguns were effectively banned there two decades before the UK, although it’s only fair to point out that the UK has never had a rate of gun ownership comparable to that in the US. Conversely some states with very relaxed gun laws have a far lower rate of gun crime. Vermont has virtually no gun control law at all and the total homicide rate is less than half the US national average and gun homicides make up only a fifth of those – it has the second lowest rate of gun homicides the US. How is it possible to argue that tough gun laws make us all safer and very loose control is dangerous when Washington is a relative bloodbath and Vermont isn’t? Or to put it another way, how is it possible when the murder rate is roughly the same in Vermont as Scotland? This is used by some pro-gun people to argue that more gun ownership actually increases public safety and fewer guns just allows criminals with illegal guns a free rein to terrorise the innocent. Personally I think there may be something in that but it’s a bit of a stretch since the relationship across all states doesn’t seem to be linear, and in any event correlation no more proves causation than do correlations between high gun ownership and high gun crime. But a poor correlation should certainly dent any confidence in causation, and Vermont, Scotland and Washington show that the correlation between liberal gun law and gun crime just doesn’t exist. ...Looking to the past, the UK has not had gun laws for as long as many people suppose and had far less gun crime than it does now. Pre gun control Britain was, believe it or not, a safer place to be. Well, not safer as such, but despite guns being legally in private hands you were very unlikely to be shot before the cholera or something got you.

It might come as a surprise to a lot of Brits that actually guns have not always been banned, but it’s true all the same. The 1689 Bill Of Rights states:

“That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.”

Think about that. But for those last five words the UK today might resemble the USA far more closely in the numbers of privately held guns, but since that last clause implies a changeable law it has been altered so as to allow practically no arms at all. Yes, the “which are Protestant” bit is unfair but I think it was dropped a while afterwards, but in practical terms the whole sentence has become irrelevant now. The Bill Of Rights is still law so subjects may still have weapons “as allowed by law” but practically nothing, and certainly no firearm, is “allowed by law” now. UK gun control began in 1903 when an act was passed that made a licence necessary for possession of some handguns, although getting one wasn’t expensive. Before then obtaining a gun, even a handgun, was a trivial exercise since common law accepted arms for defence as a right. Even after 1903 those whose guns required licences could get them from the Post Office. While guns were not possessed by a majority before then people certainly had them in significant numbers even while the police did not. On one occasion unarmed police chasing armed robbers borrowed guns from passers-by, and were actually joined in the pursuit by other armed citizens. Can you imagine that happening today? Most C21st Brits would be aghast that citizens were armed, and the relationship between police and citizens has deteriorated enough that some would be equally amazed that people risked their lives to help the officers. And yet gun violence was lower than in today’s UK. Again, I stress that I don’t claim that this proves that more guns equal less crime but it does, aha, shoot holes in the argument that more guns means more violence.

And one point I want to add to that now that didn't occur to me at the time is that if you do believe that more guns equals more violence then what the fuck are we doing here in Victoria by letting thousands of people walk around all day with guns as part of their jobs? The guns will drive them mad and make them all deranged, rabid, sociopathic killing machines, yes? Except they're clearly not and they're no more likely to become so than the rest of us. Something else the hoplophobes haven't considered.

[I suspect that]the true correlation is between rates of gun violence in a given area and the number of people prone to violence that live there. I can’t think of an easy way to test this unfortunately, but it would explains why gun laws and gun violence do not necessarily correlate well. It is also interesting to compare the gun homicide and total homicide rates in the USA to that of the UK or Australia. The UK has very strict gun controls, Australia a little less so and the US as a whole has quite liberal gun laws, though quite strict in certain places. While the gun homicide rate in the US is about 10 times that of Australia and 25 times that of England and Wales, the total homicide rate there has fallen in recent years (PPT) while in the UK it’s increased significantly and in Australia remained roughly the. During that time additional gun control legislation was introduced in the wake of massacres in both Australia and the UK, yet many US states have relaxed their laws in spite of America’s history of such killing sprees...

Direct comparisons between nations and states are difficult due to the subtle and not so subtle differences between them and such gun control laws as they may have, but we can see that there’s no clear relationship between rates of gun ownership, levels of gun control and rates of gun violence. Some places with loose laws have a lot of violence and others with similar laws are fairly safe and peaceful. Some places with very strict laws have low violence and while others have a bloodbath. Where there are violent people and guns there will be no doubt be more gun violence, but where a culture of gun ownership exists within a relatively peaceful society you just don’t get high levels of gun related violence. So surely where there are many gun murders the problem lies not with the guns but with the violent people, and since there are so many alternatives for them to maim and kill banning the law abiding from having guns does nothing with the possible exception of preventing the law abiding from defending themselves effectively if they need to. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not sitting with furniture piled up against the front door, scared to leave the house because I can't take a gun with me. I'm not upset that I can't have a gun to defend myself because I don't really want a gun for that. In fact in both my countries the law doesn't mind me having guns for the purpose I do want them for, which is smashing clay targets to bits. I don't personally object to the requirements for safe storage as I'd take pretty much those precautions anyway for my own reasons, and I don't mind the compulsory safety course here in Victoria which isn't so different from what we expect of new drivers and motorcyclists. But I do think that my neighbour should be allowed to keep a gun in his desk (or wherever he likes in his house) to defend himself if he wants, which he doesn't as far as I know but if not him then the guy across the street, or someone I've never met on the other side of town... or even you. I've never met you but it'd be pretty presumptuous of me to fear you because of it - I trust you not to run me over in your cars, so why shouldn't I trust you not to shoot me if you had a gun? But while the rights issue and the self defence issue are fair arguments for those that want to use them my main objection is far simpler: gun laws just don't make any of us safer and we're deluding ourselves if we think otherwise.

Having said all that I'm pessimistic and I expect there will be more new gun laws that will do nothing but make life difficult for Britain's recreational shooters while achieving square root of fuck all for public safety. The Elder Twin has, to his credit, said that knee jerk legislation is not a sensible move and that you can't legislate against someone going batshit insane. And of course he's quite right (yes, I'm slightly shocked at having to type that, but it's still true). Unfortunately he is also something of a paternalist and therefore a bansturbator at heart, not to mention the leader of a coalition government and proud owner of a CV that suggests he's not above courting headlines and media popularity. This is a guy who hugged a dog on a glacier and bought a windmill for his roof to suck up to the green vote, so should we expect him to stand firm if enough bansturbators demand tougher gun laws despite the fact that, as has been the case in the past, it turns out that this latest madman could have been prevented from holding guns under existing laws? Nope. We can hope, and sure as hell we should encourage The Elder Twin to walk the path of rationality rather than Righteousness, but prepare for a further loss of liberty. Unfortunately the hoplophobes and bansturbators are incredibly powerful - far more powerful in the UK than the comparitivey tiny shooters' lobby in the UK - simply because there are a lot of them and they're willing to use force and the threat of violence (courtesy of the state) against the liberty of others.

Given that the overwhelming majority of legal gun owners wouldn't dream of abusing the privilege of owning firearms by using them to get their way the fact the hoplophobes and bansturbators are so keen on force is pretty fucking ironic. Shame it's lost on them, really.



UPDATE - Let's ban cooking pans and freezers. It's the only answer to this, surely.