Experience

Watching the developments from the other side of the pond, I'm sorely tempted to wince sympathetically for my poor compatriot souls stuck in the UK. On the other hand, I'm also desperately trying not to be smug and say 'told you so'. Having got rid of one set of incompetent control freaks, the British electorate have just gone and taken on another. When are you guys over there going to get tired of the same old same old and wake up a bit?

Being a gentleman of some life experience, I would like to offer a few axiomatic phrases, which may have some bearing on the situation.

1. Banning stuff is not the answer.
2. Don't like other people's personal habits like drinking, smoking, or eating meat or dressing differently? Get over it. Sometimes you have to just accept that's how things are.
3. Don't like what's happening in your street? - Political and /or Religious dogma is not the answer. They're often the source of the bloody problem.
4. Getting out and actually discussing things with friends and neighbours and applying your own non-violent solutions works better than lawyers or other third parties.
5. Victims are simply that and rarely anything more until they grow a pair and engage with the world instead of hiding from it.
   

In my previous incarnation I recall getting into a prolonged comments discussion regarding problem neighbourhoods with someone who seemed to want nothing more than be a victim. They simply wouldn't accept that if they decided to switch off the idiot box and get out of the house once in a while, their life might become, well, better. They might have even made some surprising new friends, but perhaps that is what they were afraid of.

The world, if you believe the lamestream media, is a big, bad and vewy fwightening place for poor ickle bunnies. I say it's amazing how kind people can be if you ask them politely and treat them as fellow human beings. Speaking as one who has had to deal with groups of angry people (Often at me) and survived, I won't say the experience isn't scary, but then, so is motorcycling, free fall parachuting and bungee jumping.

People who talk and don't let themselves get socially isolated or marginalised don't do things like this. World Weary calls him 'scum', but without knowing more about the guys background I'm not so sure. I will say that he should have been shot down like a mad dog in the street because that is what he had become, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Especially as Gadget reminds everyone, the only armed Police response is probably miles away and so tied up in 'elf 'n safetee and procedures that they would have been less than useful.

In Canada, the RCMP and Provincial Police are routinely armed. This I support. I say a properly trained and armed officer on the spot could probably have prevented the Cumbrian massacre by either shooting the man or forcing him to put down his gun. Similarly, proper enforcement of the handgun regulations and a sharp word could have prevented the Dunblane massacre. I also say Capital punishment for the crime of murder is also a good idea because it prevents a second offence. How many murderers have killed after serving a jail term? The answers might surprise you. Just a thought.