Re: UK RICS report says solar takes 208 years to repay...nonsense! Help needed!

[Huge]

I'd corroborate that, having worked for a Swiss company for a while and
a frequent visitor.

I went through a major Swiss railway station a few years ago as the local Swiss
Army people were all off for their annual bash - 90% of the people in the
station were openly carrying guns. I felt perfectly safe. Unlike the hoplophobes
present here, I am not frightened of objects.

 

[Huge]

It's bollocks anyway.

I know. But I can't be arsed refuting the same old arguments all over again from
people with the intellectual rigour of yesterday's pasta.

 

[Eeyore]

You're wrong there as well, and you obviously know nothing about target
shooting.

What's wrong with a club keeping the gun ?

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Ah, lies and damned lies eh? The table makes no distinction between
accidental shooting and murder, and the 1997 data includes shootings by
the IRA and army.

On what basis would you void the numbers killed by the IRA ?

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Eeyore wrote:

| This is the usual American story. My wife will be raped, my
| children murdered in their beds etc ..... That's merely because
| you're in the USA and it's a very violent society, but even so, how
| often does that actually happen ?

I think not frequently (it's certainly an UNcommon event) but it does
happen. That it happens at all means that it happens /too/ often.

Yes, our society has been violent from the beginning (actually, from
before our beginning) and our cultural roots are in places that
considered public disembowelment and burning at the stake acceptable
treatment of those who deviated from the norm. We tend to be more
violent than some societies and less violent than others.

I'm not sure why, but individuals here seem willing to take on more
stress than people in most other places I've seen, and some handle it
less well than others. Most who can't handle it break more or less
silently. A very small proportion break explosively.

| In the UK I think I can confidently say NEVER.

It's a good brag. May you always feel so safe.

Thank you. Let's say, being murdered in my bed isn't even the last thing on my
mind as I go to sleep, the idea simply never even enters my head at all. In this
small city of around 70,000 we get a murder maybe once every five years or so.
The last instance involved drug crime and it's easy to stay out of those
circles.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Then you are telling lies.


Utter bullshit.

You've UTTERLY lost it. I used to know a couple of SO19 officers (now CO19 of the
Metropolitan Police (London) special firearms unit for the benefit of non-Brits)
and they're regularly on training courses.

http://www.met.police.uk/co19/
http://www.met.police.uk/co19/training.htm

Initial Firearms Course ........... The course is of two weeks duration

ARV Course
After being selected for becoming a member of the Armed Response Vehicles, the
successful Officer will undertake a Basic Firearms Course, if not already an AFO, a
one-week H & K MP5 Carbine course and then an intensive three-week ARV course.
Having passed the course Officers are then posted to an ARV relief and attend
training for three days every six weeks.

So, to get to be an ARV officer requires at least SIX weeks specialist training
plus regular training thereafter.


Graham

 

[Morris Dovey]

Steve Firth wrote:
|
|| Eeyore wrote:
||
|||| In the UK I think I can confidently say NEVER.
||
|| It's a good brag. May you always feel so safe.
|
| It's also completely untrue. However it seems that "Eeyore" is
| unable to admit that he is wrong, so he refuses to admit that he
| has seen this report:

<UK horror story snipped>

| All it takes is one example to prove him wrong, and there is the
| exact example he denies has ever happened in the UK.

You and Graham are both reasonably bright guys and we're all very
human and subject to human foibles.

Can we just stipulate that and get back to sunshine?

 

[Eeyore]

It's also completely untrue. However it seems that "Eeyore" is unable to
admit that he is wrong, so he refuses to admit that he has seen this
report:

28-year-old Robert Laitner was stabbed to death in his bedroom in the
Sheffield suburb of Dore. His father solicitor Basil Laitner went
upstairs to investigate the noise and was also stabbed to death.
Basil's wife, Avril was downstairs and was stabbed twenty-six times.
Returning upstairs the assailant then attacked the youngest of the
Laitners' daughters, Nicola. She was repeatedly raped by the
intruder, recently escaped criminal Arthur Hutchinson. Hutchinson had
been charged with rape in a different case but escaped from custody.

All it takes is one example to prove him wrong, and there is the exact
example he denies has ever happened in the UK.

Now find another example.

Anyone would think this happens all the time.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

I went through a major Swiss railway station a few years ago as the local Swiss
Army people were all off for their annual bash - 90% of the people in the
station were openly carrying guns. I felt perfectly safe. Unlike the hoplophobes
present here, I am not frightened of objects.

If the ARMY were there OF COURSE they could be carrying guns.

Lord above !

Graham

 

[Andy Hall]

I went through a major Swiss railway station a few years ago as the local Swiss
Army people were all off for their annual bash - 90% of the people in the
station were openly carrying guns. I felt perfectly safe. Unlike the
hoplophobes
present here, I am not frightened of objects.

Yes, I agree. It's a question of context , culture and purpose.

On one level, one can find the Swiss model of democracy using a
cantonal model and their perceived need to protect themselves as
rather curious. Periodically they feel a need to hold an election to
decide whether to sling out all the auslanders. It fails because
they then realise that it's needed to run their economy, but at least
people had an opportunity to discuss it and express thir opinions.

Their curious arrangements have given them stability for several
hundred years. For example, I was once sitting in the bar in a very
ordinary hotel (the kind where you can stand in the middle of the room
and touch all four walls) in Bern with a colleague. A little man in
a mac came in from outside and got into the lift. The colleague asked
me if I knew who he was. I didn't. Turned out that he was the prime
minister. No bodyguard, security or anything else.

One might argue that it was a case of the guy being of no consequence
or a belief that neutrality and independence implies a level of
protection.

I was in Stockholm when Anna Lindh was stabbed and killed in a
department store. The genuine shock among Swedes was not about the
crime itself - the guy was a loony anyway - but that something like
this could happen in their society which prides itself on a certain set
of values.

I am not in anyway a believer in the concept of "society" - it's a
label and a way to deflect attention away from individual
responsibility and an excuse for collectivism - but these scenarios
illustrate very well that it is not the *tools* that I might have at my
disposal to inflict what I might want on my fellow man but my attitude
towards him.

We can package it up as we like, but in the end it is really that simple.

 

[Andy Hall]

I know. But I can't be arsed refuting the same old arguments all over
again from
people with the intellectual rigour of yesterday's pasta.

Out of a tin as well......

 

[Andy Hall]

On what basis would you void the numbers killed by the IRA ?

Graham

It's very simple. Yesterday's terrorists are today's freedom fighters.

There is plenty of precedent for that.

 

[Eeyore]

That is the most ass-inine thing I've ever heard you say, Eeyore. You
don't know me from Adam....

Considering the possibility for accidental shooting, even people you'd totally
trust may prove to be unsafe when given a gun.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6610521.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gun/Story/0,,2182514,00.html

Superintendent John O'Hare, of Greater Manchester police, said: "This incident
shows the horrific consequence when guns are left in our community."

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Well, if the Brits would grow a spine and stand up like responsible
American gun owners and allow people to protect themselves instead of
ringing for the Bobbies and praying, t5his wouldn't be so.
But what do you expect in Londonistan?

Do don't need a GUN in this country to protect yourself. Not that you're ever
likely to need to protect yourself anyway. It's not as violent as the USA,
although I do fear that imported US TV programs are making it gradually more
violent. The first step of course being de-sensitisation to violence, so making
it seem more acceptable.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Knee-jerk political correctness. I'd have thought Graham immune, silly
me....

I cherish the fact that guns are not an everyday item in this country.

It's a sad day when you reckon you need to own a lethal weapon to defend
yourself in a supposedly civilised society. Fortunately in Britain you don't
need one.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

You first. If you were to spot a Jack the Ripper in the act, you'd run
away like a coward.

Pretty unlikely I'd say. I'm disappointed you even suggested that. Guns are no
mark of virility.

I'd splatter his brains all over the earth.....
We have a saying here, "Some folks just need killin'", and it's
true.....
Tell me Graham, have you ever been the victim of a violent crime? It's
no picnic.

Violent crime is rare here, let's not increase it by upping the ante.

Incidentally, I know the Caandians think you guys are nuts about guns too.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Not true; many are quite easy to conceal.

In the classroom ?

Graham

 

[Owain]

I went through a major Swiss railway station a few years ago as the local Swiss
Army people were all off for their annual bash - 90% of the people in the
station were openly carrying guns.

They were hopefully carrying penknives too - which we aren't allowed to
any more.

Owain

 

[Eeyore]

Eeyore said:


It's very simple. Yesterday's terrorists are today's freedom fighters.

There is plenty of precedent for that.

It doesn't bring those people back to life. And the IRA was at that time a
criminal organisation according to UK law.

Graham

 

[Andy Hall]

If the ARMY were there OF COURSE they could be carrying guns.

Lord above !

Graham

Except that last week almost all of them were working in factories,
offices and shops and in 3 weeks time they will be replaced by a
different set.

How can you be sure that there isn't a wrongun among them?