Re: 30 days in the hole [WARNING-TOPIC DRIFT]

[Fringe Ryder <fringe@fringeweb.com>]

At 08:58 AM 8/25/98  +0000, Phil Payne wrote:
>In message <Version.32.19980823081236.00de7db0@205.134.163.4> Fringe Ryder
writes:
>> You have taken the typical British extreme view of "the government should
>> protect the people from other people".
>
>I think you're making an assumption from a knowledge base of British
>cluture and practice that's pretty close to zero.

Nope, you're just stuck in your perspective.  Further, I didn't come up
with that view; it was a legal scholar I read when studying jurisprudence.
If you prefer, you could say that Americans so zealously protect their
"rights" that they have prevented the government from protecting the
sufficiently.  It's all just perspective.

As it relates to cars, and much else, it's very hard in America to outlaw
behaviors that do not have a direct immediate impact on someone else or an
exceedingly high correlation.  We can outlaw stealing by stuffing goods
into your overcoat, but if you question my wearing of an overcoat in
summer, it's a violation of my civil rights (especially if I'm of a
minority known for stuffing stuff into my overcoat, because then you are
prejudging me.)  We can outlaw actually shooting people, but since most
guns aren't ever used that way, it's hard to outlaw guns.  We can outlaw
running over people while chatting on the phone, but since so many people
fail to run over people while on the phone, it's hard to outlaw chatting on
the phone while driving.

>> For example, the British have effectively and progressively banned guns.
>> Oddly, the British gun-homicide rate has accelerated it's climb during this

>> process, while the opposite has happened in America.
>
>I think the last thing we need is a gun control thread.  Saying that
>our rate is "climbing" and yours is "falling" is distortion worthy
>of the NRA at its best - they're still two orders of magnitude
>apart.  The handgun ban is a long term measure designed to remove guns
>from circulation over a period of perhaps half a century.

Britain isn't as far away from the U.S. for violent crime as you seem to
think.  The U.K. now has substantially more handguns used in crimes now
than when the Firearms Act of 1920 first required licenses for buying a
handgun, and than when the Firearms Act of 1988 has constabules seizing
paintball guns.  The year the Firearms Act of 1920 went into effect, there
were four gun-death in the U.K.  In 1991, there were over 3000 gun deaths
in London alone.  (And this info comes from the Sunday Times of Britain.)  

However, I will refrain from creating a gun-control thread here; the above
is more a response to your attitude than to the issue of guns, which I'll
happily drop to avoid causing one of those spiraling death threads.  My
Quattro-related point was simply that, as I said, there is a different
philosophy to the mix of freedoms and protections ingrained in the British
culture than in the American culture.

>> If the salesman were informed that, should he run into someone while doing
>> something else while driving, he would spend his life in prison even if
>> they weren't killed, he might have made different choices.
>
>I was in Rochester three weeks ago when the police tried to stop and
>then chased a doctor onto his own driveway.  Then they shot him through
>the head.  Personally, I prefer our approach - our police officers don't
>have to approach the vehicles they stop with drawn guns.

You're absolutely right; guns don't protect against bombs much, do they?  I
fail to see how that relates to the topic though.  I haven't heard about
the case you mention.  I do believe that educating people about the
repercussions and then applying the repercussions will solve a lot of this.
 It works measurably in both crime and welfare (i.e. stop giving them more
money for more kids, and the number of kids they have drops - it's like
magic!).  It works for speeding, if California and Oregon (little serious
speeding enforcement on freeways, average speed is probably 15mph over the
limit) vs. Washington state (revenue enhancement officers everywhere,
speeds stay very close to the legal limit) is any sign.  It would probably
work for reckless driving also.

Fringe
	'97 A4Q 2.8L stick
	(and NRA member)
	(and AOPA member - funny, we get a LOT of U.K. student pilots in America
due to UK regs.)