I will not comment on this until I have seen the program. However.

I have watched several series of the The Mark Thomas Product and have been slightly disturbed by some of what he has found.

By the way he is a comedian. His shows are presented in a very funny way for very serious subjects. All of them follow this posts theme. Find a subject that shows how screwed up govenment is and make a show about it.

The Export Credit Guarantee Department show mentioned on this page The Yusufeli dam was highly entertaining and thought provoking as well.

I acknowledge that this topic is not Moore related DIRECTLY, but it does undermine Moore’s position on gun control, especially his documentary “Bowling for Columbine”.
I still stand-by the notion that strict gun control laws only serve to keep those Americans who use guns legally from owning guns legally. There are always those few bad apples that ruin it for the bunch, as was noted in Lee’s comments above. Also, while “thumb and wall cuff restraints” are not guns, Lee’s post runs a very similar parallel to our country’s gun control laws. A person does not have to buy a gun in OUR country to obtain one. Just run to another country and they will get one. This only serves as a “loophole” in the anti-gun lobbies argument.

No matter how much you ban something, no matter how many laws you pass, it will always be possible to find loopholes.

Can you find a loophole on murder ? Or rape ? Not even bank robbery ?

Common man get real, if the laws don’t work make better laws, it’s that simple.

Swissboy, gun laws are going to make it harder to get LEGAL guns.  ILLEGAL guns will still be jsut as easy to acquire. 

If somone wants to rob a bank or commit a murder, harsher restrictions on guns wont stop them. There are several ‘weapons’ at their disposal, including blackmarket guns.

If a bunch of students can order torture equipment, how difficult would it be for an experienced criminal enterprise to get in a shipment of AK-47s?

You know what other thing students can get real easy, coke. It’s time we admit they’re no stoping coke. We should sell it in Pharmacies, after all, think of all the advantages…

HUGE tax income - getting that money away from criminals and terrorist organisations - better quality control which means less risk for the final consumer - getting the dealers of our streets.

Men why don’t we legalize coke ?

...oh right, because its wrong, IT KILLS PEOPLE !

oh… but guns too don’t they ?

Swissboy, gun laws are going to make it harder to get LEGAL guns.  ILLEGAL guns will still be jsut as easy to acquire.

Not if we stop mass manifacturing them.

you do realise that every single country that has had a ban on firearms occur DID NOT see a reduction in overall crimes?

that to me points to the futility of outright banning firearms

you do realise that every single country that has had a ban on firearms occur DID NOT see a reduction in overall crimes?

Preposterous, any country that needs at some point to put a ban on all firearms has a catastrophic situation to begin with.

Its the arms culture I attack not the legal ownership.

Lee is quoting the Guardian now?

ha ha ha ha!

Swissboy, I believe they tried that already.  It was called PROHIBITION.  Guess what, in spite of there not being a legal mass production of alcohol, TA DA!  There was now a massive *MASSIVE* trade of ILLEGAL alcohol.  The parallels are HUGE.  Alcohol, in and of itself, is NOT a deadly item.  However, *abuse* it, and it becomes a serious problem.  So, again, illegalizing alcohol only hurt those people who drank in moderation legally.  Anyone else (including some people who didn’t abuse) could still get it.  The same with guns; guns, in and of themselves, are not a deadly item, it is when they are improperly used.  If you attempt to shut down legal production of firearms, the black market will become HUGE, with gang wars similar to those seen in 1930’s Chicago, as now you have ASSURED the public that only the criminals have the most guns.  So I’m seeing your suggestion as less than worthless.

Its the arms culture I attack not the legal ownership.

Funny how you seem to do that via attacks on legal ownership.

Don’t bother arguing with swissboy.  He knows everything and is always right.  All guns are bad and should immediately be destroyed.  So we’ll send swissboy over to Compton, and have him round up all the guns from the gangs.  I’m sure they’ll understand.

Swissboy-

I’ll ask again- What is your primary purpose for wanting to take away my guns?

Second, I think that state governments should be given the authority to set up areas where drugs are legal, and then stiffen the penalties for drugs found outside the zones. Then drugs could be regulated and taxed.

Kind of like “Escape from New York”, except with drugs.

Preposterous, any country that needs at some point to put a ban on all firearms has a catastrophic situation to begin with.

bahah idiot
Australia, we banned guns after a massacre, yes it was horrible, but guess what, it did sweet fa in lowering homicide rates, in fact, australias homicide rate has been pretty much stable for the past 100 years or so.

Funnily enough, we still have plenty of firearms related murders, just this week theres been 3 drive by shootings, shootings involving arguments outside clubs and so on, and thats just in sydney

hell, the catilyst for our gun banning was the Port Arthur massacre, an event that was purportrated with an illegally acquired firearm! awesome!

Kind of like “Escape from New York”, except with drugs.

if it involves Kurt Russel returning as Snake Plisskin, i’m all for it.

Lee is quoting the Guardian now?

ha ha ha ha!

Yeah, I will watch the program, but I’m not expecting an unbiased opinion. Mark Thomas is a well known British leftie - a prominent supporter of the Stop the War Coalition and Socialist Worker’s party.

if it involves Kurt Russel returning as Snake Plisskin, i’m all for it.

Eh, they’ve said it’s not gonna happen, since Kurt Russel’s getting old.
Besides, they said that to top Escape from LA, that the next movie, Snake would have to escape from Earth.

You know what other thing students can get real easy, coke. It’s time we admit they’re no stoping coke. We should sell it in Pharmacies, after all, think of all the advantages…
HUGE tax income - getting that money away from criminals and terrorist organisations - better quality control which means less risk for the final consumer - getting the dealers of our streets.
Men why don’t we legalize coke ?
...oh right, because its wrong, IT KILLS PEOPLE !

coke doesn’t kill people, people not controlling an adiction responsibly kills people.
and like, i’m not trying to just be funny in paraphrasing the guns don’t kill people thing… personally, i’m all for legalising and then taxing drugs

we should just go along with the $1000 per bullet idea… nobody would waste them!!!

Best solution I’ve ever heard.

More like the stupidest solution ever. You want legal owners to be as proficient as possible to reduce the risks of accidents or missing the target; especially in a self-defense situation. The only way to gain that proficiency is through practicing with live ammunition.

we should just go along with the $1000 per bullet idea… nobody would waste them!!!

Actually, Thats not that bad of an idea..  (I wouldnt necessarily raise the price that much, but increase the price of bullets, but allowing ranges to supply discoutned bullets for immediate use on site might be worth considering-- that is i f the desired goal is to deter the common misuse of handguns. Of course then bulltes would become just as hot as some guns are.)

Or the gov pass a law that forbids these things.

bye!

OK, I see the point in the idea of raising the price of bullets, but I do not agree with it.
It is unfairly charging people who use their guns legally an astonishing amount of money. I do not know the exact statistics, and someone can get the actual numbers, but millions of people own guns legally. They go to gun clubs, shoot at targets at target ranges, and hunt with their guns. Now we are going to raise the costs for these people to engage in a hobby that they do within the law?
Also, raising the cost of bullets will only affect the law-biding citizens...the thugs who obtain the guns illegally and use them illegally will just get their bullets through the black market at a lower cost just like they get their guns through the black market and other illegal means.
Good try with the “raise the cost of bullets theory”, but not realistic to detering violent crimes due to guns nor would they be fair to those that follow the laws.

I should probable have prefaced what I said above by stating that I live in Chicago, a very Liberal city that reports violent crime on the news every night. Violent crimes occur because of people’s BEHAVIOR, not their choice of weapons! Let’s outlaw guns, then people will turn to knives, then bats, then a whole host of other things to kill people.
Gun Control enthusiasts always focus on the weapons and not on the people and their behavior. People choose to kill for a number of reasons. Instead of taking the weapons out of the hands of those who obtain them legally, why not focus on the people who are obtaining them ILLEGALLY? Or focus energies on HOW they obtain them illegally? Or even better yet, focus our tax money on WHY they obtain them and start changing societal issues that cause people to commit violent crimes, such as social injustice, poverty, and gang violence.
***Steps-down off of soapbox to refocus on the original topic***

the thugs who obtain the guns illegally and use them illegally will just get their bullets through the black market at a lower cost just like they get their guns through the black market and other illegal means.

My point exactly

Swissboy-

I’ll ask again- What is your primary purpose for wanting to take away my guns?

Pretty obvious no ?

I don’t like them. Although they are your guns, and i’m stressing the your, they polute my athmosphere.

Just like smokers who are forbidden to light up in public in many places now, I would like to ban guns from my neighborhood, country, planet…

I admit that if you are a responsible gun owner i should never be bothered by or maybe even see your gun. However the proximity of a tool to kill is a nuisance to me just like smoke would be.

And in any democracy I have the right to try to make a majority of people think like me and if I suceed to then get rid of the nuisance.

Violent crimes occur because of people’s BEHAVIOR, not their choice of weapons!

That is absolutly and undenialbly correct.

Human beings have been killing each others for so many thousand years before guns that to believe we can solve the problem by banning guns is tremendously idiotic. Plus we never respect the rules anyway…

But guns sure aren’t helping either are they ?

I’m pretty sure WWII would have made a hell of a lot less victims had we only used “knives, then bats, then a whole host of other things”.

It’s time to come to terms with the fact that guns the way we manufacture them today are only meant to make money. How many times have I heard the old battered argument of the “rattle-snake in my yard” or “I had a cougar in my garden I could have died without my gun !”

Well guess what buddy, first, that’s infinitely less likely to happen than a drive by shooting in chicago :

should probable have prefaced what I said above by stating that I live in Chicago, a very Liberal city that reports violent crime on the news every night.

Second, a damn firecracker will do just as well or better than a gun to scare them of. I admit I don’t know much about guns, but I know a lot about animals and noise allways scares them away.

And last but not least… sportive shooting. I got no problem with you wasting your money on bullets to kill evil practice targets. In fact I even heard it helps to relieve stress. Very good !!

Just don’t carry your sports material outside of the practice and I swear not to take my ski’s on the subway either.

Just so both of us might feel confortable during the ride home.

P.S.

My neighbor is a gun nut and makes his own bullets, I even had to suffer a demonstration once because I had been stupid enought to fake interest so he wouln’t gimme trouble about my noisy saturday afters…

I’m not sure that the 1000$ bullet would be so efficient.

P.P.S.

911 - they got guns

Although they are your guns, and i’m stressing the your, they polute my athmosphere.

So its the ‘all about me’ mentality?  In that case, we should ban homosexuals because the polute my atmosphere with their ideology. Besides, i dont like them.

Can it work both ways?

Second, a damn firecracker will do just as well or better than a gun to scare them of. I admit I don’t know much about guns, but I know a lot about animals and noise allways scares them away.

What?

You know, I just wrote a long rebuttal to “I don’t like them.” But for some reason, it didn’t post, and I don’t feel like writing it again. I think I’ll just let my fellow Moorewatchers chime in.

I’ll just say this. how can you even take a stance on something you admit you don’t know much about?

Not in a box,
Not on a Fox,
Not in a house
Not on a Mouse
.357 or 5.56
I do not like their metallic clicks!
I do not like them here or there,
I do not like them anywhere!
I hate those guns when they go BLAM.
I do not like guns, Sam-I-Am!

I’m pretty sure WWII would have made a hell of a lot less victims had we only used “knives, then bats, then a whole host of other things”.

i dunno man, remember back in the days of the romans they did a pretty fine job of slaughtering thousands of people in a single battle with nothing more than a sword and board.

The only thing you MIGHT prevent is random massacres, and even then china/japan has shown you can have crazy people kill half a dozen or so people with a knife before police can respond…

another two people were shot to death in sydney yesterday, our gun laws are working a treat, it seems only the gangs have the guns now.

Human beings have been killing each others for so many thousand years before guns that to believe we can solve the problem by banning guns is tremendously idiotic. Plus we never respect the rules anyway…

you kind of defeat your own argument here, swissboy.  You admit to the point that making guns illeagal will not stop criminals from getting them and using them illegally.

Yet, you want to punish those who have done everything legally by taking away their privately owned property. 

It seems like quite a bit of arrogance on your part to say that I should not own a gun, for whatever purpose (self-defense, hunting, target-shooting, biatholon, etc.), just because YOU don’t like them. 

That sounds like a dictatorship, creating laws on the whim of one person or group of people without good statistical data that backs up the theory that the law is actually effective in reducing crime.

Tell me, how would you know that your atmosphere was being poisoned if your neighbor own a gun, but never took it out to show it to you, stowed and transported it responsibly, used it at a range with all of the safety procedures therein
and otherwise never made a public spectacle of himself with the weapon? 

If you were ignorant of his or her hobby for a decade and then found out that he had won the bronse medal for target shooting or clay pigeon shooting in the Olympics, how would you define that as poisoning YOUR atmosphere?

P.S.

My neighbor is a gun nut and makes his own bullets, I even had to suffer a demonstration once because I had been stupid enought to fake interest so he wouln’t gimme trouble about my noisy saturday afters…

So saying you weren’t interested in guns would give him a reason to complain about the noise you make on a saturday night?  I see logic is one of your strong suits.  What if he came after the demonstration you put him up to, under false pretences, and complained about the saturday night noise?  Would you then point to the fact the you suffered through one of his horrible gun demonstrations hoping that he wouldn’t bother you about the noise from your house keeping him awake?  How do you think that would go over?

So its the ‘all about me’ mentality?  In that case, we should ban homosexuals because the polute my atmosphere with their ideology. Besides, i dont like them.

Well one is entitled to an oppinion and if this oppinion conflict with others it is only reasonable to expect at a certain point that it will come down to a matter of taste, and numbers, in a democracy that is.

See i do not believe in right or wrong. I do not think that I am right or that you are wrong, I believe we have conflicting tastes.

It’s not so much all about me, it’s “all about taste”.

About the homosexuals, I think that you were being ironic, however if you were not, I strongly encourage you to take that bold first step in the 20th century.

Then maybe after you can join us in the 21st.

i dunno man, remember back in the days of the romans they did a pretty fine job of slaughtering thousands of people in a single battle with nothing more than a sword and board.

True, it was a poor example anyway… I shouldn’t have talked about war as that is an entierly differant matter. My apologies

you kind of defeat your own argument here, swissboy.  You admit to the point that making guns illeagal will not stop criminals from getting them and using them illegally.

I am merly being honest and conceiding that it will not be easy, nor any harder that it is now either.

I never argued that merly outlawing guns would stop criminals, I believe it is a first step in the right direction. Nothing more.

More bold steps must be taken by the State and the Police and other administrations to fight criminality.

The problem is that you view gun control as a bad solution when I don’t view it as a solution at all. It is just a small element of the solution, a brick in the wall.

You look at the brick and say “it will never work” I look at the dam and say that it is made of many bricks.

So saying you weren’t interested in guns would give him a reason to complain about the noise you make on a saturday night?  I see logic is one of your strong suits.  What if he came after the demonstration you put him up to, under false pretences, and complained about the saturday night noise?  Would you then point to the fact the you suffered through one of his horrible gun demonstrations hoping that he wouldn’t bother you about the noise from your house keeping him awake?  How do you think that would go over?

I was being friendly to that cheesy fruitcake so he wouldn’t call the cops on me.

I know my enlgish is far from perfect but that wasn’t that hard to understand man....

And my point was that the 1000$ would not work because you can make them yourself if you’re nut enough

SO you were afraid he’d do what a law-abiding taxpayer would do and call the police rather than take his guns over to your house and shoot you and your friends with his reloads?

It’s not nice to pretend to be friendly. It seems that you were poisoning your neighbor’s atmosphere with your noise more than he was poisoning yours with his guns.

I’d like to know more about these “bricks” in your Utopian Dam. What are some of the other “bricks” and how do they fit together to hold back the Great Waters of Chaos?

People who load their own ammo aren’t necessarily nuts. It takes a lot of patience, skill and knowledge to do it. It’s also a way to recycle used casings, which in a small way reduces the amount of natural resources that reloaders use in the pursuit of their hobby.

One could argue that playing loud music, which could harm one’s hearing, is nutty. One could also aruge that imbibing a toxic substance, which damages the brain and the liver and reduces reaction times, which leads to poor judgement and often contributes to domestic violence and car crashes, is a bit more “nutty” than loading one’s own ammo.

If you are out to reduce crime limiting acess to guns won’t do it.  It won’t have much if any effect.  It is wishful thinking.  If you want to reduce crime then repair broken windows, clean up neighborhoods and remove graffitti.  Criminals flock to areas that are neglecited?  Why?  Those areas show people don’t care and are not willing to put in the effort to keep it nice and take action to prevent broken windows etc.

Gun laws don’t address the underlying causes and motivations.  (which is why they don’t work) It is the niavely simple knee jerk reaction to a problem.  Instead, come up with a real solution and study why people commit crime in an area and what small changes can be made to reduce it.  Much harder to do, but the results are orders of magnitude better.  But Swissboy is into reducing people’s freedoms instead of solving the problem.

The landscaper who worked for one of my coworkers was just murdered by his wife after he told her that he wanted a divorce. He was stabbed to death.

We need to outlaw knives and stop the senseless violence. Any legitimate use of knives is clearly overshadowed by the danger they pose to society.

Just to refresh what you said swissboy,:

P.S.

My neighbor is a gun nut and makes his own bullets, I even had to suffer a demonstration once because I had been stupid enought to fake interest so he wouln’t gimme trouble about my noisy saturday afters…

You say here that you faked interest in his hobby so that he wouldn’t bother you if you were noisy on a saturday night.  I know my pidgin english is not perfect, but that is the general idea of what you said.

Here is what I said in return:

So saying you weren’t interested in guns would give him a reason to complain about the noise you make on a saturday night?  I see logic is one of your strong suits.  What if he came after the demonstration you put him up to, under false pretences, and complained about the saturday night noise?  Would you then point to the fact the you suffered through one of his horrible gun demonstrations hoping that he wouldn’t bother you about the noise from your house keeping him awake?  How do you think that would go over?

My implication was that it was rather illogical to believe that somebody would put aside a legitimate complaint of noise pollution because somebody watched his hobby for a few minutes.  Got a lot of respect for that neighbor don’t you?  You figure putting up with his demonstration would give a free pass to be an asshole on a weekend?  That’s what I was addressing.

You responded with this:

I was being friendly to that cheesy fruitcake so he wouldn’t call the cops on me.

I know my enlgish is far from perfect but that wasn’t that hard to understand man....

My point, again was that if you are so loud that you have do things you aren’t interested in doing because you’re afraid somebody in their right mind would contact the police, (like any other normal “cheesy fruitcake” would do in a case where a neighbor is being far to loud into the wee hours of the night) then maybe you ought to think about your own behaviour and give it a critical look as opposed to writing insults about your neighbor.

Seems to me like you’re avoiding the self-reflection and laying it all at you neighbor’s feet as his problem, when you are in fact the one who wants to make a lot noise at night and take away this neighbor’s guns just because YOU don’t like them, not because he has threatened or done anything ILLEGAL with them.  YOU just want to increase YOUR comfort factor.  That’s a piss poor reason to punish the innocent.

Isn’t swissboy the one who always wants to negate the discussion about how everyone in switzerland is required by law to have a gun, because they aren’t given any bullets to use in the gun?  Yet here he is talking about his neighbor making ammunition for a part of his hobby.  Talk about negating his own attempt at negation.

No matter how much you ban something, no matter how many laws you pass, it will always be possible to find loopholes. 

I’ve supported Lee and co against Moore since for ages now and have totally respected their oppinions. Comments like this against my countries justified unaaceptance for the public to own firearms turns me the other way. Check the quote abouve. Ok, with this logic then no matte how much you try and ban crime, there will always be people wanting to commit crimes and there will always be loopholes within the sytem wich will let them get away with it.So hey why don’t we just ban the police force and let everyone do as they please?
Do you see how stupid that comment was when you step out of that mindset and take a look at it from the outside.

Can I just put the record straight here.

The vat majority of people in the UK do not want firearms and the right to buy/own them. Now there are always gonna be people who wnat them, be it to murder...rob...intimitate, protection or even to legitamitally hunt/use for sporting reasons (like target shooting). But we ban them cause they are dangerous and with them on general sale the likely hood is more people are going to die from them. Why cant you guys accept that? We dont give a monkeys about your laws...hey have em and continue to have thousands of people a year dying from them...fine. Thats your choice...we over here don’t agree with it but we respect it. Why cant you respect our laws and opinions? Why are we considered ‘draconian’ just because we dont want our streets filled with firearms? You guys can talk ‘crime statistics’ as much as you like, but our country is far safer than yours because of this law. If I’m going to get challenged by some scumbag on the street the likely hood is that he will be carrying (if he’s carrying at all) a knife and even thats rare. I’d much rather take my chances with a knife than a gun.

I think the most important point you made was that there will always be crime, and theer will always be loopholes. I agree with that. The question is whether or not removing legal firearms ownership will result in a lower crime rate.

I makes sense that the laws in the UK reflect the will of the majority of the peole there. However, in the United States we have a tradition of private firearms ownership, and that right is protected under the Second Amendment.

I don’t know what the law is in the UK, but in the U.S., the police are not legally obligated to protect you. That makes sense because there is no way for the police to know when you require protection. Therefore, some people choose to take responsibility for their own protection.

Others don’t believe that a firearm is a viable way to defend a home, and collect guns for huting or target sports. Whatever the reason for legal ownership and use, law-abiding gun owners do not contribute to the crime rate.

Lastly, a child under ten is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than he is by a firearm. Do you advocate the closing of pools because they are unsafe and people die in them?

And one more: A person is more likely to be injured or killed in a fast-moving vehicle because a faster vehicle is generating greater force (F=MA). Yet car manufacturers sell cars that can travel at twice the speed limit? Do you support acceleration limits in cars to reduce the number of vehicle-related deaths and injuries?

Since you’re concerned with saving lives, I thought you could help me out with these questions.

See i do not believe in right or wrong. I do not think that I am right or that you are wrong, I believe we have conflicting tastes.

Ill excep tthat as a response, but it didnt seem like thats what you were implying

About the homosexuals, I think that you were being ironic, however if you were not, I strongly encourage you to take that bold first step in the 20th century

This was just to make a point,.. It wasnt meant to be an honest refelction of my thoughts.

Isn’t swissboy the one who always wants to negate the discussion about how everyone in switzerland is required by law to have a gun, because they aren’t given any bullets to use in the gun?  Yet here he is talking about his neighbor making ammunition for a part of his hobby.  Talk about negating his own attempt at negation.

The bullets we are give for the assault rifle we are required to have (if we went through military service which not everyone did) are in a sealed box and to open it is a 1st degree felony (or the equivalent in swiss law).

The bullets he makes are for is hunting rifle, which I never tried to ban since i’m not at all afraid of crooks walking in the streets with a concealed rifle.

One could argue that playing loud music, which could harm one’s hearing, is nutty. One could also aruge that imbibing a toxic substance, which damages the brain and the liver and reduces reaction times, which leads to poor judgement and often contributes to domestic violence and car crashes, is a bit more “nutty” than loading one’s own ammo.

One could aslo argue it’s a great way to get chicks though… ;)