Assault Weapons

Wow… even I’m impressed by the weapons being used by the criminals in London as the crime (tidal) wave continues:

      

Clearly, banning the things won’t do any good, just as banning guns hasn’t worked too well. 

And the violence is no longer confined to the scuzzy areas of London and the other cities;  I saw from a pic in another article that one of the attacks took place where I took a stroll in London just a few months ago.

I’ve been racking my brain for some kind of solution to this — seriously, I have — and the more I look at it, there are only a few solutions:

  • Flood the streets with cops —  but the Brits don’t have enough cops.
  • Allow the citizens to arm themselves — like that’s going to happen.
  • Reinstate the death penalty (especially for scum who do things like this) and get serious about executing dangerous / murderous criminals — that ain’t gonna happen either.
  • When (if) they catch the criminals, deport them to a penal colony (like France’s old Devil’s Island of Papillon fame) — wait a minute, that has promise, because if any country in the world owns a bunch of uninhabited, remote islands, it would be the Brits.  Granted, it would take a few years to build the accommodations, but we’re talking concrete cellblocks, not the Ritz.  And it’s not like they haven’t done it before (hello, Australia!) so there is precedent. (Escape from New York is starting to look less like a dystopian fantasy and more like a blueprint, isn’t it?)

Sadly, though, the Brits don’t seem to have the balls to do any of the above.  Utter chaos is coming, if it isn’t there already.  What a mess.  (Although the Britcops seem to have no difficulty in dealing with hardened criminals like this bad boy…)

If anyone has any bright ideas different to mine, feel free to share them — and I’m not talking fantasies (I can assemble a few of those all by myself);  I need workable solutions, because the Brits seem to be at a loss.

Not Working

Here’s an interesting little snippet:

Britain is in the grip of a violent crime wave as thugs run riot on mopeds and motorbikes. Shocking figures released yesterday show the armed thieves are striking more than 60 times every day. In a chilling illustration of the crisis, a young woman was fighting for her life last night after her mobile was snatched by moped-riding thieves. And a motorcycle gang targeted yet another luxury store in London on Tuesday. In Birmingham, a masked gang rammed a car in broad daylight before smashing the driver’s window with a machete and hammer. And masked attackers targeted Michael McIntyre when they stole his £15,000 Rolex.

So, my British friends:  how’s that “no handguns in private ownership” thing working out for you, then?

And for all those idiots who start wailing about the horrors of “pitched gun battles in the streets”, allow me to ask how that’s so much different from what’s happening to you now? Other than the fact that almost all the victims are innocent people, not criminals?

I wonder why we don’t have the “moped-gang” problem in Texas.  Oh yeah, that’s right:  we carry guns, and the bad guys know it.  And as a bonus, we don’t have pitched gun battles in the streets — except of course when the criminals start having wars over drug turf in their own neighborhoods, which doesn’t count because it’s a self-canceling problem.

We certainly don’t have mass stabbings in our streets, because — oh wait!  we carry guns, and the bad guys know it.  (And yes:  I know the latter story comes out of Australia.  Where they too aren’t allowed to own handguns.)

Strange how that all works out.

Except That Icky Gun Stuff

Last week I got this email message from CitiBank telling me all about the wonderful new benefits of using their little credit card. Here are the salient areas I want to talk about (and note the emphasized parts):

  • Damage & Theft Purchase Protection:   You may be covered for up to $10,000 per incident for 90 days from the date of purchase or delivery of the item purchased with your card. Please note, coverage provided by this benefit will be secondary (meaning if you have another insurance policy, this benefit will cover only the amount your other policies do not). Coverage won’t include firearms, ammunition, jewelry, watches, tires or items that are under the care and control of a third party including, but not limited to, the U.S. Postal Service, airlines, or delivery services.
  • Citi Price Rewind:  You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $200 per item and $1,000 per calendar year. Program coverage won’t include consumables, tires, watches, firearms, or ammunition. You won’t be reimbursed if the lower priced item is found at a warehouse club where the merchant requires a membership fee.
  • 90 Day Return Protection:  You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $300 per item and $1,000 per calendar year. Program coverage won’t include firearms, ammunition, tires, jewelry, furniture or appliances.

All these wonderful benefits will be mine after June 29 — which is kind of ironic because that’s the date I intend to cut up and cancel the card, after paying off the final balance.

And what does that final balance include, you may ask?  Just the renewal fee for my annual membership at DFW Shooting Range.

Quote Of The Day

“Leftist propaganda is usually split into two halves.  The first half invokes a victim group of some sort, for whom we are expected to feel sympathy for their plight.  The second half invokes hate towards a group that is portrayed as deliberately doing down, punishing or disadvantaging the first group.  This process is a kind of emotional dialectic – a thesis and antithesis of oppressor and victimhood.  Whilst the sympathy of the Left for the victim group sometimes comes across as strained, contrived or even hypocritical, the hate is expressed in a heartfelt and visceral way.  This technique is one of the reasons why a debate with a Leftist nearly always departs from any cool rationality and descends into emotional irrationality and contradiction of terms.  Emotions are used in this way because emotions are very, very powerful political tools for manipulation of peoples’ actions.  Whole revolutions have been justified using this technique.” — David Eyles, Country Squire Magazine

Read the entire article:  it’s magnificent.

Streets Of London

“Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London;  I’ll show you something that’ll make you change your mind.”

Thus sang Ralph McTell in his hauntingly-mournful song back in the 1970s.  Modern-day London seems to be equally tragic:

London’s violent crime epidemic appears to show no sign of ending after another spate of brutal violence gripped the capital.

  • Man, 45, arrested on suspicion of murder 2.32am after woman, 28, [stabbed to death] in Brent
  • At 8.34pm, officers were called to Brent where man was shot with ‘machine gun’
  • Police were called to Deptford at 8.10pm where a 23-year-old man was stabbed
  • Just over a mile away another man was stabbed in Brent at around 10.20pm
  • At 3.36am a 27-year-old man was arrested in Old Kent Road after a third stabbing

Of course, the “machine gun” description will turn out to be false;  after all, machine-guns are banned in Britishland so that’s just not possible.

Then again, we have this little incident:

Follow the link for the full story.  Good grief.  I’m all for carrying knives on one’s person — I have two in my pockets as we speak — but sheesh… that’s a little (shall we say) aggressive.

I know that Dallas isn’t London (thank goodness), but I can’t help but think that people like our angry cyclist might be a little more restrained if they suspected that the guy in the car might be packing a .357 revolver… just a thought.