When Will The United States Realise That Guns Kill People?
On the wall of my office, there used to be a picture of my wife presenting a racing trophy to a racehorse trainer.
Both are now dead.
- My wife died from a squamous cell carcinoma of the heart.
- The trainer died because of an argument and a gun was available and used to settle it.
We fight cancer with common sense and all the tools that science has given us.
Isn’t it about time, that common sense is applied to the problem of guns in the United States and other countries where they are responsible for a high murder rate?
America Is A Sick Country
There is no other title for a post about this story on the BBC entitled Gun that killed Trayvon Martin ‘makes $250,000 for Zimmerman’.
In my view anybody who wants to own a gun other than for genuine sporting purposes, needs his head examined.
Until the United States has a sensible gun policy and abolishes the death penalty, I shall not be visiting.
I’ve Just Heard The Most Crass Solution To Mass Shootings In The United States
After the shootings in Oregon yesterday, as reported on the BBC, the BBC has just had a pastor from the area on the phone.
You’d think as a religious leader, he would have advocated something fairly sane, but he said that the answer to these school shootings, is to allow the other students to carry guns, so they could shoot an attacker.
With people like that in the States, I doubt they’ll ever solve their problem of mass shootings, until everybody has been shot dead.
Are We Doing Enough To Combat The Real Terrorism Problem?
Over the years, I’ve met people in all walks of life that deal with terrorism and crime in general. So I like to think I have a good insight into it.
The United States will claim it hasn’t had any terrorist attacks since 9/11, but isn’t the dreadful attack on the congregation of the church in Charleston headlined in this BBC article as Charleston church shooting: Nine die in South Carolina ‘hate crime’, nothing more than a similar attack to the one on the innocent sunbathers in Tunisia.
The links between the two crimes are the twisted motivations of the perpetrators and the easy availability of guns, that can fire large numbers of bullets.
One of the reasons, we have not had a deadly gun attack in this country, since the Dunblane and Hungerford massacres, is that it is just too difficult to get a deadly weapon like a Kalashnikov in this country. I don’t think we’ve even had an incident in recent years involving such a gun, where perhaps gangs of drug dealers are settling an argument.
But are we doing enough to keep these deadly weapons out of the UK?
As an engineer with extensive knowledge of modern manufacturing techniques, I believe that it is now possible to create a workable machine gun, that was mainly created on one of the new industrial 3-D printers, with perhaps a few small metal parts smuggled through border controls. I should also say that I know of a manufacturer, who posts and receives specialist stainless steel parts through the post from all over the world.
After all, this report on the BBC describes how nutters in Texas have created a gun that fires using a 3-D printer.
I believe it won’t be long before someone creates a set of plastic parts, which when put around the working parts of an assault rifle create a gun that can be fired by any suicidal terrorist.
There is no defence against such a weapon getting onto the streets through this method.
I’m pretty sure that someone is working on doing it. Probably in the United States, where it seems that owning an assault rifle is something that many want to do. But then adding sense to the gun laws of the United States, is as difficult as making a serious alcoholic or heavy smoker see sense.
Are Americans Too Stupid To Be Allowed Firearms?
This story on the BBC web site is entitled US boy, three, shoots both parents in New Mexico, which says it all.
Luckily, it appears his parents will live.
The story is the most read on the BBC web site.
Guns Kill People
When I read stories like this one from Arizona, I despair. Here’s the first paragraph.
A nine year-old girl in the US has killed her shooting instructor by accident while being shown how to use a high-powered automatic weapon.
I always feel edgy when guns are around. I think I have good reason and believe strongly that the world would be a better place,if guns had not been invented.
Come To Christ And Get A Free Gun
I didn’t believe the story in the Times that the Lone Oak Baptist Church is giving all new members a gun. But it’s all over the web, including here on the New York Daily News.
Let’s hope they don’t open a branch in London!
A Development We Don’t Need
The BBC has just shown non-working images of a stun-gun amart phone case. There’s more here. This is the first bit.
Add-ons that turn smartphones into Star Trek-like tricorder medical diagnostic kits, Predator-style thermal vision cameras and even electric “stun guns” are being promoted at the Consumer Electronics Show.
They did say that these stun-gun smart phone cases would be illegal in the UK! But tell that to the gangs! It’ll become a must have accessory!
This development of the humble phone, is one of the sickest and pointless things, I’ve seen in some time. But of course, it appears to be legal in the United States.
I have found the company on the Internet. How long before you can buy a smart-phone case like this from their web site and have it shipped across the Atlantic?
The Daily Mail has te full story and gives a lot more detail than I would, in this report.
Tragedy In Washington
This story from the United States is tragic.
I’d like to think that such a case wouldn’t have happened here, as our unarmed police would not as it seems, shoot first and ask questions afterwards. Some armed units might, but they are rarely the first point of contact.
After all it appears from the pictures, that there were substantial barriers, to prevent the driver getting through.
But even if the lady had been a suicide bomber, shooting her would probably have caused the bomb to go off.
The Washington police have a lot of questions to answer.
What’s Going On In Luton?
Luton has always struck me as a rather boring place, which is a bit like Ipswich, but last night they had their ninth shooting in a year, as reported here on the BBC.
What is going on?
The Anonymous Widower 