Tag: England

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crime and punishment general freedom media and media people moral hazard

Porn, Video Games and British Crime

Great Britain, British, England, knives, violence, freedom, surveillance,

British freedom is eroding. The attack comes from two directions.

First, there is the over-​bearing police-​state style, surveillance-​everywhere government.

Second, there is the increasing violence.

Thing is, the justification for Britain’s mass surveillance, as well as for strict gun controls, was to prevent crime.

Oops.

So of course the Labour Party “shadow home secretary” Diane Abbott points an accusatory finger at porn and video games. These two influences may be “desensitising young people to vicious behaviour.”

Well, porn and video games are changing our cultures, on both sides of the pond. But in America, at least, the crime rate for the past two decades plumetted while video games and Internet porn have become ubiquitous, explicit and … admittedly, appalling.

Look elsewhere for the crime uptick.

The Brexit fiasco, with the Tory government messing up implementation of the 2016 referendum results, has surely increased, not decreased, tensions all around, as has immigration policy, the collapsing National Health system, and much more. But worst of all? The nanny state, treating citizens as childish subjects. The police arrest people for nothing more than saying mean or just edgy things online. 

If people cannot be free legally, they will take license — illegally. 

Previously, we heard about a rash of acid attacks: acid thrown in the faces of pedestrians. More recently, the headlines are about stabbings — after years of knife control, of government crackdowns on even kitchen knives.

Ms. Abbott places the primary blame for rising crime not on the above, however, but on poverty and malfunctioning education. Not mentioned? The possibility that taking away British citizens’ rights of self-​defense may have the perverse (unintended?) consequence of increasing offensive violence.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Great Britain, British, England, knives, violence, freedom, surveillance,

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Categories
crime and punishment

Crime’s Up, Crime’s Down

Perception isn’t the same as reality. Americans often perceive, for instance, that crime is increasing. But the truth is that crime has been on the decline for decades.

Can’t say that about crime in Great Britain, though. Crime rates there are up. According to a recent report, “Robbery is now 1.4 times more common in the UK than on the other side of the Atlantic, while assaults are 2.3 times more likely.” And though the U.S. still leads in murder, the situation is getting worse, not better, in Britain: “The murder rate has risen by 26 per cent in London and 85 per cent in Northumbria.” Yikes.

The report’s authors attribute the cause for this rise in crime to “the leniency of police towards suspects and the reluctance of the legal system to convict criminals and jail them.…” A government spokesperson, blaming previous administrations, insists that the “risks of being caught have been declining.”

This analysis sounds reasonable. And yet, my perception — based on what I read, that’s all — is that another set of factors has almost certainly contributed to England’s crime jump. While in America it is becoming easier to own, carry and conceal personal weaponry, it has become much more difficult in Great Britain. Even knives and hunting rifles are heavily regulated, and sidearms are pretty much prohibited. (In the past I’ve related some of the stories.)

With diminished capacity to defend themselves, peaceful Brits become easy targets for those who would abuse them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Second Amendment rights

The Idiotic Extremes of Prohibitionist Tyranny

Tyrants don’t like an armed populace. The extent tyrannies will go to make sure citizens are disarmed can boggle the mind. 

Take England. Please.

In Great Britain, private gun ownership is now illegal. This is not just a policy of trying to reduce concealed carrying of firearms — it’s a complete and utter prohibition, with no leniency.

Consider the recent case of 27-​year-​old Paul Clarke, a former soldier. He spied a garbage bag in the wrong place, went to look, and found a shotgun with ammo inside. He new guns were illegal, so he made an appointment with the local Chief Superintendent, and took it to the police station in the morning.

He was then arrested and imprisoned for possessing a firearm. He didn’t know that the law was so stringent as to make even touching a firearm, with the intention of giving it to the police, a no-​no. But he was prosecuted and convicted for doing just that. By the time you hear/​read this, he’ll have been sentenced.  I’m hoping the judge is lenient. The five years minimum, which is how the law reads, is idiotic in the extreme.

The law is more than just dumb, it’s tyrannical. There’s no excuse for such nonsense. 

Free Paul Clarke! And weep for Britain, where some say liberty was born. Liberty sure seems dead there now — as is common sense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.