lets see, illegal immigrant population grows and gun crime increases... nothing to see here folks, move along!!!
Posted on 06/11/2005 8:11:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The Violent Crime Reduction Bill was unveiled by Labour last week. The Bill is misnamed: it contains nothing that will actually reduce violent crime, which is currently increasing at around 10 per cent every year. Instead, it contains a series of gimmicks.
There is a plan to allow police officers and council officials to ban people they think are drunk (and about to behave badly) from pubs and clubs in the neighbourhood for up to two years; there is a clause that will raise the age limit for buying air guns and knives to 18; others will increase the penalty for the possession of a fake firearm, and attempt to ban the manufacture, importation and sale of realistic imitation guns.
None of these measures will affect the remorselessly upward trajectory of violent crime. Drunkenness is indeed a blight on many of our city centres, but drunks emerging from pubs and clubs are not the cause of the increase in shootings, violent robberies and muggings that has taken place since Labour took office in 1997.
The action against fake firearms may well have the opposite effect to the one intended: as the gap between the punishments for carrying a real and a fake gun narrows, more criminals may opt for carrying real guns rather than fakes. Despite the law banning them, real handguns have never been easier for criminals to obtain. The use of firearms in crime has doubled in the last five years.
The consequence of the Violent Crime Reduction Bill won't be the reduction of violent crime: it will be more incidents of the kind reported last week, when armed response officers sped down a street in Salisbury to caution a 10-year-old boy for using a cap gun (without any caps in it) while playing cowboys and Indians in the street.
The Violent Crime Reduction Bill is fake legislation. The Prime Minister will have the chance to support a Bill that has a real chance of reducing violent crime when a Tory MP, Anne McIntosh, introduces her Private Member's Bill later in this parliamentary session. It will be modelled on the "Right to Fight Back" Bill that Patrick Mercer introduced before Christmas: it will give householders greater rights to defend themselves against burglars and intruders.
As readers of The Sunday Telegraph will know, we have campaigned vigorously for householders to be indemnified against prosecution for any action they may take in tackling intruders. The evidence from the American state of Oklahoma, which has such a law, demonstrates the dramatic effect that a measure of this kind can have on curtailing violent intruders.
Ms McIntosh's Bill will not indemnify householders against prosecution but raise the threshold from the confusing and unclear principle of "reasonable force" to the more robust requirement that a prosecution will only be triggered against a householder who tackles a burglar if the force used is "grossly disproportionate". It will, though, still provide a greater incentive for burglars not to break into other people's homes. As Brendan Fearon, Fred Barras's partner in crime in breaking into Tony Martin's house, has said, such legislation will "stop a lot of burglars."
That contrasts with the fatuity of banning local rowdies from their favourite watering holes. With Mr Blair's backing, Ms McIntosh's Bill could become law. But the Prime Minister is unlikely to support it. He initially claimed that he was open to supporting Mr Mercer's Bill, but then backed away from it after Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, and Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, voiced their opposition.
That is typical of the Prime Minister's dithering ineffectiveness on the issue of crime. He has insisted that he will give the police "whatever powers are necessary" to stamp out violent crime but has shrunk from taking the only step that will actually have an effect: locking up more violent criminals, for longer terms in prison. Much of the Government's legislation is dedicated to letting more criminals out of prison earlier, since it replaces prison, which stops criminals from committing more crimes, with probation and community service orders.
Crime in California has fallen by 30 per cent in the decade since third-time burglars were liable to be sentenced to life imprisonment. Until the Government decides to do something similar, all of its initiatives on reducing crime are nothing more than the most cynical rhetoric.
The freaking Thought Police.
Dear God, deliver us. Please.
Is this the absurd bill that will ban toy and deactivated display guns?
Everyone take note, this is what the marxist left wants to accomplish here. First ban the machineguns. Then ban any gun that looks like a machinegun. Then ban regular handguns, hunting rifles, shotguns. Then ban anything that looks like a gun, including toys and decorations.
Hopefully things are looking up in the states, their attempt to ban guns that look like machineguns failed and sunsetted last year.
lets see, illegal immigrant population grows and gun crime increases... nothing to see here folks, move along!!!
Does this mean that Deactivated Toy Trophies will become illegal?
The British have had enough of crime! From now on, British criminals will be SPANKED! No exceptions!;)
The Brits are doomed without the right to keep and bear arms.
What? But, but I thought that banning guns would stop violent crime? < / sarcasm >
The same can be said about a lot of the BS that comes from Washington DC these days.
The Lord helps those who help themseves.
This bill will ban the sale, import and manufacture of replica or imitation guns, (that probably includes deactivated firearms too). However, replicas and deactivated guns that are already owned by people will not be affected by this legislation, although the government may try to bring in a licensing system for ownership of deactivated firearms, (they have threatend to do this in the past).
The bill will also increase the prison sentence for possession of an airgun or a replica/imitation gun in a public place without "good reason". The current sentence for that crime is a minimum of 6 months, but I believe that this bill will take that up to 5 years. (But they may have reduced that sentence while the bill was being debated).
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