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Posted on 08/25/2009 8:09:55 PM PDT by marktwain
Better get the geniuses at the New York Times to look at this riddle.
Importantly, in a state of violent chaos, as Britain seems to be today, the two complementary responses to the situation are first, to seek order, which in this case implies vigilantism, to replace ineffectual government in the preservation of law and civilization.
The second is to improvise a weapon that is superior to a gun or knife, which will have such a powerful effect as to negate their use. Almost by definition such a weapon would be very dangerous, even deadly.
It is a mystery why the British people have not yet turned to vigilantism to protect themselves from violent criminals. Even a single individual could radically change the equation by resisting.
Otherwise, I think my choice for deadly weaponry would be some variety of compressed gas, sprayed in a thick waft, perhaps chlorine gas. It is instantly disabling, agonizing, and likely lethal.
Compressed gasses intrigued me, BUT you have to make sure you can get away!
I did a little checking. Having worked in the oil drilling industry, we are concerned with H2S in sour gas wells. I have heard about people just getting a whiff of the gas and passing out immediately.
BUT here is what I found based on MSDS’s about gas toxicity. H2S isn’t so bad.
GAS - OSHA PEL - LC50
H2S - 20 ppm - LC50 444 ppm (rat)
CHLORINE - 1 ppm - LC50 293 ppm / 1 hr (rat)
PHOSGENE - 0.1 ppm - LC50 800 ppm (human)
ARSENIC PENTAFLOURIDE - As 0.01mg/m^3 - LC50 20 ppm / 1 hr (rat)
So maybe forget the gases - stick with the tire iron or shotgun, depending on your situation and skill-set / training...
The British of today no more resemble their stout ancestors than today’s Greeks resemble the Spartans. And we’re headed the same way.
LD/50s are good for estimating lethality, but it’s a lot harder to judge incapacitation.
I once got a small whiff of chlorine at a public pool and it was pure, unadulterated agony, followed by sucking on an oxygen tank for a long time (no idea how long, as time became very relative.)
But you also need to consider the shock value of a face full of chlorine, along with the ease in which it can be obtained. Just a bit of pool sodium hypochlorite and acid.
“It is estimated that there are about 3300 accidents needing hospital treatment caused by sodium hypochlorite solutions each year in British homes (RoSPA, 2002).”
A lot of Britain’s problems date from WWI, when most of their upper classes were wiped out. WWII killed off some more, as well as the stronger of the middle classes, so what was left behind were a majority of weaklings, defectives, and unreliables.
America, on the other hand, was more egalitarian in our fights, and so, for example, after the Civil War, often the poorest and most ignorant had been killed. Both WWI and WWII were draftee wars, and our military command was judicious in how our soldiers were used, so often individual bad judgment was to blame for getting killed. This balanced out the loss of good soldiers who were unlucky.
America’s problems devolve mostly from having better health care. A hundred and fifty years ago, infant mortality was sky high, epidemics were common, and even the strong who survived were often afflicted. Once this mortality was brought down, there was a jump in the number of “defective” offspring who survived. This in turn led to the interest in eugenics after the turn of the century.
I lost the youtube video of UK protesters warning US on gun control.
Anybody have the link?
You mean the video protesting the ban on foxhunting? That is done on horseback with dogs? No guns involved?
I rember that video. Classic piece of misdirection.
It also has a broad flammable/explosive range.
If the objective were removal of a threat, it could be effective.
While this is not a reccomendation, it is interesting to consider.
(Yep, 30 years in the patch.)
But that is a bogus comparison. America is a complex society - not a uniform nation with set standards like homogenous Japan is.
England also has unique problems that don't translate well in this debate.
Americans need to be free to own fire arms for reasons only found in America because America is unique. (I don't mean unique in a bragging sort of way I mean it as a plain statement of fact).
The Artful Dodger now packs heat. He doesn’t have to rely on Dirty Bill any more.
“The second is to improvise a weapon that is superior to a gun or knife, which will have such a powerful effect as to negate their use. Almost by definition such a weapon would be very dangerous, even deadly”
I can think of a few things that could be done with those “shake to charge” flashlights....
‘A lot of Britain’s problems date from WWI, when most of their upper classes were wiped out. WWII killed off some more, as well as the stronger of the middle classes, so what was left behind were a majority of weaklings, defectives, and unreliables.’
Bilge from start to finish. And utterly offensive too.
When I was a lad growing up on the farm fertilizer was packaged in burlap, 200 pounds to the bag. Most any teenage farm boy could move one even though most boys weighed far less than today. Sodium nitrate fertilizer came in 100 pound bags, this was considered easy handling for any boy of twelve or older. Now fertilizer is packaged in thirty or forty pound bags. We are growing weaker and weaker even as we grow larger and we need weapons for self defense more than ever before and yet the politicians are dead set on taking them away.
‘A history of the peoples of the British Isles’, By Thomas William Heyck, Stanford E. Lehmberg
(WWI) “The British lost 750,000 men in combat, about 9 percent of all men under the age of 45. The upper and middle classes lost more men *proportionally* than the working class. About 12 percent died, but 15 percent of officers and 17 percent of flying officers. Over 19 percent of Oxford students and graduates who served died, and 18 percent of those from Cambridge. 35 fellows of the Royal Academy, 55 from the Royal Institute of Chemistry. Likewise, prominent businessmen, professionals, scholars, and politicians perished.”
What I take complete exception to, as the grandson and nephew of British ww2 survivors, was your offensive remark about those who were left: ‘weaklings’ etc. A remark so ludicrous I am still unsure its meant to be serious.
The men of Britain who were left in 1945 were heroes, good men, who were and still are ten times the man you are. Or I for that matter. HOW DARE you make such insulting comments about any of the men who survived that war.
Far from being the dregs, these were the men who rebuilt a shattered Britain in the late 1940’s and made it a great country again. These were the men who built businesses, raised families, worked long hours and unlike today saw such as their duty and responsibility, and unlike today didnt whine about it.
Do you also think that the GI’s left after 1945 were similar?. Or the Canadians, Aussies, New Zealanders, Irish, South Africans?....
Your comment managed to simultaneously be ludicrous and offensive. Congratulations.
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