Replies

You are “trying to have your cake and eat it too”.

You have criticized Ms. Malcolm’s reference to a statement attributed to the BBC for it not being authoritative, and have then attempted to refute it by relating a personal anecdote which is also hardly authoritative.

Your dismissal of Ms. Malcolm’s assertions about banning of toy and replica guns as “bizarre” is, by your own admissions, highly questionable. It would appear that your dispute is only over a matter of the degree to which they are banned, rather than over the black-and-white issue of whether or not they are banned.

You rail at Ms. Malcolm for using as a reference an author who died in 1997 and last published in 1978, only to later make a point via a reference to a book published in 1971. While your use of that source may be perfectly legitimate, you have undercut your own arguments by seemingly basing the illegitimacy of Ms. Malcolm’s source(s) primarily on the source’s publication date. That may indeed be relevant information to disclose as one means of illuminating your argument, but it’s hardly dispositive.

Furthermore, the hyperbole that you employ in dismissing Ms. Malcolm’s use of Mr. Williams’ writings (as well as elsewhere in your piece), does little to convince this reader of anything beyond reinforcing the impression that you do indeed seem to be a bit “excitable”.

Your own argument seems to be that only Parliament and the Home Office are legitimate sources of information about “the law”, but then go on to point to references and anecdotes that are secondhand at best in an attempt to bolster your argument. Which is it, then?

So, your “point by point response” appears rather less substantial than you might have at first imagined.

1—The BBC is a media organisation. For an academic to use it as the authority on a particular point is frankly ridiculous. For you and I to use it would be bad enough.

The BBC is a media organisation, it is not the creator of laws nor is it the organisation who dispenses guidelines and rules.

2—Toy guns are not banned, and the assertion is so ridiculous I almost considered not actually dealing with it. As to replicas, Ms Malcolm stated in her article that they were banned. Again, an astonishingly appalling piece of research by an academic.

In her retort to me via Powerline, you will notice she shifts her argument, because she knows that I was right. That replicas were and are not banned, only those not subject to recent laws regarding the colour and style.

3—Ms Malcolm used her author as the focal point of her point, I used the actual Hansard link from 1946 to make my (correct) point. My use of the 1971 book was merely an addendum, what I said was that the 1946 proof is found in books as far as back as 1971 and before, to show just how wrong she got her ‘1964’ point.

My reference to the 1971 book was neither here nor there, I didnt need it to make my salient point. Malcolm used and needed Williams to make hers.

3—My ancedote is very relevant.

I am British. She is not.
I live here. She does not.
I have been a victim of British crime. She has not.

I have experience of the actual (Scottish and English) legal systems, having been both a victim and a particpant (court clerk in both Scotland and England AND a civilian worker for the police in Glasgow and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, a job which entailed dealing with the courts, the police and the victim and their families).

So I KNOW that this academic is telling the biggest nonsense. She is either a very poor academic or she is lying and distorting facts to make a spurious argument.

4—It is very relevant regarding her use of an author/expert dead for 14 years and not published for over 30. Because she is using his outdated expertise to cement her point on a issue where that expertise is outdated BECAUSE of the law changes that have happened 1997-2011 (Labour and Tory govts). Again, she is either woefully out of date or she is deliberately distorting the argument.

5—No, I am not excitable.

I AM angry. Very angry that an academic, of all people, is peddling such nonsense about Britain and the British legal systems.

Wouldnt you be angry if the tables were reversed?. Or is it ok for Americans to get angry at pompous Limeys and Eurotrash, but when we get annoyed, we are just over-excitable?.

And you miss an obvious point about me:

ALL the other British Freepers who have posted in the Malcolm threads have backed me 100% and stated also that what Joyce Lee Malcolm says is utter rubbish.

So dismiss me, but you might want to think that when all the British people on this site say something is a lie, it just might be a lie......