I Told You Gun Control Would Work

Latest crime figures for England have come out. And they show how well gun control is working. For instance:

• Violent crime is UP 17% - from last year
  
• Serious crime (like murder) is UP 18% - from last year
  
• Rape is UP 8% - from last year

The interesting figure is that "overall" crime is down 3%.

Hmmm. The only way I can figure that crime can be down overall by 3% while these other figures show vast increases, is if certain crimes aren't being processed anymore, or what used to be a crime is now not considered a crime.

For instance, if prostitution has been de-criminalised then what used to get listed as a crime (prostitution) won't get listed any more. It can still be illegal, but just not a criminal offense, and thus technically not a crime.

This very thing happened in my state. First, all prostitution was illegal. Then it was illegal to operate from home, while brothels were ok. Then the law was changed and it was illegal to do it from a brothel and legal to do it from home - with conditions. Now, the law has been changed again and licensed brothels are ok but not doing it from home.

This means, what used to get you a criminal record changed several times over the course of four or five years.

So I will assume, anything that decreased was a result of a change in law, or a lack of reporting. (At the time of writing, what actually went down has not been reported yet, for some reason.)

With Britain having some quite strong gun controls, it is no surprise crime has gone up. Honest people hand in their guns, criminals do not. Criminals also know people now cannot defend themselves (they handed in their guns) and so are more free to commit whatever crimes they want without fear of injury.

It has long been known that England led the US in every crime there was except murder. What is not so well known is how each country calculated their murder rate...

In England, murder rates were based on convictions. If you didn't get convicted of murder, you didn't make the murder stat.

In the US, murder rates were based on initial charges, regardless of the final conviction. It could have ended up being manslaughter, self defense, etc., but if initial charges were murder than that's what made the stat.

In short, the US did everything it could to show a high murder rate and the UK did everything it could to show a low murder rate. And even with this difference, the UK was only just behind the US murder rate.

Supposedly, people in the UK are safer because of gun control. Yet, ALL crimes have gone UP as a result of gun control. They have NOT gone down.

And, in fact, there is not a single country on the planet who can show a legitimate decline in crime after implementing gun control. But every country that has implemented gun control has had an INCREASE in crime following the controls. No exceptions.

It doesn't take a genius to see that gun controls do NOT work. They never have and they never will.

Need More Police? Not Really

It's election time down here in Queensland, Australia. And all the politicians are going on with the usual, "I will make sure we have more police" verbiage.

I got news for them, you and anyone who keeps on with the "more police" rant...

We don't need more police. We need to make better use of the police we have.

Inside the local police station is a whiteboard. On that whiteboard is the number 300,000. That number is the number of breath tests the police at that station are required to perform during the year. That number works out to be about 822 breath tests a day.

What the police do instead is wait until the weekend, or some randomly picked day of the week, and do all their breath testing in one go. They go to where they can pull ten to fifteen cars off the road at a time, and sit there for hours until they have fulfilled their breath test quota.

"We are reducing deaths on the road" is often their excuse for installing speed cameras and other automated devices.

This might be believed if they actually put those devices in locations where there have been deaths. However, they don't.

For instance, there is a location in this city which has a 100kph zone going down to an 80kph zone just as the road reaches a hill. Two hundred meters up that hill is a speed camera. Installed there to slow people down and prevent crashes, so they say. Yet, for the twelve months I lived there I NEVER once saw an accident or the remnants of an accident.

Obviously, the camera is installed there to raise money. Because people would find it silly to slow down before driving up a hill. So the natural inclination would be to keep doing 100 and use the speed to get up the hill easier.

Police hiding behind bushes on three lane roads at 6 O'clock on a Sunday morning, pointing their hand held radar guns at approaching traffic. How does this save lives?

Answer. It doesn't. It is revenue raising and quota fulfilling. Yes, the police also have to make a set number of bookings for speeding.

Mobile speed camera. Sets up just on the other side of a hill. So you put your foot down to get up the hill, top the hill and within 100 meters on the downside, the mobile speed camera sits, tucked in hiding behind other cars. How does this save lives?

Answer. It doesn't.

The mobile speed cameras are NEVER seen where a reduction in speed would be beneficial. They are seen in locations where the speed of the road is slower than it should be, or road conditions naturally create above limit speeds.

These speed reduction efforts are useless and a waste of police resources and time.

If the authorities were truly interested in reducing speed they would...

1: Be visible in known speed and accident locations.
2: Be visible in speed zone change locations.
3: Make it known that a speed camera or other radar device is in operation ahead. (Unlike the speed camera signs they use now which can only be seen after you pass the speed camera.)

EVERY time the police do the above three things - or even just one of them - people drive slower and with more control and awareness. The aim of the police has been fulfilled. Sure it doesn't raise money, but it saves lives. And that's what they claim to want.

What doing the above would do is free up the time of more police. As it is, when they book people they spend a lot of time writing up the ticket and processing the ticket. All the while, other drivers speed by without knowing the police were there, because the police hide.

The officer then has a lot of paper work to do when they get back to the station. And can be off the road for a long time.

And if the driver tests close to the blood alcohol limit, those officers need to take the driver to the nearest station with proper testing equipment and wait for that whole process to run its course - 20 minutes waiting, during which time the driver's details are taken, then the test and more processing, and finally let go if the result is negative. The whole time can take as much as one hour to run through one test. During that time, police are off the road. Their time is being wasted in waiting around.

A more efficient procedure would be... driver tests positive, a mobile until comes and picks him up and takes him to be processed. This leave the initial officers to continue doing their duty, patrol or designated assignments.

One visible officer slows down more traffic than three or four hiding behind bushes, trying to catch speeders in locations where the signed limit is too slow for the road.

"But we need more police to help stop crime" the people cry.

I got more bad news for you. Police do NOT prevent crime, they respond to crimes after the crimes have been committed.

Here's what happens at my local police station: A report of a crime comes in. Let's call it a break and enter. The crime is logged and assigned to a car crew. The car crew add it to their "To Do" list. As they move down their list of things to do, they get to the break and enter complaint. They drive there, take a statement and head back to the station. At the station they then spend forty five minutes or so entering the data into their computer and assign the case a crime number.

That's it. That is all they do. Their day leaves no time available in crime prevention. Besides, how do they prevent a crime?

Think about it while I give you another example...

Landlord locks lodger out and won't give possessions back until back rent is paid. Lodger calls the police. Two hours later the police turn up, chat to the landlord and inform him he cannot keep possessions in lieu of payment. Possessions are removed by removalist while police stand by watching. Total time of police involvement is two hours.

Another example. Officer knocks on door and informs driver he had been reported by the school crossing guard for going too fast. Driver is a known slowcoach driver. Officer and driver have good friendly chat for thirty minutes. Officer then has to go back to station and write up report on incident. More time wasted.

Ever see the show COPS? I have never seen the cops on that show prevent a crime. In fact, they spend the entire show responding to crimes and calls.

So, more police does not equal less crime. More police just means they can respond to more crimes sooner, instead of putting some on a back log and getting to them in a day or so. And leaves more police available to hide and try and catch speeders.

People should not rely on police to protect them. Police cannot protect them. People need to protect themselves by obeying common sense. Such as..

Lock doors and windows at night,
Don't walk alone at night in isolated areas known for attacks,
Carry personal alarm,
Do self-defense course,
Always let someone know where you are going and when you expect to arrive or get back,
Carry cell phone with you at all time,
Do NOT talk to strangers - it applies to adults as well as children,
Be aware of your surroundings and escape routes. Sounds overboard but your life could depend on it,
If in danger or doubt, RUN!!! Muggers will seldom chase someone, they will get away instead.

Most crimes are crimes of opportunity. It is YOUR responsibility to prevent the opportunity. No opportunity = no crime.

Edwards' Blunder

Edwards may have come in 2nd place in the Iowa caucuses, but his "after caucus" speech hinted at a downfall waiting to happen.

Years ago, in the state of Queensland, Australia, the then leader of the state Wayne Goss ran his campaign on "Getting back to community values."

After his monumental defeat - which seemed a mirror image of his monumental win when he took office some six years earlier - he analyzed WHY he lost. And he realized it was his "Community Values" stance that did him in.

A community is made up of families. Each of those families doesn't care about the other families. They just care about themselves. Their own family. Screw the other families. And screw the community - specially if it means more money out of my pocket.

Edwards has made the same blunder. In his speech he talked about the 35 million poor Americans - who don't usually vote - and hinted at helping them.

I got news for you... middle class America doesn't really care about the poor. Oh sure, they care when asked, when there is a camera nearby, or when "put on the spot." BUT, behind closed doors, when they can be totally honest because they aren't putting on a front due what someone might think, they don't care one bit. And they care even less when it would mean taking money out of their pockets. (Helping the poor is a nice feel-good sentiment, as long as it doesn't take money out of my pocket.) And even less still when they think how those poor aren't really doing anything to better their situation and are crying victim.

Edwards' blunder also shows the nature of politics... appealing to the lowest of the electorate. In his case... 35 million of them. Of course, they don't have TVs to know he was appealing to them.

If he continues on with his "help the poor" mantra, his numbers will decline to a point he has no hope of wining.

We Just Found A Terrorist Camp

So, the Saudi's recently found a terrorist training camp within their country and shut it down. Bully for them. Let's all give three cheers.

Give me a break. They expect us to believe they did not know there was a terrorist training camp within their country. Oh phu-leeeeaaaassseeeee.

Think about their claim. The ruling Arab Royal governing body, who knows everything else about their country, just happened not to have any knowledge of this training camp whatsoever. And seemingly, it took them all this time with intensive investigation, to discover this large parcel of land filled with men running around blowing things up.

Geez. Recently in Australia, some dork made a bomb, loaded it into an old car, drove to an isolated place on his property and detonated it. The resulting hole under the car was two meters deep! It took the cops all of like 10 minutes to arrive on the scene to investigate the explosion.

So, regular Australian police, without the aid of intense investigation, can find a location after a single explosion, but Saudi intelligence can't find a location after daily explosions, shootings, and other suspect activity.

Obviously, the Saudis are playing Good Guy with this move. And in all reality, the training camp was probably an old one they didn't need to use any more because they had a newer more better camp.

Good Golly Molly; Can The Man

So, the talking heads reckon the crack down on terrorism by the US has caught an Australian celebrity - Ian Molly Meldrum (Molly), a homosexual music commentator who travels to the US regularly and always wears a cowboy hat.

Details reveal something else, though. Molly didn't fill out his Visa properly. So he was sent back.

Well Duh! If you don't fill out your Visa correctly you can't get into any country, no matter who you are. Regardless of any terror clamp downs or not.

This is just another example of misleading exaggeration by the heads on the box.

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Australian Muslim Boxer Anthony Mundine (the same idiot who had his ranking removed by the WBC because he said the US deserved what happened on 9/11) touts himself as Australia's best boxer in his weight division, blah blah blah. Yawn.

Thing is, he only ever fights has-beens and retired boxers who haven't been in the ring for years. And occasionally, he also fights current boxers. But only ones that aren't really that good.

Recently he won a belt. Whoopee do. Unless it was a belt from one of the big three boxing organizations (IBF, WBC WBO), it ain't worth the material it is made out of. And, it wasn't one of the big three. It was one of the alphabet soup boxing bodies... the WBA (probably one of the only boxing organizations that would still have anything to do with him after his moronic comments re 9/11).

How good is he really?

Australian boxer Danny Green (17 wins, 17 KO's), the other REAL (WBC) title holder in the weight division, has offered Mundine $1,000,000.00 PLUS his purse, to have a fight and decide who is really the best.

Mundine (The Man, as he calls himself), has declined to fight. Instead, he takes on other fights... like the most recent one which prompted this comment... fighting a retired fighter from Japan who was ten years older. It was truly pathetic... the Japanese fighter had gray hair!

WAKE UP Australia. Mundine is playing you for a sucker. And you are falling for it, repeatedly. Boycott his fights.