“Starman” a biography of Yuri Gagarin. Didn’t realise that unlike the early NASA astronauts he was not a test pilot but just an “ordinary” fighter pilot on a MiG-15 squadron when selected for the cosmonaut training program. Soloed on the day I was born.

“550 Rapes and 1,100 Murders are prevented EVERY DAY just by SHOWING a gun.”

How on earth can anyone say so precisely what would have happened if the “Perp” hadn’t seen a gun? Is someone “plucking figures out of his ass” here? And how many rapes and murders take place every day because the “perp” has a gun and the victim doesn’t? You can play around with statistics till the cows come home, but there are simply too many guns already in society and as those appalling and continuing school massacres show, all too often they’re falling into the wrong hands; but as I keep saying here (and no one denies it) America as a whole seems to see that as a price worth paying.

Not April 1st already?

Perhaps you should look at the American gun Forum I mentioned, then you may realise what I am getting at.
Lincoln .7

I took a look at that website the other day Jim, and there is some weird stuff on there. A pizza place is offering discounts to anyone who shows they are carrying a concealed gun, and someone else is advocating people should carry concealed weapons but wear a nice big badge to show they are doing so. For heaven’s sake, these are killing machines, not toys. Doesn’t anyone in America care about how insane all this looks to the rest of the world? Cue cries of anti-Americanism and “don’t-tell-us-what-to-do.”

I don’t think he’s paying very much attention to what anyone else has to say, Moggy. 😎

I think this is what so many people this side of the pond find so frustrating. There are simply too many firearms in circulation, and far too often they are falling into the wrong hands, with catastrophic consequences. As I’ve said here before, America as a whole seems to think these continual massacres like the one that prompted this thread are a price worth paying in order to keep their guns, and I’m still waiting for someone to refute that. And yet so many people just seem to duck the issue with spurious arguments that it’s anti-American, that their Creator gave them the right to have guns (eh? where does it say that in the Bible?) or even that if you banned guns then you should also ban anything else that can harm people (someone here even said swimming pools are “lethal weapons”) And does anyone seriously believe that in the 21st century the people may still need to rise up en masse and overthrow their government? Ridiculous. I do have some sympathy with people wanting to defend their homes and families, and with so many firearms already around I’m not sure what the answer is. But surely it’s time people at least admitted what is going on, and began to look for an answer, and it sure aint yet more guns.

Punishments for criminals to be set by the public in a proper, reasoned way (ie not just silly rabble-rousing polls conducted in The Sun or something), not open to “interpretation” by judges, and fixed (eg, no parole, time taken away for good behaviour, etc)

Just a pity his death couldn’t have been as slow and painful as what that xxxxing animal did to that poor little mite. Good news all the same, though.

On the subject of roomy USAF cockpits, I remember someone joking once that the pilot of an F-101 under enemy fire would take evasive action by getting out of his seat and running around the cockpit.