But race you have no choice, religion you have marginally less influence over. Being a thieving pikey is a lifestyle choice.

Becoming anything in life depends on opportunities – a teacher choosing you to be a lead in the schools nativity opens up opportunities that could lead to you winning an Oscar, actually buying a lottery ticket gives you a better opportunity of winning millions than if you don’t buy one – and giving a kid the opportunity to break into a house or car by making it easy (not hiding expensive stuff in your car, not getting alarms or good locks for your home, etc) does make a difference. Do you believe all Scottish people are mean, all Welsh are overly friendly with their sheep, all Irish are thick, all French are smelly, all Germans are officious automatons, all Swedes are sex maniacs, all Italian women possess thick, dark hairs on their arms, legs and upper lips, all Jews are stingy moneylenders and all Arabs are thieves? Like the bowler-hatted tea drinking Englishman they are all nationalistic stereotypes, even if some of them could be true to a limited extent (all the Russians I’ve met were jolly and did drink like thirsty fishes, and an Australian I worked with put on the thick Strine cobber routine because it helped him with his work, despite normally having a very mild accent). So do you really think that every traveller is a thieving pikey or is it just that you have subscribed to the stereotype perpetuated by the media and people who have had bad dealings with them?

Please tell me Snafu. how many of your highly valued (not financial, but personal) possessions have been lifted from you by pikey b*****ds in the recent past?

Nothing.
I leave nothing of value in my car when it is parked, and fortunately my home has never been broken into.
Did have a company car broken into with a traditional red brick ‘London’ key several years ago, but that was the company’s fault for giving me a lot of stuff and an Astra hatchback (which they could easily have gotten into by using a screwdriver rather than a key) with no alarm system whose rear parcel shelf had been removed to a manager’s vehicle and not replaced – costing them a new window, laptop, camera gear, a lovely but old DAT recorder and cassettes (replaced by a nasty little digital recorder that I never trusted), and the blanket that I’d hidden it all under in the boot. Didn’t take the CDs I left in the car, not my books or sunglasses, not even my (then) new and expensive Berghaus Gore-Tex extreme weather jacket and trousers which were my first thoughts when I noticed the damage.

No. Given the choice I’d euthanase as many as possible with legal means. Bricks, baseball bats, hammers etc etc.. No point in breaking the law unnecessarily.

Ho ho. Tee hee. Stop it. Please. I do believe my sides have split…[/sarcasm again]

A new year, a ‘new’ approach to action on gun violence in America…

Obama considers unilateral action on US gun violence

President Obama has said he wants to take unilateral action to tackle the problem of gun violence in the US.
In his first weekly address of 2016, Mr Obama said he would meet Attorney General Loretta Lynch to discuss possible actions.
He said he would seek to use his executive powers as president because the US Congress had failed to address the problem.
Analysts say there will be a backlash from gun activists and Republicans.
But Mr Obama told Americans that he had received too many letters from parents, and teachers, and children, to sit around and do nothing.
“We know that we can’t stop every act of violence,” the president said. “But what if we tried to stop even one? What if Congress did something – anything – to protect our kids from gun violence?”
He has admitted that his inability to win Congressional backing for what he called “common sense gun laws” was the greatest frustration of his presidency.
The BBC’s Laura Bicker in Washington says the president could use his executive authority in several areas, including expanding new background check requirements for buyers who purchase weapons from high-volume dealers.
However he is likely to face stiff opposition to his plans, our correspondent says.
The National Rifle Association has already launched a video series attacking gun control activists.
And in Texas, a new “open carry law” will allow Texans with a permit to wear handguns on their hips in holsters – openly displaying the fact they are armed.
Last month a Texas police chief warned the president that trying to disarm Americans could spark a revolution.
Previous efforts to introduce stricter gun control laws have repeatedly foundered despite the large number of people dying in gun attacks.
A joint Democrat-Republican bill following the 2012 shooting of 20 children and six adults at a primary school in Connecticut failed to get the 60 votes needed to broaden background checks and ban assault weapons.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35211294

Just waiting for the first massacre of the year. Wonder if it will happen before the backlash takes hold?

In the realms of fantasy I know but, if you should ever be tempted to ask me to stay at your home I would have to decline with thanks. I would feel most vulnerable if, in the event we were threatened with not-very-nice intruders, my host preferred me to turn the other cheek, roll over and have my tummy tickled. That would not square with my particular view of the world.

Most shops have a policy of don’t interfere, since things can be replaced but people can’t. But I guess if you want to stir them up and force them into violent mode…?

Your ‘take’ on these matters and others of a similar nature are very reflective of just why this country and others of a liberal democratic persuasion are experiencing such difficulties with certain sections of our populations. These people sense weakness of the type you so amply demonstrate and are, consequently, prepared to carry out certain acts believing with some accuracy that they will not be opposed by most who follow your philosophy.

Yeah, John, much better to go for one extreme or the other, where the proles can be controlled properly? And not forgetting to get your act of violence in before they do, eh?

Whether Mr. Martin had a legal or illegally held weapon is beside the point. He was alone in his house in the middle of the night causing no offence to anyone. He had every reasonable expectation that he would be left unmolested and not be subject to – for all he knew – sudden and violent assault perhaps accompanied by deadly weapons. He no doubt knew as most of us know – after all, we’re told often enough – that the police probably would not investigate or attend what they considered to be a minor burglary. So, where exactly was he to turn for help ?

So what if they had been carrying illegal firearms – would that have made it right?
Taking the law into your own hands – isn’t that an element of what intruders do?
Shooting someone in the back – just isn’t British, what?
Why not campaign for spending on the police to be increased so that there is actually the capacity to man the stations and investigate crime.
And, if you look into it, there is very little crime involving weapons getting fired in personal hold ups and burglaries except on TV

If apparently, you had your way, Mr. Martin would have invited the criminals to rampage freely thru’ his property helping themselves to whatever they fancied, all they had to promise was to leave him alone and not physically hurt him ! Fortunately he was made of sterner stuff. I do deplore the death of the young lad but, he did put himself in harms way.

How very drole.
If Tony Martin had not had an illegal weapon then the boy would have lived, seeing as he and his associate were rapidly exiting the house when the gun was fired. Had Tony Martin gone for a legal form of prevention – better windows, doors, fences or walls – the boy would have lived. Had there been a better form of legal education where those with convictions or on probation were held more accountable and were more scared of the consequences of breaking their parole then the boy would have lived. If Tony Martin had been less confrontational and not been inclined to let his hot temper do the ‘talking’ (already proven by him shooting a car previously) then the boy would have lived.

I believe I’m correct is writing that criminal law now, because of the Martin case, takes a more robust view of the right of every householder to protect his life, the lives of his loved ones and those of people under his protection and his property. This does not mean that the law won’t scrutinise the actions of anyone defending life and limb. Vigilantism won’t be tolerated. It does mean however, that any householder is entitled to take all reasonable measures – taking into account all the circumstances – in protecting his life and property.

I would still imagine that a householder in possession of an illegal weapon who shoots a retreating intruder in the back might not be regarded as exercising their right to defend their themselves, their family, their home or property though.

You are, yet again, entirely wrong and muddleheaded.

No one entitled to their own opinion then, John?
Sorry – forgot that your word is law and there can be no other opinion that is remotely right but yours…[/sarcasm]

Because you would the sooner roll over rather than defend life and property I do not expect to convince you with my argument. All I do know is that if you appease the bully – in whatever way that can manifest itself – the bully will come back for more.

And a man who is happy to fire a shotgun at an occupied car, even when it gets him in trouble with the police, is obviously not a bully, eh?[/more sarcasm]
I mean, once he got the gun in his hands then and it made him feel important he was happy to do it again even though it was now illegal…

That ethos begins and prevails in the school playground and continues right thru’ out life in general.

Ain’t that the truth – all those loners and weirdos who were picked on by the bullies, the jocks and the popular kids in America going back to school armed to the teeth with their parents guns and sharing their misery around. And the fact that Tony Martin has gone back to owning another gun even with his own history shows that he hasn’t reformed, he wants to be a big man with a gun with all the power that comes with it.

He was an old guy, living alone in an isolated farmhouse that had been burgled time and time again by pikey scum.

Isn’t that some sort of discriminatory term? If you replaced ‘pikey’ with a skin colour then you leave yourself open to a charge of racism, and replacing it with the name of a religion could get you accused of religious hatred.

I can’t blame him for evening the odds with a bit of 12 bore.

So you are in favour of flouting the law so far as illegal firearms are concerned? For all, or just the ‘right‘ sort of criminals…?

…unless he does something extremely stupid.

Like drawing attention to himself by claiming to still own a weapon, you mean?

The story I have is that he was indiscreet enough to say to some newspaper snitch that there were plenty of illegally held weapons swanning around in England…

My understanding is that he was approached in the street for a ‘vox pop’, where members of the public are asked for their view on a specific subject, in this case the old lady shot by her husband in a care home. If he is stupid – sorry, indiscreet enough to agree to give his views and make a claim about owning a weapon then you can hardly call a member of the press a snitch – would you tell the police if one of your staff members intimated that he had illegal weapons and that he was planning to carry out some massacre on behalf of IS, or would that make you a snitch?

No it wasn’t ‘clever lawyers’. To almost anyone but you, it was an outraged public opinion.

It was an outraged display by a right-wing press; polls afterwards seemed to angle toward not being much bothered or that an Englishman described as ‘honest’ and ‘decent’ should shoot a man in the back.

We will never agree.

Then it will just be you because everyone agrees with John. That is the world he lives in and what he believes implicitly.
Please don’t try to rock his world by telling him anything different, he still hasn’t gotten over UKIP being so narrowly beaten into 2nd place in the elections*…;o)

I nominate that as the weirdest statement of the year.

And it is barely two days old…

*That is what we told him to avoid him and his blackshirts (both of them) trying to overthrow parliament.

I would imagine that a criminal record would make obtaining a licence difficult. Not sure what the rules were governing his parole but it would usually be regarded as broken if he became involved with a firearm after a conviction involving firearms however for his initial murder conviction he would have gone back inside for the rest of his sentence – life.

The Muppet Christmas Carol. Several times on rotation, since the youngsters love it.

Incidentally, I’ve only ever seen the first Star Wars film, way back at the cinema when it was released. I was young but I enjoyed it, although I’ve never gone out of my way to watch the others despite the fact that I’ve never actually been around when they appeared on TV.