Gun Culture

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Impeach Blair Campaign

This dropped in my inbox today, whilst I’d like to see the bastard strung up impeached, I can’t say I agree with all the words therein.

PLEASE FORWARD AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE
 
THE IMPEACHMENT OF TONY BLAIR.
 
We need your help to remove Tony Blair from office, for misleading Parliament over the Iraq war.
 
Please contact your MP urgently and urge him/her to sign up to the impeachment of Blair and also copy your message to:
 
Even if you feel your MP is pro-Blair, please email him/her, as we can at least force a debate on the war, if we do not get a majority.  But, if for any reason you do not wish to contact your MP, do send a short message saying you support the impeachment of Tony Blair, with your name and town, (address and age optional) to: 
 
Further information can be obtained from website:  http://www.impeachBlair.org
 
Far from leading to democracy and freedom in Iraq, this lie, which lead to an unprecedented error of judgement on Bush and Blair’s part has caused a rise in terrorism throughout the world.  It has increased fear amongst all people and has made our lives more unsafe than ever and in all probability in the end, Iraq may become an Islamic state.
 
Because of Blair’s lies, which led to Parliament agreeing to attack Iraq, tens of thousand of people have been needlessly killed, including so many children, who have been cruelly maimed, horribly injured and orphaned.  The families of soldiers killed are now also questioning the futility of their deaths.
 
We could have got rid of Saddam at any time in a bloodless coup by helping to arm the rebels, who often asked for our help.  The Americans have been involved in “regime change” countless times throughout the world and have been very successful for many decades. Therefore, we should be asking ourselves why we ignored the pleas of the rebels and needed to take this illegal step to annihilate an entire country to capture one man and why we did not give the weapons inspectors just a little more time to find the WMDs, before Blair took our country to war, at Bush’s bidding.
 
The fact is that this was an act of personal revenge by Bush, who was so intent on pursuing Saddam, he ignored the real threat of terrorism. He also needed an excuse to obtain control of the second largest oil reserves, which would lead to personal gain and other self interests, at the vast expense to the tax payer and the endless tragedy of so many dead.  This makes the invasion of Iraq one of the most disastrous and monumental errors, which most countries were totally against.
 
As Blair refuses to resign or apologise and remains arrogant and resolute, he has no integrity and cannot be allowed to continue as Prime Minister.  Our country is virtually ungovernable being constantly overshadowed by Iraq, as how can we ever let it go, when every day the killings continue unabated?
 
Blair must be impeached and be accountable for his actions, so we can finally “move on”.
 
Whoever takes over and I am sure there will be more than one good contender, they will have learnt from this to put Britain first and use tax payers money more wisely, to make the right decisions for this country in future.  Furthermore, Britain’s good name which is in tatters, needs to be rapidly restored worldwide, before the situation in Iraq gets much worse.
 
With your help we can make this happen, so contact your MP urgently!
 
Remember, once the numbers start to increase, even Labour MPs will find the courage to call for Blair’s impeachment.
 
PLEASE FORWARD AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE

As regular readers will be aware, I believe the justification for war given by Blair was bogus.  Further I believe he knew it was at best shaky.  We were led to war under false premise and as such Blair should in all honour resign.

Friday, August 27, 2004

Lamper Cleared

Unbelievable.  As reported in The Scotsman

Although there was no suggestion Mr Burns has shot Mr Lawson deliberately, prosecutor Neil Moore argued unsuccessfully that he had acted recklessly.

But the jury believed Mr Burns when he said he had been “100% sure” that he had been shooting a fox.

And the jury of seven men and five women took just under two hours of deliberation to unanimously clear him of causing grievous bodily harm.

The reaction from the shooting community is that this individual was grossly negligent in firing this shot and that it is miraculous that the victim survived the impact of the .243 70 grain ballistic tip bullet.  This verdict does us no favours at all.

From The Telegraph

Mr Lawson, who was not in court for the verdict, said: “How can this not be regarded as reckless? A weapons expert told the jury he did not feel it was a reckless shot but that it was careless.

“In my world, careless is leaving your keys in the ignition and having your car stolen; it is not pointing a powerful weapon with a particularly dangerous bullet at something that you can’t even clearly see.”

He said he would be writing to the Home Office to highlight some of the problems of weapons licensing that he believed arose from the case. He is considering a civil action against Burns.

My emphasis.  No doubt that gun grabbers will be loving this.

Thursday, August 26, 2004

NRA vs IANSA Debate in London

The National Rifle Association of America are to participate in a major televised debate in London. The protagonists are Wayne La Pierre, for the NRA of America and Rebecca Peters of IANSA (International Action Network on Small Arms).

Mr LaPierre will be speaking in favour of private firearms ownership and Ms. Peters against it.

The venue is the Western Room of King’s College Library, London.

The debate will take place on Wednesday, 1st September, 2004 and is scheduled to commence at 19.00 hrs. It is advisable to be there by 18.30 hrs. The debate is expected to last for 90 minutes.

If you wish to attend, please E-mail as soon as possible to reserve your place. As these are limited, early action is advisable.

More information is available in the UK from

Wayne LaPierre is a ferocious debator, Ms Peters is a mad witch.  I predict blood!
I’d love to go, but I fear that a weeks notice is a bit too short.

The Cost of Hosting the Olympics

Ask the average Joe (or Jill) in the street if they think hosting the Olympics is a good thing and you can be pretty sure of a positive answer.  Think of the prestige, the trade and the investment.  But hold on guys and gals, just where does this investment come from?  The IOC does not descend from above with a great big bowl of cash, the money of course will be coming out of the pocket of the host nations taxpayers.  We aren’t talking small beer either.
From Reuters

ATHENS (Reuters) - The Athens Olympics will cost a total of almost 10 billion euros ($12.1 billion), more than double the original target, pushing Greece’s budget gap well above EU limits, finance ministry sources said on Wednesday.

This is way above any return from tourism of games attendants, a quick look at all the empty seats at the games will show that.
There are people opposing the London 2012 bid though, by cunningly backing the Paris bid.  Let Pierre put his hand in his pocket!
Again from Reuters

The Paris bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics has won backing from a political party which says London would be better off without spending billions on the Games.

Members of the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP)—who advocate immediate withdrawal from the European Union—unfurled a huge banner outside London’s city hall on Tuesday with “Paris 2012 Candidate City” written above the Olympic rings.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone, a vocal supporter of London’s bid, dismissed UKIP’s protest as a stunt.

“Some people will obviously say and do anything to get two minutes on the television,” Livingstone said in a statement.

“Polls show 70 percent of Londoners are right behind our Olympic bid and the new investment, transport, jobs and housing it will bring to London,” he said.

Well Ken would know all about stunts to get publicity!  I think his comment shows that 70% of Londoners haven’t thought through what a succesful Olympic bid would entail.

Impeach Blair!

Plaid Cymru’s Adam Price said he was reviving a parliamentary procedure last used more than 150 years ago because the Prime Minister had refused to resign in the face of “compelling evidence” that he had “duped” the country

Blair grossly mislead the country regarding the case for war and now feels safe because Saddam Hussain’s removal was a good thing.  True Saddam’s removal was an excellent thing, however Blair’s justification was not that Saddam was a bad man.  It was that Saddam had large stocks of NBCs and was capable of using them to threaten UK interests at the drop of a hat.  It is of course now clear that this is not true, so we were taken to war on a false premise.  There can surely be no worse thing, regardless of the good will and pure intentions the country was mislead.  An honourable man would have put his hands in the air and said “Sorry chaps, I got it wrong.  I believed the intel, but the thing I took us to war for was not correct so I am standing down.” Je ne regret rien and all that, but standing down for misleading the country.
Blair is not an honourable man.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3410148 for the story on the impeachment bid.

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

The Business of Government

Ah, government.  The stalwart of the people, defender of our borders and interests.
Whilst trawling for information on my latest madcap conspiracy theory (the jimmies are taking over the UK, evidence scant I’m afraid!) I noticed this Very Important News Item.  No, not a story about bogus asylum seekers being deported, not a story about criminals being put in jail, not even a story about terrorists being arrested.
No, this is a story about live music venues.
Exsqueeze me?  Baking powder?
Exactly why is this the business of government?  Next time you get some bullshit story about how taxes need to go up to pay for nurses or some other heart string tugging tale, bear this in mind:
Bloated government is busy pissing our money up the wall on bullshit initiatives and schemes which it has no business being involved in.

Monday, August 23, 2004

Soldier should have had jamming device

I can’t quite believe what I’m reading here.
It is quite understandable that a grieving parent should want to hit out at those she feels responsible for the death of her son, but I do wish that we could stop the ‘never again’ culture that is stiffling the country.
Here the mother of Gordon Gentle, a soldier killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, claims that the army should have provided her son with a jamming device to stop the radio activation of the bomb.  (Edited Apparently such a device was developed for use in Northern Ireland, I have no idea how effective these devices are or what limitations they impose on patrol activities or comms - perhaps someone could help?).
What if the bomb had been wire operated, or if it had been activated by a pressure switch?  I’m sure you could come up with a myriad of ‘if onlys’ for this young mans death, but that fact is that he was in a very dangerous situation and risk taking is part and parcel of being a soldier.  I even read at the weekend that this young man joined up to travel, and so shouldn’t have been sent to war!  As pointed out in the article, if travel was his aim there were plenty of other options.  A soldier has to accept that he will be sent into situations which a hazardous to life.  It goes with the job.
I wish the media weren’t so quick to give grieving parents the oxygen of publicity, it can’t be good for the parent to not move on in this manner.  Certainly it is no good for wider society.  It is clear that the media fall overthemselves to put unfortunate people on the stage when it suits the media’s agenda.  In this case the media believes the invasion of Iraq shouldn’t have happened, therefore any opportunity to make the operation look a failure is exploited to the full.  Exactly the same thing happened with Dunblane of course, the media saw an opportunity to ban another class of weapon, so Dr North et al were given all the publicity they could wish for and reasoned debate was impossible in the highly charged emotional atmosphere created.

Victim survived against the odds

Following up the Always be sure of your target story, it seem that the badger watcher was hit with a .243 Winchester.  The bullet was a 70 grain Nosler ballistic tip.  He was hit just above the heart and the ambulance took some thirty minutes to arrive.  How this man survived is completely beyond me, this is a hard hitting bullet and an expanding round.  It is quite incredible that this mans vital organs survived the hydraulic shock created by the supersonic rounds impact - especially given the point of impact.

Thursday, August 19, 2004

That time of year again

Exam results.
Which of course means two things.
1) Every bloody radio show/breakfast tv/news item will have the tiresome results opening thing with the usual parade of tossers with their million A stars.  Footage of annoying giggly screaming bitches hugging each other at the results board.  (when did I stop finding 18 year old girls attractive?  Sheesh, I’m getting old! )
2) The usual business about grade inflation.

Results opening.  Why?  Who cares what some tosser you don’t know, have never heard of and will never hear of again has got?
Grade inflation.  Why do the teachers and government continue to insist it is due to higher standards?  It is quite clearly cobblers, otherwise why do the universities complain of poorly prepared students?  Why do employers find school leavers incredibly poorly equipped for the world of work?  Why are the Institutions all increasing their required educational standard?  It certainly isn’t just to limit membership numbers, it is because the standards have plummeted in this ‘all must have prizes’ environment.
It is completely beyond me why the government think that watering down educational standards is a good thing.  It is as though they think that a piece of paper will somehow mean a better educated populous, giving an advantage in the world marketplace.  Crazy.
We may as well all just get degrees from the University of Um Bongo, it would certainly save a few bob and be just as valid a qualification as some of the graduates are receiving. 

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Psst, wanna buy a ‘scope?

Selling my Redfield Tracker 3x9x40 in Matte.  As formerly mounted on my Tikka T3 (swapped it for a higher mag).

Selling on ebay

http://www.redfieldoptics.com/html/tracker.html for full description/spec

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Mad Dog’s Squeeze Pregnant

Ordinarily I frown upon tittle-tattle regarding public figure’s personal life.  However this hateful bastard is so intent on meddling in individual’s personal liberty and privacy that I take delight in this particular gem.  Over the weekend it emerged that Mad Dog Blunkett was having an affair with a married women, now it further emerges that this women is actually pregnant - delicious!
The Daily Mirror broke the name of the woman and the news of her pregnancy.  In some ways I feel sorry for the woman in question and for her family, but on the other hand this is what she gets for schnickling with that vile monster.

Mr Blunkett suspects news of the affair was leaked by an enemy within the Labour party.

He is said to be “bewildered” as to how it got out.

News of the affair was probably leaked by someone who wishes to put the skids under this juggernaut riding roughshod over our civil liberties.  More power to them.
I wish it would spell the end of this horrible individual’s cabinet career, but I doubt it.  You can be sure though, that if it were a Conservative equivalent in the mid-90’s, the Labour party and the media would not cease their howls of outrage until such time as the Minister resigned.
Double standards two faced bastards.

Not a good ambassador

Last night I met up with an aquaintence of mine whom I have know for some years, before starting my tale I should point out that this fellow is one of life’s bullshitters.  His stories are generally just that little bit far fetched, however at the core there usually is the nugget of reality.
My friend tells me how he has recently started a job with a coach builder who is making some armoured vehicles, these will be based on the Ford F450 (big assed truck).  His employer apparently dispatched him to collect these vehicles from the State (seems unlikely to me, never mind).  Whilst driving one of these to the docks or whatever, one cut out on the freeway and chummy parked on the verge.  Along come the boys in blue.  Blah blah blah, unlikely story about parking and beercans, blah blah, comment about the size of one of the coppers (my associate is a Fat Bastard, so pot - kettle).  To the point of our tale.

Detroit’s finest:
“You look kinda nervous sir”
Fat Boy
“Of course I’m nervous, you’ve got guns!  I’m English, I’m afraid of guns”

What have we come to in this green and pleasant land.  Afraid of a lump of metal sitting comfy in the holster of a sworn officer of the law.
Truly this is the land of the Gun Fearing Wuss.  (with nods to Kim!)

Portugese man shows the English how to deal with intruders

From The Independent comes what is becoming a rather familiar tale of householder repels boarders and gets arrested for his troubles.
Our hero was awoken by his wife’s screams as the intruder had pulled their baby’s cot away from their bed, causing the infant to fall to the floor, and was touching his wife’s legs.  The intruder beat a hasty exit, whereupon our hero did The Right Thing and called the police.  Our hero is told that the police will be 15-30 minutes away.  Now instead of doing what he should and cowering in his bedroom praying the intruder does not return, our hero does the proper thing and makes sure the intruder really has gone.

“I looked out into my yard and saw a shadow. I was frightened and I grabbed the bread knife from a rack because my first thought was that I had to stop my family being harmed. I opened the back door ... then this man attacked me with a metal bar.

“He hit me on the shoulder and I was knocked back into the kitchen. The door opened and the man tried to come inside.

“I stabbed him in the leg and then we ended up fighting and I stabbed him in the chest.

“We fought for about a minute outside ... then he managed to break away and run down the alley at the back of my house.”

Now I know what you are thinking.  Our hero should have held his ground, kept the door shut and called the police again.
However after his effort.

Mr Caeiro said he tried to call the police again, but got no reply.

So even if he had called it in, the intruder (who has already gained entry once) could have come back in and set about him with the bar.  The intruder had ample opportunity to flee and yet remained on the property after arming himself with the bar.

The police will investigate the case and can decide not to charge Mr Caeiro. Alternatively they can send a file of the evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service which will decide whether there is a case to answer and whether it would be in the public interest to prosecute

Actually it was my understanding that the police are merely required to gather evidence and have limited discretion, however Mr Caerio has clearly done the right thing and prosecution is most definitely not in the public interest.

Always be sure of your target

The golden rule of shooting - always be sure of your target, applies double when you are shooting at night.  Lamping (using a powerful lamp to pick out foxes or rabbits at night) is a popular means of pest control.  Using the lamp to pick out the distinctive reflection of the animals eyes is a quick means of target aquisition, but it is imperative that one positively identifies the target before pulling the trigger.  Something this hapless individual forgot with disasterous consequences.

Continue reading Always be sure of your target...

Monday, August 16, 2004

Daft bint

Now let’s just imagine that you are living in a Jerry Springer, trailer park world and you are a mother who has been convicted of having sex with your own son.
Do you:
a) Move out of the area immediately
b) Keep your head down, and weather the insults which will inevitably follow
c) Appear in a follow up article complaining about how you have been made a prisoner in your own home, therby ensuring that the story rolls on in the public eye for a bit longer

Yup, you guessed it!

In a follow up article

Payne, of Gilmour Street, said: “I respect the people of Maryport and I want to make it clear that I’m not evil, I’m not wicked and I’m not a dirty person.

“I don’t want us to live like animals, too scared to go outside or even open the blinds. I’ve just been sitting in here crying my eyes out. I’ve hardly eaten and have nobody to talk to except Mark.

“People here have made me feel welcome since day one and I just want them to know that I haven’t changed – I’m still the same person they always thought I was