Gun Culture

Friday, March 31, 2006

Shania Gun Dance Death

As seen on the front page of one of the red tops yesterday, surely one of the most unlikely defences for murder?
A Linda West denies murdering her husband of just ten weeks by shooting him in the chest with a shotgun, saying that she had been performing a ‘sexy dance’ to Shania Twain’s “Man I Feel Like a Woman” (If memory serves Shania uses a cane in the video rather than a shotgun - nearly the same).  Mrs West claims that her husband gave her the gun and asked her to dance with it, when the dance was complete she placed the gun on the floor and it ‘just went off’.
What a crock of shite.
The prosecution agrees and has a different idea

The couple had argued after drinking and West had deliberately shot her husband, a marine engineer, in anger. Neighbours had reported hearing shouting coming from their flat.

Now that sounds more plausible.
Judge is summing up today.

Pistol Poll, Eastern Daily Press

As per the title, at the time of press there is a poll running with the question

Commonwealth medal hero Mick Gault is forced to train extensively abroad because of British gun laws introduced after the Dunblane massacre.
Should gun laws be relaxed to allow sporting shooters to train in Britain?

Go show your support!

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Pistol Shooting Based EDMs

A couple of Early Day Motions regarding Mick Gault’s recent successes in the pistol shooting at the Commonwealth Games have cropped up.
For those who aren’t familiar:

Early day motion (EDM) is a colloquial term for a notice of motion given by a Member for which no date has been fixed for debate. EDMs exist to allow Members to put on record their opinion on a subject and canvass support for it from fellow Members. In effect, the primary function of an EDM is to form a kind of petition that MPs can sign.

(according to the Parliament website)
One can pretty much be sure that no-one will take much heed to it (like any petition really) but it is a vehicle for registering support.  If nothing else it serves as a barometer for support within the house for a given topic.

The first then is EDM 1898 from Marty Jones MP and states

That this House congratulates home nation medal winners in the shooting events at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne; further congratulates Michael Gault on winning his 14th Commonwealth Games medal and becoming the UK’s most decorated Commonwealth Games athlete; further congratulates all members of the home nations’ shooting teams; notes the continuing success that UK shooters have at major championships and the Olympic Games; recognises the important contribution that UK shooters will make at the 2012 Olympic Games in London; and supports responsible gun ownership.

I’m told that Mick has a total of 15 medals from the games but it was the 14th that gave him the position of most decorated.  This is the one that most MPs will feel comfortable signing I suspect as there is no mention of gaining sensibility and allowing pistol shooters to pratice their sport in their home country.

The second, and obviously my preferred, is from that gal Kate Hoey MP, EDM 1930

That this House recognises the importance of the success of Michael Gault in the pistol shooting events in the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne; and conscious of the fact that most of his training and that of other world-class pistol shooters has had to take place outside Great Britain due to the gun laws; calls on the Home Secretary to exempt the sport of Olympic pistol shooting from the handgun ban to allow athletes for the London Olympics to train at home.

This is less likely to gain support from Labour MPs, especially ‘Party Line’ types such as mine due to the request for an exemption for training.  Got to be worth a punt though.

So I suggest drawing your MP’s attention to both, you can do this by email but a lot of MPs prefer letters.  If you have never contacted your MP before I recommend you do it by letter, it doesn’t need to be a great work of literature or anything special.  Just give them the EDM number, a brief taste of what it says and ask them to support it.  Make sure you include your full address so that you can be identified as a constituent (if you aren’t a constituent your request will be filed in the round cabinet) and be polite.  Don’t know who your MP is?  They Work For You will help.

Considering the level of success our shooters gained this Commonwealth it is worth thinking about the honours they have received, or otherwise.  If they were runners or similar then they would be drowning in Damehoods, Knighthoods or whatever and on every chatshow and ‘breakfast’ news show in the land.  As it is our Games heros are lucky to get a sideline mention.
A point made in an amendment to EDM 1898, EDM 1898A1 by Derek Wyatt MP which states:

at end add `but is dismayed at the lack of honours the team has won despite its outstanding success over the last decade.’.

Quite.
Props to Ian at RTS for the first two links.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Cat Herding

Cat Herding
An advert for a project management company (I think), rather amusing.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Everyone loves BMW drivers

(you may need to scroll down, first image is a bit wide!)

Friday, March 17, 2006

Tesco have the EiBo disease

Following The Englishman’s post regarding Tesco’s commitment to everywhere in the UK but England:

We have dedicated buying teams in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, whose task it is to seek out and develop relationships with suppliers. In the UK, Tesco stocks over 7,000 local products. All products are labelled with the country of origin and, where appropriate, with national flags.

I thought I’d fire off an email pointing out the lack of England in their line up

From your webpage
http://www.tescocorporate.com/page.aspx?pointerid=5F3C8F3962834E53B1B9DEF85D4DA6F6
“We have dedicated buying teams in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, whose task it is to seek out and develop relationships with suppliers”

So what’s wrong with England then?  Given the opportunity I prefer to buy
English, failing that I will buy British.  Must we assume that anything
declared British on your labelling is English?  Am I to be ashamed of being English?
Come on Tesco!  Let’s have English products and be proud of it.

Not really expecting to get much in the way of a response but it filled a few moments of a dull day.
Much to my delight I received my reply today as follows:

Thank you for your email.

I would like to assure that we work very hard with British producers and manufacturers and give them every opportunity to sell to us, in place of foreign competition. Our commitment to British farming can be demonstrated by the fact that almost 100% of our fresh meat is British and 100% of our milk and eggs are sourced in the UK.

We are very proud to be known as British Agriculture’s number one customer and we are mindful of the responsibility that this gives us.

I hope I have reassured you that we are determined to do everything we can to support both British producers and British manufacturing.

Thank you for your time.

How wonderful, a response to the invisibility of England which fails to mention England once.
A classic case of English In, British Out as higlighted by The England Project

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Met chief ‘could go’ over Menezes

According to the CONservatives in this BBC article anyway.
Alternatively, according to me, in the immortal words of Wayne of “Wayne’s World”

Cha!  And monkeys might fly out of my butt!

Meaning that such a thing might possibly happen in a universe of infinite possibilities but it is in the extreme an unlikely event.
Despite Sir Ian ‘nobody got cracked over the head for no reason’ Blair’s many gaffs over the short year he has been top wooden top, the thought that an establishment figure (and a Tony Crony at that) would be censured by an establishment body regarding a terrorist operation is outlandish.  I suspect that if any one takes the fall for this it will be a lower down figure but certainly no higher than Cressida Dick, Gold Command of the operation.  For the subsequent lies by ommision by Blair there will be nothing more than mealy mouthed cobblers about ‘establishing facts’ and ‘not wishing to prejudice later investigations’.
Blair is one of the most ‘PC’ Chiefs of the Met ever and darling of the Government, I’d love him to fall on his sword but the man himself lacks any sense of honour and no one in Government will give him a push.

Dunblane Unburied

Sandra Uttley, a campaigner for the truth behind the Dunblane killings, has published a book called Dunblane Unburied with the support of the Sportsmans Association.
This is what the SA has to say about the book.

The Sportsman’s Association has sponsored the publication of a book by Sandra Uttley, former resident at Dunblane, former paramedic and former housekeeper to Dr Mick North, whose daughter was one of the victims of the Dunblane atrocity.

The book is a well-researched investigation into the factors that led up to that atrocity, from Thomas Hamilton’s birth to his death on the fateful day of the 13th March 1996 and covers much that, although it must have been known to the police at the time, was never even raised at the Public Inquiry, let alone investigated.

The book has been published as we approach the tenth anniversary of the massacre and is recommended reading for all those who have an interest in getting at the truth about Hamilton - which many of us believe was not established at the Public Inquiry chaired by Lord Cullen

Of course not everyone sees this as a good thing, as the article in the Times indicates.

Dunblane’s ‘pro gun’ book sparks fury

Ms Uttley herself says:

“The parents wouldn’t help, so I went to the next biggest aggrieved group — shooters,” she said.

“It has always been my aim to get the truth. The handgun ban was to be the great legacy of this horrendous mass murder and, as a former Dunblane resident, I supported the Snowdrop petition to do away with guns.

“However, the more involved I became in the background surrounding the massacre, the more I realised that the gun ban was beside the point. Hamilton could have been stopped. The legislation in 1996 was strong enough. It was corruption that gave him guns.

“Going to the shooters was difficult, but I have no problems with my conscience.”

The book itself is available from the Sportsmans Association.  I personally have mixed feelings about the timing of the launch.  Whilst for the families of the victims there is never going to be a good time, perhaps the 10th anniversary of the killings is not the best.  I want to get to the bottom of the cover up as much as any shooter but perhaps a dignified silence is appropriate in this case - for the moment anyhow.  At the time of the disaster we had a dignified silence which served to leave the field to the gun grabbers, however presently we have nothing to lose by saying nowt much for the next month or so.

Sky News on the pistol ban

Again from the Sportsmans Association Bulletin Board this time from Chris Lansing is a link to a video article.  Despite the title on the web page “Calls for Stricter Gun Control” the piece itself is pretty good and actually features some sensible comments from dibble and shooters for a change.
Worth a watch. 

A Policy That Backfired

Link via Tom Brown at the Sportsmans Association Bulletin Board to an article/commentary in the Times (took an age to load for me).
An interesting conclusion

I don’t like guns. To me, double-bore pistol-shooting lives up to its name. But, little though I cared for the rights of shooters and much though I sympathised with the victims of Dunblane, the evidence now points me to an obvious conclusion: that an outright ban on handguns was a pathetic gesture that has disrupted peaceful sports but done absolutely nothing to make any of us safer.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

More kids running away

As I’ve mentioned before tosser liberal socialist wankers love to tell you that burglars are:

a) all just kids anyway
and
b) will just runaway if confronted

Yesterday’s Telegraph carried the story about a man killed in his own home by a burglar.

The court heard that five weeks before the attack he had been released early from prison where he was serving a five-and-a-half year sentence, four of it for burglary.

Yet another poor sod killed by an intruder who should have been behind bars.  Remember John Monckton?
More victims of liberal scumbag socialist tossers who refuse to believe that some people should be locked up, and insist that the law abiding should be helpless against these predators.

School overreacts to toy gun

More bonkers toy gun phobia.
Story seems to be that a toy gun used as a drama prop was ‘used to threaten’ a teacher, it isn’t clear what the exact circumstances are but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was as simple as in the class the individual pointed the toy at the teacher and said “I’ll shootcha!”
So instead of just saying “Get on with it Simkins” they got the plod in.
Insane.
Story here

Stab vests illegal next?

What the shagging hell!
Just when I thought that things in Blighty could not get any crazier comes the news that a lad wearing a stab proof vest has been told not to wear it by the plod.
Yes you read that right, a stab proof vest.  By the plod.
A sad enough situation that someone feels the need to wear a stab proof vest but you can hardly blame them with stabbings (seemingly) on the rise with in school stabbings being hardly rare these days. 

However for this (the lad wearing the vest) to be considered a problem and such a problem that not only does PC Copper feel the need to stick his neb in but finds the thought of someone wearing a stab vest so dangerous to the fabric of society that he is told to remove it?  My God in heaven what have we become?
The minor irony is that the very copper that told the lad to take the vest off was almost certainly wearing a similar model.
One rule for them.....

Story here

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Cheers Lighthound

I like torches.  I especially like Surefire torches.  Or flashlights as our American chums prefer to call them.  Actually my pater likes to call them flashlights.  He also refers to binoculars as ‘glasses’ as in ‘fieldglasses’ and elastic bands as lacka bands so least said the better on that perhaps.
Where were we?  Oh yes, Surefire.  The dogs knackers as far as torches go, maybe you thought that was Maglite?  Oh how wrong you were, Maglite suck in comparison, but Surefire ain’t cheap by any stretch.
A great place to buy them is from John at Lighthound.  Not only do you get a good price (even better when you factor in favourable exchange rates) but you get a great quick service.  Plus he a Texan.

Animal Rights Nutters Exposed

Following the post about the SHAC nutters, a kind reader sent me a link to Animalrights.net
This includes an insight into the minds of some of these folks, this from gladioli wielding Morrisey

With people in the world such as Jamie Oliver and Clarissa Dickson Wright there isn’t much hope for animals. I support the efforts of the Animal Rights Militia in England and I understand why fur-farmers and so-called laboratory scientists are repaid with violence - it is because they deal in violence themselves and it’s the only language they understand

Note to self - don’t buy any more Morrisey albums.
The article includes some background about the ARM

The Animal Rights Militia is a violent group of animal rights extremists that has regularly threatened “violent retribution” against scientists, fur farmers and others in animal industries unless they abandon their work.
In 1998, the ARM issued a list of 10 people it would murder if imprisoned animal rights terrorist Barry Horne died while on a hunger strike. Horne survived that hunger strike but died in a subsequent hunger strike in 2001.

Cheers to Scott for the link.