Member sanctioned

[sturob]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Sure, there are a lot more violent crimes in the US than in the UK or Canada. That doesn't change the fact that while they're decreasing in the US, they are increasing in the UK and in Canada. Statistics available upon request.

And your attempts to restrict access to firearms would have no effect on the firearm-related crimes in the US. More than 3/4 (I think it's around 80%) of crimes committed with firearms are committed with guns obtained illegally. So, your point would be . . . ?

None of this has anything to do with our Bill of Rights. I oppose strict gun control in the US because the only thing it would do is prevent law-abiding citizens access to firearms. It wouldn't change the crime rate. Likewise I support the legalization of street drugs.

This was about Dale's request that we make someone feel unwelcome, not gun violence. Oh, but you'd rather turn this into something about the evils of the US! Right! That's helpful, Andrew. As always.

Stuart

[peeplj]

Jessie, I'm sure sorry this happened to you. Be careful, be safe, and return to us as soon as you feel able.

As to the little bit of thread hijacking:

Do you think the 2nd Amendment has anything to do with what is happening now ?

Absolutely I do: as more states pass legal concealed carry laws, the rate of violent crime is dropping. I do definitely see a cause and effect relationship there.

--James

[sturob]

Quite right, James. Quite right.

I was looking at it more from his perspective of thinking that since we could bear arms, we have violent crime. But you're also correct.

It's typical of people outside the US to trivialize what happens there and to assume that we're a bunch of ignorant idiots. Um, yeah. We like crime, so we're doing all we can to make it happen. Eh, it's a lot easier to target things you don't really care to understand, I've found.

Stuart

[Gordon]

Well, this topic has polarized us awfully fast, and we've changed the topic a number of times.

Likely, the person who emails threats is feeling safe doing so, and so the threats are most probably harmless. That said, threats of any kind should be taken seriously, and if the harrassment continues (I assume its stopped, though, right?), authorities should step in.

I'm not sure why this ended up being a US vs. England and the world thread -- any idea where MMD comes from?

As for the US, we are no less sane here than anywhere else, perhaps more so than some places, less so than others, and sanity probably varies state to state, although I disagree with my friend Stuart on the gun issue, but then, he's from Texas. The right to bear arms was meant to imply a citizens militia, in the days of muskets; no founding father anticipated modern times, its populations, stresses or its assortment of weapons.

Harry's right in general, though; civility is what belongs on this board, not group outings. Uncivil folks are generally shouted off; private creeps that misuse PMs for threats should be cut off, if possible, and arrested if they continue off-C&F premises. But that doesn't belong here, as a policy.

'night, all.
Gordon

[sturob]

Good post, Gordon! Yes, as a Texan I am required to own no less than 2 guns.

Look, civil disagreement! What a breath of fresh air.

Stuart

[peeplj]

Threats can get quite serious awfully fast when you're on the recieving end of them.

I really do sympathize with Jessie...this brings back bad memories for me.

As to the gun issue, there seems to be a modern presumption that the founding father's command of the English language was somewhat inferior to that which we enjoy today.

This is not only mistaken, it is exactly backwards: they had for the most part a command of the language which most of us never achieve today.

They wrote exactly what they meant. No interpretation necessary: when they said that a right shall not be infringed, and listed no exceptions, they were precise in their intent: that the right should stand inviolate irregardless of expectional or changing circumstance.

--James

[BigTex]

Good post, Gordon! Yes, as a Texan I am required to own no less than 2 guns.

Stuart

Stu - two guns would be considered way low down here in Bandera where our crime rate is extremely low.

Andrew, you are no doubt well meaning, but all nevertheless all wet.
Here are Interpol 2001 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):

4161 - US
7736 - Germany
6941 - France
9927 - England and Wales

Thus the US has a substantially lower crime rate than the major European countries!

Here are the Interpol 1995 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):

5278 - US
8179 - Germany
6316 - France
7206 - England & Wales

Hence the trend in the US is towards a lower crime rate, while the trend in Europe (except Germany) is towards an increasing crime rate.

It is true that we (USA) have a high murder rate, mostly of criminals killing criminals, but a distressingly large number of people killing their spouses in anger, and the rate of "stranger killings" is rising.

However, the homicide rates have been dropping dramatically as we have been increasing penalties:

Homicide Rate/100,000 by Date in US:

1980 - 10.2
2000 - 5.5

Can we go back to Rudalls and Prattens now and how to blow hard low D's, please?

Big

[glauber]

Somebody should shoot this thread dead.

[Dana]

Bang.... What, nothing happened

[jim stone]

Threats can get quite serious awfully fast when you're on the recieving end of them.

I really do sympathize with Jessie...this brings back bad memories for me.

As to the gun issue, there seems to be a modern presumption that the founding father's command of the English language was somewhat inferior to that which we enjoy today.

This is not only mistaken, it is exactly backwards: they had for the most part a command of the language which most of us never achieve today.

They wrote exactly what they meant. No interpretation necessary: when they said that a right shall not be infringed, and listed no exceptions, they were precise in their intent: that the right should stand inviolate irregardless of expectional or changing circumstance.

--James

This is spot on, IMO. Also our founding fathers knew very well
that one thing the country might need to be defended
against was the government itself, and that the strongest
deterrent to every having to do so was the second amendment.

Checking the statistics on gun related violence that
gun control forces cite, it becomes
apparent that they have been manipulated to in order to support their case. For instance, it turns out that
many of the deaths in domestic violence involving
guns are suicides, where the suicide bought the gun
shortly before the act so as to commit suicide.
But suicide rates elsewhere are generally higher
than in the USA. In short, the suicide didn't happen
because a gun happened to be around, and it seems
likely that he/she would have done it some other
way if guns weren't available. But the statistics get
lumped in so that it appears that somebody shot
someone else in a domestic dispute because
guns aren't 'better controlled.'

Another way statistics are played with is that
lives are counted saved by guns only when
a shot is fired. Of course typically the life is
saved when the woman, being dragged into
the bushes by the rapist who may then strangle
her, pulls a gun and he runs for his life.
I know when I got to New Orleans I found
that female faculty in my department
were packing, and my feeling is that many
women's lives are saved each year
this way. One of them had nearly been beaten
to death on the street; another was almost
killed by a man who broke
into her house in the middle of the night.
None of the assailants had guns.

This is very much the culture war, which means there
can be a lot of distortion, misinformation,
and demonizing; rather than take sides,
it helps to step back and start doing research,
reading both sides.
Best

[sturob]

Stu - two guns would be considered way low down here in Bandera where our crime rate is extremely low.

Andrew, you are no doubt well meaning, but all nevertheless all wet.
Here are Interpol 2001 crime statistics (rate per 100,000) . . .

Thanks, Big; those are just the numbers I've seen before. I was too lazy to find them to post them.

Stuart

[herbivore12]

Having been the victim of an extraordinarily virulent and threatening series of e-mails, I can certainly sympathize with Jessie. For what it's worth, I made sure to remove my personal e-mail address and any web info from various web-based forums after that unpleasantness, to help ensure that at least future attacks would not come to my personal accounts.

Also, some legalistic letters sent with copies of the offending messages to my ISP, who then contacted the offender's ISP, who apparently contacted the offender, seemed to help stop the attacks. It took some doing, since ISPs are -- probably rightly -- quite concerned with their clients' identities and also with issues of free-speech, the strange publishing-law debates that swirl around web-based communities, and so on. My brother-in-;aw, who is some sort of Super Computer Guy, was able to configure my e-mail -- if I understand this correctly -- to block any future messages sent from a computer with one of the IP addresses that sent the electronic nastiness I received. It ticked me off to need to spend so much effort just to keep my inbox free of violent messages, but it seems finally to have worked.

I did take a bit over a month off from the board after that incident though. And the incident has soured me on becoming involved in any contentious or political -- or even certain philosophical-- threads, at least for the moment. Maybe I'll feel like more fully participating in the future, but I'm sticking with reading and responding mostly to threads about the music and these bits of timber we play. I miss some of the other engagement, but simply need to cool off for a while at least; y'all can argue about guns, as long as good stuff about flutes and music keeps showing up here, too.

(I may not be relating correctly the steps that my brother-in-law and my ISP took, as I'm not really familiar with the nitty-gritty workings of computers and networks. For all I know, there is a team of trained hamsters running around in my computer case, doing calculations on an abacus and throwing the right switches in hope of getting a delicious hamster snack in reward.)

Even so, I don't know how I'd recognize Jessie's offender in future messages -- presumably he was booted from the board in his previous guise, yes? -- so I think I'll just aim to treat everyone with respect, and not look for someone to sanction.

They can have my flute when they pry my cold, dead fingers off of it.

[andrew]

I am sorry .I should not get political ,but it doesn't half get you lot going !
Sturob we all know that police statistics are all dependant on how (and if )crimes are reported in different countries .Here they are going up and down quite dramatically yearly .To compare firearms offences here and over there is like saying elephants are getting smaller this year, and mice are getting bigger ! . Almost all the incidence of gun crime here , which ,though disturbing, is very limited is within the West Indian community ,and has been related to the availability and conversion of replica guns .This has been severely curtailed in recent weeks .
Now has anybody got any evidence that Ingram and Wylde actually worked together ,as I suspect ,and which other firms, apart from Rudall & Rose they supplied ?.This is the biggest problem ,after the Palestinian problem ,which we can deal with next week !.

[Gordon]

This is certainly not a forum for gun control issues, but I must say that questioning our Founding Fathers' language was never at issue. To say, as James said, that carefully chosen words by highly articulate and intelligent men, can suffer no later interpretation, regardless of changed times almost three hundred years later, is dangerous in and of itself, as it reinterprets their words by default. It says that their words cannot be misinterpreted. So equal rights for all men should no longer include women? Or people these fathers thought weren't, in fact, people, such as the slaves they used to own at the time, should, again, have no equal rights? Their words, brilliant as they were, were mired in the ways of the world in which they lived.
A bit like Quantz, who certainly knew his flutes, but didn't anticipate later musical forms and genres, later flutes innovations, nor did he allow for other ethnic type flute players who do not have his prescribed thin lips, but, in fact (it turns out), can play their thicker lips off as well as any eighteenth c. German expert, founding father of flute's well-chosen use of language.
The statistics shown above is per 100, 000 people, and it may or may not say whether the US reigns or does not reign in deaths-by-guns. But it becomes a relatively meaningless statistic when we live (as I do) in cities of 10 million people, where those statistics become staggering yearly deaths, whether by suicide, accidental discharge, crimes (not, as suggested above, a small part of the overall deaths), struck innocent bystanders, etc.. If yahoo hunters with their right-to-bear multiple rapid-fire weaponry want to shoot each other in the woods, that's fine by me, but the borders between theoretical rights and urban, suburban, and high-school mayhem deaths is wearing awfully thin. The Founding Fathers -- their overall genius notwithstanding, and certainly well appreciated -- had no clue.

Oh. Sorry; just had my morning coffee... thought this was the "What World do You Rednecks Live In? Forum." My mistake.

On the issue at hand, what Jessie apparently went through, it is very scary, and should be taken very seriously, and she should -- and apparently does -- have all our support. But, as Andrew points out, tongue-in-cheek, this is a flute forum, where issues regarding flutes should be thrashed out. Not the Palestinian issue, gun control, WMDs or any other possibly worthy issue are more than discussed, ad nauseum, on forums elsewhere.

I guess that's all...
Gordon

[peeplj]

Gordon, I take your point, but if read my post again and what led up to it, I'm not saying anything about later interpretation.

I'm saying that claiming the founding fathers meant the 2nd amendment to mean that we should have armed militias, and not armed citizentry, is in error. If that had meant that, they were certainly capable of writing it that way, but they didn't: for better or for worse, they felt an armed citizenry was desirable.

As for later interpretation, that is a different issue entirely. What I am talking about is their original intent, which is really not subject to interpretation, not if we remain honest. They didn't speak a different language: they spoke our English, somewhat better than we do.

--James