[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
Sifu wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Alpha F wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Yes it is a gun but it wasn’t loaded. It was for some photos at work. I actually used to target shoot in competition when I was a kid and clay pigeon shoot at the weekends. I fully understand the enjoyment of shooting and have no problem with sensible and controlled gun ownership. I just don’t equate liberty to guns in the same way as Sifu does.
Since you are acquainted with fire arms would you change your position if the situation here got worse? It wasn’t long ago two young women went to prison for hiding their boyfriends guns - there is a campaign on this issue at this moment as the problem escalates.
Also consider that point Sifu made about being uncomfortable having crazy thoughts on how to use your fire arm, which I think I actually would - but ONLY because I have a deep respect for life. Do you think most would uphold this position or would guns be a tool for dealing with life as we are being constantly devalued such as a nations currency and not a people?
As I have stated a few times, I have no issue with people having firearms for sports purposes or because they are farmers that need to control vermin population or whatever. I do however support the law that people should not own firearms for self defense. I believe that this creates an environment and attitude that I don’t want for the UK. I think that there are plenty of ways to combat crime in the UK that do not lead us to arming the citizens.
You have some serious issues if you think recreation is more important than peoples lives. The right to self defense is an essential liberty. That means it is far more important than sport and leisure activities. Your priorities are insane.
The environment that lunatics like you have created in the UK is an environment of increasing lawlessness and violence. When Gary Newlove was fataly assaulted by the youth gang that was getting drunk in front of his house his horrified wife and daughters could do nothing other than helplessly stand there and watch him get murdered. How can you defend the dangerous environment that has been created there?
Britain is not so different from America as you like to pretend. What works here would work there. What causes problems here also causes problems there. The most dangerous cities in America also have the strictest gun control laws. Gun control has been a disaster here and it is a disaster there.
Your last statement shows your liberal mentality of making people reliant on the governmet. No one has here has suggested arming people. All any of us have suggested is allowing people to arm themselves.
I do think that the situation in the US is different due to the fact that there is a long standing tradition of gun ownership. I can understand why someone living in the arse end of nowhere might feel a need to own a gun. Gun ownership within cities however just seems contrary to the kind of environment that I would want to live in and raise a family. If a city was so dangerous that I felt I needed guns in my property just to protect myself then I would have to evaluate whether that was a location where I really wanted to live.
You are living in a fantasy world. I live in a city where things would be a lot worse if people didn’t have guns to defend their homes with. The police are over burdened and understaffed. Even under idea conditions the police have a limited ability to defend people. The time it takes for the police to drive somewhere is more than enough to break into someones house, kill them and escape. Therefore it makes a lot of sense that people should be able to defend themselves, it keeps a lid on crime.
Speaking of living environment don’t you live in Mexico city? Over here in America we don’t consider Mexico city to be a peaceful, safe environment. I certainly would not want to raise a family down there.
This is very similar to my views on martial arts for self defence. If your lifestyle puts you regularly in situations where you feel you need to dedicate the time needed to be sufficiently good at martial arts to defend yourself on the streets then you really need to re-evaluate your lifestyle. Obviously there are jobs that put you into situations like this (LEO, correctional officer, armed forces etc) but that is different.
You are absolutely clueless. A self defense situation could force itself upon anyone, anywhere, at anytime. If your martial arts teachers don’t know enough about self defense to teach that simple fact of life you should find a different teacher who knows what they are doing. Because it is quite obvious that the ones you have trained with haven’t taught you the first thing about self defense.
This does not mean that it is not worth taking a course and learning about awareness avoiding dangerous situations, it just means that martial arts training for me is about doing something I enjoy.
Sifu you are totally missing the point on my self defence comments. I would put my trainers up against anyone you have trained with in a sports setting given that they are multiple time Mundial Gold Medalists and UFC champions. I train a sport because I enjoy it but I am very realistic about the fact that I am training a sport. [/quote]
Just because a person has done well at sport martial arts that in no way guarantees that they have a good grasp on self defense. My teacher who had twenty years of law enforment experience taught me that something could happen anywhere at anytime. Just because someone is in a “good area” it doesn’t mean they could not get assaulted. Yet you think that somehow everyone can just pick up and move somethwere safe and that there are safe places to run to. For all your teachers sports titles he didn’t teach you much about self defense if you don’t know that crime happens in ‘good areas’ too.
[quote]
Self defence is mostly about avoiding or de-escalating the situation, not about learning lots of techniques. [/quote]
How about not letting your guard down just because you think that you are in a “good area”?
[quote]
The majority of people who I have met that obsess about training things that are ‘street applicable’ are totally deluded, dumb arses or both. That is not to say that there are not self defence trainers that are highly skilled and worth training with. It is just that they are in the minority.[/quote]
That is because it has become a buzzword and it appeals to people if you can offer them a short cut. Saying you are teaching for “the street” is a way to cover up a lack of knowledge. Because of course there are all manner of things that you don’t need for “the street”.
[quote]
The reason that the cases you are able to pull up of people being murdered are so shocking is because they are so rare. The risk is very small relative to the risks we take doing things like getting in a car.
And for the record I don’t live in D.F. That is a concious decision on my part. I could earn a lot more than I do living here in Guanajuato State however I consider that the quality of life that I am able to give my family here is much higher. One of the considerations for that is the levels of violence in D.F. [/quote]
There is a lot of violence and corruption in Mexico. They also have much stricter gun control laws than the US. If you go across the Mexican border into Texas the murder rate plummets. That says a lot for how well the law is working in Mexico.
