I was watching a newscast from London last night and with all the buildings destroyed and burning I couldn't help being reminded of the newsreels from W.W.II during the Battle of Britian.To think that think that such a tiny demographic of the country can cause such wanton destruction and should give pause to all of us that none of us are completely safe from crowds run amok such as evidenced by the riots that follow huge sports events.It takes vey little for a seemingly small occurance to snowball into a fulll blown war scene.My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Britian during this horrible time.

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Ceri: What you had to say was very Eloquently put, and very appropriately BRITISH. Your Country and fellow citizens have typically remained calm and collected thought many times in your history. WW1-WW2 just to name a couple. You have a lot to be proud of and a culture that stands thought the world as one to be admired. Keep it up and never change. I think I speak for a lot of Americans when I say we love the U.K. and its pepol. We share a special Kinship.
On the other hand "America the Beautiful" has not experienced any thing of the kind. Sense the very beginning, Americans have struggled for our very survival. The Indian conflicts -The Revolutionary War - The Civil War - More Indian wars - WW1 - WW2 - Korea - Vietnam - and now the Middle East. I don't think it will ever stop. Our founding Fathers were a Tough/Sirly/Fighting bunch of patriots, That had one thing on there minds. Freedom From Opretion and the right to live out our lives in peace and dignity.
The Right to Bare Arms, Is one of the things our country was founded on. And has for many reasons become a freedom that Americans Demand, and admittedly would Fight to the death to protect. We have many laws on the books to regulate fire arms. and except for the (BAD GUYS) everyone complies. But the bad guys will for there own reasons never comply. The Authorities likewise must maintain the upper hand and Arm themselves. Aside from a fue incidents involving a Lunatic or two and the so called Drive By Turf War situations (GANG WARS) things are pretty colm in "America The Beautiful" And we LOVE IT.
----Danny,

I will tentatively say that tonight seems to be much much quieter than the previous, the massively increased police presence in London seems to be working and all seems calm TOUCH WOOD, although it is raining around the country which seems to be putting off these fair-weather rioters....


I'm not sure I can put the gun situation more eloquently than Ceri did, however I personally am counting my blessings that guns are essentially illegal here. I can only imagine the situation if these rioters were also strapped with their own arsenal of weaponry.

If they were I think we'd need a much more serious response than just loading the streets with more officers.

Currently we are looking at a death toll of 4, only 1 of those a shooting victim, it's much more difficult to kill someone without that instant pull of the finger.

I think when it comes down to it, it is very very very rare that somebody in this country gets shot outside of gang related violence, which is more often than not gang on gang violence and the general public generally only get caught in crossfire, and this is still incredibly rare. I honestly think this situation is far better than everyone being able to arm themselves.

However don't get me wrong I'm not trying to look down on the American view, I'm sure you all have valid reasons for wanting to be able to arm yourself.


Also if there is anything good to come from this, it has been a pleasure to see communities bond together to sort out the carnage on their own street and to see the heavy condemnation towards this kind of behaviour that the minority have displayed.

It's not even that fact that they are causing these issues that is my biggest gripe, its that these "protests" are completely without aim or purpose, no tactics, just carnage. So pointless.


Apologies, last edit to this post I promise....

But who said you can't have a little fun during a bad time....

"WE CAUGHT THEM AND WE EXECUTED THEM UNDER RULE THREE-OH-THREE!" -- Lt. Harry 'Breaker' Morant, His Majesty's Royal Army

Pretty much my take on those lawless punks.

(of course most folks know me to be a "pacifist")



Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Are all my english friends alright???? Also being the beatles fan I am,I have to ask.Hows it going in liverpool?????

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IF I DO SOMETHING STUPID,DON'T SAY A WORD...

Seems as though Liverpool is calm tonight, nothing much to report from anywhere to be honest, just heavy police presence.

It is a cute sport, and it is in the olympics:

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Honestly it's a mix, young old, male female. There are even dentists, lawyers and a millionaires daughter on the wanted list. But genuinely I think times are tough for many people in poorer areas.

It doesn't help matters that they see in the media all these politicians and rich people getting away with expenses fraud and tax loopholes, its just these people are able to do their looting in suits without smashing shops and burning them down.

I think there is a lot of pent up frustration around at the moment with people and they don't know how to get themselves heard. Many of them see it as a way to get noticed in a society where they feel they are under the radar.

A lot of them aren't old enough to work, I'm sure I fair amount of them are perfectly happily on benefits. It seems to me that lack of opportunities is just an excuse to wreck stuff.




What you really want is a few of our police land rovers.


Its fun to watch them go around corners too.

On another note, a few nights ago, the bbc evening news team revealed that all of the holding cells in the greater london area were full. They didn't think that out too well.

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