Road Rage

[Geffers]

This is quite hilarious.

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Geffers

 

[Tiffany]

Funny, boxers they're not

 

[Ian]

This is where I would say, I'm a lover not a fighter

 

[Astro What]

In Texas, Florida and a few other states you are more likely to be facing a gun if you pull a stunt like this now.

 

[Retro]

This is what scares me about America. You can lose your life, or suffer life changing injuries over nothing at all due to guns.

 

[Crims]

This is what scares me about America. You can lose your life, or suffer life changing injuries over nothing at all due to guns.

Random drop in though I've seen a lot of US people trying to - well not teach, though socialise with the more dangerous parts of the US and honestly I can't see that ever happen. Between Japan, the states and the UK there's something that implicitly always brings back that sort of threatening danger. In all fairness the safest part of America is Disneyland.

 

[Astro What]

This is what scares me about America. You can lose your life, or suffer life changing injuries over nothing at all due to guns.

Stop and think about it.
What is the difference between a 140 grain bullet and a couple of thousand pound car if it's being used against you (which road rage attacks can consist of)?
Or a piece of pipe or baseball bat? Getting shot does not guarantee instant death. People that will do that kind of attacking will use whatever is available.

We do have a little different attitude over here. A large number of us don't believe you have to sit back and just take it if attacked by someone else. There is a reason that the saying God created men, but Sam Colt made them equal resonates. Because it is true. It allows a 120lb woman to fight on a level playing field with a 220lb attacker.
The simple solution to not having a gun intentionally used against you is not attack another.
Yes, I've heard the argument that if you have a gun your attacker is going to use a gun. Guess what, in my years in law enforcement if an attacker was going to have a gun, they didn't care if you did or not. And it's better that you get the first shot at them instead of them shooting you (which has happened time after time with unarmed victims).

My EDC knife would get me arrested in the UK just because it has a 3.4" blade and I'm left at someone else discretion of what is a "good reason" for having it. But it's used as a tool and not a weapon. I use it to cut open boxes, cut the heads off copperhead snakes and such, peel an apple and slice it, and many other every-day mundane actions.
In the US, most of the laws are more reasonable... if you USE a knife as a weapon, then it is deemed as such, but you can still carry them, they aren't outlawed because a few people decided what was needed by what is seen by many as a nanny state. And yes, we do have our nanny states here also.... and those laws do almost no good because those nanny states do not enforce them.

 

[Retro]

Some good points you make there, AW, and is a subject that could have its own thread if you wanted to create it as it's ultimately a rather grey area with good arguments being made either way.

I think however, that in that heat of the moment, nothing beats having a gun to shoot someone with, or intimidate them with in a road rage or other incident. Put something like that in the hands of someone with a bad temper and possibly a criminal mind and they could inflict serious, life changing injuries on their opponent, or kill them. This is why I'm more scared of being killed over there than here.

Similar with carrying potential weapons like knives which are banned over here, but those are melee weapons which require a very different skill set and size etc matters, while with a gun you don't even have to come close to your enemy to fell them; it's a great leveller like you say. Just point it at them and they usually start to back off and if they don't, they're likely close enough that one wouldn't miss, even a bad shot.

 

[Mars]

........... In all fairness the safest part of America is Disneyland.

 

[live627]

just ignore the failing rides and the depressed employees

 

[Tiffany]

....and the random alligators....

This phrase also resonates in the US:

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”, Wayne LaPierre.

 

[Mars]

....and the random alligators....

This phrase also resonates in the US:

Yap, this phrase resonates with me as well. Give as good as you get, kill the bastard.

 

[Astro What]

One thing is guaranteed. You give someone that's wanting to take your life or do you serious bodily injury a dirt nap... they won't be doing that to anyone else in the future.

 

[Retro]

I do like that option.

 

[Mars]

This is what scares me about America. You can lose your life, or suffer life changing injuries over nothing at all due to guns.

yeah, I guess this is the flip side of the coin, but I still believe that the right to bear arms is correct and proper. Not like here, where you are at a disadvantage if confronted with an asshole with a gun, breaking into your house, or whatever.
But yes, again, the other side of this argument of mine, is that it would put gun in the wrong hands, or in the hands of people who do not know how to use them properly.

 

[Retro]

Mars, to add to that, I think it's ridiculous that the police in England aren't armed and have to call for armed backup. They could be dead in seconds, or someone else in the meantime.

 

[Mars]

I know, they look pathetic here, armed with their....batons. Compared to the cops in America, where they are always armed, as they should be.
Part and parcel of the job they do. Here, by the time armed backup arrives they might find corpses only. Sad.

 

[Astro What]

I know, they look pathetic here, armed with their....batons. Compared to the cops in America, where they are always armed, as they should be.
Part and parcel of the job they do. Here, by the time armed backup arrives they might find corpses only. Sad.

The problem is they (UK policing authorities) still want to live in the past when society was a politer one. You see a rise in violence throughout the world, and it's not because of the prevalence of guns making people violent. It's society itself that is doing that.
A firearm is ultimately the great equalizer. It puts the weak on a more level playing field with the stronger (and those that tend/trend to abuse that strength/power over others).
The irony is, so many try to regulate behavior by regulating access to an item instead of concentrating where the real issue lay... the people themselves and their acceptable societal norms.

 

[Mars]

Totally agree. The way I see it, in this day and age, good old notions like 'Revenge', 'Punishment', are out of the window.
Replaced by 'understanding', 'rehabilitation'....Now they put the crims in prison in order to rehabilitate them, not in order to punish the bastards for what they have done.
It is a permissive society we live in. I say Hang Them High!

 

[Retro]

Yup, it's being soft on crime that causes it to be so rampant. If the perps thought that they'd be caught and face really stiff sentences, they'd do less of it. Also, they'd be on the streets less regardless due to longer sentences, pushing crime down because they're simply not around to do it.

 

[Mars]

Thing is, not only is society soft on crime, but sentences meted out are not even complied with.

Murder trial: the felon gets a life sentence, ah, nice one, you think....but hold your horses! The do-gooders soon rally around the derelict, appeals upon appeals; sometimes appeals are denied, but often they succeed, and the piece of dirt is out on 'good behaviour'.
Ahhhh, that really gets me. Good behaviour my foot; what about the poor sod he murdered who is forever gone no reprieve.

Society is so quick to forget what a murder trial should be all about: it should not be about the felon, but about the victim, the Victim, the dead one. The one who is never coming home again.