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I'd have thought physical size is less important than population, but I dunno how that'd work in practice. Although the major European countries are physically smaller than most US states, each has a bigger population than almost all of them. But the EU and US are not the same as much as some people are seemingly calling for a "United States of Europe": there'll be more *exits before that comes to pass.

Here in the UK there are a number of police forces which are geographic but don't necessarily follow any county lines: here in Oxford we have Thames Valley Police which is pretty much what it sounds like, except for the bit of the Thames Valley where London is which has the Metropolitan Police. In other places I've lived there's the likes of Northumbria Police (Northumbria hasn't existed as a specific place for most of the past 1,000 years, but it covers some of the region in question) and Essex Police which is a county force. They have some differences when it comes to stuff like traffic policing policy and so on but they're all much of a muchness in terms of how the law is applied. And that's pretty much it.

There are some specific non-geographical policing organisations like British Transport Police and the Military Police who have specific duties: they usually work within that remit so the military police will police the military (rather than the military doing the policing which is a temporary arrangement in emergency situations such as now) but have the same powers as the regular constabularies wherever they happen to be involved.

And that's it, pretty much. The US system is something that looks absolutely confusing to me, with local sheriffs, state police, the FBI and others who often seem to disagree not over points of law but rather territory, and it seems to an outsider that the disagreements tend to become quite entrenched even when one technically has authority over the other. And then there're the ones who don't seem to fit into that system at all: an acquaintance was nicked for speeding when we were over there and got pulled by a "state trooper". We'd already been warned about them as they have a habit of shooting people, apparently. And also not to get out of the car if we're pulled over because that turns out to be a guaranteed way of being shot. eek.


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vometia #665360 31/03/20 01:11 AM
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This is why I am not too keen on going to the US anytime soon I remember reading or hear that blind people are allowed to own a gun having said that I don't mind people having a gun but I would not like the idea of a blind person shooting and end up hurting me do to not being able to see me


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I imagine it's probably for the likes of home defence rather than shooting out in the open. They have things like revolvers that fire small-gauge shotgun cartridges so not too much risk of over-penetration.

The gun debate is one of those never-ending things. I'm extremely ambivalent about the subject and can't even reach consensus with myself let alone anybody else. IMHO the US is way too lax about such things but here in the UK we're at the other extreme with even deactivated weapons owned by collectors and those with an academic interest being all but banned now. It makes no difference to public safety (contrary to the pontification of people who should know better, they really can't bought cheap and returned to working condition with half an hour's work: those guns will never fire again, not without replacing so many parts that it'd be safer and cheaper to buy a functioning black market gun) and is one of those useless laws to placate the tabloids. Similar stories with e.g. swords where even people who make and use them professionally are potentially putting themselves at risk from the law simply by transporting them in the boot of their car.

But on the other hand I'm not comfortable with the idea of pretty much anybody who feels like it carrying live firearms of varying lethality. Nobody ever seems to mention the rest of that constitutional thing about the right to bear arms "as part of a well-organised militia" or however it goes. Which renders the argument kinda pointless as somebody who cracks open a few beers and shoots at the empty cans a couple of weekends a year is going to be no match for trained soldiers. Where's gbnf when we need him? I think he's the one that pointed out that when things go bad, armed citizens who take it upon themselves to intervene are very likely to be shot.


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The police apparently have an unwarranted bad record over seas. State police are the best trained out there and are organized like a military unit. It's the local reserve officers that one has to sometimes worry about as they are part time police and not required to have the training regular officers have. Jurisdictions are set in stone - the only overlapping is state police and federal police and if that happens, it's always federal over state over local. As far as police shooting, if any shot is fired, another police force investigates and the officer is put on administrative leave until cleared so it is rare that someone is shot unless they did something stupid (like, pull a toy knife - the officer doesn't have time to determine that it's a toy). There's only a small percentage of people who carry guns - the vast majority are for hunting, sport, and home defense. Statistics are rather clear too. Places that changed their laws to allow concealed carry nearly always have a sharp decline in violent crime which, BTW, has been dropping in the USA since the 1970s even as laws were changed to allow easier access. Really, FBI statistics show that nearly 10 people are clubbed to death for every one non-suicide gun death. That is really the main issue as it is much easier to pull a trigger then any other type of suicide and the suicide rate has gone sharply upward. Gun crimes are also not scattered - they are heavily concentrated in a few very urban areas and usually related to gang and drug activity. However, most international visitors go to these large cities so that may not be important from their perspective. American cities are very dangerous places to be. The "well organized militia" feature is always brought up but there are arguments both ways. For instance, in the US Constitution, "the people" and "militia" are interchangeably used and it is mostly agreed that militia is defined as all able-bodied citizens. In the late 1700s through about the 1850s, states required regular people to assemble when called and bring a military grade weapon with them (in those days, a musket or rifled musket) along with lead and powder to be regulated (trained to the level of regulars). It never really worked, though - militia troops tended to run after a single volley and the cost to states was high so they opted for a state army of sorts (state militia, now National Guard which can be federalized) that was a select few so much easier to successfully regulate. That really is the current argument - follow the Constitution as written or change it without amending it left mainly on whim. Do we use the definition when written or a modern definition (language changes a lot)? Since both sides are fairly evenly divided, it won't change much in the foreseeable future. Plus, Americans have had a huge mistrust of government dating back to at least King George III - much of the Constitution is there to defend the people from the government and to defend minorities from majorities so we don't get something similar to the mob rule of the French revolutionary period. I know, that happened later but it is exactly what the founding fathers didn't want to happen. Any way, this argument has been going on since the 1960s and will probably still be happening in "Futureama" smile times. It is more emotional then fact based so will go on.

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Sadly you are right about people who come on to tv shows and use emotion than facts there are some people who do use facts on tv shows but not that many here in the UK when we got rid of guns the knife crime doubled so saying that getting rid of all guns will stop crime is bull $hit also I hate it when celebrities say you should not have a gun and yet there have like ten bodyguards


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Thanks for the clarification, Canine; I think my "knowledge", such as it is, has been assembled from dribs and drabs of news (and other countries' news may not be as bad as it is here in the UK, but I should know better than to not question it) and various comments picked up here and there which tend to be quite politically motivated. Plus my assumption that Starsky & Hutch was a documentary and that all of the US was like that! biggrin

And yeah, knife crime. Plus I dunno if gun crime has significantly reduced in the UK either: my understanding is that it's actually increased slightly after the last few pointless attempts to tighten it up because not surprisingly the trade in black market guns that entered the country illegally and were thus never legally held was not affected by laws that affect legally owned stuff. We did have a police officer round here who was actually armed, though just with a pistol (they usually carry sub-machine-guns if they're armed).


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Yeah, I found about sub-machine-guns the hard way. My German is not good. In Wien, Austria, I parked in a spot I thought the sign said was legal. When I returned from the museum, my car was surrounded by police with sub-machine-guns. Turns out the spot was reserved for OPEC.

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Originally Posted by caninelegion
Yeah, I found about sub-machine-guns the hard way. My German is not good. In Wien, Austria, I parked in a spot I thought the sign said was legal. When I returned from the museum, my car was surrounded by police with sub-machine-guns. Turns out the spot was reserved for OPEC.

Oh dear


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Sounds like they have some serious traffic wardens over there. Considering what my parking is like, I think I won't go.


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I've been stuck in my property in Germanyhttps://tranio.com/germany/ for weeks now as we have a lock down in the country. Seems like they are starting to lift it up gradually. I hope everybody's lives will normalise soon.

Last edited by Beffo; 17/04/20 08:19 AM.

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It's just been extended for another three weeks here in England. Which didn't surprise me at all. I mean other than not following the news, because "UK media lol" etc.


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How's the PM doing?

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Dunno, due to my avoidance of the media: I'd started reading online news again to keep abreast of developments but as is always the case I started feeling depressed and realise that they were doing nothing to dispel my ignorance of current events. In fact the news tends to make you more ignorant thanks to its torrent of dishonesty.

All I know is that he's recovered and is recuperating. Either it really has knocked him out or a doctor has had strong words with him as he hasn't returned to office and probably won't for some weeks, by accounts, so we still have The World's Dullest Man standing in for him. I suspect that was a deliberate tactic by Boris so he wasn't left with anything too "exciting" to deal with once he returns.

As for things in general, I haven't noticed a lot of change as lockdown is basically what my life is like anyway. It has been a bit of an eye-opener as to how difficult other people are finding it after less than a month.


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