mr2mk1g

It once took me a couple of days of explaining in PM's to someone on here quite what I had meant when I said I had posted because I was "pissed". See in the UK, "pissed" can mean angry but would more commonly mean "drunk"; very very drunk. Hence the confusion. My American friend thought I'd said I posted because I was angry. I hadn't - I was just drunk... very very drunk.

Don't listen to him Shrop - we'll be cool so long as he has a route of escape!

um... I hate to break it to you but all of the above rights also apply to people "effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large." Go grab a rope Shropshire, we got us a hanging! Don't worry, Poll Tax sucked so bad no one paid it – its been axed now and even its replacement, "Council Tax" is not long for the chopping board. PS the weather here's been stonking hot and perfect blue skies for a week straight now, (I know, I know the very fact that I say that as if it's an achievement is the problem in itself).

Unfortunately ignorance of the law is rather widespread within any general populous. There are always accessibility issues and because of this governments the world over need to do more to actively educate people. But at the end of the day all the information is out there – people have a duty to educate themselves too. You'd hope so - they better get trained on more than just ticketing people's cars! And the decision to prosecute is taken by the CPS (Crown lawyers) who should certainly know what's what.

You’ve actually hit the nail on the head here. There was a politically motivated move last year by the Tory party during the run up to the general election trying to get the law on self defence changed. They said the current law didn’t protect home owners sufficiently and needed to be changed more in their favour. I personally was outraged because the new wording they proposed would have produced EXACTLY the same situation at law as we currently had. Ie the change was simply superficial and would have given the impression that they were doing something productive when in fact nothing would change at all. It was a vote winner pure and simple and wasn’t actually going to change anything. This was all over the news for about 2-3 days and the whole country was behind the change. That is, it was until the present law was explained to people in some TV specials and news articles. Suddenly no one wanted the law changed because they realised exactly what the current rules were and were entirely happy with them. The conclusion of all the pundits and lawmakers was that people were simply ignorant of the current law and some public education was promised (not that I’ve seen anything yet).

See I got a fair bit of stick from some a year ago for saying that the relatively recent change in Florida law removing the duty to retreat from its statute books brought Florida laws on self defence more in line with those found in the UK. There’s no duty to retreat, warn or strike second here and never has been. I think there’s definitely a balance to be struck – perhaps some States might think about whether shooting someone just because they happen to be on your lawn is really a reasonable stance to support and others might think about what an onerous duty it really is to require their citizenry to attempt to retreat before they are allowed to defend themselves. I think English law really does sit firmly in between those two positions. No duty to retreat or anything - but killing someone has got to be reasonable. What more (or less) can you ask than for people to act reasonably? If they don't then by definition their actions were unreasonable – of course people should be censured for doing something society considers to be unreasonable.

Don’t worry, not really a lot of work – It’s my job so I can trot this stuff off as fast as I can type. By “force is used in a conflict” do you mean during a fight/punch-up or are you referring to instances where there is a question about whether or not the force used was reasonable? Either way the conduct of a file is always up to the prosecutor (CPS) – if they feel a prosecution is not in the public interest then they will not pursue the matter. No matter what people hear in the press this actually happens a lot where self defence is in issue – there’s no public interest in seeing home owners, for example, prosecuted for taking down burglars. It only goes to the courts where there’s a real question about the conduct of the home owner (or of course where someone at the CPS fucks up). Similarly where there’s been a punch-up, if one party is clearly the guy defending himself from the other he’s probably simply used as a witness and wont be prosecuted for anything. If it’s not clear to the CPS then maybe they’ll both get done for affray (or whatever, as circumstances dictate) and a jury will have to figure it all out. As far as defence of your home – there’s no presumption in English law that someone in your home may be killed just for being there. There is however a presumption in peoples minds (ie the jury’s) that if someone is in your home you probably felt at risk from them. Ergo if someone is in your home then it is highly likely the jury is going to be extremely sympathetic to the notion that you felt threatened and thus had cause to use more serious forms of violence against the intruder. You still have to act reasonably under the circumstances – but the circumstance that you are stood in your own home is a heavy weight to lay on your side of the scales of justice.

1) Yes. 2) The only constraint is that the force used must be reasonable under all of the circumstances as you believed them to be. Key things to note are that: a) it's a jury who gets to decide what is and is not reasonable (ie 12 people just like you) b) they take into account all of the circumstances c) those circumstances are as you believed them to be - (eg if you honestly thought he was armed then the jury has to consider the reasonableness of an act against an armed assailant even though in reality you made a mistake and he wasn't actually armed). d) there is no reasonableness test for your beliefs - (ie so long as the belief was honestly held it doesn't matter how outlandish that belief was (though if it's really outlandish the jury might think you're lying)). e) there's no duty to retreat f) there's no duty to warn before striking g) first strike is perfectly acceptable h) you can use whatever weapon you like so long as the force afforded by that weapon is reasonable under the circumstances believed by you. There is a further constraint on the use of lethal force in that it may not be used in defence of property alone. If you or another are threatened then killing is fine, but it's been held that lethal force cannot be justified simply to protect your widescreen TV; ie no matter how much of a scumbag they are a TV simply isn't worth killing for. So basically the answers to Micro’s posts back on p2 are "yes" "yes" and "yes". The case I usually give as an example of just how far you can go is that of Attorney-General's Reference (No. 2 of 1983) where it was held that the use of petrol bombs in self defence was entirely reasonable under the circumstances in which the defendant found himself.

Talk to your instructor about getting your chin on your chest - that is the direction your head is going on opening so make sure it has no where left to go. This will help a lot to prevent injury. The only thing is that keeping your head up helps your arch so make sure you talk it through with your instructor before altering your body position on deployment. Keep your neck straight too - turning your head will significantly increase the risk of injury.

Last week I represented a man at a Coroner's Inquest who was involved in a fatal head on collision earlier this year. He was wearing his seatbelt. He walked away from the accident and gave evidence at the inquest despite the fact that his car suffered significantly more serious damage than the other. The woman in the other car was not wearing a seatbelt. The police accident reconstruction determined that each car was going no more than 30mph at impact. The 22 year old woman in the other car died at the scene. She was traveling home from work early because she was suffering from morning sickness. Her unborn baby died with her. Her first daughter was due to celebrate her first birthday the next day and a party was already planned. She was traveling at 30mph along the road she took every day from work to home. She wasn't wearing her seatbelt. She is dead. Wear your seatbelt people.

I do apologize; he was just a Lieutenant.

He didn't enter the army as a General, genius – he was a Major at the time of My Lai.

It weighs 66lb. We can guess at the other weights: SF soldier… probably about 225lb. O2 system and helmet maybe another 40lb?? Clothes, boots and sundries 20lb So weight before the rig or any weapons and equipment is in excess of 350lb and he's probably gonna be landing at night onto unknown terrain in hostile territory. I know I'd want a big-ass tandem rig.

With your "A" it's up to you so long as the CCI is happy with it (that pretty much goes for everyone and everything that goes on at their DZ). You'll find that more than just the odd CCI will not be happy with you jumping with just an alti watch. If I was flight lining you I wouldn't be happy with you with only a watch. A neptune however or any of the other skydiving specific instruments wouldn't even raise so much as an eyebrow.

On a pragmatic note, at my level of experiance I might get away with using an alti watch Zeemax does. Darkwing probably wouldn't even get asked about it if were to use a watch. You however wouldn't be let near the plane with it only - with your experiance you're gonna need an ordinary alti no matter how good or bad the idea of using a watch style alti is. I use a Suunto Observer watch in addition to my analogue alti. It can provide some great additional info - especially under canopy. I do not feel it is suitable for most people to use in freefall however and I suspect it's utility is entirely replaced by the features you find on many modern digital altimeters.

Don't worry about the FAR or the SIM - they only apply in the US, not where you jump... well you could read the SIM - it's a good learning tool but bear in mind some of it will differ from what's expected over here. The rules which govern you say that from the plane you have to be able to see the ground between your opening point and landing point. This means that you can quite legally jump through cloud in some situations (you don't actually fall along your line of sight). It still doesn't mean it's a good idea however, for all the reasons listed above.

There was a wire running up his arm. Still a rather dangerous stunt mind even if he was wired to the rig - if it got away from them or malfunctionned in any way he would have been in a very very bad position. There have been several true chuteless jumps done in the past however where the jumper exited entirely seperate to his canopy and was passed it in freefall by another jumper.

It's just the guys from Mythbusters working on a Wily Coyote stunt. They've already done the recreation part which went with more of a "pft" than a bang and now they're going for the replication section of the experiment.

Yes but a large number of firearms which were once legally held were now illegally held. As possession is an offence which counts towards the total annual number of firearms offences then yes - the law in and of itself did actually increase the number of firearms offences occurring each year. Just like if you banned spitting. You wouldn't necessarily see an increase in the number of times people spat but you would certainly see an increase in the number offences committed as what was once legal was now prohibited. I posted above that in 1998, the year after the ban was introduced, there were 1,245 prosecutions under the 1997 legislation for possession; legislation which did not exist the year before. It's not by any means the whole story, but it is undeniably a part of it.

No John, I simply put less weight on evidence which is always prefaced by a paragraph reading: "police recorded crime figures do not provide the most accurate measure of crime... The British Crime Survey (BCS) gives a more accurate picture of crime levels and trends". (Home Office introduction to police recorded crime figures 2004/5) We've been through this now more than a dozen times. You know that the way police recorded crime changed drastically after we had a change of government in 1997. You know no one but you suggest police recorded crime stats can be used comparatively in this country. You know this and yet you still try to rely on them. Is it willful ignorance or willful deceit? No I'm not. I don't dispute the fact that gun crime has increase since dozens of new firearms offences were created. However correlation does not indicate causation - the issue is much bigger than you are trying to make out. For example, in 1998 there were 1,245 prosecutions for possession of a prohibited weapon under the new laws – prosecutions which could not have occurred before the law was passed as... well the law didn't yet exist. Each and every one of those prosecutions counts as a "firearms offence" and make a substantial contribution to subsequent increases in crime stats. But again, that's not the whole story. The issue is much bigger than you are trying to make out. Don't try and characterize it as something temporally unrelated because it seems to hurts your argument – people see through it and it undermines your position. The drop in crime coincides directly with the gun ban. First we had the highest crime rates this country has ever seen; then we banned guns; then we have the lowest crime rates since records began. As I said though, correlation does not indicate causation. I am not about to suggest that the gun ban caused the drop in crime. I am not dumb enough to undermine my position by attempting to lie to people as others do on here simply because it appears on the face of things to score an easy point. As I said; the issue is much bigger than you are trying to make out. The gun ban had one and only one aim: a reduction in the likelihood of slaughters such as that which occurred at Dunblane. It did not seek to reduce crime. It did not seek to prevent assaults. It did not seek to prevent burglaries. It did not seek to make people safer from common-or-garden crime or even the more common varieties of firearms crimes. It sought to achieve one very specific and very limited goal. To quote Home Secretary Charles Clarke's response to the House of Commons on this very question: "The ban on handguns was a direct response to the tragic shootings at Dunblane Primary School in March 1996, which were carried out with legally held handguns. It did not purport to solve the more general problem of armed crime, the vast majority of which is carried out using illegally held firearms." Now you and I agree that the cost to personal freedoms was too great to justify this one goal. Neither of us like the content of the 1997 legislation. We differ in that you insist on trying to relate the ownership of a pistol kept in a gun safe in 1995 to the prevention of street crime between Yardi and Eastern European gangs in 2005. As for the accomplishments of the 1997 legislation; well we have not had a Dunblane since the ban. Once again however, correlation does not indicate causation. The issue is much bigger than you are trying to make out. We could simply have been lucky; it might simply be that no one decided to go "postal" in the last 8 years. Only time will tell... if indeed we will ever know.

How on earth is Quade posting the content of the report you posted a link to irrelevant? If the content of the report is irrelevant then so was your post at the bottom of page 4 which introduced it to this thread!! And please tell us did you: a) simply not think to read the content of the report you posted and thus not even realize that it actually supported the position of the guy you were arguing with or b) did you know the content defeated your argument and selectively quote it anyway in an attempt to knowingly mislead everyone on here again?

Taken out in Russia June 2005

Do we really have to trot through all this again John? http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=57899;guest=23169916 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=57900;guest=23169916 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=57901;guest=23169916 The actual statistics show something very very different to the version you keep on posting. I've told before that if you keep posting such miss-information after you have accepted in previous threads that the situation is actually the exact opposite, I will simply come straight out with it and call you a liar in future. The position as I have posted now countless times is: ""Since peaking in 1995, BCS crime has fallen by 44 per cent, representing 8.5 million fewer crimes, with vehicle crime and burglary falling by over a half (both by 57%) and violent crime falling by 43 per cent during this period." (BCS 2005)

I'd choose death over life in a Russian prison.

They're considered a saftey hazzard in the UK. You'd have to tell the BPA to "get with the 1990's" first and have them 'ok' their use. The question came up last year and there was little support.