mr2mk1g

Best line ever...

"Purity" in a spiritual sense is not at all the same thing as "purity" in the clinical or sanitary sense. Same word; two very different meanings. You're simply applying the wrong one, that's all.

Well that's bad for San Fran then - compensation at the very least should be provided... but this is not San Fran. As of 1999 more than £90 million had been paid in compensation for firearms handed in as a result of the 97 legislation. This was not compensation for the loss of a right however but compensation for the loss of a chattel. And there still exists the right to self defence - I can still shoot someone if I need to - I just can't use now illegal automatic pistols to do so. No rights have changed. For example; we have the right to the free movement of goods and people within the EU. Not a privilege, a right. However if the Govt. refused to grant the privilege of driving licenses I would still hold the right to free movement, I'd just have to use busses or trains etc. Driving is a privilege here, as was owning a pistol. Neither affect the underlying rights. Not everyone agrees as to what basic human rights are – fine you feel owning a pistol is a "human right" as you put it. That's fine – I'm happy you have a right you care about. The majority in the UK don't agree with you so here things are different, but then this is here not there so there's really no need to get into such a tizzy about it. Similarly, the residents of tiny Pacific island NORFOLK Island considered it a human right that they be allowed to fuck children. That's the way their society had done things for centuries - that was the man's "right". Worldwide not everyone agreed with their assessment of what constitutes a "human right" however and luckily their island fell within the jurisdiction of a country with a rather more advanced legal system. As such the islander's assessment of what constituted a "human right" was not upheld by the courts the kiddy fucking fuckers went to jail. As for your rights to own pistols in your country – I don't care, those are your rights, I'm quite happy for you to be happy with them. That's your country, your rights; not my problem and none of my business. Equally these are our rights in our country and we really don't give a crap if you have a problem with what we do or do not consider to be basic human rights – they're ours, we voted for them, we wanted them, we got them. And happily we don't fall within your jurisdiction.

No comparison can be drawn with rights to free speech - we have never had the right to own pistols in the UK, only the privilege. No ones rights have been removed, just as no ones rights are removed if the vehicle licensing agency refuses to grant someone a driving license. They loose a privilage sure, but not a right. As for the supposed benefits to society, I can't be bothered to repeat myself again. See this post from last week when I explained it to you in the last thread you started on this exact same subject: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2096115#2096115

The Home Secretary answered exactly that question in 1999. At that point he stated: "Just over 162,000 handguns were surrendered to the police under the terms of the Firearms (Amendment) Acts 1997. As for illegally held firearms... does it matter? The 97 legislation was not intended to have any effect on them besides that very small number of 300 per year already mentioned. This idea that the 97 legislation was somehow going to change patterns of street crime is a pure fantasy.

Has he been banned again? What did I miss?

No Jeffrey, as usual you failed to read my post correctly. Kinda worrying given the fact that you're supposed to be a proofreader. I posted a quote from the Home Secretary which stated: "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 vast majority of which is carried out using illegally held firearms. With regards to the numbers you quote I said that there were only 300 legally held weapons making their way into criminal's hands per year prior to the ban, (ie I am also dismissive of the figure, as was the Government of the day), and later noted that your 3 mil figure was one of several suggested figures subsequently dismissed because differing sources ranged all the way down to 250,000 illegally held firearms prior to the ban. Don't ask me to justify the legislation Jeffery - whilst I can at least see the subject objectively enough to understand why the move was made, I did not agree with it. Try re-reading the posts from last week; you have evidently missed something quite significant as this was all explained to you back then. And compensation WAS given.

The 97 legislation also did not do anything to solve the AIDS problem in Sub-Saharan Africa... but then once again, that was not the probelm it was trying to address.

You don't necessarily need full BPA membership if you're just here for the summer. You can take out temporary membership for only £26.30 which is good for unlimited jumping in one month.

Actually Humphry Davy the English chemist isolated it in 1808 and NAMED it. Although you do get a bonus point on account of the fact that he did in fact originally name it Aluminum...

If you put a canopy into the rig that is suitable for the 5'3" chick to jump it is "no way in fuck suitable" for you at 6'3" to jump (making some presumptions on likely weight and wingloadings). There's more to worry about than simply the size of the harness! If you want everyone safe to jump you are not going to achieve that with just one set of kit, not even one with an adjustable MLW. You should think about buying something this year which is good for majority of people - this means the middle sized, middle weighted people, or perhaps sized for those with least experience. Then next year (or later if funds don't allow) buy something for the tall and heavy. Then the next year buying something for the short and light. (Or some similar sequence of purchases). I know that's probably not what you want to hear... but that's my advice. That's what has been done by the club Twibbles is referring to. It took them several years but now they're just about to complete their third rig which is their big boy/low exp. rig having already acquired a middle-sized rig and a light/experienced person rig. in previous years.

Send a Rabbi down the station to talk him into converting. Make sure he takes along a few leaflets and tells him how he's going to go to hell for worshiping the wrong God etc. Next night send along a dozen friends to pray for his soul right there in the station since he wouldn't accept the one truth told to him by the Rabbi and insists on following his heretical ways. Then ask him how he liked it when you have a meeting with him and his boss.

When I was in Kolomna over the summer, my understanding was they were only mandatory at Kolomna, not Russia as a whole. In fact some CRW guys out there with us got the go-ahead to not use any AAD's in their rigs.

Can't speak for the article in the NRA mag, but Martin was diagnosed as suffering from a "paranoid personality disorder" and relied upon this fact at court, which put him away after effectively fining him criminally insane. That is not the sort of person who I would choose to be the darling of my organization. Yeah well as an experienced skydiver I'm sure you're always happy to read the gospel truth about the latest skydiving fatality in your local paper. Oh, you found they missed out key facts and sensationalized the story? Funny that isn't it. Crime stats are the same. Papers are quite happy to use a completely discredited source and entirely misrepresent the figures within so long as it means they get to have a nice sound-bite from an opposition politician from the party the paper's owner pays campaign funds to. The graph I posted is from the British Crime Survey 2004/5 which represents the most authoritative source of statistics on crime in England and Wales over the last 25 years and the only one capable of producing statistics capable of comparison year on year. Hell, even John's had to finally admit that he accepts its findings.

Firstly the three million figure is one of a number of estimates provided to the enquiry set up prior to the 1997 legislation. Alternate figures were also given, as low as 250,000. Funny how you never hear that one hey? The enquiry concluded that the true figure was likely to be somewhere in the middle of the upper and lower figures (where most commentators put the estimate) but as it's an estimate one can never truly know. Secondly, and to answer your question (although I fear I have already done so, in bold no less, on the first page of this thread); we had our pistols taken away from us because some cunt decided to commit a full fifth of our annual firearms murders in one morning in a sleepy Scottish primary school. To put that into perspective Jeffrey, to do the same thing in the States (given our two country's relative firearms murder rates) it would have taken 1 individual 1 morning to murder more than 2000 school children in one go! Let’s say that together for a moment shall we so the concept really sinks in. "Two thousand children, under 10 years old, in one morning". Can we think of an incident in the States which accounted for that kind of loss of life? I can. It involved a couple of buildings, some planes and some rather courageous fireman who I am proud to say brought me to tears that day. When we take our two country's exposure to firearms murders into account, that really was the scale of the atrocity which was inflicted on our country that day in 1996 Jeffrey. It is hardly surprising that our Government made some massively sweeping knee-jerk reactions. Hell in our analogy we ended up with two wars out of the US incident of similar scale. Now I didn't agree with the legislation then, and I do not now; but I do at least understand quite clearly exactly why the country chose to take away my Browning 9mm following that incident and I must confess I have a hard time countering their arguments. As I point out quite conclusively on the first page of this thread, our firearms legislation is not intended to prevent robberies or shootings, violent crime or murders. It was intended to prevent incidents such as Hungerford and Dunblane. Incidents which accounted for a full fifth of our annual firearms murders in one go. Now we've not had one in the 10 years since the last of those attacks. Is that because of the legislation? I don't know, it's pretty much impossible to say - it could just be luck. Hopefully time will tell. But that there, succinct as it is, is the reason. Attacking the legislation for any other reason is as daft as saying it didn't cure AIDS in Africa. But then I thought I said that on the first page.

Hey mate, how's it going? I've read the article you link to in full. I've seen much of the same text from this author before which appears to have been an abridged version of your link. They do a good job of summarizing the historic progression of legislation throughout the 20th Century. Unfortunately that's where the accuracy ends. The author gets the current law on self defence completely wrong. They are either lying to the reader or simply exceptionally poorly informed. On page 3 of their paper, the author discusses the 1967 Criminal Law Act which I cite on the first page of this thread. They say this act "altered the traditional standards for self-defense. Everything was now to depend on what seemed "reasonable" force after the fact". This is incorrect. Reasonableness has long been applicable the test well prior to 1967 and the Criminal Law Act merely codified the existing common law principles. Additionally, when relying on self defence it is in many cases open to the defendant to use either or both the 1967 Criminal Law Act provisions OR common law – so the Act can't have changed anything as you're still able to use the pre-67 law to your advantage. The most glaring error comes next in that the author states "And it was never reasonable to defend property with force." Again this is wholly incorrect. They are actually citing the 1967 legislation in that very paragraph but they cannot even get the basic text of the act correct. The act most certainly does cover the use of force in defence of property, as does the common law. I suspect here the author has confused them self with the rules surrounding the use of lethal force in defence of property. Killing to protect chattels has indeed been judged never to be reasonable – I guess the courts feel that TV's simply aren't worth that much. Everything up to killing however is open season. Now, aside from the fact that the article keeps saying that there is no right to self defence in England or that it is continually being eroded (whereas the truth is that the right is as strong as ever and has remained materially unchanged throughout the last century... as I point out at length in my first couple of posts in this thread) another big problem with the article is the authors consistent misuse of violent crime statistics. During your enforced absence from this forum I have had numerous arguments with John regarding the pattern of violent crime in England over the last 20 years. Over the course of these arguments I've put up a great number of statistics which in the end even John has openly accepted as being the true measure of English violent crime statistics. To cut a very, very long story short crime peaked in the UK just prior to the 1997 firearms legislation when we had our highest volume of violent crime since our records began. Since then it has steadily reduced to the point today where we have the lowest level of violent crime since records began. (see attached chart) The author of your linked article is seeking to mislead their readers by relying on statements made by opposition politicians. Would you seriously expect Democrat politicians to make statements that when Clinton was in office crime was high and now Bush has been in office for a few years crime is low? No? Well neither would I; and to that end I don't put any weight on what opposition politicians say when trying to score political brownie points – most certainly not when what they say is exactly the opposite of what every criminologist in the country is saying. Now finally on to the examples of used regarding those arrested for the use of self defence. As I said in my first couple of posts papers will always try to sensationalize things to sell papers. Tony Martin is possibly the WORST case study for pro-gun rights lobbyists and self defence advocates I can possibly imagine. The guy had an illegal weapon, held in contrary to the laws at the time, and he shot 3 minors as they attempted to escape. This could well be legal in many instances (aside from illegally owning the shotgun of course). Indeed I may well have got away with it had it been me. In fact at the end of the day Tony Martin himself was found not guilty of the crime with which he was charged! Yes, you read right; Tony Martin was found not guilty of the murder with which he was charged. You don’t hear that in the papers. You don't hear that in the pro-gun or self defence articles. You also don't hear that after his trial Tony Martin was not sent home or to jail but to a psychiatric unit where he was held at Her Majesty's pleasure on account of the fact he was a stark raving lunatic. You often hear a lot of lies but you rarely ever get told the truth about R. v. Martin. The truth is he was put away not because the law on self defence failed some poor farmer simply trying to protect his property from burglars but because he was a self confessed mentally deranged lunatic who was danger to anyone who came near him and admitted he would kill again if given the chance. Take my advice – stop gun and self defence advocates trying to associate people like you and me with people like Tony Martin – he's really is not someone who I want used as a pin-up for me! (edited to add pic)

Yes, the USPA could perhaps do what the BPA does - but that's not up to the BPA - that's up to the CAA. Shout at the BPA all you want but it's not them who make that decision, it's the CAA. As I said, you could just as easily set up your on association and get the CAA to issue a P&E and you'd be away and then there really would be no requirement to join the BPA as we could choose to join the PPC instead. If you want to change the requirement that you must have the CAA issue a P&E itself then you have to go all the way to Parliament and start asking for an amendment to the 1982 Civil Aviation Act. I don't dispute the utility of your argument; I'm simply saying you're arguing with the wrong set of myopic dinosaurs. No. Waivers here are rendered completely invalid by the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. They carry no weight whatsoever and are literally not worth the paper they are written on. It is a very different position in the US (notwithstanding regional variations between States). You're not the BPA though. The BPA's exposure (and the exposure of all individuals those working within the sport) is far greater than your exposure as an individual jumper. I agree that there surely must be some company out there who will insure us, but I also have to accept that they are likely to come at a price. If that price is too great then it is time to look at policies similar to those issued around the rest of the world where individuals are insured seperate to the governing body. As I indicate above, that could turn out to be one hell of a minefield, but I agree it's absolutely time we started looking into it. The other thing to remember though is that a move to individual insurance policies will not nessaserily negate the need for the BPA itself to be insured... that's still going to mean a portion of our membership fee (albeit likely a significantly smaller portion) going towards a BPA insurance premium. The same allegation is continually leveled at the USPA - in fact there's a lawsuit going on at the moment based to a good degree on that fact.

1. That's down to the legislation surrounding skydiving in the UK and the CAA, not the BPA. If you want to start up a different organization, call it Piers' Parachute Club and get the CAA to give you a Permission and Exemption then go ahead - it is them who say you must be part of the BPA after all. 2. I can't say I'm terribly surprised that there aren't that many companies wanting to take on the job of insuring skydiving. It's a specialist niche with specific legislation relating to it. Insurers are all about risk, appreciation of that risk and the valuation thereof. If the insurer does not know the sport and the law surrounding it they are in a very poor position to start appreciating that risk and as such their premium will be a stab in the dark. Additionally the past few years claims history has meant that the insurer has not made any profit. If they are not making a profit then there is no reason for them to take the risk and thus they wont want the job of insuring us - that's why rates went up a couple of years ago, so they make some profit instead of a loss. That said... (and fully acknowledging I'm contradicting myself) I really would have thought there ought to be someone else out there... I have to dispute your suggestion that the BPA insurance is an inferior service to the USPA insurance. The BPA policy covers everyone involved in skydiving ops, not just the individual jumper. This is not America, waivers simply do not work here (again not the fault of the BPA). Instructors need insurance here, as do packers and riggers and DZO's whereas it's less important in the States. We all have that insurance under the BPA policy at the moment whereas we would not under the USPA. The BPA policy is also worth about x67 the USPA policy! TRUST me; $50,000 is NOT anywhere near enough to cover you if you hurt someone or damage a plane – that'll barely cover the legal costs, before you even start worrying about damages. As for instructors paying a separate insurance premium – yes that may well be the way to go with the policy. You better bet it won't be any cheaper mind – the money for that insurance coverage is going to have to come from somewhere and will find its way to the pockets of everyone through increased costs as the skydiving industry as a whole passes their new insurance costs onto the consumer (ie you and me). It would be "fairer" though, if not actually any cheaper – the current set up is a little like communism even if it does mean it's a bulk purchase, (and we all know buying in bulk means saving money, right?) And this same change could also mean we're all on individual policies which may or may not work out as a good change. I'm all for investigating it as the current situation is obviously unsatisfactory to many, but I'm concerned it may lead to big costs increases, not least because of recent legislation massively increasing the amount of paperwork required for individual policies. You also have the same problem of finding an insurer - who thinks they can turn a profit. And then I wonder if they're going to want to know my wing loading, number of jumps, jumps per year, age, and if I swoop? We've met - you know you could find yourself in one of the top paying brackets if this change is made. It's all possible – but as I said it needs looking at. 3. The BPA does recognize foreign ratings (see Ops manual Section 4.12). You can instruct in the UK as a foreigner holding a foreign instructor rating so long as you also meet the BPA minimum experience requirements. If you don't then I'm sorry, I'd much rather uphold the higher standards we have here rather than allowing them to slip. If the foreign rating requires higher standards then there isn't an issue as they can already jump. If you feel that there are examples of foreign ratings which demonstrate greater requirements than the BPA but which are not recognized as such then perhaps this is an area where there is room for change and the BPA should indeed be lobbied. 4. The BEST way of changing the BPA is to vote people in to change things and vote people out who you feel are doing the BPA no good. The council is only there because we voted them in. If you want things to change use your vote and change the council make up. Voting with your cheque book does nothing as the council doesn't make money off the membership fees and well, if you're not a member it's no longer their job to give a damn what you think. I agree with you that jumping abroad may well soon become an economically viable alternative to jumping in the UK. That's a sad state of affairs. I'm not entirely sure it's all the BPA's fault mind. I agree entirely that there is a lot more they should be doing and it was only last week that I was having an argument with John Hitching about the adequacy of the BPA insurance policy. But some of the accusations leveled at the BPA are simply nothing to do with them.

I got a pack of nuts a few years ago which had a warning on the back saying "WARNING: May contain traces of nut." It wasn't the warning that I had the problem with. It was the fact that my pack of nuts only "may" contain "traces" of nut.

There is no burden of proof on the defendant. Once a defendant raises the defence of self defence it is up to the prosecution to prove that the actions of the home owner (/whatever) were unreasonable under all of the circumstances as the home owner believed them to be. (ie if the home owner believed the burglar had a gun when in fact it was a banana, the prosecution must prove that the home owners actions were unreasonable against a man with a gun. The fact that it was in fact a banana is immaterial to the defence). Complaints regarding difficulty in the use of the defence stem for two main reasons. Firstly it is down to pure ignorance of the law. The public was not sure what constituted self defence and thought it was actually far harder than it really is to rely on. In reality the law really is very pro-home owner even though the public perception is not quite in step with that fact. News papers going all out to sell papers with horror stories have not helped the situation... it only takes a few fact twistings to make it seem like a perfectly upstanding member of the community has been put away for trying to defend his poor home when in fact quite the contrary is the case. Secondly (and to a great degree linked to the first point) is the fact that the law itself is very fluid and no cast iron advice can be given to home owners as to what they can and cannot do. All is required is that the force used is reasonable under all of the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be. This is difficult to provide blanket advice on because it really does depend on all of the circumstances and all the circumstances are going to be very different each time. Thus the public worry about what is meant by "reasonable" and cannot be consoled with accurate advice. In reality, what can be considered reasonable would probably surprise people. The example I usually use is the Attorney-General's Reference (No. 2 of 1983) where it was held that the use of petrol bombs in self defence can under the right circumstances be perfectly reasonable. Last year there was a flutter in the media when the Conservatives tried to change the law regarding self defence. They were shot down in flames when there were several TV programs educating the public as to what they actually were allowed to do in self defence. Public opinion suddenly swayed from "protect us dear Conservatives" to "er... thanks but there's not really any need for a change". Opinion within the legal profession was that the Conservatives proposed changes wouldn't have actually made not even 1% of difference to the law as it stood and it was all simply busy work to make it look like they were challenging the Govt. over something. Unfortunatly this happens all too often and what is actually some political party tring to score points is reported as a real issue. Yup, you can have that one... kinda. Most pistols are no longer kosher here, but then it is a long established principle (outdating even the Criminal Law Act cited above) that self defence is not a lawful purpose for the possession of a firearm in the UK anyway, so technically that went out of the window decades and decades ago and the 1997 legislation made absolutely no difference to the situation at law. And burglars can still find themselves on the wrong end of a longarm or shotgun...

No they have not! UK self defence rights are still enshrined by the Criminal Law Act 1967 and are unchanged since then. That act in itself was merely the codification of earlier (and far older) Civil Law on self defence which was materially the same. In general terms, the UK legislation on self defence rights are far more un-favorable to the criminal than that to be found in many American States! For example; Florida has only recently removed the duty on the home owner to retreat before attacking - a duty which has never existed in the UK.

No. Parliament was quite clear during its deliberations surrounding leading up to the 1997 legislation that their intentions were not to control the use of guns by criminals. It is a matter of parliamentary record that police estimates at the time were that only approximately 300 guns per year were making their way from legally held stores into criminals hands. The 1997 legislation was NOT intended to restrict the ability of criminals to obtain firearms. It was intended to restrict the ability of perfectly law abiding people obtaining firearms which they then might go on to turn on other members of the population. That wish is in itself questionable, but it is certainly not possible to attack the move as a failed attempt to control run-of-the-mill firearms offences. Such suggestion is an imaginary fantasy put about by anti-gun-control advocates in an attempt to show the 97 legislation as being unsuccessful at something it was never intended to control. It would be equally preposterous if the same advocates were to say that the 97 legislation had failed to control the spread of HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. True… but then once again, that was never the intention of the legislation in the first place. Here I quote from Charles Clarke, Secretary of State for the Home Department answering Parliamentary Questions regarding the purpose of the 1997 legislation: 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. The control of incidents such as this current robbery was NEVER part of the intention of Parliamnet during the drafting of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997.

Remember it's the CCI's DZ (well they run it for the owner anyway, not the BPA). As far as the BPA is concerned they can turn anyone away for whatever reason they want - because they swoop dangerously, pull low, try to get on loads drunk, are abusive, or even if they are German. Course... that last point is where EU anti-discrimination legislation might just rear its ugly head... but as far as the BPA rules are concerned I'd be surprised if they were going to try and tell CCI's that they must let X, Y, or Z, jump at their DZs. The CCI must always have the final say as to who jumps at their DZ. As pointed out above, the whole rumor about CCI's being advised by the BPA to prevent German jumpers from jumping at BPA centers came about because of a letter sent round to CCI's reminding them that at present it is still not possible for Germans to jump at BPA DZ's on their own insurance, although this may well change in the light of the recent vote once the insurance paperwork has been sorted out. I'd be wary of any letter going round after the insurance has been sorted out however, suggesting some kind of blanket exclusion of foreign jumpers by CCI's - that would simply be an invitation for people to start eyeing up the BPA insurance fund!

You may find yourself having to look for a lawyer well versed in libel litigation.

Just received a copy of this in the e-mail. Guess he doesn't want the building built...