nigel99

I agree and I doubt that many people disagree with this fact. The only reason that I get frustrated with some of the way the debate is held is that the UK ban is in place I don't see any reason to reverse it. If the clock was back 10 years and it was being proposed then I would see it as a waste of tax money. So I don't advocate banning guns, but I am certainly against reversing an existing policy. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Rather than start a new thread and as it is relevant to this - what do people think about this solution from Cincinati? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7153430.stm Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Is it possible to statistically separate the chances once you take the into acount a persons individual risk profile? Logically speaking a swooper must be n times more likely to die than a conservative person who jumps a larger canopy. I believe that fatalities per thousand have remained aproximately constant for a long period but that while 30 years ago it was gear related, but the advent of mature parafoil designs, the widespread use of Cypress etc now mean the bulk of fatalities are human error rather than random failure - is that true? Has anyone ever spent time working out the relative risks of each discipline? I would have thought that this would be quite interesting. Intuitively swooping seems the most dangerous form of modern skydiving - but how would the following rank: - Tandem Masters - AFF Instructors - Camera - Freeflying - Big RW formations - Wing suits - CRW etc Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Why did God invent Tornado's? Because he doesn't like trailer parks! Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I think the point is that with a gun ban in place there are no more legal handgun owners and therefore by definition it can never happen again. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

My mind refuses to associate GW with Global Warming instead I tend to read GW as refering to Mr Bush! I think lots of people think he is a loony Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

No this is very different to "thought" crimes. By providing the police with the means to proactively deprive a violent person of their liberty they MAY avert the loss of life. Don't take this to mean that I think gun ownership is wrong and that all gun owners want to kill people. I do feel that the UK is rapidly implementing thought crime laws (the literary terrrorist is a recent example). Criminals will find a way to arm themselves despite the law I don't think you can focus on that angle as if you purely view a gun ban from that vantage point they are truly pointless. However I do feel that it enables the police to more effectively control violent people. You may be able to control the minority through licensing regimes and the likes but that costs quite a lot of money for a small number of people to have their hobby. As Skyrad has pointed out their are rifle clubs and I am aware of a number of pheasant shoots and clay pigeon clubs where people can still play with guns there are just less guns in homes than in the US. Which on a side note having seen the damage a 0.308 round did to a 4.5" brick wall I would not want a neighbour in a terraced house to be armed as we may well get caught in the "cross fire" if they fired a weapon in doors! Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Isn't the point of gun control laws that they give the police the ability to prosecute a person BEFORE they commit a crime. So by allowing legal ownership the police don't have the ability to separate the wheat from the Chav. In theory the police have an easier job preventing gun crime although something tells me that figures for prevented crime are hard to come by. Surely you aren't arguing that by reversing the ban crime would reduce? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

No I am aware that the Dunblane massacre was the trigger for action it does not necessarily mean that gun crime was not rising and hence the politicians felt that action was needed. I find this whole debate pretty rhetorical anyway as most people here don't want guns - the ban is in place and lifting it will not suddenly make anybody any happier so why bother. I would rather my tax didn't go to removing a law that few people care about. If the NRA in the US wants to foot the bill for UK parliament to overturn the ban then I am fine with it otherwise lets give the coppers their 0.5% pay rise instead. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Thanks it is and this is the exact quote. I hadn't quite realised that it was Tim Collins - he has been a vocal critic for some time. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_basra_20071217.ram If you want to hear it from horses mouth. Listen to Adam Ingram interview 8:10am I think you may hear the interview with the soldier (he was just before hand). Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I think Skyrad has made a good point about the UK side of things, and besides not growing up around guns it would appear that there are less "legal" outlets for gun fan's anyway. Space is at a premium and I don't know how many shooting ranges exist across the UK but I doubt there are many. I guess there is the pheasant hunting crowd but that is a small minority. As people speculate about the gun ban - I assume it was brought in to address a growing problem and therefore you can't tell if it worked or not (would we have 10x the gun-crime without it?). Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

There was a very interesting comment by a UK Colonel on the radio this morning covering the withdrawal of UK troops from Basra. Doing my best to quote verbatim (can't find it on BBC) he said "The UK is leaving Basra in disgrace and defeated. The American's are starting to get the rest of the country under control and they will then need to come and clean up this mess". It was a very different view from previous UK military people slagging off the US. Maybe things are turning around at last. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I don't think that positive change will come in my life time - cultures take time to change. We are the lucky ones who through grandparents and the like can get out to the UK etc. It would be foolish to go back. Over the next few decades there are white and mixed race minorities with no ability to exit the country who are going to become reviled and hated, with no economic wealth to protect them. Already Zim laws are framed in accordance with race and those people are going to go through hell - with no rights and no escape. Actually in Southern Africa there are countries that are not actively looking to de-westernise themselves and people are getting on pretty well together. Botswana probably leads the pack followed by Mozambique and Zambia. I think SA is looking to follow Zimbabwe's lead to be honest and I haven't heard much about Namibia to know one way or the other. Finally yes the African American thing is funny. Does that me African-British or British-African? I am now British - my wife prefers to continue calling herself African. We once had an African-American stay with us as they came to find their "roots" they had such a culture shock it was incredible - I was to young to remember much but I think they went back to the US as plain "Americans". Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Hi Skyrad, Actuallly I don't appreciate any politician having double standards and that includes us in the UK. Examples are many and actually a dictator is only a dictator in the west when he isn't useful in some way. I think that you should research the facts on the sanctions though as the "sanctions" are the assets and travel restrictions on aproximately 120 individual people - not the entire country. No I was not trying to imply that only Southern african blacks are racist - I was purely focused on what I consider to be a key aspect of the current situation (as Ian Smiths racism was central to Rhodesia's UDI). I don't expect any country to adopt western standards of governance however IF they want our aid money they have it on our terms. Do I bitch about Zim and do nothing yes - why because when the MDC was founded I supported them I went to London meetings and guess what on the whole they are no different. Zim will be just as corrupt and despotic under Morgan as Mugabe. The entire national structure is flawed and to be honest I no longer feel much "patriotism" to a country that refused to renew a passport on the basis of race. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Mugabe has got his way and is attending the summit. Thankfully Gordon Brown has stuck to his guns and not gone. How can Africa be expected to be equal partners on the world stage and yet stand by despots and dictators? A large swathe of southern africa is blatantly racist (look at the last AU summit where Mugabe was the only leader who got a standing ovation) - why because he tells the west where to get off. Personally it sickens me that we in the west stay involved with nations who hate us and don't want to adopt our principles, they are just looking for free handouts. Africa should be free to go its own way and we should not bitch about it BUT we should not continually bail them out of trouble either. The destruction that Mugabe has governed is beyond belief and yet he STILL has a large amount of support within the country - because he is racist. To provide a personal example of the effect of the collapse 10 years ago I thought I may go back and so rented out my house. Within a few months the cost of paying the mortgage from here was £60 for the mortgage payment and £40 for the tranfer fees. Being rather naive to the ways of economic collapse it made sense to move from Zim's 25% interest rate to a UK bank rate so I took out a £3k loan from the bank and cleared the mortgage. Things continued to deteriote so we sold the home for Z$1M after 12 months which was aproximately £20k at the time. Due to wild currency fluctuations and waiting for a better time we ended up with nothing. Our money in the bank in Zim is now worth 0.0001p as the currency has been devalued twice with 6 zeros being chopped off and it is now aproximately Z$4 to the £1. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I sat next to a guy who kept blowing his nose on the blanket Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Bumper sticker that I saw today: Men are like parking spaces, the good ones are taken and the rest are either Handicapped or to small. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Perhaps I have misunderstood English law. Firstly we don't have gun ownership so that line of defence does not exist. But if you were to sleep with a large knife or pick axe handle under your bed and you subsequently killed an intruder (in your house) I thought the law took a dim view in that you were prepared for the situation? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

This reminds me of a situation with a military military jumper a few years ago who had some sort of mal, with 2 out. So he pulled what he thought was the main into a bundle in front of him and then chopped it (LR288). Anyway he had actually pulled in the reserve, but he just let go and had an unneventful reserve ride. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The cheaper than life is a little tongue in cheek. I don't think that it should be part of the equation - although with our current prison levels maybe space could be used as an excuse for CP No life not meaning life is not a reason for CP - just a reflection on a society that upholds human rights without making people accountable to their human responsibilities. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The UK laws on self defence should be closer to those of the US. I dislike the pretense of using "reasonable force". A criminal breaking into my house, is fully awake, knows before hand whether he will fight or flee. As the victim I have no such prior knowledge. It should be legal to use lethal force to defend your home (inside the front door). With regards to the death penalty I am not so sure that it works as intended due to the complexity of our legal systems. Murder is defined by so many legal shades of grey that it becomes extremely difficult. As Pirana said I feel that life is sacred and I really object to somebody getting "life" with all of its attendant benefits that a modern prison provides when they have deliberately taken the life of an innocent. Benefits of the death penalty are - Justice, deterant, cheaper than life. The downsides are the inability to appeal if there is a wrongful conviction and from a religous point of view the removal of the ability to be "saved". Lets not forget that in the UK life no longer means life - the minimum tarrif system and time off under parole means that life sentances are usually completed after 10 years inside. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Hey John if you hadn't noticed nobody reads anyone elses posts anyway. All threads are simply a collection of opposing views PS Just to keep this thread off topic I saw this youtube video and thought that you would enjoy it (strong language) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojXT9-7IGZU Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

My wife had the test last week. I believe she was told that the "new" method was to test the heel as it is load bearing. She scored 131% so she's happy. The test took about 10-15 minutes and she was given the results immediately. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Personally I dislike unions and believe much like Bill that people should stand up for themselves. Times have moved on the days of unions truly protecting individuals has past and they probably do more harm than good now. However valid reasons for a union come at the lower end of the skills spectrum where I don't believe the supply and demand mechanism works very well. Firstly if we take the guy who pushes the broom as an example - if he demands more money then he is out of a job as a spotty faced kid can replace him in 10 minutes. Human nature and greed being what it is companies and individuals WILL exploit the weakest in society. Also less skilled people probably don't have the necessary skills to negotiate a pay rise, HR dispute etc. In the UK the unions will fight tooth and nail for pay rises, benefits and against cost cutting measures with the end result that EVERYONE loses when the company goes bust or moves to a different country. I guess it is the same in the US. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.