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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (19833)	2/24/2002 5:15:06 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The right to bear arms?? concealed, like in texas?? What has the "right" got to do with it? They get carried anyway. The criminals feel safer now that no one owns gun legally. portal.telegraph.co.uk Gun crime trebles as weapons and drugs flood British cities By David Bamber, Home Affairs Correspondent (Filed: 24/02/2002) GUN crime has almost trebled in London during the past year and is soaring in other British cities, according to Home Office figures obtained by The Telegraph. Police chiefs fear that Britain is witnessing the kind of cocaine-fuelled violence that burst upon American cities in the 1980s. Cocaine, particularly from Jamaica, now floods into Britain, while the availability of weapons - many of them from eastern Europe - is also increasing. Detectives in London say that the illegal importation of guns started after the end of the Bosnia conflict and that they are changing hands for as little as £200. During the 10 months to January 31, there were 939 crimes involving firearms in the Metropolitan Police area compared with 322 in the 10 months to the end of January, 2001 - an almost three-fold increase. In Merseyside there were 57 shootings during the 12 months to last December compared with 15 in the same period the year before. Greater Manchester also recorded a 23 per cent increase in gun crime and there have been rises in Nottinghamshire, Avon and Somerset, West Yorkshire and the Northumbria Police area which covers Newcastle. Gun crimes during the first 10 months of the annual period have trebled in most of the urban areas which have so far submitted statistics to the Home Office. Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said gun gangs were spreading across the country whereas, until recently, they were confined to a handful of London boroughs. Sir John said: "We have to stem the large number of guns coming in. We know you can buy a gun in London for £200 to £300, and that's frightening. The price of hiring or buying a gun has come down because there are more guns circulating. We are having success; we are taking out about 600 guns a year." The new gun crime figures also show that handgun crime has soared past levels last seen before the Dunblane massacre of 1996 and the ban on the weapons that followed. The ban on ownership of handguns was introduced in 1997, the year after Thomas Hamilton, an amateur shooting enthusiast, shot dead 16 schoolchildren, their teacher and himself in Dunblane, Perthshire. It was hoped that the measure would reduce the number of handguns available to criminals. According to internal Home Office statistics, however, handgun crime is now at its highest since 1993.

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (19833)	2/24/2002 6:24:08 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Interesting article at the "Reason" site on Canadian students reaction to studying in Cuba. Guess it goes to show you "can fool all the Canadian students all of the time." Northern Lites Naively idealistic students ignore the dark side of Cuba By David Wallis During a recent reporting trip in Cuba, I was invited to join the party by a few Canadian students attending The University of Havana. Slouched on a beat-up couch in the host's off-campus crash pad, the Canadians, who had come to Cuba as part of Dalhousie University's study-abroad program, sounded like walking, talking propaganda billboards for the Communist party. They championed Cuba's free education system and universal medical care, and blamed the suffering of the Cuban people solely on the U.S. trade embargo. Freedom, as a student from Ontario explained it, never put food in a peasant's stomach or inoculated a child. Furthermore, the ubiquitous block wardens who keep tabs on their neighbors' loyalty to the revolution are actually harmless, since they operate out in the open. A Newfoundlander offered a shrug and a blank stare when asked if she had considered the fact that her tuition might be supporting a government that rules by repression. And, as the lone Cuban guest at the party squirmed in silence (perhaps the free exchange of ideas unnerved him), a fellow from Vancouver questioned why I was all hung up on this personal liberty trip. Listen up dudes: Many Canadians, especially coddled international development students on one-way exchange programs, need to go back to school when it comes to Cuba. That goes for the professors at Dalhousie University as well. Upon my return from Cuba, I chatted with Prof. Jane Parpart, acting chair of international development studies at Dalhousie in Nova Scotia. "I'm sure Cuban students could come here," she said in all seriousness. "I hope students could come here just like students from Sierra Leone or anywhere." Perhaps Dalhousie's dean might consider adding a forthcoming report on Cuba by the human rights organization Freedom House to the school's required reading list -- for students and administrators. They would learn that "freedom of movement and the right to choose one's residence, education or job are severely restricted" in Cuba, and how "attempting to leave the island without permission is a punishable offense." They would get an education about Fidel Castro's stranglehold on information. Independent Cuban journalists face "jail terms and hard labor and assaults while in prison by state security agents." Apparently, even a baseball writer poses a threat to Castro. According to Reason.com, Cuban baseball historian Severino Nieto can't get his several scholarly books about baseball published, because Castro refuses to acknowledge that organized sports existed before the revolution. And they would receive a harsh lesson on the cruel conditions endured by Cuban political dissidents, who can languish for years in Castro's jails and psychiatric institutions on trumped-up charges such as "disseminating enemy propaganda." Yet even when faced with the facts, many Canadians, including the naively idealistic students in Havana, undoubtedly continue to play down the dark side of Cuba, which happens to be the second most popular destination for Canadian tourists. To explain their illicit affair with Castro, some will cite the Canadian tradition of "constructive engagement," a policy that amounts to unconstructive detachment. Just consider Castro's repeated refusal to sign the United Nations Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, despite the pleas of Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Others suggest that cheering on Castro allows Canadians the chance to differentiate themselves from the U.S., while giving their imposing neighbor to the south a kick in the cojones. Psychiatrists might call it "projection." But students of the human condition know that support for an immoral regime that enslaves its people only provides succor to the enemy -- not the enemy of the U.S., but enemies of freedom and democracy everywhere. David Wallis is the CEO of Featurewell.com.

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (19833)	2/25/2002 12:05:53 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi ilmarinen; Re: "The right to bear arms??" The Afghans already have that right. in spades. Re: "concealed, like in Teaxs?? Traditional Texas law is that weapons can be carried, but only exposed to view. That's why you see gun racks in the visible back window of pickup trucks. The concept of carrying a concealed weapon is not at all traditional. It was only quite recently that Texas passed a law for concealed weapons permits: In 1994, Texas citizens approved a nonbinding resolution asking the state to grant Texans the right to carry concealed weapons. Gov. Ann Richards had vetoed such a bill prior to the vote and vowed that no such bill would pass while she was governor. By contrast, her opponent in the race for governor, George W. Bush, said that if elected he would sign an appropriately structured "right-to-carry" law. Bush won the election and on May 26, 1995, signed a law granting Texans the right to carry concealed firearms. When he did so, Texas joined 22 other states that since 1986 have made it legal to carry concealed weapons. ... Shootings involving licensees are rare. However, most permit holders who have wounded or killed purported assailants have not been arrested because the authorities have determined that the shootings were justified. For instance: ... ncpa.org Cowboys don't carry their weapons concealed. They carry them on their hip where everyone can see it. Concealed carry is a sign that Texas is joining the rest of the United States, not a sign of primitiveness there. -- Carl