As usual, at their very worst.   I don't understand why the Brits would care about American gun laws....well, I have some sneaking suspicions....

(sorry if the format is bad, it was in an email. If you dont like it, dont read it)

ETA - I shouldn't group all Brits as being anti gun, I know there are some fine folks who post here from GB. My apologies.

LAWYERS GUNS AND MONEY
                            "Just Put Down That Law Suit, Pardner, and No One Gets Hurt."
                            The Guardian (London)
                            Saturday, July 30, 2005
                            There are 200 million guns in civilian hands in the United States.
                            That works out at 200 per lawyer. Wade through the foaming
                            websites of the anti-Semites, weekend militiamen and
                            Republicans, and it becomes clear that many among America's
                            well-armed citizenry have performed the same calculation.
                            Because if there is any hope of the ceasefire that they fear, it will
                            come out of the barrel of a lawsuit.

                            And that is why a shoot-to-kill coalition in the Senate, led by Wild
                            Bill Frist (R-Tenn) and his simpering sidekick, Scary Harry Reid
                            (D-Nev), voted yesterday to grant immunity from law suits to gun
                            makers.

                            First, the score. Gunshot deaths in the US are way down - to only
                            88 a day. Around 87,000 lucky Americans were treated for bullet
                            wounds last year; 32,436 unlucky ones died, including a dozen
                            policemen by their own weapons.

                            For Americans, America remains more deadly than Iraq.

                            In one typical case, a young man, Steven Fox, described feeling
                            pieces of his brain fly from his skull after a mugger shot him. He is
                            permanently paralyzed.

                            But, hey, that's business for you. And what a business it is. Guns,
                            ammo and accessories are a $6 billion-a-year honey pot for
                            several corporations: Glock, Smith & Wesson, Colt and too many
                            others.

                            But, the gun-o-philiacs say, what does po' widdle Smith & Wesson
                            have to do with a mugger who uses its gun in an unsocial
                            manner?

                            This cop-out drives Elisa Barnes crazy. Barnes is the lawyer who
                            brought the groundbreaking lawsuit against handgun
                            manufacturers which, for the first time, were found negligent in
                            abetting a criminal.

                            It's lawyers like Barnes -- and victims like Fox -- that the Senate
                            went gunning for.

                            Barnes thought it was just too convenient for gun makers to
                            blame the criminal alone. Through investigation and statistical
                            analysis she concluded that sales to criminals are a much-valued -
                            if unpublicized - market segment sought out and provisioned by
                            these upstanding manufacturers.

                            Her calculations are compelling. Gun companies dumped several
                            million weapons into outlets in states with few curbs on
                            purchases, super-saturating the legal market so that excess
                            would flow up the "Iron Pipeline" to meet black market demand in
                            New York and other big cities.

                            Like the company that sells cigarette rolling papers in quantities
                            far outstripping sales of legal tobacco, gun manufacturers have a
                            nod-and-wink understanding of where their products end up.
                            Their market models cannot account for half the gun sales in
                            loose-law states such as Georgia.

                            Nor can industry executives fail to have noticed the 800,000
                            requests to them from the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency
                            to trace guns recovered from crime scenes.

                            The Fox case jury found a dozen gun makers guilty of negligent
                            distribution. The shooter's gun was never found. Unable to
                            determine which company made the gun that fired the bullet into
                            Fox's head, the jury ordered all the makers of .25 caliber
                            weapons in the case to pony up $5 million for Fox's care and pain.


                            Fox's victory burst the dam. Several hundred lawyers - including
                            the Costanza group, the combine of firms that mangled the
                            tobacco industry - filed suits to make sure the gun industry feels
                            our pain. New Orleans was the first of thirty cities in court
                            demanding that gun purveyors pay the cost of gathering the
                            wounded off the streets, and the cost of arming the municipal
                            police force in self-defense. The legal profession might have finally
                            accomplished what a cowering Congress dare not consider:
                            shutting down firearms sales at source.

                            The NAACP weighed in with a massive class-action suit on behalf
                            of thousands of the wounded and dead, based on yet another
                            theory: product liability. I spoke to one of their counsel, Mike
                            Hausfeld, just after he returned from beating Hitler in a US
                            courtroom.

                            Fifty years after WWII, Hausfeld's firm brought a suit against
                            Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, BASF and others who used slave labor
                            from concentration and prison camps under the Nazi regime. The
                            defendants agreed to create a $1.2 billion compensation fund.

                            Hausfeld concedes the companies were acting under orders of
                            the Reich, but points out: "Contemporary industrial empires were
                            made from those profits. In 1938 Henry Ford received a medal
                            from the F�hrer, and his German plants continued to provide Ford
                            income through 1942. Those profits belong to the victims."

                            Hitler's manufacturers finally coughed up their blood money when
                            the defense, "We were only taking orders," failed to impress US
                            judges.

                            Glock's profits belong to its victims as well. But as soon as our
                            President signs the new law, "We were only taking orders" (for
                            more guns) will be a Bush-blessed defense.

                            Republican Majority Leader Frist makes a big deal about being a
                            doctor. He must believe the Hippocratic Oath changed from, "First,
                            do no harm," to "Shoot first, then run for President."

                            It's not nice to say, but there's only one way to stop Doctor
                            Death. In 2008, I hope to see the headline, "Senator Frist Slain in
                            a Hail of Ballots."

they're probably paying attention b/c they know some of the IRA's firearms came from here.

just armchair quaterbacking.

Good grief.

But I think I'd avoid saying "this is how Brits feel" as a blanket statement. I know several here on this board who would obviously have a very different opinion.

But yeah, whoever wrote this is an asshat of the highest order.

They are complaining because they SO don't matter.

Another Brit rag that takes after that paragon of nobility and truth we call the New Dork HiTimes. Notice most of it is speculation and conjecture, no time was put into finding out the FACTS of the matter.

where do they get those stats from?

That is one of the stupidest things I have ever read.

Quoted: where do they get those stats from?

make 'em up, or exaggerate.  

Originally Posted By Charging_Handle But I think I'd avoid saying "this is how Brits feel" as a blanket statement.

good point; there are quite a few American media which have said much worse.

What do you expect from people who call themselves  "Subjects"

If you know the Guardian, you wouldn't expect any other kind of story covering the passage of S.397  I especially like the final line.  It says all that needs to be said about this story, the writer, and the paper that printed it.  

Dude, it's a story in The Guardian, which is about the farthest left of the british papers. It does NOT represent your average Brit.

Huh.................. SUBJECTS, not CITIZENS

Quoted: What do you expect from people who call themselves  "Subjects"

Well said!

I'll remember that when the ROP'ers & Chicoms bomb Scotland Yard, their police stations and military bases and the subject cry once again for arms. May the chains rest lighly upon your shoulders......

Aren't these the same assholes who forwarded letters from England to voters in Ohio urging them to vote for Kerry?


Either way; Fuck these goddamn communists, may each and everyone of them who feel this way burn in hell!

Our gun murder rate is going down.  Their gun murder rate is going up.

They have gun control. and air soft control.   And now trying to get Large kitchen knife control.

Why is this guy wasting time on OUR politics?   Fucking moron.

Those limp wristed pieces of panty sweat have no clue regarding violence. Hell, they prefer to ignore the violence in their own country, and the fact that they already let the sheep over there screw  them into submission regarding personal protection. The lights are out for those useless turds.

It is extrememly difficult to accept the fact that true stupidity and lack of common sense exists and flourishes in England. Perhaps in a third world shithole, but it is amazing to read this type of drivel from an "educated" source. Whoops...it is apparent I made a huge mistake in assigning far to much credit to reporters/editors.

My bad.

Didn't we throw all these fuckers out a couple of centuries ago?
So who cares what they think?

Well, in eighteen and fourteen we took a little trip
along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans,
And we caught the bloody British near the town of New Orleans.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, I see'd Mars Jackson walkin down the street
talkin’ to a pirate by the name of Jean Lafayette
He gave Jean a drink that he brung from Tennessee
and the pirate said he’d help us drive the British in the sea.

The French said Andrew, you’d better run,
for Packingham’s a comin’ with a bullet in his gun.
Old Hickory said he didn’t give a dang,
he’s gonna whip the britches off of Colonel Packingham.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, we looked down the river and we see'd the British come,
and there must have been a hundred of 'em beatin' on the drum.
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
while we stood by our cotton bales and didn't say a thing.

Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise
if we didn't fire a musket til we looked 'em in the eyes.
We held our fire til we see'd their faces well,
then we opened up with squirrel guns and really gave a yell.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, we fired our cannon til the barrel melted down,
so we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round.
We filled his head with cannon balls and powdered his behind,
and when they tetched the powder off, the gator lost his mind.

We’ll march back home but we’ll never be content
till we make Old Hickory the people’s President.
And every time we think about the bacon and the beans,
we’ll think about the fun we had way down in New Orleans.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin,
But there wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go.
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch 'em
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
But there wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Quoted: LAWYERS GUNS AND MONEY                             "Just Put Down That Law Suit, Pardner, and No One Gets Hurt."                             The Guardian (London)                             Saturday, July 30, 2005                             There are 200 million guns in civilian hands in the United States.                             That works out at 200 per lawyer.

Too damn many lawyers (ARFCOM legal excluded, of course .

Wade through the foaming websites of the anti-Semites, weekend militiamen and Republicans, and it becomes clear that many among America's well-armed citizenry have performed the same calculation.

NICE slam, gub'nor! You just managed to equate all republicans to anti semitic militia members! Do you get a bonus for your Bush bashing?

Because if there is any hope of the ceasefire that they fear, it will come out of the barrel of a lawsuit.<snip> First, the score. Gunshot deaths in the US are way down - to only 88 a day. Around 87,000 lucky Americans were treated for bullet wounds last year; 32,436 unlucky ones died, including a dozen policemen by their own weapons.

Funny though.. the folks that use you as an example want our cops to carry guns, unlike yours...
And it was a lot more than just "a dozen" cops killed by their own weapons.

Ask me how I know.

In one typical case, (insert case of criminal vicitimization here)

But, hey, that's business for you. And what a business it is. Guns, ammo and accessories are a $6 billion-a-year honey pot for several corporations: Glock, Smith & Wesson, Colt and too many                             others.                         But, the gun-o-philiacs say, what does po' widdle Smith & Wesson have to do with a mugger who uses its gun in an unsocial manner?

Let's belittle our opponent. Gee, that's a real mature manner in which to present a rational conversation.

Oh, wait... british press...never mind.

This cop-out drives Elisa Barnes crazy. Barnes is the lawyer who brought the groundbreaking lawsuit against handgun manufacturers which, for the first time, were found negligent in abetting a criminal. It's lawyers like Barnes -- and victims like Fox -- that the Senate went gunning for. Barnes thought it was just too convenient for gun makers to  blame the criminal alone. Through investigation and statistical analysis she concluded that sales to criminals are a much-valued - if unpublicized - market segment sought out and provisioned by these upstanding manufacturers.

I thought the point of a scientific approach was to allow the research to drive the results... not the other way around.

Her calculations are compelling. Gun companies dumped several million weapons into outlets in states with few curbs on purchases, super-saturating the legal market so that excess would flow up the "Iron Pipeline" to meet black market demand in New York and other big cities.

Don't you mean allegations?

Nor can industry executives fail to have noticed the 800,000 requests to them from the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency to trace guns recovered from crime scenes.

Since most agencies run traces on guns, including those recovered from suicides, as a matter of course, this number has no real bearing on anything.


Kind of like this article.

The Fox case jury found a dozen gun makers guilty of negligent distribution. The shooter's gun was never found. Unable to  determine which company made the gun that fired the bullet into Fox's head, the jury ordered all the makers of .25 caliber weapons in the case to pony up $5 million for Fox's care and pain.

So, despite the fact that under Habeus Corpus, you need a body to prove a murder (or DNA proof  via blood &  tissue), here, these brave selfless attorneys have managed to pry a dividend loose from an invisible pocket!

Gee... how soon until they start suing all the makers of blue cars for the hit & run that occurred 2 weeks ago?

Fox's victory burst the dam. Several hundred lawyers - including the Costanza group, the combine of firms that mangled the tobacco industry - filed suits to make sure the gun industry feels our pain. New Orleans was the first of thirty cities in court demanding that gun purveyors pay the cost of gathering the wounded off the streets, and the cost of arming the municipal  police force in self-defense. The legal profession might have finally accomplished what a cowering Congress dare not consider: shutting down firearms sales at source.

Gee... 30% of $5mil is how much? I doubt it was so much as to :"make them feel our pain" as it was to buy bubbie's little shiksa a new Lexus.

The other law firms smelled blood... and profits. As long as they got their contingency fees, they'd sue the Pope for promoting cannabalism.

Not wanting to be left out of the $$$ or press spotlights:

The NAACP weighed in with a massive class-action suit on behalf  of thousands of the wounded and dead, based on yet another theory: product liability

And in apparent ignorance of the fact that many "gun control" laws were outright efforts to "keep the guns outta the hands of n*****s" after the civil war beteween the states...

I spoke to one of their counsel, Mike Hausfeld, just after he returned from beating Hitler in a US courtroom. Fifty years after WWII, Hausfeld's firm brought a suit against Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, BASF and others who used slave labor from concentration and prison camps under the Nazi regime. The defendants agreed to create a $1.2 billion compensation fund. Hausfeld concedes the companies were acting under orders of  the Reich, but points out: "Contemporary industrial empires were made from those profits. In 1938 Henry Ford received a medal from the F�hrer, and his German plants continued to provide Ford income through 1942. Those profits belong to the victims." Hitler's manufacturers finally coughed up their blood money when the defense, "We were only taking orders," failed to impress US judges.

Once again, I fail to see any of these noble "crusading knight in shining legal armor" attorneys doing this stuff pro bono...

Glock's profits belong to its victims as well. But as soon as our President signs the new law, "We were only taking orders" (for more guns) will be a Bush-blessed defense. Republican Majority Leader Frist makes a big deal about being a doctor. He must believe the Hippocratic Oath changed from, "First, do no harm," to "Shoot first, then run for President." It's not nice to say, but there's only one way to stop Doctor Death. In 2008, I hope to see the headline, "Senator Frist Slain in a Hail of Ballots."

Seeing as how Frist was one of the first to start helping the victims of the capitol attack in '98, I wouldn't be saddened if you were hit by a bus, and die praying for a quick death by bullet instead.

Quit using your perch as a pulpit. Your work in only fir for birdcage lining anyway.

(Having spent too much time on this BS already, Tango hits [submit] )

Who cares about the British? What use do we have for them aside from Iraq?

Whats with the Brit bashing?  They have retarded media and liberals just like us.  Doesn't mean they are all like that.  People should really stop with the stupid emotional reaction of "Screw the Brits" over a freaking news article.

Quoted: They are complaining because they SO don't matter.

Wow. Quote of the day. You hit it right on. Media over there is no different than it is over here.

Quoted: Whats with the Brit bashing?  They have retarded media and liberals just like us.  Doesn't mean they are all like that.  People should really stop with the stupid emotional reaction of "Screw the Brits" over a freaking news article.

+1. People are just being retarded jackholes in this thread, starting with the OP.

I'd rather live in the US as a "well armed citizen" than in Britain as an unarmed subject.

Wow, and I thought American journalism was bad.  

What a clown.  So convinced he's right, he can speak with nothing but derision and belittlement about things he doesn't personally agree with.  And in the process, completely marginalizing himself as a childish, opinionated, buffoon.  

I feel safer in the USA than I would with a backpack on a British subway right now.

200 milion firearms in the USofA? I seriopusly doubt that, there are more than that is Canada (though not officially)  200 million in the US is less than 1 per person, and I know lots of people that haver more thhan 10 (some more than 100)   Hell I have less than a hundred (I am not saying how many less, though it is not as many less as the liberals would want)and I live in an antigun country


I think when Germany goes moseying on through Europe again (anyoen think it is not going to happen?) Y'all should not send them firearms this time around for defence, hell, I don't think y'all got most of the last batch back that you lent them did you?

Quoted: 200 milion firearms in the USofA? I seriopusly doubt that, there are more than that is Canada (though not officially)  200 million in the US is less than 1 per person, and I know lots of people that haver more thhan 10 (some more than 100)   Hell I have less than a hundred (I am not saying how many less, though it is not as many less as the liberals would want)and I live in an antigun country I think when Germany goes moseying on through Europe again (anyoen think it is not going to happen?) Y'all should not send them firearms this time around for defence, hell, I don't think y'all got most of the last batch back that you lent them did you?

No we sure as hell didn't.  And in some of those countries they MELTED THEM DOWN.  Bastards.

Quoted: Quoted: 200 milion firearms in the USofA? I seriopusly doubt that, there are more than that is Canada (though not officially)  200 million in the US is less than 1 per person, and I know lots of people that haver more thhan 10 (some more than 100)   Hell I have less than a hundred (I am not saying how many less, though it is not as many less as the liberals would want)and I live in an antigun country I think when Germany goes moseying on through Europe again (anyoen think it is not going to happen?) Y'all should not send them firearms this time around for defence, hell, I don't think y'all got most of the last batch back that you lent them did you? No we sure as hell didn't.  And in some of those countries they MELTED THEM DOWN.  Bastards.

Yes, wasn't it the English that trashed all the Garands we lent them?  BASTARDS

Quoted: Quoted: What do you expect from people who call themselves  "Subjects" WellPOORLY said!

British nationals are not subjects. They are citizens. Have been since the British Nationality Act of 1982. Effectively, British monarchs have had little real power since 1782, when Parliament stripped King George the Third of most of his powers. Since then British people have been subject to nothing- execpt socialist stupidity....


BTW the editorial comes from the Guardian, one of the most loony left of newsrags in the UK. Whaddyaexpect?