A chat with my friend from England

[cricco]

Today I had a chat with an old friend who moved away from Massachusetts several years ago. She is extremely liberal, and so some of the things she told me came as quite a surprise. She lives in Oxford, where she has been for about a year. Prior to this she lived in Germany. I asked her about gun laws, and if it was true that people go to prison for defending their homes with a gun in England. She said "Oh, it's much worse than that. People go to prison for defending themselves.....period." She then told me about a guy who lived near her, who's home was being burglarized in the middle of the night by a pair of young punks. The man got ahold of one of them, and beat the hell out of him, using only his fists. This poor bastard was sent to jail for assualting the burglar. I asked her if the gun laws were, in her liberal opinion, a crime deterent, and if it helped make England less violent. She said "Oh, no. In fact, it's quite grizzly here. People will go to the grocery store and buy butcher knives. Then they just stab each other." She said that stabbings are actually quite frequent. She doesn't like to go out alone at night for fear of being robbed, and possibly stabbed.
I then asked her about the socialized medicine, and if she liked it. She said she was torn on the subject. As a liberal, she feels that universal healthcare is the "humane" thing to do. However, she said that the taxes are insane. People are paying at least 60% in taxes, and everything you buy has an 18% tax on it. She also said that people come from all over the world to leach off of the free healthcare. It is quite a burden on the taxpayers. She also says that if you need a doctor, basically, the office will have a line in front of it as soon as the doors open. People flock to the doctor for any minor problem. You may wait years for surgery, as you get put on a waiting list.
I just wanted to share this with you folks, as it came straight from a friend in Oxford England.

 

[HooVooLoo]

Bloody socialists.

 

[FiremanBob]

England is only a step and a half ahead of us on the road to national suicide. We haven't yet hit the point of no return, but they may have.

 

[william_munny]

And they call us barbarians...

 

[Titan]

To borrow a line from Jurassic Park...

...Nature will find a way!

Guns are not the problem, deviants are!

 

[tele_mark]

My aunt moved over to the UK in the 1950's for "political reasons".If it weren't for avoiding causing chaff with the family by needling an 85+ year old, I'd ask her how that worked out for her and her kids, grand children and great grandchildren.

 

[Garys]

Stories are rampant of bad care, long waits, delays in diagnosis until it's too late, filthy conditions, and short staffing in the UK health system. Still people here think that it's a better system than we have because it's "free" and open to anyone. Only it's not free, it's paupering Formerly Great Britain. Their military is chronically under and poorly equipped because the money goes to welfare and "free" health care.

As to crime, from everything I've read it's out of control, despite the laws, the cameras, the loss of civil rights. Or maybe because of the laws, the cameras, the loss of civil rights.

Sad to see a once great nation come to such a poor end.

There's an object lesson in that for us .

 

[theGringo]

Only now at the end, do you understand.

 

[FPrice]

My eyes! MY EYES!!!

Only now at the end, do you understand.

 

[FreeWillie]

A female friend of mine moved to Europe because she *hated* GWB (yeah, she actually moved!). Two years later she moved back and registered as a Republican. This woman was a vegan and belonged to a witches coven, now she pisses and moans about the moonbats.

 

[jmhorrible]

.

 

[EddieCoyle]

Cricco, what your friend said is exactly how my cousin (who lives there) described it.


Also...

Only now at the end, do you understand.

Wow! I wonder why nobody ever thought to post that Nancy Pelosi picture before!

 

[JRyan]

Cricco, what your friend said is exactly how my cousin (who lives there) described it.


Also...


Wow! I wonder why nobody ever thought to post that Nancy Pelosi picture before!

..because it's very painful to look at would be my guess.

 

[mousegunfan]

I used to live very close to Oxford. Went to the pubs and clubs their almost every weekend. I was packing a m-16 with 180 rounds of ammo every day at work. I was stationed at Upper Heyford AFB. I was security police. How ever I was assigned to LE ( like regular police) for 3 months. We had a base exchange ( like a kmart) that I had to respond to a burglar alarm to in the middle of the day with my m-16. You should have seen the look on the brits faces ( lots of brits worked at the store and never saw the security side of the base, so they never saw people armed). Because I was security police I just carried my assigned m-16 on patrol. It was kind of fun searching the parking area for a suspect with my M-16. Regular LE only had .38 revolvers. Oh well, your'e post just brought back memories.

 

[Bill Katt]

theGringo, How awful of you to compare that ugly B**CH to poor Darth Sidious. He's a good guy, just a little misguided. Plus he's much better looking.

 

[GSG]

Crime, especially violent crime, is through the roof over there. To try to "fix" the violent crime problem statistically, police agencies over there have been "encouraged" to report most violent robberies and other crimes as a simple theft or shoplifting. Then next thing you know, violent crime is declining! The numbers we see are bad, but it's actually much worse than that because of the skewed counting methods apropos Joseph Stalin.

Still, the cops don't carry guns, and lone unarmed cops are routinely sent to armed bank robberies. Part of their training includes what they call "tactics," which basically tells them how to run and hide if they're confronted by an armed criminal. Also, people constantly attack cops over there, it's gotten so bad that the bare handed edged weapon defense courses taught to many cops in the USA are based on the most common kind of knife injuries that they recieve. If an area has a lot of gun crime though, they'll assign what they call an ARV (armed response vehicle) to the area to take those calls. Depending on the area an ARV could be minutes or hours away.

The best part is, when they've done official surveys of cops, and something like 80% of the cops think that they should stay unarmed, again assuming that they counted the surveys corectly. But there are cops over there who vocally refuse to work armed, and threaten that they'll quit if their dept. forces them to work armed.

 

[Titan]

...The best part is, when they've done official surveys of cops, and something like 80% of the cops think that they should stay unarmed, again assuming that they counted the surveys corectly. But there are cops over there who vocally refuse to work armed, and threaten that they'll quit if their dept. forces them to work armed.

That actually makes perfect sense to me (from their perspective). In a nanny state like the UK, I suspect they see no point in risking life or limb in a job that could get them killed. Cop work to them is probably just another 'public service' job, like trash collecting, clerking, etc. I worked my way through college doing private security and there were LOTS of guys who felt the pay wasn't 'worth the risk' of carrying a gun, and that carrying would just make you a target that needed to be eliminated if you confronted a genuine BG.

I definitely think it takes a particular kind of commitment to do armed law enforcement and I doubt that many in the UK think the 'risk' is worth it.

 

[MarkM]

Health care in the UK is awful:

My sister in law needs knee surgery, she has been in severe pain and had to give up her job (intensive care nurse) as she was unable to stand for long. It has taken two years so far to go from a referral to a specialist to surgery, she finally gets surgery later this month but not a transplant as they have decided she is too young for that.

My mother has a crumbling spine, she is in constant pain, due to allergies it took a number of years for them to find a painkiller that she could tolerate and relieved the pain, after about 6 months of taking it they stopped prescribing it as other people were abusing it. Now she just has to deal with the pain using over the counter painkillers and they have told her she is too old for surgery.

I will be heading over there in a few weeks to visit.... I am not looking forward to all the drunken thugs and security cameras everywhere.

 

[SteelShooter]

I've got a friend who has lived there his whole life and confirms all the above statements, but also says it doesn't even begin to tell the whole story. The situation with the Muslim gangs and neighborhoods is out of control, groups of young kids in general just rampaging when ever they like. He was attacked on a street near where he lives, his nickname is Bulldog by the way, and wound up kicking 3 teenagers asses, he had his wife and 9 year old son with him at the time. He spent 3 days in jail. The teenagers got nothing and are now harassing him at his house and the police say there is nothing they can do. That country is lost.

 

[dwarven1]

A female friend of mine moved to Europe because she *hated* GWB (yeah, she actually moved!). Two years later she moved back and registered as a Republican. This woman was a vegan and belonged to a witches coven, now she pisses and moans about the moonbats.

Ah, Karma is a wonderful thing. Or perhaps merely the ability to learn from one's mistakes.

I should mention my Lodge brother who is also a Wiccan. He'll be getting his LTC and bringing his guns here from his folks home in NY later this summer... and he's going to be taking me hunting later this year. And, hopefully, showing me how to clean & butcher Bambi (assuming we get one). Not all Wiccans are vegans.

But there are cops over there who vocally refuse to work armed, and threaten that they'll quit if their dept. forces them to work armed.

Insane.

I worked my way through college doing private security and there were LOTS of guys who felt the pay wasn't 'worth the risk' of carrying a gun, and that carrying would just make you a target that needed to be eliminated if you confronted a genuine BG.

I worked as an unarmed [strike]target[/strike] security guard once, and I'll never do so again. If I'm going to work security, I'm bloody well going to be an ARMED target. So I can shoot BACK.

 

[the_doctor]

Where does she get the 60% figure. England does have a payroll health tax. English taxes are higher than other European countries.

You have to remember that you pay 28% (fed income), payroll tax, and your employer pays payroll tax. They don't do that over there. They don't have state taxes. Germany has a bunch of states, but they receive their allotments from the Federal government. The sum is that they receive more value for their money, companies don't have to pay for payroll tax and health insurance. Their operating costs are less.

 

[cricco]

Where does she get the 60% figure.

I don't have an answer for you, but I know I don't give a rat's ass about "value for money". It's MY money. It is not Government Entitlement. They can keep all of their socialist welfare programs. I will continue to feed, clothe, and house myself.

 

[GSG]

That actually makes perfect sense to me (from their perspective). In a nanny state like the UK, I suspect they see no point in risking life or limb in a job that could get them killed. Cop work to them is probably just another 'public service' job, like trash collecting, clerking, etc. I worked my way through college doing private security and there were LOTS of guys who felt the pay wasn't 'worth the risk' of carrying a gun, and that carrying would just make you a target that needed to be eliminated if you confronted a genuine BG.

I definitely think it takes a particular kind of commitment to do armed law enforcement and I doubt that many in the UK think the 'risk' is worth it.

I think it takes a lot more commitment to do unarmed law enforcement than it does to do armed law enforcement. I think that their complete lack of education regarding firearms has a huge role in their desire to remain unarmed. They're afraid everyone will shoot everybody for no reason, the gun might go off, and my personal favorite, "I'll just call an ARV if I run into someone with a gun."

Something I find very interesting is that the armed LEO's over there arm up at the station at the start of their shift, and disarm at the end. I was thinking about it, and finally it hit me...people in the UK are only allowed to bear arms in the conventional sense when acting as an agent of the state (LE/military). It reinforces the idea that only the state has a right to self defense.

I don't have an answer for you, but I know I don't give a rat's ass about "value for money". It's MY money. It is not Government Entitlement. They can keep all of their socialist welfare programs. I will continue to feed, clothe, and house myself.

+ however many rep points I give out.

It's only a better value because everyone is forced to pay. If we passed a law tomorrow that socialized gasoline, it would be a much better value for those who drive regularly vs. those without cars. It's robbing Peter and Paul to pay for Paul's access to a long waiting list to meet his needs.