WI Britain had the same gun laws as the US?
- Thread starter Spike Torch
- Start date
If we're really lucky, Patrick Kielty might be inside when the Irish seal up the wall
Pfft... a pipe-dream, Thande, a pipe-dream.
We may get a lasting peace in Northern Ireland, but we'd never be that lucky.
Patrick Kielty is actually the worst thing ever about the north, forget the 'troubles'
Did you register just so you could pull me up on my bigotry?Yes I mean Unionists/Loyalists, sorry no offence intended, I actually have proddy mates now I've left.
Back on topic (sort of), has anybody read this?
http://www.amazon.com/Arming-America-Origins-National-Vintage/dp/0375701982
quote: While gun supporters use the nation's gun-toting history in defense of their way of life, and revolutionary enthusiasts replay skirmishes on historic battlefields, it now turns out that America has not always had a gun culture, and wide-scale gun ownership is much newer than we think. After a 10-year search for "a world that isn't there," professor and scholar Michael Bellesiles discovered that Americans not only rarely owned guns prior to the Civil War, they wouldn't even take them for free from a government that wanted to arm its reluctant public. No sharpshooters, no gun in every home, no children learning to hunt beside their fathers. Bellesiles--whose research methods have generated a great deal of controversy and even a subsequent investigation by Emory University--searched legal, probate, military, and business records; fiction and personal letters; hunting magazines; and legislation in his quest for the legendary gun-wielding frontiersman, only to discover that he is a myth. There are other revelations: gun ownership and storage was strictly legislated in colonial days, and frivolous shooting of a musket was backed by the death penalty; men rarely died in duels because the guns were far too inaccurate (duels were about honor, not murder); pioneers didn't hunt (they trapped and farmed); frontier folk loved books, not guns; and the militia never won a war (it was too inept). In fact, prior to the Civil War, when mass production of higher quality guns became a reality, the republic's greatest problem was a dearth of guns, and a public that was too peaceable to care about civil defense. As Bellesiles writes, "Probably the major reason why the American Revolution lasted eight years, longer than any war in American history before Vietnam, was that when that brave patriot reached above the mantel, he pulled down a rusty, decaying, unusable musket (not a rifle), or found no gun there at all." Strangely, the eagle-eye frontiersman was created by East Coast fiction writers, while the idea of a gun as a household necessity was an advertising ploy of gun maker Samuel Colt (both just prior to the Civil War). The former group fabricated a historic and heroic past while Colt preyed on overblown fears of Indians and blacks.
http://www.amazon.com/Arming-America-Origins-National-Vintage/dp/0375701982
quote: While gun supporters use the nation's gun-toting history in defense of their way of life, and revolutionary enthusiasts replay skirmishes on historic battlefields, it now turns out that America has not always had a gun culture, and wide-scale gun ownership is much newer than we think. After a 10-year search for "a world that isn't there," professor and scholar Michael Bellesiles discovered that Americans not only rarely owned guns prior to the Civil War, they wouldn't even take them for free from a government that wanted to arm its reluctant public. No sharpshooters, no gun in every home, no children learning to hunt beside their fathers. Bellesiles--whose research methods have generated a great deal of controversy and even a subsequent investigation by Emory University--searched legal, probate, military, and business records; fiction and personal letters; hunting magazines; and legislation in his quest for the legendary gun-wielding frontiersman, only to discover that he is a myth. There are other revelations: gun ownership and storage was strictly legislated in colonial days, and frivolous shooting of a musket was backed by the death penalty; men rarely died in duels because the guns were far too inaccurate (duels were about honor, not murder); pioneers didn't hunt (they trapped and farmed); frontier folk loved books, not guns; and the militia never won a war (it was too inept). In fact, prior to the Civil War, when mass production of higher quality guns became a reality, the republic's greatest problem was a dearth of guns, and a public that was too peaceable to care about civil defense. As Bellesiles writes, "Probably the major reason why the American Revolution lasted eight years, longer than any war in American history before Vietnam, was that when that brave patriot reached above the mantel, he pulled down a rusty, decaying, unusable musket (not a rifle), or found no gun there at all." Strangely, the eagle-eye frontiersman was created by East Coast fiction writers, while the idea of a gun as a household necessity was an advertising ploy of gun maker Samuel Colt (both just prior to the Civil War). The former group fabricated a historic and heroic past while Colt preyed on overblown fears of Indians and blacks.
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JHPier,
I think that writer's research has been discredited. He fabricated stuff and drew very big conclusions on very little evidence.
Furthermore, unless he's got major evidence, it seems he's trying to race-bait by tying being pro-gun and being racist.
I think that writer's research has been discredited. He fabricated stuff and drew very big conclusions on very little evidence.
Furthermore, unless he's got major evidence, it seems he's trying to race-bait by tying being pro-gun and being racist.
Michael Bellesailes even won some awards for his fabrication. Much of the research he cited simply does not exist. More can be found by running a search of his name.
As for his "race bait," we ought not to be surprised by his attempts, though the opposite of what he claims is closer to the truth. A major component of early Jim Crow was barring freedmen from their constitutional right to keep and bear arms. As a result, many a man was lynched, and many a church was burned with little if any justice for said crimes. Further, several Union generals served as presidents of the National Rifle Association, including, I think, Ulysses Grant.
Yes I mean Unionists/Loyalists, sorry no offence intended, I actually have proddy mates now I've left.
Let's just say you inspired me to try and register one more time...
I was lucky, fluffed my A-levels in my all-Catholic school and went to a tech - so I had proddy friends before I left.
Starviking
(Apologies for the off-topicness!)
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
A joke, he was a guy who registered to argue the Unionist cause, though less civilly than you.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=731496#post731496
Jesus! That Kespla is an embarrasment and no mistake I bet he's a third generation English plastic with a great grannie from county Clare
I bet he's a third generation English plastic with a great grannie from county ClareFollowed the link, hard to tell what he's arguing for...
Also, whilst I did obliquely make the point that defining Unionists as "prods" was at least a bit sectarian, I was not arguing the Unionist cause (At least not from my point of view
)Starviking
What? Shooting a burgalar in the back whilst he is running away? I can only talk about a few Labour supporters that I have discussed this with but none of them think he was right, I know of one tory, a farmer who agreed with him, but him and his parents are the only people I know who backed Martin. The Burgalars were also breaking the law, but two wrongs do not make a right, the person shot was 16 years old, would probably have been caught.
He took the law into his own hands and deserved everything he got. This was not self-defence.
Had the British police been doing a better job, none of this would have happened.
How many times did his house get broken into?
Furthermore, you could make the argument that the guy might be back (with a gun) and the police would do the same worthless job they'd done in the past keeping him away.
How many people in Northern Ireland want to join the Republic and how many want to stay in Britain?
I was under the impression the Protestants were the majority in the North overall. About 60-40 these days.
If there's a county or two with a Catholic majority that would rather not be part of the UK, why not have those regions secede instead of trying to cram the entire north into the Republic against the will of its inhabitants?
MrP
Banned
I can't speak for others, but I wouldn't say I supported him. I felt he had a legitimate grievance as he had been repeatedly robbed, and I agree that the police should have done more (while noting that the police don't have limitless funds, and have to prioritise resources, so to expect perfection of them is quite wrong). But that doesn't justify shooting hiding, waiting for two men and then shooting them unawares from a concealed position, and then subsequently lying about it.
Oddly, I could accept that the stress of feeling he had nobody to turn to could have driven him to this dire situation, and sympathised with him about that. But when he lied about what he'd done he lost a lot of my sympathy.
67th Tigers
Banned
If fabrication, I wonder how the figures passed peer review not once, but twice (the first being the original paper, which won the Organisation of American Histories "Paper of the Year" award in 1996, and so had massively more review than a normal article). The NRA pushed a massive amount of money into discrediting the work, and he couldn't produce the same evidence on the third peer review he had on the first and second due to, apparently, a flood destroying his paperwork.
The annoying thing, is that the vast majority of his book was vindicated on the third review, the material being found to be possibly fraudulant amounting to one table and three paragraphs of explanation (all about probate records), and they were not proved to be fraudulent, only that he couldn't back them up to a sufficient degree. What he was essentially done for in the end was not backing up his records.
He's since released a new edition, that corrects the data in accordance with the findings. His main thesis, America was not a well armed nation until the late 19th century, remains unchallenged.