Offensive Weapons Bill

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

If you aren't doing anything illegal, you have nothing to fear from the police searching your home.
If you aren't doing anything illegal, you have nothing to fear from monitoring equipment being placed in your house by the state.
If you aren't doing anything illegal, you have nothing to fear from tracking devices being placed on your person.
If you aren't doing anything illegal, you have nothing to fear from the government reading all of your mail.

And so on. It's always been a terrible argument - I might not be doing anything illegal, but I don't see why I should have to prove I'm doing nothing illegal.

There is a case for a slight loss of liberty with something like stop and search, but let's not pretend it's anything other than a loss of liberty. Even if we feel it's worthwhile.

Stop and search is to do with removing weapons from the streets. It is not the thin end of the wedge of the erosion of liberty. You can still say and do what you want in this country if you stick within the bounds of the law.

You see stop and search as a loss of liberty; I see is as a civic duty. If giving up 5 minutes of my time goes some way towards making the streets safer for all, including you, then why not?

Too many people are happy to enjoy the trappings of a civilised society, but refuse to actively participate in the maintenance of society, because "that's what taxes pay for". Well, they don't. A civilised society relies on civilised people, and being civilised is based on our actions, not our wealth or social status.

 

[Henkeman]

Stop and search is to do with removing weapons from the streets. It is not the thin end of the wedge of the erosion of liberty. You can still say and do what you want in this country if you stick within the bounds of the law.

You see stop and search as a loss of liberty; I see is as a civic duty. If giving up 5 minutes of my time goes some way towards making the streets safer for all, including you, then why not?

Too many people are happy to enjoy the trappings of a civilised society, but refuse to actively participate in the maintenance of society, because "that's what taxes pay for". Well, they don't. A civilised society relies on civilised people, and being civilised is based on our actions, not our wealth or social status.

No mate, I'm not arguing with you on the merits of stop and search, I'm just saying that the nothing to hide, nothing to fear justification is a really bad one.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

No mate, I'm not arguing with you on the merits of stop and search, I'm just saying that the nothing to hide, nothing to fear justification is a really bad one.

Fair enough.

I think in this day and age, fear of having you liberties taken away pails into insignificance when you consider how many different opportunities criminals have to take advantage over people these days, but each to their own.

 

[Uncle Wally One Ball]

I know quite a few coppers as mates, and they seem to be fairly happy with stop and search powers. They don't report feeling pressured not to conduct a stop and search due to skin colour but this needs to be put into the context that I live in one of the whitest boroughs in the country which has a racism problem.

On the broader points of safety and liberty, obviously the Franklin quote comes to mind.

I think a middle ground to these issues which is acceptable to British sensibilities would be to legalise personal defence products such as pepper spray rather than firearms like our mates over the pond.

The issue with pepper spray is demonstrated by the people who try to get it. UKBA seize importations of pepper or CS spray canisters at airports in mail order packages. Researching the intended recipients and those who ordered them tells you all you need to know about who wants it and why. There are rarely noble intentions involved.

 

[Damocles]

The issue with pepper spray is demonstrated by the people who try to get it. UKBA seize importations of pepper or CS spray canisters at airports in mail order packages. Researching the intended recipients and those who ordered them tells you all you need to know about who wants it and why. There are rarely noble intentions involved.

Well yes because it's illegal.

That's a bit of a biased sampling.

 

[inbetween]

The Offensive Weapons Bill is set to add new restrictions on ammunition storage and rifles, making them "harder to fall into the wrong hands" according to the Government. They also seek to reclassify some weapons into the Section 5 domain which is reserved for the weapons effectively banned and require a special reason to own. In addition, they are going to ban sales of "corrosive products" to young people and require online distributors to be more legislated and a few alterations on knife sales laws.

This, they are touting, is due to the rising amount of gun crime that we see on our streets which has skyrocketed in the last few years. The Bill itself keeps getting pushed around and it has taken a decent length of time from formulation to get anywhere and it hasn't hit Third Reading yet.

It feels like this Bill is overreaching and solving problems that doesn't exist.

Firstly, a big part of the Bill is restricting the sale of "corrosive substances" as well as reclassifying them as "offensive weapons". Yet they define corrosive as "anything able to burn the human skin". So a battery theoretically. Or bleach literally. Hell, salt is corrosive under that definition if you want to get extremely technical about it.

There were 40,000 incidents involving knife crime last year. There were 800 incidents of attacks using corrosive chemicals.

The gun restrictions both me aswell. It's true that gun crime is on the rise but rifles/shotguns which they are attempting to restrict further make up less than 1% of those. The real issue is the prevalence of handguns which make up the overwhelming majority of gun crime and are already highly illegal in the UK so introducing this legislation seems like a PR move if nothing else.

Legislating issues that aren't really a problem of any sort in order to suggest that you're fighting violent crime whilst ignoring the key component of violent crime, which is in these cases usually religious extremism or gang violence is a pretty pathetic policy. It's another example of Governments banning things or restricting the sale of things for no sane reason.

Previously stop and search was pointless because the Police had no ability to confiscate acids because there was no legislation that said the possession of a corrosive substance was illegal. All they had was if they believed the substance was to be used as a weapon but there had to be evidence for it because acids aren't primarily a weapon.

Through this legislation it is now a crime to possess corrosive substances in public so the Police can take it off the streets and arrest the individual. This protects the public because it makes it harder to get the substances and where found they are taken off the streets.

Guns are very different because guns do not have a dual purpose, they are designed precisely as a weapon. The possession of corrosive acids should be controlled just like guns and possession in public made illegal to protect people. Now it is so I don't see it as a PR exercise at all.

 

[Uncle Wally One Ball]

Well yes because it's illegal.

That's a bit of a biased sampling.

No it isnt .Nothing biased about at all. Until I moved roles last year I got sent every single UKBA seizure notice for my area. Not a sample of them, every single one.

 

[Gelsons Dad]

No it isnt .Nothing biased about at all. Until I moved roles last year I got sent every single UKBA seizure notice for my area. Not a sample of them, every single one.

It is bias because everyone who ordered it knew they were breaking the law. Law abiding citizens don't order illegal stuff.

 

[Damocles]

No it isnt .Nothing biased about at all. Until I moved roles last year I got sent every single UKBA seizure notice for my area. Not a sample of them, every single one.

No I meant that only criminals are going to buy an illegal product, or the vast majority of cases.

Whereas if it is legalised, both criminals and citizens who respect the law would purchase it so it would change the balance.

 

[Uncle Wally One Ball]

No I meant that only criminals are going to buy an illegal product, or the vast majority of cases.

Whereas if it is legalised, both criminals and citizens who respect the law would purchase it so it would change the balance.

I dont agree with that. It is readily available to get on the internet so for me it is a perfectly reasonable conclusion that the same persons would seek it out if legal to have it. It is a s5 firearm for a reason and that shouldnt change in my opinion.