UK turned into riot warzone

[Osaka]

I haven't been up town (Birmingham) since this rioting happened here and to be honest I don't really want to see the mess, though I know most of the damage will have been cleaned up by now.
I work in Solihull and on tuesday the town was quieter than normal with more police around. It was a weird sight and when I went into work we got told to go home after an hour. Then later that night the damn power went out in our area, and because I live near shops we thought it might have been to do with all this looting. I'm not ashamed to say that I was kinda scared that night.

Those that have been caught need to build a new prison and thrown in when finished. No pay, no luxuries, no nothing until they've served their time.

 

[V]

A lot of people seem to have signed a petition to have the rioters/looters lose their benefits.

The thing is, quite a few of the rioters have jobs. Some of them civil servant positions or teachers or teaching assistants, hairdressers etc. apparently, so they won't lose anything.

And... if they take away the benefits of those on benefits, it gives them even more reason to go out and steal.

What I think they should have is highly visible and symbolic punishment. Fines and unpaid community service for those with jobs, and community service for those without jobs like cleaning up the dog crap and chewing gum, scrub walls and shutters, right in front of everyone in their community, for several months. Make them give something back to the communities they just trashed.

In medieval times, people were punished in front of everybody in the stocks (for public humiliation) or on the gallows (for severer crimes). This showed everyone that punishments really were carried out and not just hearsay, and the public got to see the horrible things that happen to you if you do wrong and are caught. That's got to be a better deterrent than what we have now which is basically not seen, hardly ever carried out since the prisons are full, the community doesn't see the perps get their due, and the criminals sometimes get more protection than the victims. Even more importantly back then, the public punishments made sure that everyone else mentally distanced themselves from the wrongdoers, who were the object of ridicule rather than someone everyone sided with - which is what's the problem in this case (a significant amount of people say they 'understand the looting', or that they wished they'd took part in it too, even people I've talked to!). The mental pressure of being the one in the spotlight and being disliked, hated and humiliated in front of everyone is probably the greatest deterrent of all. Our system is so soft at the moment, nobody is put through anything like that, and kids and criminals know it's a breeze to get caught. "Nothing happens to you", "the prisons are full".

Well, if the prisons are full, then humiliate them. In front of everyone. Have them do the worst clean-up jobs under watch so that everyone can see what they will be doing for nine months after every day in the street, with a day-glo jacket on that says what you are on it and why you are being punished. Seriously.

Looting is currently cool for these people, and maybe they will be seen as cool for doing it by their friends. Make it uncool by having them do this for as long as it takes to get it into their heads, and have the community acknowledge them all for what they did.

Except of course for those men who are now suspects in murder and manslaughter - the death of three men run down in a car and another elderly man who was attacked by a 22-year old... these should be treated as murder cases and I'm sure they will be.

 

[darkslayer13]

this kind of thing is why people in the US are allowed to buy guns. we don't have this kind of problem because we are allowed to defend ourselves. and our police wouldn't wait days before using rubber bullets and tear gas.

if you want to be able to defend yourselves tell your govenment. if enought people in the UK say they want to be able to defend themselves the laws with be changed, and remember if guns are against the law only criminals will have guns and if the criminals are better armed that the police it is very hard to enforce the law.

the issue with criminals not getting punished enough is also a problem in the US and people in both our countries need to try to change it.

 

[V]

I think it's slightly different here in that the government really doesn't care what people here have to say, whether they turn out to protest peacefully or not. People protested during the Iraq war in huge numbers for us to pull out - they were ignored. Students protested recently over the raising of tuition fees - nothing changed and the fees were raised to the maximum. Even the foxhunters turned out in tens of thousands to voice their opposition to the foxhunting ban, and were not given what they came for. And apparently around half of all people in the UK think our presence in Afghanistan is a waste of time, money and human life. We are still there. I don't hold out much hope for these e-petitions, given the government will dismiss them and there will probably be a lot of pretty stupid e-petitions being submitted in any case.

Our government is a Nanny State and 'it knows best.'

I'm not sure allowing people guns would improve the situation. It would probably just make for more people being ready to use them on each other. But... we're already following the route laid out by the U.S. in almost every other way. We will probably become much like the U.S. in all but our political system in not too many years from now.

Telling article for those interested, mentions how moral decay isn't just at the level of looters and rioters, but goes all the way up to the top (as if we didn't know already, mind you):
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/p...r-society-is-as-bad-at-the-top-as-the-bottom/

 

[Dark Drakan]

this kind of thing is why people in the US are allowed to buy guns. we don't have this kind of problem because we are allowed to defend ourselves. and our police wouldn't wait days before using rubber bullets and tear gas.

if you want to be able to defend yourselves tell your govenment. if enought people in the UK say they want to be able to defend themselves the laws with be changed, and remember if guns are against the law only criminals will have guns and if the criminals are better armed that the police it is very hard to enforce the law.

the issue with criminals not getting punished enough is also a problem in the US and people in both our countries need to try to change it.

I dont think a large shootout in the streets would have solved anything and likely be more innocent people killed as a result of this. Our advantage is most people dont have guns though some criminals do, we have an armed police unit that turn up and instead of every single person in the crowd being legally allowed to have a gun and fire back a select few have them illegally. Anyone convicted of carrying one gets an automatic jail sentence.

 

[V]

The U.S. does still have problems with riots and looting sometimes as well, even though ordinary citizens have guns. I hear riots in L.A. have occurred in 1992 in an eerily similar way to these UK riots, following police beating of Rodney King, which goes to show that people expect transparency and fairness in their justice system and when they don't get it, it's a firestarter.

People here can have guns but they have to be functional either for hunting or target shooting, not really for 'self-protection' and carrying in public. At the moment, it's not so bad that we need to carry them for self-protection, though our police are increasingly carrying them... I've seen them about with guns occasionally, I've seen the armed response units. In the situation when confronted with a rioter or looter and when people are more excited or afraid, I'm gonna suggest they are definitely more likely to use firearms on others - both sides would, leading to shootouts. So far four people have died as a result of the UK riots - three men run down by a car, a man shot, and an elderly man put in a coma after being attacked by some kids who set a bin on fire. If citizens had all been carrying guns as well as the rioters, I can only imagine the final tally would have been a lot more than four.

 

[darkslayer13]

there is actually more crime in parts of the US that have strict gun control laws. most people are alot less likely to rob somebody who might be armed. and also civilans don't tend to get involved in shootouts even in places where alot of people have guns. usually it's police and criminals shooting at each otheror criminals shooting at other criminals. the criminals would have guns even if they were illegal and if the police go unarmed they can't really do anything to deal with armed criminals.

 

[V]

Our police do have guns here now though, or can carry tasers.

The issue is escalation. At the moment, people who break into your house in the UK aren't likely to be carrying a gun, but if everyone had easier access to guns, it follows that they would. On the plus side, you would have more power to defend yourself as a civvie, but the criminals would cotton on and start carrying equally offensive weapons, because they probably aren't going to stop stealing or doing what they do. On the whole, it would make the country a more 'dangerous' place. And there are other things influenced by guns, like:

Some research shows an association between household firearm ownership and gun suicide rates.[10][11] For example, it was found that individuals in a firearm owning home are close to five times more likely to commit suicide than those individuals who do not own firearms.

- Kellermann, A.L., F.P. Rivara, G. Somes, et al. (1992). "Suicide in the home in relation to gun ownership". New England Journal of Medicine 327 (7): pp. 467–472.

The U.S. still has a high crime rate on average for a developed country out of the list of world countries, even though citizens can defend themselves and carry guns, and yet there are countries where citizens can't and the crime rate is low. Therefore I don't think crime rate is related to being able to defend yourself with lethal force, it's related to social attitudes and levels of civility. Japan has a very low crime rate per capita, including gun crime rate, where gun control is very high. As do some European countries where guns are not easy to get hold of. It's probably more to do with the public attitude and relationships with the police rather than whether or not they carry guns, or someone would take advantage of that. Here, we tend to associate the ownership of guns with two things: farmers and sports shooters. We don't tend to expect our friends to just have one in the house 'for protection', as we don't see ourselves as needing that protection. But things may be changing.

You could argue that if Norwegian kids were able to carry firearms legally for defence, then Breivik may have been stopped before he killed scores of them on Utoeya. But then the chance of another Utoeya is also slim because guns are not an accepted part of Norwegian culture in the way they are in America. You run the risk of vulnerability if a person takes advantage with firearms in such a situation, but on the whole you are less likely to even see an occurrence like that in a nation that doesn't back personal gun ownership to the extent the US does. So which is best? I still think that a non-gun carrying nation with associated attitudes is generally safer than one where everyone carries guns, for that reason. Where everyone has guns, you are likely to see more gun crime, more gun-related homicides, and more mass shootings, simply because they are there and the temptation is there for some people to abuse them.