Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 06:01:02 -0800 From: eskrima-request@martialartsresource.net Subject: Eskrima digest, Vol 11 #417 - 7 msgs X-Mailer: Mailman v2.0.13.cisto1 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Errors-To: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net X-BeenThere: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.13.cisto1 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Subscribed-Address: fma@martialartsresource.com List-Id: Eskrima-FMA discussion forum, the premier FMA forum on the Internet. 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Copyright 1994-2004: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource The Internet's premier discussion forum devoted to Filipino Martial Arts. 2000 members. Provided in memory of Mangisursuro Michael G. Inay (1944-2000). See the Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) FAQ and the online search engine for back issues of the Eskrima/FMA digest at http://MartialArtsResource.com Mabuhay ang eskrima! Today's Topics: 1. Re: Gun rights...Let's Use Some Common Sense (Ray Terry) 2. Re: Gun rights...Let's Use Some Common Sense (Steve Kohn) 3. Dropping Eggs in Deep Fryers (Buz Grover) 4. Re: Dropping Eggs in Deep Fryers (Roger Tinkoff) 5. Sources? (Ray Terry) 6. Re: Dropping Eggs in Deep Fryers (Steve Kohn) 7. RE: Gun rights (Ken Grubb) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: Ray Terry Subject: Re: [Eskrima] Gun rights...Let's Use Some Common Sense To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 12:18:42 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net > "The radicals on either side of any political debate are always wrong." Yep. Just like Tom Paine, Tom Jefferson, Jim Madison, King George, Lord North... Ohh, ok, never mind. :) Ray Terry rterry@idiom.com --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 14:43:50 -0800 (PST) From: Steve Kohn Subject: Re: [Eskrima] Gun rights...Let's Use Some Common Sense To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Ray, It would be best to take that quote with a grain of salt, but my point was that I think theres always room for a little compromise...a concept that many self-centered radicals fail to understand. I don't like ultra left bleeding hearts any more than I like ultra right conservatives who can't separate church and state and use religion as validation to be hateful. There, I've now managed to bore myself to tears by getting as political as I know how...which ain't saying much. -Steve Ray Terry wrote: > "The radicals on either side of any political debate are always wrong." Yep. Just like Tom Paine, Tom Jefferson, Jim Madison, King George, Lord North... Ohh, ok, never mind. :) Ray Terry rterry@idiom.com _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list, 2000 members Eskrima@martialartsresource.net Copyright 1994-2004: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! – Try it today! --__--__-- Message: 3 Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:40:07 -0500 From: Buz Grover To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] Dropping Eggs in Deep Fryers Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net The current gun discussion started with a post from a Scottish newspaper reporting on, and to my mind advocating, a poorly defined ban on edged implements. The way the issue was framed is eerily familiar to those of us who have witnessed efforts to ban firearms: bad guys are doing bad things with bad knives so we're gonna make it so good people can't buy them. The UK has been down this road with firearms: they basically banned 'em all. Crime promptly rose dramatically and continues to rise today. Obviously the thing to do to battle this dramatic rise is make it harder for honest people to defend themselves. The law abiding will heed the law, criminals will ignore the law; the net effect is the balance shifts in a direction that favors those who embrace criminal behavior. There is quite a bit of published research out there that underlines the point, research that for some odd reason rarely makes it into the mainstream media. I think two of the best are Gary Kleck's Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America and John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime. I think it's worth noting that Kleck includes in his forward to the book mention that he is a member of Amnesty International, the ACLU, a registered member of the Democratic party, and so on. Alas, Kleck is the fellow whose research first documented the 2,000,000 annual instances of defensive firearms use in America; Kleck has been roundly criticized for going where his research led rather than allowing his politics to massage the data. For his part, Lott did an exhaustive county by county comparison over time of crime rates and rates of concealed firearm permit issuance across the entire United States. His data is very unambiguous: the more carry permits there are issued in an area, the lower the rate of violent crime, a trend that correlates very well over time, meaning that from the date a concealed carry law is passed the violent crime rate continues to drop in a manner that correlates directly with the number of permits issued. Lott carries a laptop with all his data on it and has been known to do multiple regression analysis on the fly while debating folks on the air. Lott knows his stuff and has the facts at his fingertips; few people will debate him any longer. Please note: Lott's data demonstrates the incidence of mass shootings also falls as the incidence of concealed carry rises. Hellooooo, back at ya. Criminals, even those deemed insane, make decisions based on perceived risk. Who'd have thunk it? All of which is a roundabout way of saying there is plenty of data out there that supports the notion that an armed, law abiding citizenry is a good thing. Don't know if that qualifies as "common sense;" indeed I'm not willing to concede that good sense is a common thing, witness the time I watched a new cook try to hard boil an egg in the deep fryer. As that may be, I've posted lengthy essays about the topic of an armed citizenry and the benefits it confers on the ED before; feel free to look 'em up if you'd like. As for why this topic is worth exploring on the ED . . . unlike topics like abortion and religion, what access a given state allows to weapons, or weapons training, bears directly on Eskirma practitioners hence is worth considering on an Eskrima listserve. I think informed debate about the issue both exposes Eskrima practitioners to the range of opinion out there and keeps them informed about issues they may have to contend with. Don't know about the UK, for example, but in the US a lot of schools would have to strip their walls of all manner of ironmongery if an "assault knife" law passed. Think it's in the interests of the ED community to keep informed about issues that may impact our art and training. And hey, if a penchant favoring informed debate about topics I hold important make me a radical, then I wear the mantle proudly. Regards, Buz Grover --__--__-- Message: 4 Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:27:39 -0800 (PST) From: Roger Tinkoff Subject: Re: [Eskrima] Dropping Eggs in Deep Fryers To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net --- Buz Grover wrote: > The way the issue was framed is > eerily familiar to > those of us who have witnessed efforts to ban > firearms: bad guys are > doing bad things with bad knives so we're gonna make > it so good people > can't buy them. The UK has been down this road with > firearms: they > basically banned 'em all. Crime promptly rose > dramatically and > continues to rise today. Really? I frequenly hear people assert that efforts to ban firearms in the UK and Australia led to dramatic crime-rate increases in those countries, yet they can never produce any quantitative data to support the claim. Do you have any such data you could point us towards? Resonable concerns about self-defense are one thing, but so many Americans (mostly the pro-gun type) are obsessed with this idea that at any given time, "criminals" (assumed to be encouraged by a disarmed populace) are going to break into their houses, rape their wives, kill their kids, steal their stuff, etc. This is essentially the world that exists in all the "Dirty Harry", "Death Wish", and other ultra-violent vigilante films people of my generation were raised on. Violent crime is not significantly higher in the US than it is Europe, Canada, Japan, etc. OTOH, fear of violent crime among Americans is much higher. There are other countries whose citizens are just as free as we are to own guns (Canada and Sweden come to mind), whose gun-related crime rates aren't even close to ours. Don't get me wrong, I support the Second Amendment and have no desire to eliminate gun ownership. But the fact is that social conditions have a lot more influence on a country's violent crime rate than gun ownership laws. The "safest" nations are the ones where everybody has decent housing, food, and health care, not the most guns and the harshest criminal penalties. Popular as the latter measures may be, they do almost zero to make us safer. Rog --__--__-- Message: 5 From: Ray Terry To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:01:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Eskrima] Sources? Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net > Resonable concerns about self-defense are one thing, > but so many Americans (mostly the pro-gun type) are > obsessed with this idea that at any given time, > "criminals" (assumed to be encouraged by a disarmed > populace) are going to break into their houses, rape > their wives, kill their kids, steal their stuff, etc. > ... > > Violent crime is not significantly higher in the US > than it is Europe, Canada, Japan, etc. OTOH, fear of > violent crime among Americans is much higher. Can you cite your sources for the above three claims? ... and then it will be time to move back to FMA. Thx. Ray Terry rterry@idiom.com --__--__-- Message: 6 Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:12:46 -0800 (PST) From: Steve Kohn Subject: Re: [Eskrima] Dropping Eggs in Deep Fryers To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net For the record, I don't advocate a gun ban at all. The rhetoric the NRA types spew forth just seems like a bunch of hogwash by folks that simply like to shoot guns. It's sort of like how potheads advocate hemp as a wonder fiber and want pot legalized when all they really want to do is get high. In both cases I defend their right to freedom of speech (enjoy it while you can)...i just wish they would all be a little more honest about it. -Steve Roger Tinkoff wrote: --- Buz Grover wrote: > The way the issue was framed is > eerily familiar to > those of us who have witnessed efforts to ban > firearms: bad guys are > doing bad things with bad knives so we're gonna make > it so good people > can't buy them. The UK has been down this road with > firearms: they > basically banned 'em all. Crime promptly rose > dramatically and > continues to rise today. Really? I frequenly hear people assert that efforts to ban firearms in the UK and Australia led to dramatic crime-rate increases in those countries, yet they can never produce any quantitative data to support the claim. Do you have any such data you could point us towards? Resonable concerns about self-defense are one thing, but so many Americans (mostly the pro-gun type) are obsessed with this idea that at any given time, "criminals" (assumed to be encouraged by a disarmed populace) are going to break into their houses, rape their wives, kill their kids, steal their stuff, etc. This is essentially the world that exists in all the "Dirty Harry", "Death Wish", and other ultra-violent vigilante films people of my generation were raised on. Violent crime is not significantly higher in the US than it is Europe, Canada, Japan, etc. OTOH, fear of violent crime among Americans is much higher. There are other countries whose citizens are just as free as we are to own guns (Canada and Sweden come to mind), whose gun-related crime rates aren't even close to ours. Don't get me wrong, I support the Second Amendment and have no desire to eliminate gun ownership. But the fact is that social conditions have a lot more influence on a country's violent crime rate than gun ownership laws. The "safest" nations are the ones where everybody has decent housing, food, and health care, not the most guns and the harshest criminal penalties. Popular as the latter measures may be, they do almost zero to make us safer. Rog _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list, 2000 members Eskrima@martialartsresource.net Copyright 1994-2004: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! – Get yours free! --__--__-- Message: 7 From: "Ken Grubb" To: Subject: RE: [Eskrima] Gun rights Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:41:56 -0800 Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Julian Gilmour wrote: > I’m English and living in England, and while I am not narrow-minded > enough to be completely anti-gun, in all situations, I do have great > reservations on the subject. I have a friend who's English, living in the US, and he grew up in England a bit too close, geographically and chronologically, to Stalin and Hitler. His views are apparently a bit different from yours on guns. > Firstly, and I may well have misunderstood this point, why is a move > from guns to knives considered a slippery slope? The slippery slope argument is that folks get a "brilliant idea" regarding X, and later will apply the same "brilliant idea" regarding Y. Some say "Well, the gumint isn't after my stuff, so I'm OK and I'll just sit idly by, watch all the fuss and not speak out." I would refer those to Rev. Martin Niemoller who spent a little time in a place called Dachau in part because a lot of folks did not speak out. > Surely, (if I can call you that) violent criminals with guns moving > to bigger guns, grenades, bazookas, rocket launchers, tanks, helicopter > gunships, fighter jets and thermonuclear devices would be a slippery > slope. i.e that would mean a step in the wrong direction. Criminals choice of weaponry, IMHO, is less of a problem than the government telling me what I can or cannot own or carry in the way of weapons. > If I think about my own perspective on my own personal safety, an > unarmed criminal would be my choice if I had to meet one in a violent > situation. As the Rolling Stones said, you can't always get what you want. However, if you try sometimes, you may get what you need. One may want an unarmed criminal, but if private citizens have the freedom to carry weapons, if they try then they can get what they need when they need it. > It may be simplistic to you out there but, to me, the more guns on > the streets, the more dangerous my walk home at night. A HUGE amount > of Brits think it is that simple. And that’s why I have huge reservations > about guns. Today in America, 38 of our 50 states are Right To Carry or Shall Issue--the issuing authority Shall issue a license to carry a concealed handgun if no disqualifying reason can be found (felony conviction or any of a myriad of offenses, depending on the state). I read conflicting things about Iowa, and Massachusetts depends upon where ya live and whether you're from outta state, so the numbers may vary one or two. However, the majority of states encompassing a majority of Americans don't have a problem with private citizens carrying guns for protection. Over the past 17 years, the various states laws have been reformed to permit Shall Issue carry, and we continue to press the fight. > A violent criminal without a knife would be MUCH easier to deal > with. Therefore taking their knives would minimise their danger > to me. Criminals tend to prey on the weak, the old, the infirmed, the small. The average violent disarmed criminal against the average disarmed victim gives a distinct advantage to the criminal. > Obviously it would be impossible to stop people from obtaining > kitchen knives, but I must say I’m glad that any sort of knife > is likely to get you arrested in the UK. With gun laws becoming reformed, our next goal here in the Colonies is the reform of knife and impact weapon laws. > I am not completely anti- weapons practice if controlled; I have > shot a gun and love playing with ‘non-kitchen’ knives at the gym, > I just think it should all be very heavily controlled. I should think you'd want to steer clear of the U.S. lest the presence of weapons make you uneasy. > The difference here is that if you are endangering OTHER people > with your arms, you may need to be – dare I say it – controlled? Given the millions of firearms in private hands, and given the relatively rare occurrence of accidents, I suspect the backyard swimming pool is a far greater threat. Given that persons with no history of violence rarely snap and suddenly begin behaving in antisocial, violent or dangerous ways, if one isn't a felon before purchasing a gun, one isn't likely to suddenly convert. > The most ridiculous-sounding pro gun argument I’ve heard was a few > years ago on an American daytime talk show about gun law. A woman > said “do you all remember a few months back in (maybe) Texas when > that psychologically disturbed man with a gun started shooting in > the mall, killing several and maiming dozens? Well I had a gun in > my bag and shot him dead on the spot saving any more casualties.” > > And this is a pro-gun argument? As you Americans say: “Hellooooo!”. Shooting and killing criminals endangering lives is perfectly acceptable behavior here. Happens only a few hundred times a year--just enough to serve as a reminder. > As an aside: Very few people get beaten or stabbed to death by mistake, > as can happen with firearms. Hence fewer innocent victims. Accidental death data from NCHS for 2001: Transport accidents ...................................... 47,288 Accidental drowning and submersion ....................... 3,281 Accidental exposure to smoke, fire and flames ............ 3,309 Accidental poisoning and exposure to noxious substances .. 14,078 Accidental discharge of firearms ......................... 802 Death by accidental gunshot is far down on my list of worries. > Another aside: I definitely believe in arming the police. Some of the antigun crowd here in the States doesn't, but they apparently haven't heard or read that upwards of 1/3 the Met are armed at any given time--up to and including MP5 submachineguns. > Yet another: somebody somewhere is making a **** of a lot of money > by building bigger guns, grenades, bazookas, rocket launchers, tanks, > helicopter gunships, fighter jets and thermonuclear missiles. Heck, I hear about folks making a ton of money participating in programs involving oil and food. > I’m sure a lot of you have very well-researched and knowledgeable > answers to all of the above. I don’t in fact expect that this post > will change anyone’s mind at all. You appear to be implying you have not researched the issue and are not knowledgeable about it. Why would you expect a different reaction from folks? > I’m just trying to give you an insight on what is (I believe) quite a > common view in the UK. And the view here in the US is quite different. > I definitely wouldn’t feel better/safer about myself and my country if > the population DEMANDED the right to bear arms. Having lived in 4 states where I have and still do legally carried a gun (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington), and in one state where I could not (Maryland), anyone who reviews the crime stats will quickly conclude one is far safer in an area where the citizenry is armed while out and about. > It’s only slightly less ridiculous than the right to arm bears ;) No need. Bears are already very well armed, and that's part of the need to bear arms. Ken Grubb Bellevue, WA --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list Eskrima@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima http://eskrima-fma.net Old digest issues @ ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com/pub/eskrima Copyright 1994-2004: Ray Terry, MartialArtsResource.com, Sudlud.com Standard disclaimers apply. Remember September 11. End of Eskrima Digest