The Wonderful Blog Which You ve Never Seen

Introduction

The issue of guns being used for criminal purposes is not new to society and have been used since there invention by both criminals and law abiding citizens alike. There has been, however, an alarming increase within the United Kingdom were guns have been used during criminal offences. As stated before, guns have always been available to the criminal fraternity, so why has there been a sudden increase in their use within the United Kingdom. This article will assess the whether there has been an explosion of gun crime in the United Kingdom over the past two decades. The facts and figures that support the assertion that gun crime is on the increase will need to be examined first. There are many sources which have released conflicting statistics regarding the escalation of guns used in criminal activities. If the general overall perception is that gun crime is on the increase, the factors for this belief will be assessed next. There are the obvious sociological implications regarding why gun crime has exploded, however, is this rise due to the fact that guns are easier to get hold of in today’s society. Evidence supporting this assertion will be considered. Finally, if gun crime is on the increase, the possible solutions of curtailing this trend will be considered. This article will conclude that in relation to public perceptions, statistics do not matter. The state of affairs regarding the rise in gun crime is played out in the media by those with hidden agendas, those who have a vested interest in giving police more powers to carry guns, and of course, those who wish to sell more papers.

Figures Don’t Lie but Liars Can Figure

There are many sources that state that gun crime in the United Kingdom is spiralling out of control. Some terrifying statements have been made regarding the use of guns in today’s society. Indeed, David Bamber has claimed that gun crime has trebled as weapons and drugs flood British cities (Home Affairs Correspondent Filed: 24/02/2002). An independent report by Illegal Firearms in the UK, (Centre for Defence Studies at King’s College in London) states that handguns were used in 3,685 offences last year compared with 2,648 in1997, an increase of 40 per cent. These statistics are pretty intimidating. If anybody was taking these two sources of information literally, anybody would think that we are living in a lawless society. Are these statistics a true reflection of the state of affairs regarding gun crime within the United Kingdom? Gun crime, according to the Home office has risen 3% in the last year, and this has followed a 2% rise from the previous year. Nevertheless, there has been a 15% reduction in the death rate for gun related crime. Indeed, Hazel Blears Home office and MP for Salford has stated that crime has fallen for the last 20 years with people less likely to be a victim of crime than 20 years ago. It is possible to deduce from these figures that there is a slight rise in gun crime. Gun ownership is tightly controlled in the UK, but anyone reading the newspapers or watching TV would think that the streets were full of gun-toting criminals. The overall level of gun crime remains low, but it is certainly true that in some areas guns are a feature of everyday life, and that over the last four years crime involving the use of some kind of gun has been on the increase.What are the possible explanations for this?

Sociological Explanations for the Rise in Gun Crime

Crime has always had a symbiotic relationship with crime. It seems that one cannot exist without the other. This does not explain, however, the rise in gun crime. As stated earlier, guns have been available in one form or another for centuries, so why is it only now that society is experiencing a rise in gun crime. According to Newsarchive 4 gun crime is mainly concentrated in three areas; these areas are Metropolitan area, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. In Merseyside there were 57 shootings during the 12 months to last December 2003 compared with 15 in the same period the year before. Greater Manchester also recorded a 23 per cent increase in gun crime and there have been rises in Nottinghamshire, Avon and Somerset, West Yorkshire and the Northumbria Police area which covers Newcastle. There are many who have opinions as to why gun crime has escalated. Singer and campaigner Mica Paris asserts that it is the feeling of exclusion that compels people in society to indulge in criminality and carry guns. The question remains as to whether guns are now easier to come by? Detectives in London have asserted that the illegal importation of guns started after the end of the Bosnia conflict and that they are changing hands for as little as

Tags: crime, Gun, societycrime, Gun, society

Share This

No Comments »

Every night, while we sleep, new technology is being added to our world. While that may be a good thing, it seems to make less sense and we have less time to figure it out. In this demanding life, there are so many paradoxes; it is easy to see why life does not make sense sometimes. We are adding years to our lives rather than life to our years! There is more spending, more ’stuff’, but less enjoyment; more medicine and less wellness; nicer, bigger homes but broken families; cleaner air but polluted souls; concern about outer space but not inner space; we are learning to rush instead of wait; we have more knowledge but less judgment; more degrees but less sense.

Ironically, the great information highway of all time is a paradox in itself; the Internet. The highways add more lanes and wider versions, but communications are breaking down everywhere. I saw a short quote this week describing the Internet as, “social technology that reduces social involvement.” That could become a whole topic of controversy, depending on what side of that highway you are on.
The integration of the Internet into our lives is about as monumental to our world as the invention of television. The big difference is that television brought the outside world to our homes, while the Net takes us into the world of no boundaries. Here lies another interesting paradox; people accessing the Internet can express his or her individualism while being so much a part of whatever net community they are drawn to. We all strive for the right to privacy but once you click on, you pretty much put your privacy at the mercy of anyone on the web. While there is plenty of reliable, and educational, information on-line, there is also plenty of misinformation as well as sick individuals out there inputting the negative junk that we have to screen and filter. It makes me think of the ‘good, the bad and the ugly’ scenario.

It is a revolution of sorts, things are guaranteed to change, and it is a matter of choice whether we adapt to that change or not. Everyone must find his or her own comfort zone. I find myself stuck in the ‘midlife’ stage of cyber years. I often get lost in space in more ways than one, as my kids would attest to! When I was going to school, space was where the planets and the universe were. Now, it seems to me that this space has been invaded, not by aliens but by information and digitization.

Back in 1995, Bill Gates started his Microsoft campaign with, “where do you want to go today?” That was the beginning of a phenomenal change in how people would think. Search engines and a mouse at our fingertips would replace encyclopedias, paper, and pens. You can shop, gamble, chat, date, bank, counsel, research, and send instant mail messages as you see the person at the other end. On the less positive side of that, there is a decline in the interaction of family members, as well as decline in social circles, but an incline in loneliness and depression.

So, how does one explain the Net world or Cyberspace? What will the future hold? We know not, but what we can be sure of is that the Net will one day have to adapt to change, just as the people who support them have. I am also sure that we will continue Living in Paradox, but nothing can ever replace reading and holding a newspaper in one hand, coffee in the other, across from a real person. Nothing will ever replace a reading a good book, watching an old movie or having a real life visit with people you love. To all you Web-sters out there, remember that not everything new is better, so keep your options open in case ‘the net goes down’!

Tags: internet, society, technologyinternet, society, technology

Share This

No Comments »

1. In the Beginning

The U. S. Constitution was ratified before the Industrial Era came into existence. To all intents, the Republic’s overall political structure was implemented in the days of agricultural quasi-feudalism, which goes to show that the economy, though a powerful factor in a country’s makeup, does not have to dictate how we the people should live and be governed, at least not all the time.

Influenced by Karl Marx, historians found they had to classify Capitalism as an epoch unto itself, confusing, as is their ghastly habit, politics with reality, economy with history, and the joy of scientific honesty with the paycheck. Originating in the Age of Industry, Capitalism was merely an economic system requiring many hands to be productively employed by relatively few companies. Once hired, most employees were asked to perform simple, mindless, repetitive tasks. Under Capitalism, large firms rather than individual specialists took it upon themselves to produce and deliver to the so-called consumer anything and everything, from the basic staples to luxuries.

The end of that ponderous era came in sight once the first assembly line was set in motion by Henry Ford in the early years of the Twentieth Century.

Some analysts anticipated gleefully new possibilities and prospects. Others, less tediously optimistic, pointed out that automating production of goods might leave many folks without a job. To offset everyone’s fears, the optimists maintained that mechanized labor was going to create a lot of spare time for everyone which they could use to improve their spiritual standards, take long gratifying vacations in exotic regions, learn to appreciate art more, vote, and so on, and Santa Claus would eventually show up to pick up the tab.

In the end, neither view proved valid. Reality hardly ever lives up to people’s, much less economists’, expectations. Even though scientific fortunetelling differs from the traditional version in that more people pretend to take it seriously, the methods and the end result are similar. The lingo-ridden vagueness of prediction is resorted to in order to safeguard the fortuneteller against exposure as a fraud. Some forecasts come true periodically (albeit hardly ever two in a row from the same source) to prevent the layman’s complete dismissal of the entire field.

World War One created a great, if mostly artificial, demand for many more hands in the workplace. Military supplies had to be produced in large quantities. Even before it was over, though, drastic political changes occurred everywhere, most notably in the Russian Empire. The most radical group of people ever to convene on that country’s territory seized and maintained power against tremendous odds, making a wild, ill-informed, and monstrously misguided attempt to humanize the Age of Industry, already a thing of the past then, by introducing (supposedly) some basic Christian values to it. Greedy as radicals always tend to be, they had no desire to share their power with anyone, and I mean anyone, including God, whom they cheerfully decided to exclude God from the equation. Their mistake (indeed, everyone’s mistake today, almost a century later) was to expect Christian ethics to work without the Ultimate Judge of Such Matters, much as if one were to expect a high-speed train, finely designed and assiduously assembled, to work without electricity. Nevertheless, the Socialist Revolution in Russia forced certain folks elsewhere to examine their own conduct. Unless they wanted more revolutions, they had better mend their ways and start treating the workforce as if it were composed in some degree of sentient human beings. It was already too late. It was no use. Whether oppressed and exploited, or appeased and unionized, most of the workforce had to be laid off. Machines were faster, cheaper, more precise and, having no immortal souls, less cumbersome.

The downfall, known in the U.S. as the Great Depression, came on top of many panicky decisions and annoying results. Resurrected by World War One, the Age of Industry was still grotesquely alive but could not go on unless products were purchased, consumed, and purchased again: hard to accomplish with half the consumers out of work and half the newspapers suggesting, with irritating consistency, that Socialism might be a healthy alternative after all.

(The onslaught of ideological nuances so befuddled the period’s thinkers, it never occurred to any of them that Socialism, and even Communism, however Utopian, were Capitalism’s siblings rather than antipodes, since they, too, were thoroughly industrial, required employment of many, discouraged individual thinking, and were just as eager to sacrifice fuzzy numbers at the altar of the Gross National Product. It does not make much difference in the long run whether a few dozen corporations are running the show, or just one (i.e. the Federal Government), and how many of them are state-owned. As for the peculiar treatment by the Soviets of their own population, why, you wouldn’t expect folks who have openly renounced God to behave charitably. One can govern with promises, handouts, and some guns, or promises, no handouts, and a lot of guns. It is strictly a matter of preference and has little to do with the economy.

2. Once the Dust Had Settled

The period immediately following World War I was anything but rosy. The machines were taking over. France, in her own salacious way, alleviated some of her economic problems by bleeding Germany (World War One reparations, etc.), but Germany and England were hit very hard indeed. Unemployment rates skyrocketed everywhere. As oftentimes is the case, governments around the globe proposed tough measures and took none. The debates went on until the famous market crash put and end to them.

Some politicians and businessmen spent the following couple of years trying to pick up the pieces of an era long gone by, the one Henry Ford had sent packing, to no avail. There was no way for the average consumer to obtain an income other than by hiring himself out to someone who could use a pair of hands and, in some special cases, a brain. It was an impasse. Only a portion of the workforce could be employed, but the entire country had to have an income to be able to purchase the results of employment.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Teddy’s distant relative and, some years later, Stalin’s good friend and drinking buddy, was the one who decided the situation was, well, unacceptable. A man of wit and considerable political courage, he deviated from his immediate predecessors’ laissez-faire approach by actively seeking, and eventually finding, a sensible solution.

Redistribution of wealth was out of the question. It generally is. Folks will not part voluntarily with anything that might conceivablybenefit others.

Roosevelt looked at the tax revenue and decided to make good use of that. He could not simply give the money away: governments, if they wish to be taken seriously, must never indulge in direct charity. Instead, he explained that the country was in dire need of railroads, highways, bridges and such (which was true), and that his administration was quite eager to compensate those willing to construct same.

This new approach soon became an integral part of the economic picture. Those who produced the basic staples and so on were taxed; the resulting funds were transferred to those who produced the improvements. Simply put, it was a well-organized attempt to find a meaningful occupation for everyone. The New Deal (as the new approach was dubbed) was, in fact, a noble idea. Little by little, the outdated conventions of the Industrial Age would fall away, 20% or so of the workforce would easily provide the food, clothes, and shelter for everyone, whether employed or not, allowing the rest of the country to work on various improvements and innovations. Sooner or later, anyone would be able to take as much time as they wished to find and realize themselves in any of the numerous available fields. Those still uncertain about their true vocation would be given enough public assistance to be able to afford passable living conditions.

Thus the Republic was going to show the world a healthy alternative to humanity’s unrealized and seemingly unattainable dream (i.e. Communism, Star Trek style). A superior alternative, too, since there was seemingly no need for gory social experiments, radical leaders, or incongruous ideologies.

But there was Germany, and there was France, and there was Japan, and there was World War Two.

The capture of Czechoslovakia by German troops was pointedly ignored. The division of Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin, who reckoned they had their own economic experiments to conduct, was also ignored, although there was less flippancy this time around. German planes rained bombs on London. The English started paying attention. France was, of course, occupied, but since the caf

Tags: art, economy, industry, look, opinion, phantom, politics, scandalous, society, storyteller, todayart, economy, industry, look, opinion, phantom, politics, scandalous, society, storyteller, today

Share This

No Comments »