blackrat - @ 20six.co.uk

RANT

Local supermarkets.

You know, the corner shop where everything is priced £xx.99 - what, like we aren't going to realise you're ripping us off simply because you round everything up to 1p short of a pound? - "Oh, that's cheap, it's only £3.99 - what a bargain!". Not.

And those plastic carrier bags they give you at the counter - what the fuck is that all about? I bought a 2 litre bottle of Evian on the way home today - "£1 please" - and at the counter, he's removed one of those gossamer thin plastic carriers that belong in the science museum and placed the bottle inside it.

I picked it up and somewhat unsurprsingly, as it took the weight, the handles assumed the property of cheesewire, attempting to slice my fingers off at the second joint.

And whilst I'm at it, the Sandwich bars and Supermarket concessions at Kings Cross can fuck off too. I was thirsty, so I stopped to get a bottle of Oasis to slake my thirst.

"1.25, please!"

I thought I'd misheard. What the fuck is that priced in - Pesos? 1.25? I want to quench my thirst, not fill the Ladybower Reservoir. Even my rip-off corner shop only charges 75p for one of those (mind you, his stock have got the manufacturers RRP printed on the label or I dare say he'd try). That's some mark up.

Thank you for listening.

1.12.03 21:37

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FLYING HIGH

I'm feeling a little more chilled today than I was on Monday, although still afloat in a deep well of ennui. This time of year has always had the same effect on me, my mood capped at 70% of my normal bonhomie and optimism courtesy of the paucity of sunlight, the steely grey skies and the bronchial look of trees shorn of their leaves. Perhaps this is one of the factors in my love of flying.

I've always loved flying, ever since I learned what it was as a five year old. I remember being engrossed in books about it as a primary school kid, dreaming of becoming an airline pilot. Of course, I walked a different path to adulthood - I left school at the height of one of the cyclical Airline Industry's down cycles when airlines were haemorrhaging experienced pilots. I joined the army instead and left that a short time after to pursue a career in the City.

My dreams flying stayed constant though and I embarked upon obtaining my Private Pilot's Licence. I read up, flew often and was a regular in the cockpit on commercial flights. A school friend financed his way to the left seat of a 747 and whilst hour building flying single-crew operations on night flights flying newspapers to Dublin, I'd fly in the right hand seat alongside him.

Journalism has opened up all sorts of doors to me and I'd have been foolish not to indulge my love of aviation as a result of it. For me, there is nothing quite like that feeling as you punch through thick, impenetrable cloud into clear, endless blue sky dominated by the sun. It's a thought that's always with me in my lowest moods - however bad things are, above the clouds the sun shines always. It's always summer at 30,000ft - and the views are fantastic.

There's something alluring for me about the flight deck - it's a guy thing, I guess, mastering all those switches, dials, guages, buttons and knobs. At night, with the ethereal glow of the instruments in the cockpit, the lights far down below  glistening like 'jewels on a chain'((c) Eddi Reader and Fairground Attraction) the atmosphere is quite magical.

So I was a little excited recently when I got a call from someone in the press office of one of the world's major airlines, inviting me to play in the left seat of a full motion 747-400 flight simulator sometime soon. These things are incredible, zero-hour rated full motion simulators costing £20million each. The CAA consider them realistic enough for a pilot with no experience to learn on one and be granted a licence to fly the genuine article without ever actually having set foot in one and depsite your brain telling you that you're never more than 20 feet off the ground, your eyes and senses are convinced otherwise - that you're actually 38,000ft above the Atlantic inbound for Heathrow's runway 28R. Coming in for approach, you're routed over London and you can see the headlights of cars on the Embankment, boats on the Thames below you. The controls respond exactly the same as they do on the real thing, and the flight deck moves to replicate the exact attitude and movements as the real thing.

I did this a few years ago and although it wasn't pretty (there's a big difference between a 747 and a Piper Warrior!), I managed to get down in one peice. Knowing to some degree what to expect, I'm even more excited than I was first time round.

Been a quiet week for me although there's something big happening in the background which I can't talk about at the moment. It's showing every sign of coming off though, and if it does, I shall reveal all here to an uninterested audience.

Off to Leicester Square tonight with my mate Matt to see Matrix Revolutions and on Saturday, P and I are going to see Howard Marks live on stage. I've just finished reading his book, Mr Nice, which is one of the most engrossing tomes I've read this year. What a life the guy's lived. I'm looking forward to seeing him - should be great.

4.12.03 13:43

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LONDON: CLOSED

Had a great night with Matt last night, meeting in Leicester Sq for the 21:00 showing of Matrix Revolutions at the Warner West End. If I'm entriely candid, it's Carrie Moss as Trinity that's drawn me into each film in this trilogy. There's something about her flawed beauty that's really attractive and it has nothing to do with the PVC fetish wear, either!

Actuallu, I love the whole experience of going to the cinema and this was a perfect opportunity to indulge in blokeish behaviour, overdose on testosterone. I need to, occasionally - living in a house full of females (wife, daughter and two cats), I feel the need sometimes to park the Metrosexual me and become a dude again.

The film was pretty much what you'd expect but none the less entertaining for that. Matt being a keen photographer too, we'd planned to spend some of the early morning hours driving round London with cameras and tripods getting some stock shots of the skyline. However, we hadn't counted on London not playing ball.

Let's be honest here, London has some of the best architecture to be seen anywhere, a glorious mix of Gothic, Medieval and Contemporary with everything in between. Our city looks fabulous when artfully lit and lighting is always carefully considered when designs are submitted. So we didn't expect what we found.

Palace of Westminster and Big Ben were in darkness so I just assumed that someone had forgotten to feed 50p into the meter. Easy mistake to make, right?

But when he headed into the City and found the Baltic Exchange and Lloyds buildings unlit as well, I began to wonder. When we arrived at the Tower of London to find that in darkness too, my suspicions were confirmed: we'd missed the boat. Clearly, we only illuminate buildings when there are tourists around, like at 13:00hrs daily during the summer months. No point in doing so at night when they look their most attractive, eh?

So we had to make to with the Tower Bridge as evidenced above. I've nothing against it, but my cup overfloweth with pictures of said span through the years - it's not like it changes much, now is it?

So we acted the goat on finding trees throughout the capital illuminated by underground spotlights in a variety of colours. We've both done Twat Masterclass 101 so it was no effort to stand on the lights so that our faces were lit from underneath, casting some eeire shadows across our visages, and pulling a variety of miserable faces while we took turns behind the camera. The results are amusing, but likely to scare children and small mammals, so I've hidden them away.

5.12.03 12:19

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COMMUTING WITH ATTITUDE: RIDING the CCM R30 SUPERMOTARD

A mere two years ago, supermotos were of little interest to your average biker. Sat on the periphery of motorcycling, they held little of the UK market – until that is insurance rates rocketed skywards and traffic police were systematically replaced by GATSOs. Suddenly, people began to take notice. The move to the mainstream was helped significantly by the uneasy marriage between high speed and a lost licence, for so long the obverse of the superbike and race rep coin. Light, cheap to run and fun to thrash, supermotos suddenly came into their own.

Whereas Supersports bikes and race reps operate in an elevated arena of performance where blue flashing lights and high cost are a constant threat, supermotos are the complete antithesis on every count. Cheap to buy, cheap to insure and cheap as chips to repair, supermotos operate in an environment of lower speeds and being derived from dirtbikes, they’re going to struggle to get above 100mph, even with the tallest gearing. But that’s missing the point, anyway – supermotos are all about punch and low-down drive with the commensurate trade off in top end.

Until 1998, UK firm CCM specialised only in competition machines but the company saw its position eroded as lightweight engines were introduced into the competition market. Seeing the gap in the market for a road-going model, they set to work, drawing on their experience to establish a range of Trail and Supermoto models based on the company's competition bikes.

Attitude Comes as Standard: Just add you. You can't ride this bike sensibly; sit on it, and feel its character wash over you, shaping and moulding your riding style by osmosis.

The R30 is typical of the supermoto genre. Hand-made and British, it is the off-road firm’s only pure road bike. Launched in 2001 with Rotax-sourced motors, pre-production bikes were well received, and although the finish was subject to criticisms from some quarters, the basics all seemed to be in place. However, midway through the year, the company ditched its affiliation with Rotax to utilise Suzuki engines in their place. The R30 then is its salvo in the urban battleground that is London.

Gone is the wide open space, the empty tarmac that demarcated the Square Mile from the West End and beyond. Canon Street becomes St Paul’s becomes Ludgate Hill becomes Fleet Street. One continuous artery, a crawling mass of metal and frustrated drivers. Black cabs fight for space with the Number 15 Routemaster and the ubiquitous BMW 3 series, beloved of suited execs everywhere forms the links in a chain that stretches from Borough High Street to Piccadilly Circus via T-Square. Nothing moves except the bikes – and it ain’t plain sailing for us, either. Couriers and commuters on everything from the latest race rep to rat bikes via everything in between impede one another’s progress. An inappropriately dressed sex object frustrates everyone – yes love, short skirts and fuck-me boots with black nylons looks great in the office but not on a scooter, eh? Oh and learn to filter! The gridlock has turned biking in London into a trials-slow obstacle course in places. Which is where the CCM fits in.

On the Pull: Five police officers in London, just two feet away from their police station become lost. Shamed and embarassed at having to pull me over to ask for directions, one officer pretends to straighten an errant eppaulette as I point the way for him. Two look away in shame whilst two others overcome their embarrassment to admire the bike. The R30's like that; it affects people.

With its off-track antecedents, it’s the bike for London. Remove the knobblies and replace with road boots, stick on some indicators, lights and a couple of gauges and you’ve got the ultimate in Über-cool, an urban crosser. Supermotos could have been designed with the Capital’s roads in mind. You sit tall, looking over cars, not through them as you do with most other bikes. The narrow profile is perfect for gap chasing, getting you through gaps where others fear to tread. So what if you can’t stuff more than a fiver’s worth of gas in the tank? You don’t commute more than 15 miles each way, so who cares? Besides, 2003 R30s have a 13.5 litre tank as a factory option and that extra 4.5litres over the standard tank is worth at least an extra couple of days between visits to the petrol forecourt. Big deal if the single cylinder motor runs out of puff above 80mph – you want low down grunt to get you into the gap and away again before it closes, not top end speed which in London is as useless a currency as the Polish Zloty.

Last year’s R30 was roundly criticised by road testers for a whole host of cardinal sins – mostly offences against taste and decency. Fake carbon-fibre adorned the clocks (if it were a house fake carbon-fibre would be a mock-Tudor mansion with a footballer’s wife rattling around inside). Two keys and a braided brake line that passed over the dials obscuring vision were an annoyance. But you can’t accuse CCM of not listening. Gone is the braided hose, rerouted down and behind. Gone is the ‘carbon-fibre’ surround. Less is clearly more in Blackburn and the two keys have been replaced by one.

Measured in Microns: The seat is as thin as one of your girlfirend's panty liners and as long and hard as a plank of wood. Made from hi-grade plastic and polished with silicone until it has all the grip of an ice rink, it adds a whole new dimension to biking. Hold on tight!

The engine is shared with Suzuki’s DR650 and there’s nothing wrong with that. It differs hardly at all – Suzuki isn’t going to be too chuffed if other manufacturers get a bit carried away with their tweaking and their reliable power plant goes pop. However, CCM have clearly engaged in some fettling of the engines as the CCM’s mill produces about 8bhp more than the standard Suzuki unit. The company’s Mark Fox euphemistically describes it to me thus: “We’ve breathed on it”, he says.

So start it up. Braaaaaaaaap. Ah, music. The note from that big single engine, with twin carbs and twin sparks is tuned through a stainless steel exhaust. Even with a road-legal end can (sourced from Remus), the single 644cc cylinder sounds fruity and full of promise. Blip the throttle and your heart rate rises with the rev counter. It sounds like ‘Braaaaaaaaap’, but it’s really ‘Hooligan’. Try and ride it sensibly. Whatever faults you could have levelled at the old model, they fell away once you turned the key and it never failed to deliver once you rode it. That’s a constant – but they seem to have ironed out the lumps now.

Spartan: The dash is indeed basic but then, what did you expect, the bridge of the Starship Enterprise? It's the epitome of function over form; ignore the speedo - that's why it's so small. The rev counter tells you all you need to know; ride on the wave of torque and when the needle hits the redline, change gear. So simple, a child could do it.

What they’ve delivered with this model is the Missy Elliot of biking, or a member of the G-Unit, complete with an unholstered Desert Eagle. A straight act with added attitude, the bike’s got presence like a Bouncer with a 9 and a posse of bitches. Some bikes you dress for – not this one. Whatever you’re wearing, it’ll do - wear what you want and you’ll still look the part. All in one leathers? Fine. Jeans and a jacket? Kewl. Throw a rucksack over your shoulder, and ride. Be yourself. Act normal, but you’ll be grinning inside your lid. Instant hooligan, just add bike. “If that’s as much fun as it looks, I’m jealous”, says a guy on a VTR-1000 at Holborn Viaduct. “It is!”

The seat shares more than a nodding acquaintance with the properties of a plank of wood. Long, narrow and rock-hard, you’re either too far forward or too far back. Wherever you sit, the laws of physics will conspire to place you either in the spokes as you brake, or on the tail as the front rises up under power. Ah yes – wheelies. I can’t do them to save my life, but buy one of these and you won’t be able to help yourself. Forget wheelie schools, all you need is an R30.

Bug-Eyed: With the face of a Preying Mantis, the R30's front end tells you all you need to know about the bike's character. Go on, ride it slowly; I dare ya!

Those razor sharp Brembo brakes and long travel WP forks make stoppies a breeze too and you’ll find yourself indulging at every red light, every enforced stop. Corners are an excuse to attack hard, the wide, straight bars giving you leverage to haul the bike over from its raised cruising attitude and bring you closer to the tarmac. The WP suspension does a good job of ironing out the potholes and crests that delineate London’s roads too and gifts confidence whether tacking sweepers or the more usual right-angles that define London’s streets.

Pillion provision is barely adequate but if that’s a concern, you’re missing the point. It’s adequate for short hops but for going the distance, it’s relevant in the way that a drunken slut is good for rough sex but not marriage. The R30 is a selfish bike but no more than anything else with two wheels that can’t be called a tourer. To me, biking has never been about taking passengers. If you want to transport mates or your girlfriend, drive – that’s why cars have plush passenger accommodation with aircon and a stereo.

Narrow: With all the girth of Kate Moss on amphetamine, the R30 cuts throught the tiniest of gaps whilst filtering and makes commuting along London's snarled up, traffic-infested roads a breeze. You'll chase gaps you didn't believe possible on this, and when you get to your destination and the bike park's full, no worries; the R30 will make room!

Each foray across the capital on this bike is an excuse to misbehave and it’s this strength which could also be its weakness – it all depends on your perspective. It’s so addictive that, much like Ron Jeremy you feel like you’ve got to be always ready to perform. This is not a bike for shy, retiring people. Every red light becomes a start sequence at the traffic light GP - and with that close-ratio box and some short shifting, you’ll show a clean pair heels to pretty much anything else lined up with you. The addition of a cush drive to this model means that the power delivery is smooth enough to stop you spinning the back up when you nail it, and it should reduce transmission wear too.

That single cylinder, allied to those close-set gears is perfect for the urban jungle and means that you’re never far away from the perfect ratio for any situation. When you’re operating in such a narrow band of speed, whatever power you need is always on tap. Laugh at the power ranger as he fights to stay close through the canyons of EC2 and E14 on his 170mph plastic rocket – at least as far as the open road but you’ll still have the last laugh as he’ll be constantly checking his mirrors for evidence of Dibble.

Best of British: A family-owned British company, hand made bikes and Carl Fogarty's wife Michaela ia a board director - do you really need any more convincing? Just buy one.

In short, as a commuter machine, this bike delivers – and then some. It’s light enough to hustle, narrow enough to filter and has the low down grunt and punchy power delivery you need. The lights are fantastic, especially on high beam, and it’s cheap as chips to run and insure – and you won’t have to remortgage if you drop it like you would on the average sports 600. CCM is a family run company, but it’s also British and offering some outstanding deals on the R30. If you’re currently commuting into London by anything other than a motorcycle, you could do a lot worse than try one of these. Just ride it – it’ll convince you.

8.12.03 10:43

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WELCOME TO LONDON

This is the public face of policing in London, December 2003. A police service which still polices by consent, and is though you would but know it from this image, routinely unarmed. As of January 2002, there were 26,930 officers in the Metropolitan Police. Of that strength, just 1,782 officers were authorised to carry firearms, a sum total of 6.75%. That means that the picture above, which I took recently, is not representative - just a reminder in case you are swayed by media reportage of armed police walking amongst shoppers in Oxford St.

Another 'fact' which is being quoted in an increasing number of newspapers, is that these SO19 officers patrolling amongst shoppers have been given orders to 'shoot to kill anyone they suspect to be a suicide bomber'. Only a small point, but all SO19 officers are taught to shoot to stop - that is, if they pull the trigger on the weapon when it's aimed at somebody, they are shooting with the express purpose of neutralising a perceived threat. Since real life isn't like you've learned from Hollywood movies, they don't go for an arm or a leg - a bullet could pass clean through a limb leaving the threat ever present - they shoot for the largest mass; the torso. Two shots here are likely to ruin someone's day.

Quite how they are supposed to identify 'suicide bombers' is anybody's guess, but assuming they do, they have no orders to shoot to kill. The decision to use lethal force rests with the officer concerned, and him alone - nobody else. For it to be considered lawful, he has to be able to justify his actions after the event. That is, at the time of shooting, he has to have had a reasonable belief that life was in immediate danger and that the use of lethal force was the only means to eliminate that danger.

Taking the decision to shoot is possibly the most onerous decision any officer could ever be called upon to make. The media, the public and the courts will spend months considering, analysing and discussing the rights or wrongs of the actions the officer was forced to take. He's under intense pressure, with his own and the lives of others at stake, and the futures of everybody concerned all hinge on a decison that he has 1/1000th of a second to make. Even having taken the decision to fire, he must, in law, be able to justify every shot fired

Armed police officers receive no enhancement to their pay, no additonal benefits over their unarmed peers. Simply, they go out every day armed and ready to meet a threat with the appropriate level of force, never knowing if they will be forced to make a split second decision that could change their's - and others' - lives forever. Should an armed officer resort to the ultimate sanction, the second a round leaves the barrel of the officer's weapon destined for its target, it sets in sequence a chain of events that will have ramifications for all reaching far into the future. Get it wrong, and he's open to a charge of manslaughter, possibly murder. Get it right and he can expect to be immediately taken off of armed duties, questioned incessantly, suspended and second-guessed by everybody with an opinion. He'll be investigated, his every decison and action analysed by 'experts' and his life will never be the same again.

If you think that's no hardship, consider this: no officer is ever fully right or wrong when he's made the decision to shoot - armed officers don't operate in a world of black and white, and every scenario has a million different potential outcomes. It's easy to say when he got it wrong - but never as easy to argue he was right.

And people argue against an increase in armed officers on the basis that they'll shoot first, ask questions later. Knowing all of the above, would you volunteer yourself for armed duties?

9.12.03 22:43

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UNDER PRESSURE

Yes, it's that time of the month again when, just as I did as a school boy with homework to be done, I've let my deadlines slip and they hang o'er me now like the proverbial sword over Damocles. Come Friday, I have a meeting scheduled with my editor at the news agency at which I must file this month's copy - researched, interviewed, written and photographed, all nicely packaged and ready to run.

Today's Wednesday and thus far, I've been a little lax, truth be told. But I've broken the back of what's outstanding and hopefully Biker Bitch Rose and her gunslingin' sidekick IngaDinga won't be required to stand over me with unholstered weapons to ensure I meet deadline. Hell, I may even permit the odd indiscretion and pop into 20six for a peek.

Predictably, it's been a quiet week, although I've been overdosing on the wisdom of Michael Moore, that scourge of George Dubya and corporate America. Just finished reading 'Stupid White Men', watched 'Bowling for Columbine' on Monday evening and have just started the brilliantly titled 'Dude, where's my country?'.

I could blog for England on the malaise that's ruining the USA from the top down, but I have no wish to add fuel to the fire which is currently raging within the borders of 20six and could be bottled and labelled as 'Anti-American Sentiment'. Suffice it to say that coming so soon after reading Howard Marks' brilliant 'Mr Nice' and learning of his battles with the DEA, my opinions of the US' 'justice system' are not entirely healthy. That though, is for another time.

10.12.03 15:30

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POPULIST GOVERNMENT AND THE UK HANDGUN BAN

I have to confess, but when I blogged a couple of days ago on the police and their use of firearms here in the UK, I never expected the thread to attract such an eloquent and impassioned response. Of course, no subject is guranteed to polarise opinon more than the subject of firearms but I feel there is an awful lot of misinformation in the public arena, most of which was peddled by those campaigning for the ban on public ownership. I expanded a little on my feelings about this in my response to Biker Bitch Rose's comments, but I felt that they warranted further explanation as to the reasons and chronology behind the event. And for those uninterested or who think at first glance that they have stumbled into an extension of the NRA's website instead of my blog, I say this: normal service will resume tomorrow.

As someone affected by the ban, I have done a great deal of research into the issue of firearms and their criminal use post-Dunblane and nothing I have learned accords with the commonly held view. Here then, I present my own opinions as to the introduction of the ban and the wider implications:

It should come as no surprise to anybody, but in a democratic state, what you should have is the minimum number of statutes required to allow society to function whilst preserving the freedom of the individual. Sadly, what we have in the ffice:smarttags" />UK are an impossibly complex web of laws, rules and restrictions, which are not designed to make society work better, but to make society easier to govern. And there can be no better illustration of this point than the completely nonsensical responses of two successive administrations in relation to legally-held firearms.

I can recall in 1994, walking with a girlfriend to my car which was parked in central London. We were dressed casually but under my jacket was a leather shoulder holster containing a 9mm Smith and Wesson model 5906 semi-automatic pistol. Under hers was a Glock 19. We were both armed, but neither of us was breaking the law – because at the time, we were Firearms Certificate Holders, licensed to possess, carry and shoot Section One firearms. We’d been using the range in the basement of Holborn Police Station and after a successful competition shoot, we were headed home. We were experienced shooters who had been vetted by police and accepted stringent restrictions on our freedom in return for being allowed to keep and shoot what were classified as section one firearms – full bore pistols. Yet almost at a stroke, what we had been doing for years suddenly became illegal. The reason? An election was looming, and the banning of legally-held weapons was seen as a vote winner by an ailing government.

The real motivation behind the introduction of this law was the Dunblane massacre in 1996 when Thomas Hamilton, an FAC holder, walked into his local primary school and calmly shot dead 13 of the Reception class, together with their teacher before turning the gun on himself. In that action, he set in motion a chain of events that was to have the most draconian consequences for law-abiding shooters in the UK.

On a wave of public revulsion at what had happened, the Government decided, “something had to be done”. Emotion was running high, and there was a general election just over a year away. A judicial enquiry was instigated, with the results to be delivered by the autumn, and the government promised to act on its findings.

As the grieving for the tragedy of Dunblane subsided to be replaced by healing, the wave of opinion turned against shooters. People needed a target for their anger, an explanation for a deed that had no explanation. Thomas Hamilton was a legal holder of guns - ban handguns therefore, and another Dunblane could not happen.

Gun owners (Section One Firearms owners) were a notoriously small minority, there being only 57,000-registered FACs in the UK. Shooting as a sport was understood by few, and this ignorance bred fear. Why would anybody want to shoot holes into a piece of paper? Guns have one purpose – they’re made to kill people so they should be banned. So went the arguments of those campaigning for an all-out ban.

There were a million arguments in favour of banning handguns, backed by 95% of the population and led by the sensationalist tabloid press. Those closer to the argument – 57,000 shooters, the firearms industry and the broadsheet press - argued an eloquent and articulate case. But the arguments fell on deaf ears.

There were countless options open to the Government as a result of Lord Cullen’s report on the inquiry. But nobody – absolutely nobody – could have been prepared for what actually happened. Two days before the report was published, the Government announced that it planned to ban all handguns, regardless of the conclusions of the impending report (which actually fell some way short of suggesting a blanket ban on private ownership). How was this justifiable?

It wasn’t. The illogicality of the argument was overwhelming. This was bad law, the result of gesture politics. An election was looming and emotions were running high. The government felt that it had to act and rather than taking an objective look at the situation, it acted subjectively. Result – it lost the election anyway and left us as the only nation in civilised society to have a complete ban on the possession of handguns by individuals. No other country, anywhere in the world, has seen the need for such draconian restrictions on freedom.

The firearms ban in the UK is wrong and unjustifiable and it contravenes a basic personal right - the existing law pre-Cullen was more than adequate for this country despite the fact that it was so poorly enforced and abused by the Police.
I spent an interesting few weeks last summer on patrol with London's armed police whilst researching another feature and what I learned astounded me. Since the firearms ban became law, gun crime has soared in the UK. In factual terms, SO19 the Metropolitan Police's tactical firearms group are responding to more and more armed incidents year on year than ever before.

Advocates of strict gun control in the UK often cite the US as an example of rampant gun crime, but to do so is disingenuous at best. To look at the US as a whole masks a great many truths and the fact is, the US has over 20,000 laws at Federal, state and local level which restrict firearms ownership and use. The cities with the highest levels of violence and criminal use of firearms, including New York City, Washington DC, Detroit and Chicago, have gun control even stricter than that of the UK. 20% of murders in the USA take place in these cities, which have only 6% of the population.

As in Britain, no correlation has ever been shown between the legal availability of firearms and armed crime. The fact is that the USA has a higher rate of murder without firearms (i.e. using knives, poisons, blunt instruments, etc.) than any western European country: quite apart from the huge illegal markets in guns, murderers could simply substitute other weapons if guns were further restricted, while knowing that their victims would be disarmed.

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Here’s something else. Fact:

It simply isn't more difficult to get hold of firearms since the Handgun Ban, it's easier. What the handgun ban achieved was to remove from private ownership all legally held weapons, those which the police were aware of, had licensed and would regularly check up on. They were traceable and trackable. With the flood of illegal arms into the UK through an interminable number of routes, there is no licensing to go through, no police check, no question that if I want, I may be denied. I can go to any number of pubs or speak to certain people who in return for £600 or so will provide a handgun and ammunition. No serial number – untraceable, deadly and effective. There are more illegally held firearms in circulation now than there ever were prior to Lord Cullen's report and the number has rocketed year on year since the ban

57,000 of us had guns before Hamilton's murderous spree. Anybody could have, and did apply. But just 57,000 of us were granted FACs. To be granted an FAC, you had to prove that you had a justifiable reason to own firearms. In practice that meant having been a full member of an approved club for not less than 6 months and were able to demonstrate that you had attended regularly, i.e., weekly.

If you could do that, you paid a fee and applied to the local force. They took up references, they checked with your gun club. You had to have a clean history - no criminal convictions. You had to get a doctor's reference that you were known to them and in their opinion, of sound and stable mind. Then you had to pay upwards of £400 for the safe, destroy an external wall installing it and have it all inspected by a qualified police officer who added his opinion to all the others.
If you were lucky, the Chief Constable's wife had given him some that morning or some such nonsense, you were approved. Or not. If successful you could spend £800 and upwards on a handgun and keep it at home.

Before the ban, to keep a gun at home, FACs were required to have a purpose built safe which had to be bolted to an external wall with 6inch bolts. It had to be fireproof, with an integral 7-lever lock and external padlock and an internal safe within to store ammunition which had to be locked away separate to the gun. The police would visit periodically, unannounced, to ensure compliance at all times, and were able to withdraw an FAC without notice.

The evidence surrounding the events leading to Thomas Hamilton's murderous spree in Dunblane shows an appalling lack of responsibility on the part of various agencies, the correct interpretation of which would have been sufficient for Hamilton to be denied an FAC by the Chief Constable. The fact is that the evidence was overwhelmingly damning in respect of Hamilton's FAC application, but the existing law wasn't enforced by the local police. If the police can't be trusted to enforce what legislation there was, how is further restricting legislation going to help? It's attacking the symptoms instead of the disease.

The old rules were more than adequate and enforced properly would have prevented Dunblane. To be honest, it's as well that I have a least a degree of respect for the law and society's rules. Let's face it: if I really thought it was so cool to own a gun and wanted one, I could have circumvented all the old rules and spent £500 in my local pub to secure an illegal one. No worries there about unannounced police checks, eh?

I could do the same now if I was so desperate to own one. That's what is so ridiculous about the handgun ban - it removed handguns from the least likely group to abuse them and with all the publicity it attracted, gave those least suitable to possessing them a route to ownership.

Some might argue why I should want a gun, what would I use it for but that argument misses one vital truth. In a free society, I shouldn't have to justify why I should be allowed to own and keep a firearm - the government should have to justify why I shouldn't. They haven't done so, but passed the law anyway and achieved nothing constructive or useful in the process.

However, because the change in the law affected a mere 57,000 people, it's academic. We were a silent minority and there is and was little or no objective coverage readily available - most people's opinions on the matter have been fuelled by inaccurate and misleading statistics and data driven for the most part by the tabloids who jumped on the bandwagon to campaign for the ban.

It sets a dangerous precedent for governments to hold all the weaponry in society. Sure, we may have a relatively free system at the moment. But supposing successive administrations became ever more dictatorial and restrictive of personal freedoms, what then? A peaceful protest to a deaf and aggressive oppressor? Where’s the precedent for success through peaceful protest?

I've still got the newspaper clippings from the year leading up to the implementation of the handgun ban and they are quite unreal. Without exception, the tabloids all resorted to subterfuge, distortion and twisting of the truth, as well as blatant lies, to campaign for the law outlawing handguns. As I have mentioned, those arguing an eloquent case for maintaining the status quo numbered 57,000 plus the broadsheets. However, the government of the time made their position clear - why let facts and truth get in the way of populist legislation?

If the majority of people supported the ban on handguns at the time, then it was as a result of misinformation and lies as to the danger that legally held weapons presented. Had the tabloids seen sense and argued the case on behalf of shooters, I'm pretty certain that that exact same majority would have thrown their weight behind us. So whilst the ban may have represented the will of the people at the time, it was a shame that most of them had formed their will based on misinformation and lies.

Whatever your beliefs on guns, the law that banned them was wrong, unjust, and badly drafted. Forget the subject matter of the ban and replace it with anything you like - it could happen and there is ample precedent for it. Government in the UK is becoming progressively more arrogant and removed from the people. The handgun ban should worry any right-thinking person because of the principles under which the law was introduced.

I use the handgun ban as an example, but it is by no means unique. The firearms ban was proof that governments act on emotion and not on fact and I’m afraid that governments and emotions make poor bedfellows. If I want emotion, I’ll watch the Jerry Springer show. Frankly, Tony B. Liar and his faux histrionics make me sick.

What’s next? Sadly, by its actions, this government has shown that nothing is safe; no activity is beyond the scope of its actions and logicality and equity need play no part in drafting new laws to curb our wilder excesses. Speeding has already been criminalised in an attempt to give the police a target that they can hit and so enable leader writers on pro-government tabloids to write sycophantic salutes to a ‘Decline in Crime’. If the numbers are coming down, it’s a success! “Tough on Crime, Tough on the causes of Crime”. Er...so, that’ll be the motorist, then.

We are an easy target because we’re so easy to catch. Speed doesn’t kill – inappropriate speed does. But you can’t draft a law against that – it’d be far too difficult. So we introduce a law that is the legal equivalent of a tuna net – so what if it scoops up a few dolphins along the way, eh? Why is it such a crime to get in a car or climb aboard your bike and drive having had a pipette full of sherry? Because it’s easy to catch the perpetrators. To be frank, I’m safer on a bike after two pints of premium lager than when I’m dying for piss and the nearest public convenience is two postcodes away but there’s no law against that, is there?

When my bladder’s about to burst, my awareness of non-essential minutiae like speed, road positioning and errant pedestrians goes AWOL. My ability to concentrate on anything but the matter at hand couldn’t be worse if I was trying to recite Shakespeare from memory whilst locked in a room with a single-minded Jodie Marsh kneeling before me.

Young people are a proven danger behind the wheel so let’s target them, too. And whilst we’re at it, what about old people – surely a greater risk than the young? If we’re going to generalise, let’s make a law banning people over the age of 60 from having a licence because they stop paying attention.

Think I’m exaggerating? Maybe. But when you lie awake in bed tonight, think on what I’ve said. Now tell me that you think the handgun ban was effective

12.12.03 01:49

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