A good kicking

[markie]

What would you rather have, a group of kids hanging around your door step with a football, or a group of kids hanging around with a hand gun, hmmm .. let me think,

If you remember how, think about the fact that shooting sports being legal does not equate to groups of kids hanging round with handguns being legal.

Shooting is not a sport, nor is hunting, nobody would give a dam if it was outlawed apart from them freaks who think they are upper-class.

You really are spectacularly ignorant, aren't you.

I now see why you have the signature that you do.

You took your time to bite didn't you,
Your not one of them freaks i was talking about are you, ?

 

[AndersonC]

Right. here's another game where people get p!ssed and they show them doing it on TV. Darts. How much violence erupts at darts matches? Do you see hoards of people throwing pint glasses at one another?

Football brings the emotions out which when mixed with booze are often a potent combination.

The problem is how is it dealt with? I, as a taxpayer, want my taxes to go on stuff that's good for the community not providing "free security" to football pitches. The grounds should pay their own security staff to keep the police free!

 

[markie]

Right. here's another game where people get p!ssed and they show them doing it on TV. Darts. How much violence erupts at darts matches? Do you see hoards of people throwing pint glasses at one another?

Football brings the emotions out which when mixed with booze are often a potent combination.

The problem is how is it dealt with? I, as a taxpayer, want my taxes to go on stuff that's good for the community not providing "free security" to football pitches. The grounds should pay their own security staff to keep the police free!

Are you for banning football or not,?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Your not one of them freaks i was talking about are you, ?

Well - I'm someone with intelligence, and the capacity for rational thought, so in your world that probably does make me a freak.

 

[markie]

Your not one of them freaks i was talking about are you, ?

Well - I'm someone with intelligence, and the capacity for rational thought, so in your world that probably does make me a freak.

I don't think you read my right, i said upper-class are freaks Not someone with intelligents or have the capacity for rational thoughts,

 

[Softus]

It is valid, if the precedent was soundly based, i.e. that it's OK to destroy leisure and commercial interests to potentially save a small number of lives.

If it's not OK to do that then it's not OK to ban fotball and it was not OK to ban handguns.

Hm. Your point seems to be that if handguns were to be banned, then, because one effect of that is to curtail leisure and commercial interests for some of the community, the only just and fair action regarding football (and perhaps other leisure pursuits) is to ban it.

Firstly, I don't agree that two wrongs make a right - the banning of handguns, if wrong, cannot be redressed by spoiling the fun (and/or livelihood) for a different social group.

Secondly, I suggest that the banning of handguns is more complex than the banning of many other things, for example football. The reason I think this is because a handgun that is fired is always potentially lethal. A game of football doesn't represent the same degree of knife-edge risk. IMHO.

 

[Odd Job]

a football is a dangerouse weapon.

we have a group of trouble makers that gather at our shops, they kick a football at push chairs with! the children in them, if your lucky to pass with out a football in the side of your face, you get your milk for the morning.

they literally use you as target practise and say "oops sorry."

Unless your Lara Croft you dont venture up there late at night.

If nayone has ever had a football full strength in the side of teh head then you can relate.

 

[Odd Job]

Right. here's another game where people get p!ssed and they show them doing it on TV. Darts. How much violence erupts at darts matches? Do you see hoards of people throwing pint glasses at one another?

Football brings the emotions out which when mixed with booze are often a potent combination.

The problem is how is it dealt with? I, as a taxpayer, want my taxes to go on stuff that's good for the community not providing "free security" to football pitches. The grounds should pay their own security staff to keep the police free!

And the overflow into the accident and emergency, draining resorces and the voluntary support for the permenantly scared.

 

[Softus]

a football is a dangerouse weapon.

Well, if you call it a dangerous weapon then what you do call an MK-47? Very dangerous? A little bit naughty? A-little-bit-more-dangerous-than-a-football?

Maybe you think a football is the most dangerous weapon on the planet - who knows what goes in inside a head that can write the sentence that you did?!

we have a group of trouble makers that gather at our shops, they kick a football at push chairs with! the children in them, if your lucky to pass with out a football in the side of your face, you get your milk for the morning.

they literally use you as target practise and say "oops sorry."

Ahh, I see now. What you meant to write was "a football is a dangerous weapon in the hands of the louts that gather at your local shops, whom nobody has the guts to challenge or to report to the police." I stand corrected.

If nayone has ever had a football full strength in the side of teh head then you can relate.

I can certainly relate; even empathise. But have you really got this in proportion?

For example, consider the fact (I would call it a fact) that a handgun bullet is always destructive. If it hits a person that it can maim or kill. The gun was designed to be a weapon from Day One of shooting.

On the other hand, a football, generally, invariably, nearly always, the vast majority of the time, doesn't hurt anybody. Although football, as a game, was originally designed as an excuse for a fight, this is no longer the case. It's a sport.

 

[Softus]

Right. here's another game where people get p!ssed and they show them doing it on TV. Darts. How much violence erupts at darts matches? Do you see hoards of people throwing pint glasses at one another?

No, but what's your point?

Football brings the emotions out which when mixed with booze are often a potent combination.

Is that your point? Really? The strongest point you have to make in favour of banning football? What about the fact that the emotions that are brought out are more often, by far, NOT potent, or dangerous?

I, as a taxpayer, want my taxes to go on stuff that's good for the community not providing "free security" to football pitches.

Presumably you have grounds for claiming the the security provided is "free"?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I don't think you read my right, i said upper-class are freaks

No - what you said was this:

"Shooting is not a sport, nor is hunting, nobody would give a dam if it was outlawed apart from them freaks who think they are upper-class."

To which I replied "You really are spectacularly ignorant, aren't you.", an opinion I still hold, if you believe what you wrote.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Hm. Your point seems to be that if handguns were to be banned, then, because one effect of that is to curtail leisure and commercial interests for some of the community, the only just and fair action regarding football (and perhaps other leisure pursuits) is to ban it.

Almost. My argument is that if was OK to ban handguns in order to save lives, then it must be equally OK to ban football in order to save lives.

Firstly, I don't agree that two wrongs make a right - the banning of handguns, if wrong, cannot be redressed by spoiling the fun (and/or livelihood) for a different social group.

I never suggested banning football as some kind of redress - merely asking why the same standards of fairness and reason that were applied when handguns were banned cannot be applied now to ban football.

Secondly, I suggest that the banning of handguns is more complex than the banning of many other things, for example football. The reason I think this is because a handgun that is fired is always potentially lethal. A game of football doesn't represent the same degree of knife-edge risk. IMHO.

The statistics seem to show that football is responsible for more deaths.

 

[Softus]

Almost. My argument is that if was OK to ban handguns in order to save lives, then it must be equally OK to ban football in order to save lives.

Now I see where you're a-comin' from. I agree.

I never suggested banning football as some kind of redress - merely asking why the same standards of fairness and reason that were applied when handguns were banned cannot be applied now to ban football.

Yes I see. Now. This becomes easier to answer, because I expect little fairness or reason to have been involved in the banning of handguns. The cynical way to view that particular piece of legislation is to recognise how popular it was with voters.

More pragmatically, but perhaps naively, my observation is that (UK) laws are tidemarks of the ebb and flow of public opinion. Our government (and I mean this in the non-partisan sense) treads a fine line between the protection of civil liberties for the majority and the curtailment of such for the minority. To b*stardise the adage originally attributed to Abraham Lincoln, You can't be fair to all of the people all the time.

The statistics seem to show that football is responsible for more deaths.

This is moot. For example, do you include the following instance as being one of a death from a handgun?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/4138816.stm

 

[ban-all-sheds]

This is moot. For example, do you include the following instance as being one of a death from a handgun?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/4138816.stm

Mr King, was shot with an AK47 Kalashnikov rifle

So no, not a handgun.

But in any event - apologies for not being clearer, when I talked about numbers of deaths I meant the ones carried out by the legal owners of weapons, not by people in illegal possession.

 

[Softus]

Mr King, was shot with an AK47 Kalashnikov rifle

So no, not a handgun.

But in any event - apologies for not being clearer, when I talked about numbers of deaths I meant the ones carried out by the legal owners of weapons, not by people in illegal possession.

Fair points. I'm naïve about guns so didn't immediately appreciate the distinction.

So which instances of football violence do you include? The Heysel incident, aside from being a complex issue and not conclusively the fault of British fans, was not in this country, so would not have been controllable by UK legislation.

Hillsborough, which is in this country, saw the death of 95. The Bradford City fire, which wouldn't have happened if there hadn't been a football match, killed at least 40.

However, the Marchioness and the Herald of Free Enterprise put 238 souls in watery graves - should sailing be banned?

The Manchester Airport runway fire slaughtered 55, and 270 fell from the sky over Lockerbie - should flying be banned?

And let's not get started on RTA deaths...

This is why I think that raw numbers of corpses are not a good way of looking at any banning decision.

PS I've just discovered a claim that 398 people choke to death on their food, each year!