Small talk & Chit chat

[Dicehunter]

So just had a rather heated discussion with a completely useless police officer, As most are.

Some chavs were trying to break into the apartment building I live in which is mainly a few women in their 20's and 30's, Few truck drivers and myself.

At first I heard banging, Left it for a minute as I thought it was just someone hammering something, Went on for over a minute so I went down, 5 x chavs aged around 18-22 were trying to break into so they could smoke their pot in the foyer.

I opened the door looking more than a little p****d off as I can't stand chavs to begin with, Had a word, Got the usual "we'll do you" and 2 of them pulled out knives which looked more like machetes which just annoyed me further, Luckily the guy who lives on the ground floor came out with his brother and a friend, They walked away quickly shouting various things.

Phoned the useless police, They came and I pointed out the exact addresses of where the chavs with the REALLY large knives live, Nothing, He gave excuse after excuse after excuse, Absolutely useless like every other police officer I've ever talked to.

I've lived and worked all over Europe and it still amazes me that England has such a huge population of scumbags that seem to be completely protected by the law.

/rant

 

[NeverBackDown]

See this is why the US want their guns so bad. Because you simply cannot rely on the Police.

As an example Dice, if you were in the US and this happened, say you got stabbed and died. Well police are useless for you.. you're dead.
Say they ran off like they did, well police are useless because they won't do anything!

Your life is safest and most assured in your own hands mate. I'm glad your safe. I'm able to handle my own, but not against a group like you so confidently did. That's why I use a gun as an equalizer...
anyway glad you're alright. better peeved off than dead.

 

[Dicehunter]

See this is why the US want their guns so bad. Because you simply cannot rely on the Police.

As an example Dice, if you were in the US and this happened, say you got stabbed and died. Well police are useless for you.. you're dead.
Say they ran off like they did, well police are useless because they won't do anything!

Your life is safest and most assured in your own hands mate. I'm glad your safe. I'm able to handle my own, but not against a group like you so confidently did. That's why I use a gun as an equalizer...
anyway glad you're alright. better peeved off than dead.

Very much appreciated thanks bud

Despite all the political non sense it's my main mission in life to move out to Texas to my friends place, He has just under 300 acres, A house smack dab in the middle and a spare room with my name on it, He's shot people trying to break into his house at night, His son has too and that should be the right of anyone the world over, To be able to defend yourself, It's utterly perverse that in the UK you have zero rights when it comes to protecting yourself from scum AND they are protected by the police and do gooders, It truly makes my blood boil.

 

[SPS]

See this is why the US want their guns so bad. Because you simply cannot rely on the Police.

Um... no. In that case they'd have pulled guns out on Dice instead of knives.

 

[Dicehunter]

Um... no. In that case they'd have pulled guns out on Dice instead of knives.

True but plenty of people get shot where I live and guns are meant to be illegal, There was quite the shoot out between 2 rival gangs only a few streets away from me, Zero on the news though.

 

[grec]

Was the house/apartment uninhabited? Not really a crime the police would really be able to spend time on nowadays in any city with how resources are atm, unfortunately police now can only deal with imminently violent or threatening situations in most urban areas, anything else you call 101 instead usually and put in a report, they just don't have the numbers atm to be dealing with stuff in person. Also with the breakdown of community policing now numbers are really thin, they can't really keep track of people the way they used to, unless they catch someone in the act then there's probably not enough for them to take to CPS for a solid charge.

Still lots of inter gang shootings here in UK but you never hear them used for burglaries or muggings or anything like that. Once a gun has been used for one crime here you can't really use it twice, most end up in a canal quickly, and most people here don't find a gun particularly threatening so it's useless for robberies because most wouldn't assume it's real. I've seen the odd CCTV of people attempting to rob pubs or bookies with hunting shotguns here(Worth noting most guns used for crime in UK are actually legal licensed firearms) and they just get smacked up by random people. Have known the odd pub owner to keep a bird-shot loaded shotty behind the bar though.

Not gonna lie I don't like the word chav at all though, usually a term used by people from a relative position of privilege to describe working class kids for having a demeanour that anyone would after growing up in inner city poverty. Lots of my friends are "chavs", some carry knives, they're not bad people though, just symptoms of the reality that shapes them. If everyone's doing it, they don't have much choice, it's a classic zero-sum game if you want to get into the game-theory about why you can't just ban guns or knives from a society that already has widespread access to them.

I think it's completely right that you can't go shooting or attacking burglars, property or money should never be held to the same value as human life, one is very easy to reimburse and one is impossible, while thievery is almost always a symptom of poverty and increasing the risk & violence involved makes the situation far worse in the long run for everyone involved. Issues like this need to be tackled at the source.

 

[Dicehunter]

Was the house/apartment uninhabited? Not really a crime the police would really be able to spend time on nowadays in any city with how resources are atm, unfortunately police now can only deal with imminently violent or threatening situations in most urban areas, anything else you call 101 instead usually and put in a report, they just don't have the numbers atm to be dealing with stuff in person. Also with the breakdown of community policing now numbers are really thin, they can't really keep track of people the way they used to, unless they catch someone in the act then there's probably not enough for them to take to CPS for a solid charge.

No, As I said, The apartment building has several people in it, Me included, I said this quite clearly, There are 12 flats in it, All inhabited.

Not gonna lie I don't like the word chav at all though, usually a term used by people from a relative position of privilege to describe working class kids for having a demeanour that anyone would after growing up in inner city poverty. Lots of my friends are "chavs", some carry knives, they're not bad people though, just symptoms of the reality that shapes them. If everyone's doing it, they don't have much choice, it's a classic zero-sum game if you want to get into the game-theory about why you can't just ban guns or knives from a society that already has widespread access to them.

I think it's completely right that you can't go shooting or attacking burglars, property or money should never be held to the same value as human life, one is very easy to reimburse and one is impossible, while thievery is almost always a symptom of poverty and increasing the risk & violence involved makes the situation far worse in the long run for everyone involved. Issues like this need to be tackled at the source.

Too bad, Chavs are scum, I don't come from any privileged background, I have had to put up with this type of scum most of my life, They ruin entire neighbourhoods, Best place for them would be infront of the firing squad.

 

[grec]

By apartment I meant flat rather than the whole building sorry, are these are classed as different residencies, so I couldn't tell how inhabited. Like I said though, without better funding, crimes regarding property are at the bottom of the list (I know many cops, including family, who relish the times when this wasn't the case, but nowadays even violent cases can get little to no time possible spent on them as I know all too well.)

It's the neighbourhoods that create people like this. This is why you can't "cleanse" places. Doesn't matter how many people you send to prison or force out of the area, if the area is not a sustainable place to live, it will bread toxicity, in every generation. The fact is, your attitude is also a part of the wider long term problem, why would they view you with any more respect than you view them? You're literally advocating for the murder of people based on their socio-economic background, something they had no control over, how can you claim any high ground?

People do really, really dumb sh*t when they live in uncertainty, people act irrationally out of fear, or when faced with persistent violence. Throwing fuel into the fire will never put it out.

 

[AlienALX]

Too bad, Chavs are scum, I don't come from any privileged background, I have had to put up with this type of scum most of my life, They ruin entire neighbourhoods, Best place for them would be infront of the firing squad.

The Tories are doing their best to destroy them though by capping/stopping their benefits. It's no longer a life choice tbh you get so much aggro for doing sod all these days.

I have to say that my town are anti chav. In fact, there are posters all over the place of d-bags on ASBO in case you spot one and grass him for being in a place he's not supposed to be in. My town centre also has wardens who basically get rid of the homeless during the day time and basically keep their eyes open which is very nice. Very reassuring for me. There isn't much crime down here either tbh it's quite a nice unspoiled place really.

But yeah, they are s**t. That was my one and only dread of moving out of my privately rented flat, then being stuck in a void because no landlord would rent to me because of scum like that. IE, no one on benefits. I must have phoned about ten flats and got the same "No they won't rent to you" even though I had never missed a rent payment ONCE in six years of living in my flat AND having to handle the rent money myself. Yeah, I'm pretty effing proud of that. But my one dread was ending up in a council flat surrounded by people like that. Oh hell no I'd have been up for murder.

Funny thing is my ex wife got a council flat and dear lord the people in her building. Bloke on ground floor had barking dogs (rottys) typical of the tenant. Then the old lady in the flat opposite hers on the top floor had about 5 yipping dogs that made the entire building REEK of pee dude. Like the ammonia smell when you walked in *heaves*. They also yipped 24/7 'cause she was too old to take them out.

I would die inside if I had to live like that. I know to most they would barely even notice or care but it would destroy me.

That is why I was so lucky and so happy to have found a place here. It's as secure as Fort Knox, it's *silent*, you could hear a pin drop and in three months I've not met any one who lives here yet. Autistic people FTW. Keep themselves to themselves and don't go poking their noses where they're not wanted.

I tell you what really made my care worker Ashleigh laugh... I asked if I could put up a "bike locker" or basically very small shed. She says she asked the owner and he has put in bike rails (not really sufficient but whatever) and wanted the area clear as he was going to put in tables and chairs and etc as a social area.

LOOOOOOL, clearly some one who doesn't understand autism at all. I said "That will get used about as much as Prince Philip's " and she bust out laughing and said "Yeah, I didn't even think about that".

But yeah, praise be for the god that put me where I am. I wouldn't mind, but *I* came from an area that wasn't very nice and I always wanted better, and was always polite. Being a scum bag earns you absolutely SOD ALL. All you do is lower yourself and your expectations. Sod that man.

 

[grec]

Funny thing is my ex wife got a council flat and dear lord the people in her building. Bloke on ground floor had barking dogs (rottys) typical of the tenant. Then the old lady in the flat opposite hers on the top floor had about 5 yipping dogs that made the entire building REEK of pee dude. Like the ammonia smell when you walked in *heaves*. They also yipped 24/7 'cause she was too old to take them out.

I would die inside if I had to live like that. I know to most they would barely even notice or care but it would destroy me.

No one likes to live like that, crammed into small areas barely suitable for human inhabitation, exposed in many many ways. I think the idea that these people don't care or accept it is a misconception, they just don't have a way out. It would drive anyone crazy, if you grow up with it you certainly adapt to it, but I wouldn't say the way ALL humans would naturally adapt to behave & live to survive & cope in an environment like that is anything sane on a human scale.

The only time I've ever not lived on a council estate was while at university(Was still living in one of the most violent areas of West Midlands but Selly's a big step up from Salford), and I found the change of environment incredible. It's impossible to understate how free your mind becomes moving to an environment where you can rest, sleep & travel without fear, & have peace. Many of these "chavs" you speak of I can assure you are probably incredibly nice & polite people to those they view as their own. But outsiders will always be perceived as threats when they're viewed in this way. As long as you both perceive each other as threats to each others way of life, you will both treat each other as c*nts and then wonder why the other one is behaving in that way, both blaming each other for a problem you both have no control over.

 

[AlienALX]

No one likes to live like that, crammed into small areas barely suitable for human inhabitation, exposed in many many ways. I think the idea that these people don't care or accept it is delusional, they just don't have a way out. It would drive anyone crazy, if you grow up with it you certainly adapt to it, but I wouldn't say the way ALL humans would naturally adapt to behave & live to survive & cope in an environment like that is anything sane on a human scale.

Want to know something strange? We both live at the same building number and identically named roads 11 miles apart in two different towns in two different districts.

I swear sometimes there's far more to life than just coincidence.

Edit to add.

My dad's dad died when my dad was about the same age as me when he then died. So I didn't know too much about Sid. I did go and look for his grave one day and took all of the brambles off it and gave it a good cleaning. My dad's brother had clearly not bothered. Any way, Sid worked for the council after the war and that is how we got our house. It remained council until the 70s, when they allowed people to buy them. So my dad took out a mortgage and when he died it was paid off.

Before my father died though he stated that we would not be raised there. It used to be a nice almost rural area right on the bottom of London, then it slowly started being replaced with concrete. And train stations, and loads of houses etc. Any way, he bought a large plot of land in East Sussex, about 15 miles out of Hastings inland. Very quiet I mean there was nothing there pretty much at the time. Basically all of my uncles were builders, painters, carpenters etc so they all chipped in and we were to have our own private development. We were going to sell up in London, move down to the coast and live a quiet life.

Sadly when he died that all died with him and we ended up stuck in South London. And it got progressively worse, and it was a cold, nasty brutal place to grow up in. I've seen people stabbed, shot, beaten with wooden mallets.. That brings me to what I was going to say. You grow a defence for it. Things become almost too shocking, so you then go into some sort of shock that keeps you there, desensitising you to pretty much everything. When I was a kid we used to have an area behind the park that went from my town all the way to Streatham Common (about three miles, was great for stolen motorbikes). Any way, I remember playing up there as a kid and coming across a dead puppy. It had a collar and everything. I felt so bad I was crying. Turns out it belonged to one of the pikeys and when it died they literally just lobbed it over the fence into the waste ground.

Like I say man, over time you just become hardened to it all. By 25? I knew I had to get out. I had to go somewhere nothing like that at all. Cue my American wife who lived on a farm in rural south New Jersey.

And I have never looked back. No longer do I have "friends" who burgle my house and steal all of my dad's jewellery in the envelope my mother was given at the hospital the day he died (had his name and DOA on it, she never could bring herself to open it had his false teeth and all that in there too).

It took me a long, long time to adapt. I used to get my stuff done with anger. Thankfully being away from it for 20 years has changed me, and I can't imagine how I used to cope with the stuff that happened there.

I no longer solve my problems with anger. I just walk away now. That is a bit tough when you are stuck in it , though. All of my other family moved away my mother was the last to go when she retired and was struggling living without her twin.

But yeah, one of my school friends would die from being a crack head and I would just laugh and not even pass it a second thought. Like literally not even give a chuff whatsoever.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Um... no. In that case they'd have pulled guns out on Dice instead of knives.

No. If dice pulled first I promise they wouldn't have had the chance to.

 

[grec]

I think there's quite a lot of evidence to show that whether knives or guns, carrying a weapon makes you much more likely to have one used against you, in America having a gun in your household correlates to a significantly higher chance of being the victim of violent crime. Generally these things are used for their threatening potential, a thief is in a very different mindset and has very different goals to a murderer, and rarely do they have any will or intention to use the weapons, and in fact when attacked with fists there are many examples of these people simply running once they realise they haven't scared people into submission. The only time a petty thief would ever have a reason to actually use the weapon is when their life is in threat, which only occurs when someone else has a weapon too, then fear kicks in, only trained killers don't hesitate(Which no thief or civy is), and you've suddenly created a zero sum game with two lives.

This is why, pretty much all research, including many dozens of studies across various places and time periods, show that more guns have no meaningful impfact on crime prevention, and are linked in many ways to crime increases. Pretty much all modern studies on the topic have roundly concluded that the use of guns in self defense is not only incredibly rare but often escalates potentially non-violent crimes into violent ones. This is the same with knives too ofc.

My advice if you're getting mugged or whatever? Honestly just be as friendly and non-threatening as possible, if you look carefully(Takes a bit of getting used to) you will probably see the guy holding the weapon is sh*ting himself inside, jittery hands, tense voice, shifty eyes. I've done the whole "Are you really going to use that against me" stuff when it's happened while drunk and what have you and the guy seemed to almost break inside, they might give you a slap as a last ditch resort but I'd say you're pretty safe to run at that point(Obviously guns are a bit different there) though I certainly wouldn't recommend it given you can usually get your stuff back after the fact.

 

[NeverBackDown]

That's the most incorrect thing I've ever heard.

 

[grec]

So all the studies & research that shows that guns are successfully used in self defence in less than 1% of violent crimes in America are dismissed based on what exactly? And the studies and research that show gun owners and households are often several times more likely to be the victims of violent crimes and gun use?

For every case of a gun being used in self defence, there are 4 cases of unintentional shootings in America. One of the better parts about knives, is that if you don't know how to use one properly(Which almost everyone who carries one purely as a threat or a deterrent won't) you're far more likely to harm yourself stupidly than someone else.

 

[looz]

Being tough on crime and actively pushing petty criminals out of the society has been tried in many countries since it feels intuitive that rehabilitative policies aren't worth it. It's easy to think that certain people are just born to be criminals (and well, psychopaths are but that's a small minority).
But looking at countries where that's been the approach (USA and Russia comes to mind, and most of the poorer world) the results speak for themselves - absolute garbage compared to countries where policies aim to rehabilitate criminals and giving social support to worse off people.
Guns as personal self defence is also a poor solution (as in, not one at all) but if your trust in police force is low I suppose it makes sense to support it. Statistically you're more likely to use it against yourself after a bad day however, possibly drunk.
I'm glad advocating for these short-sighted policies is mostly a fringe movement within Europe.

 

[AlienALX]

Even long before the Stabby McStabface (TM) started in London we all carried knives. Why? to stop you getting mugged or robbed at knifepoint. I was mugged at 12 at the Streatham Odeon and I vowed I would not let it happen again.

The way I look at it? ask yourself how likely or unlikely people would be outwardly violent if it required physical effort and or the chance of being hurt yourself. You'd find that a good whopping percentage of those who pull triggers would instead take up a more passive hobby.

It requires nothing, doesn't it? just a little bit of energy to pull that trigger. Now in the UK? we like a bit more effort to go with our violence. That said though, I would still rather be the one WITH the knife than the one trying to defend myself against one using only my bare hands. It gives the attacker a massive advantage.

We're not bloody cavemen any more and we don't need either. IMO, of course, as I know it's a very touchy subject.

 

[looz]

We are pretty much the exact same as cavemen were. Having massive amounts of guns in circulation, like in the US, also leads to criminals being armed more often than not. This leads more liberal use of force by law enforcement because at that point being armed is expected. Everyone ends up worse off.


In a high risk area carrying less items worth stealing works better, pulling a knife or a gun doesn't often end up in your favour. Though I haven't really had to deal with such threats - it pretty much doesn't happen over here, and I thank our mostly sensible society for that.

 

[grec]

To be honest no one can tell the value of what's in your pockets before they initiate the threats, personally I just started carrying a 2nd phone of little value(They don't actually care how much the phone is worth, it's getting flogged for a tenner in a takeaway regardless), they never route through pockets because it puts themselves at risk when it comes to knives. For a while they'd only go for phones but I think you get people going for wallets again now contactless cards are ubiquitous here, but I hear you don't really have those in America, though you can just claim those purchases back from your bank.

Honestly after hearing from friends what those purchases on stolen cards generally entail it's actually kinda sad, usually just a weeks worth of food or a takeaway or whatever. Good thing there imo is that no one really loses when it's just a card that's stolen, you get your money back, they get food, banks insured, no reason for anyone to get violent.

 

[NeverBackDown]

So all the studies & research that shows that guns are successfully used in self defence in less than 1% of violent crimes in America are dismissed based on what exactly? And the studies and research that show gun owners and households are often several times more likely to be the victims of violent crimes and gun use?

For every case of a gun being used in self defence, there are 4 cases of unintentional shootings in America. One of the better parts about knives, is that if you don't know how to use one properly(Which almost everyone who carries one purely as a threat or a deterrent won't) you're far more likely to harm yourself stupidly than someone else.

Believe whatever you want. No study worth it's salt says gun cause more crime in the world, let alone the US.
Guns save far more lives and prevent death far more than causes it. It deters crime.