Tasers

[rdt2]

...all of their top generals have got their wings from Sandhurst.
Next time you see news footage of some country in turmoil watch out for the General in the background proudly wearing the Red Beret.

Wee point - Sandhust doesn't qualify soldiers for wings or the Red Beret. It's the basic training school for Officers in the British Army (and some others). Para wings (as opposed to pilots wings) are awarded after parachute training. I think the para training WAS done at Aldershot.

[job78989]

Having Tasers on the Steets of Strathclyde is a shameful matter, the fear of crime is the driving force for this kind of intervention, but how real is the need to fear crime for most of the population. Just over 1% of the Scottish population is in prison at any one time. Take a look at these figures from the Scottish Executive.

Before condeming all young people as ned, yobs, thugs, vandals etc. etc. that deserve to be tasered, we should consider factors that influence ciminal behaiour. Major problems and malajustments in our society frequently create disfunctional humans and bear in mind that only just overl1% of Scots are in prison. Issues such as Machismo attitudes to violence, drink, drugs, women etc. affect the attitude and behaviour of the young, matters such as poverty and lack of opportunity can lead to crime simple things like depression leading to drinking and drug taking creating ever deeper financial difficulties.

Tasers are in fact to be welcomed as a tool for the police as a less leathal means of assulting another person, however, do we actually need them?

Every law created assults our civil rights and reduces our freedom!

Why not take a more balanced view and refrain from tarring all young people as evil. I know many young people who work as volunteers in many areas of social care, arts and entertainment

If we as a society need to spend money and make laws to keep us safe from the monsters we create, then spend the money in the right place by passing laws that force adults to parent the children with care and provide classes to educate the current monsters how not to repeat the failures of the past. By beating kids, ignoring them and generally turning them into the broken humans of the future.

If you are a thoughtful and respectful human you will bring up balanced children.

[rdt2]

Job 78989, I think you should read Apollo's last post. And consider whether anyone on this board has tarred every young person with any particular brush.

[AlanM]

Job 78989, I think you should read Apollo's last post. And consider whether anyone on this board has tarred every young person with any particular brush.

I thought we were questioning police restraint or lack thereof

Alan

[Apollo]

Every law created assults our civil rights and reduces our freedom!

I believe there's a law regarding murder, and one ar two regarding assualt and battery, plus rather a lot of similar statutes.

Care to have a go at showing how those fit into that rather sweeping statement

[Vladimir]

Well they do reduce our freedom to harm other people When defending freedom you have to consider whether total freedom is actually a good idea...

[job78989]

rdt2 wrote:
Job 78989, I think you should read Apollo's last post. And consider whether anyone on this board has tarred every young person with any particular brush.

AlanM Wrote:
I thought we were questioning police restraint or lack thereof
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I feel that police restraint is only one of the issues involved, it is societys perception that the levels of criminal behavour are extremley high that concerns me. On review of the material in this thread, I accept that no one here is making tarring acqusations about young people. However, is that the same for society generally? I am thinking of the resent idea that everyone wearing hoodies should be banned from shops as a potential shoplifter, or similar perceptions that everyone who wears a baseball cap is a ned. This kind of sterotyping is what leads to the irational fear of crime and the constant calls for greater police powers, everyone of which deminishs our personal freedoms.

[Vladimir]

This is from BBC Scoland:

"We are trying to find out why one child growing up in, say Glasgow, starts carrying a knife and uses it to attack someone, whereas another child living maybe two roads away will go to university and get a job.''

Is it not blindingly obvious...

[Caltonboy]

yes, its blatantly obvious that one has chosen to negate his social responsibility and the other has chosen a life.

choose life not politics that excuse your victimhood I say.

[Apollo]

If you want an insight into how it comes about that two children who may be brought up yards apart, and by apparently responsible parents (by which I mean neither are criminally inclined, or deliberately abusive) yet go on in later life to follow paths which show one to become responsible and one to become criminal, then you could do worse than sit down and watch the Channel 4 programme Supernanny.

I dismissed this a bit of a joke and an excuse to get a laugh at a few parents and their screaming weans.

Having taken the time to sit down and watch it recently, I'm beginning to see it as a chilling insight into how parental mismanagement of very young children in their formative years can damage and scar them mentally for the rest of their lives.

I recommed it as essential viewing for anyone looking for the reasons behind the apparently inexplicable development of children from apparently stable family backgrounds, and that it be viewed from the direction of what example is being seen by the children whenever their parents lose control of themselves, while trying to control their children.

[job78989]

Very good point apollo

[AlanM]

The taser at work,in Argyle St.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4483998.stm