Things that never make the news...

Simon Hi,

comparing Crete mainly with Romania or less so with Latvia is like comparing heaven with hell or its waiting room (for Latvia eventhough this is a bit of an overstatement since Latvia is actually a pretty nice place and people there are EXTREMELY friendly).

Could not say so about a comparison between Crete and Czech though mainly because of all those angel like looking Chezh chicks though.

But comparing Greece to ex-Eastern block countries is not a fair game, at least not yet.

And Romania is a place you better still avoid (especially now with the birds' flue incidents and serious lack of health standards)

Take care Pantelis (who is Greek but tries to be objective on the above comments)

mounted on chassis, waiting on a windscreen and MOT

Perhaps not but the point I was trying to make was that two eye witnesses said what they saw at the time which could possibly be the same as the police had seen and acted upon so are you saying that theses two were lying? Or is it so much media coverage has distorted the truth so much we just don't know what really happened and perhaps never will

In news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net, Andy.Smalley blithered:

Except that the poor bastard is dead for no good reason. And I would say more worryingly the apparent overmeister declined to take responsibility seemingly prefering to try to cover it up! But I won't because it isn't.

On Sun, 16 Oct 2005 10:42:05 +0300, "Pantelis Giamarellos" scribbled the following nonsense:

Quite probably unfair to compare Crete/greece with romania, etc. and certainly no offence meant.

I did enjoy Crete, thought the pace of life wonderful, the people friendly, extremely cheap compared to rip off Britain (eg petrol

One thing that did strike me was the difference between rich and poor. We stayed about 1 mile from Malia/Stalis which was fairly affluent, yet the Plateau of Lasithi was just 15miles away, which seemed to be fairly poor, with very little mechanisation. Even more striking is coming out of Heraklion airport to find a shanty town. I thought they were mainly a South American thing... Just seemed to strike me as odd.

In message , Austin Shackles writes

History lesson folk! :-)

It was eroded a long time ago, see the Vagrancy Act of 1824 which made possession of an offensive weapon without good reason or lawful excuse an offence. The onus was upon the person concerned to prove he had good reason or lawful excuse. To wit:

"Section 1. Any person who without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, the proof whereof shall lie on him, has with him in any public place any offensive weapon [shall be guilty of an offence]"

And what was an offensive weapon?

"Section 1(4). [...] offensive weapon means any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or some other person."

And if it could be shown that you possessed it with intent, here's what you got:

"Section IX. [...] every person [...] being armed with any gun, pistol, hanger, cutless, bludgeon, or other offensive weapon, with intent to commit any felonious act; and it shall be lawful for any Justice of the Peace to commit such offender [..] to hard labour for any time not exceeding three calendar months."

and once there life got tougher,

"Section X. [...] that when any incorrigible rogue shall have been committed to the house of correction [the Justices sitting at the General or Quarter Sessions] if they think fit, that such an offender (not being female) be punished by whipping [...] according to the nature of the offence they in their discretion shall deem expedient."

So, not all bad news, eh? LOL

In message , Steve writes

How? Where is the data going to be stored? Where are the batteries? What resolution? Have you ever examined CCTV footage: most of it is useless.

1. how do you covertly carry a rifle? one reason for carrying pistols is that they can be covertly carried: what the public doesn't see the public doesn't worry about.
2. pistols are relatively low powered, and the bullets used by the police in their pistols and 'sub-machine guns' are designed not to leave the body ('over penetrate').
3. Rifles deliver >very< much more power than pistols and a rifle bullet will readily pass through the intended target and go on to strike anyone else in its path. Is that acceptable?
4. Rifles are much less manoeuvrable than either pistols or sub-machine guns. How do you manoeuvre a rifle on a crowded tube train? The pistol is a close-quarter weapon, the rifle is not.

Ob.Land-Rover

I'm going to put my S3 88" back on the road (it has the MOT), but where to look for insurance. My road car is insured with Direct Line. Comments?

Have you ever seen proper CCTV ? I have hi-res cameras at work which are more than adequate recorders.

the whole idea is that the public should worry when police carry guns.

You make my point.

Steve

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 08:58:13 GMT, Jonathan Spencer scribbled the following nonsense:

Pistols low powered?? Ever tried firing a Browning 9mm? Even a .22 pistol round will over penetrate...

It is not neccesarily the weapon that is low powered, but the round that is used. In real life Operations in Built Up Areas (OBUA), it is normal practice to issue the troops that are assaulting with low velocity rounds for their rifles. Not because they don't want to kill the defenders, but because of the risk of over penetration causing casualties to the assaulting teams. A standard 5.56mm ball round will over penetrate bodies, and will also quite easily pass through a brick wall. Low velocity rounds when fired from rifles have a lower risk of over pentrating or passing through brick walls.

When I was in the TA I used to be able to achieve groupings of less than 4" at 100m using the L85A1 (SA80 to you), but with a pistol, be it the 9mm Browning or the 5.56 Heckler and Koch I would struggle to achieve a 12inch group at 5m. Now translate that to a busy tube station, could make the difference between a dead bady or dead goody...

In message , Simon Isaacs writes

Yes, pistols are low powered and yes, I've not only fired the Browning, I was armed with one for 10 years. And I do know what I'm talking about, it's what I do for a living.

Let's put it in perspective. The 9mmP pistol used by the police fires a

The 7.62x51 rifles used by the police can fire a variety of bullets depending on the task, e.g. someone out in the open or inside a building behind load-bearing glass (up to 4" thick). But if we consider a typical police sniper's bullet, it will weigh 150 grain (9.7g) fired with a velocity of 2600fps and deliver 2250 ft-lbs of kinetic energy.

So, relative to a rifle, the pistol is low powered:

pistol = 1050 fps, 300 ft lbs rifle = 2600 fps, 2250 ft-lbs

An order of magnitude difference. As for the .22, of course the .22 is capable of inflicting a lethal wound, but a .22 is very unlikely to pass through and exit either the human torso nor the human skull.

Kindly name your source for that information, and the nomenclature of the ammunition you say is issued.

Which the typical deer stalker would consider to be pretty poor shooting. An out-the-box run of the mill bolt action sporting rifle will group around an inch at 100 yards. But the L85 shoots 'good enough' for military purposes.

That's because you were not a skilled pistol shot, not any failure of the pistol or ammunition. The team that took out the IRA in Gibraltar had no such problem. It boils down to good tuition and lots of practice, practice, practice.

And wielding a high velocity rifle within a crowded rush-hour tube train is a better idea? Answer: no it isn't.

The officer who killed the suspected bomber did what he was supposed to do: he got up close and personal and killed the man by shooting him multiple times in the head. Unfortunately for all concerned, the man who was killed wasn't a bomber: if he had been, the officer would be a hero of course.

Allowing another thread to 'drift' is one thing. Starting a new thread (for those with news clients that thread on subject) is another. What you say may, or may not be quite correct, it may also be complete bollocks, whatever the case, it's off topic and NOT worth its own thread.

There are plenty places in usenetland where gunnies can go talk guns. Please don't think it's alright to just do so here because another thread has drifted.

In message , Mother writes

That *is* the point. To make clear that it's off topic so those who don't want to read it can see as much without opening the article, and those who want to kill the subject can do so, i.e. a courtesy to those who'd prefer to talk Land-Rover, not my intention to start a sub-thread, nosiree.

'nuff said

It doesn't seem credible, simply from the logistics. Also, with modern body armour (which, I have heard, makes most pistols ineffective), low power rounds are useless.

According to my sources, the L85 is capable of better. I've shot better with a cheap Chinese air rifle.

I don't trust the accuracy of the news reports, but I think there was a chain of mistakes, of various sorts, which put the officer in that situation.

Psychologically, it was a mad dash to catch up with the situation: not a good situation for decision-making.

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:08:08 +0100 (BST), snipped-for-privacy@zhochaka.org.uk ("David G. Bell") scribbled the following nonsense:

Errm, my training with the TA was the source, and we were told it was a low velocity rund

Maybe so, but this was using iron sights, not the SUSAT telescopic sight, the RLC are not a "tooth" arm, and so are not issued with the SUSAT. All figures for the L85 are given using SUSAT. The 4" grouping is part of the weapons tests required to qualify for your bounty, along with many other criteria.