In yet another salvo in the UK's ongoing war on speeders, the British government is considering installing motorway cameras which track the average speed of individual vehicles. The move is aimed at those sick, twisted individuals who slow down for cameras only to speed up again after they pass the eyes in the sky. The new cameras would track the speed of a vehicle, and then compute its average velocity between two cameras on a given stretch of road. Although simple in conception, the new approach would be far more effective in convincing Britain's drivers that the smallest violation of speed limits would be instantly caught and penalized. The cameras have already been deployed for testing at road construction sites, and apparently can't be fooled by lane changes and other "evasive techniques."
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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.”
— Thomas Paine
Finally a use for that Dupont paint that changes color depending on the direction you look at it.
I know I’m one of those misfits who has a gun and loves God (alas I’ve never lived in PA), but isn’t this kind of roadside spy equipment just what the 30.06 rifle was designed for?!
Oh right, I forgot for a moment. Her Majesty’s gracious government has taken away all the guns belonging to the citizens.
So only real villains (“criminals” in American english) have guns now.
Yep, it’s just a matter of time before they start using cameras to protect the cameras.
Big Brother anyone?
Does this mean I have full permission to travel at 120MPH if I’m only to be out for 30 minutes?
I know I’m one of those misfits who has a gun and loves God (alas I’ve never lived in PA), but isn’t this kind of roadside spy equipment just what the 30.06 rifle was designed for?!
No, that’s overkill; an “evil”* Mini-14 (.223) would do and you would get multiple shots with an “evil” high-capacity magazine.
* Use of the term evil in quotations marks is meant to deride the people who try to ban “assault weapons” which are used in very few crimes. By “assault weapons”, these people mean any gun that looks mean and/or uses a large capacity magazine (anything over 5 shots or so).
Of course, anything used to assault someone is an “assault weapon”. Therefore, if these people want to be intellectually honest, they should go after kitchen knives, baseball bats, tire irons, golf clubs (see James Caan), pens, pencils, sticks, rocks, arrowheads, nuts, bolts, cameras, blenders, pots, pans, fingernail files, scissors, game controllers, CDs, DVDs, Encyclopedia Britannica, lawn chairs and feather dusters, just to name a few.
Memo, I think you inadvertently made an important point: guns don’t protect us from abuses of governmental powers. Would you really shoot one of these speed cameras? Of course not. Your gun is useless against tyranny.
On, and I have a quote, as well:
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Ben Franklin
Memo, I think you inadvertently made an important point: guns don’t protect us from abuses of governmental powers. Would you really shoot one of these speed cameras? Of course not. Your gun is useless against tyranny.
I think the 30-06 comment was a joke (at least that’s how I took it). However, guns are NOT useless against tyranny. They sure helped us back in the 1770s.
Two words:
“Patriot” and “Act”
TexasAg03, you have the same old decrepit arguments. While it is possible to murder someone with a baseball bat along with a host of other objects, the lethality of those objects varies widely. I would like to see someone pull of a mass murder with a baseball bat, or even with a knife.
Memo, I think you inadvertently made an important point: guns don’t protect us from abuses of governmental powers. Would you really shoot one of these speed cameras? Of course not. Your gun is useless against tyranny.
I think the 30-06 comment was a joke (at least that’s how I took it). However, guns are NOT useless against tyranny. They sure helped us back in the 1770s.
Of course it was a joke. It made a point nonetheless.
In the 1770s, we recognized that we were living in a tyranny and we were organized. In modern Britain, they are obviously not recognizing that tyranny is creeping up on them. The British people, for now anyways, have the right to vote, so they could put an end to these abuses of governmental powers relatively easily. It is preposterous to say that a populace that won’t do something as mundane as force their politicians to adopt different policies is somehow going to pick up their guns (I know they can’t have them anymore) and engage in the radical act of starting a rebellion.
liechter,
I see you have no sense of humor; that was a bit tongue in cheek.
However, it is true that “assault weapons” are rarely used in the commission of crimes and yet this is one of the major focuses of the gun control crowd.
More laws won’t stop these crimes. The Virginia Tech shooting occurred in a “gun-free” zone. Obviously, it was only gun-free for the victims. The shooter should never have gotten the gun but his mental health status was not reported properly and he was able to purchase a gun.
Enforce the laws on the books and allow law-abiding citizens to carry guns. If someone in that building at Virginia Tech had a gun that day, maybe more, if not all, of those people would be alive.
liechter: It is preposterous to say that a populace that won’t do something as mundane as force their politicians to adopt different policies is somehow going to pick up their guns (I know they can’t have them anymore) and engage in the radical act of starting a rebellion.
That sounds more like a good argument against apathy than against guns.
liechter,
I see you have no sense of humor; that was a bit tongue in cheek.
However, it is true that “assault weapons” are rarely used in the commission of crimes and yet this is one of the major focuses of the gun control crowd.
More laws won’t stop these crimes. The Virginia Tech shooting occurred in a “gun-free” zone. Obviously, it was only gun-free for the victims. The shooter should never have gotten the gun but his mental health status was not reported properly and he was able to purchase a gun.
Enforce the laws on the books and allow law-abiding citizens to carry guns. If someone in that building at Virginia Tech had a gun that day, maybe more, if not all, of those people would be alive.
Jokes can still make valid points. And the point was that you are not going to challenge the authorities in a violent fashion no matter what kind of guns you have and no matter how egregious the abuse of governmental powers.
Obviously, you can’t have tiny island of gun-free zones in an ocean of guns. The only law I want to enforce is that private citizens are not allowed to own firearms, all the other 20,000 gun laws can go in the trash as far as I am concerned. Australia did the sensible thing after the mass shooting in Tasmania, and cracked down on guns.
But, for the sake of arguemtn, if we do recognize gun ownership as a right, abridging that right due to mental status is troubling on its own. The determination of one’s mental health is a very precarious science even for the best professionals. I think this creates a way for a backdoor for the government to put people they don’t like on the list. Didn’t California add like 200,000 people after the VA shooting in one week?
The Brits might not actually shoot the speed cameras, but there is actually a website devoted to photos of speed cameras that have been destroyed by citizens. I forget its name, you’ll have to Google it yourself. So some Brits are taking matters into their own hands on this.
leichter: And the point was that you are not going to challenge the authorities in a violent fashion no matter what kind of guns you have and no matter how egregious the abuse of governmental powers.
Every situation is different. To say that people will never use privately owned firearms to challenge government actions is simply not accurate, and has not been borne out by history.
liechter: The only law I want to enforce is that private citizens are not allowed to own firearms, all the other 20,000 gun laws can go in the trash as far as I am concerned.
Banning firearms ownership among private individuals is ineffective and needlessly intrusive. There is no proof that banning guns reduces crime. There is nothing wrong with law-abiding citizens owning firearms. In many cases, this prevents crime.
liechter :
April 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Australia did the sensible thing after the mass shooting in Tasmania, and cracked down on guns.
And their murder rate (per capita) has remained basically unchanged while their violent crime rate has gone up. Their current homicide rate (2005, latest numbers fully documented) is well within the range documented under less restrictive laws.
That “normal” homicide rate is accompanied by a larg(ish) increase in other violent crime rates, most noticeably rape and assault.
Here’s the link to the numbers and analysis provided by the Australian government that verifies the homicide claim, and you’ll be able to verify the violent crime statistics using it:
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/rpp/77/
We may or may not use our guns against tyranny, but claiming that stricter gun laws provides a safer nation is not born out by the results of stricter controls in Australia and England, the only two industrialized, english speaking nations that have instituted stricter firearms laws.
Way off-topic on a web site devoted to cars, and I apologize for spending so much time on it.
“Australia did the sensible thing after the mass shooting in Tasmania, and cracked down on guns.”
I have read that, since Australian criminals no longer need to fear that their victims may be armed, crime there has increased substantially. The only way to offset this is to increase the probability and severity of punishment to the point where the criminals are as afraid of that as they used to be afraid of getting shot.
In the United States, the licensing procedure for concealed carry is very good at distinguishing between those who can be trusted with guns and those who cannot. There remains the problem of keeping guns out of the hands of the latter.
Could someone please list the countries in which criminals have no guns?
How about a list of countries that have all of the other ten amendment rights without the 2nd?
BTW, no matter what country you name, my answer is that they don’t have all the rights, and they do have guns.
The key to tyranny is to get people to believe that government can do things which it can’t.
I gotta go to that site with the camera destruction. I figured out long ago that when I think if doing something like that, so do a lot of other people, and they don’t all have my self control.
handguns should flat out be illegal for use by the public. to easy to hide/conceal. to easy to acquire.
I think gun ranges should have a storage facility on site, so if you want to go shoot your gun, go to the range and shoot it. then leave it there and go home. if you want to take it somewhere you are not aloud to buy or have bullets on your person.
every other gun should be painted BRIGHT pink.
if you dont like it, i dont care.
Regardless of the other arguments, for me it boils down to the fact that I don’t trust anybody (police/army excepted in certain circumstances) enough to advocate allowing every ‘responsible’ citizen buy an item that has the power to end my life in less than a second. Allowing everybody to have guns in order to make the criminals more afraid doesn’t seem like a good enough counterpoint
And there is nothing an individual or group of people can do against an army in the year 2008. Maybe back in 1770 it was possible to take up arms and revolt, but in the age of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear and other) it is impossible for any relatively small group of people to have an impact on a world power using guns alone. In fact, the only way a group of people who wish to use weapons can actually affect a large government in this day and age is terrorism, which is certainly not something anybody should be advocating
topdog,
As a retired Army officer, I can assure you that there is plenty an armed populace can do against a modern army. More accurately, there are serious limitations to what a modern army can do against an armed populace. And that is more to the point, isn’t it?
We don’t keep the 2nd amendment around in case of invasion or the need to overthrow the government. Merely having the 2nd Amendment helps prevent the creation of circumstances where one of those conditions could evolve.
I note that none of you anti gun folks want to own up to, or challenge the fact that no where has there ever been a free, unarmed population. At least not for very long.
My birth country (Canada) is certainly not gun-free, but guns laws are much stricter there and I believe gun violence is as well
When did this become thetruthaboutguns.com?
–chuck
Why does everyone use that Benjamin Franklin quote about liberty and security as if it’ll stop any argument in its tracks? It’s just the opinion of one man, spoken a long time ago, and people are free to disagree with it.
On topic, you’re all blowing this stupidly out of proportion. You’re talking about blowing up cameras and re-arming the populace, for what?
Oh yeah that’s right, in an attempt to stop the government enforcing traffic laws. I mean, how dare they!
chuckgoolsbee :
April 16th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
When did this become thetruthaboutguns.com?
–chuck
Reply number 3.
beeb375 :
April 16th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Oh yeah that’s right, in an attempt to stop the government enforcing traffic laws. I mean, how dare they!
When “enforcing traffic laws” requires frighteningly totalitarian methods, it’s appropriate to discuss their enforcement.
It’s okay to have an adult conversation about freedom and tyranny. It’s also okay to have different opinions about unquantifiable subjects.
It’s not okay to belittle the opinions of other people simply because they disagree with you.
How dare they utilize a surveillance system that would be right at home in “1984”?
Excellent question.
I can assure you that there is plenty an armed populace can do against a modern army.
I don’t wish to get into a gun control debate here, but this statement is clearly true. All you need to do is to look at what’s happening in Iraq to see that a determined armed insurgency can stop an army in its tracks.
Even if the army is technically “winning” the battles by inflicting greater losses than it sustains, it can still lose the war because it can’t pacify the public. However, I don’t see anyone using the Second Amendment to raise our speed limits.
Oh yeah that’s right, in an attempt to stop the government enforcing traffic laws. I mean, how dare they!
When the speed limits are chosen to generate revenue, rather than to promote safety, then yes, it is absolutely appropriate to challenge them. Enforcement like this is really just a way to pull more money from our wallets without calling it what it is — a tax. If they need the money, they should just raise the registration fees and call it a day.
Well I didn’t intend that to be personally insulting to anyone’s opinions, but when there’s three pages of comments basically ridiculing my country’s laws, and also its people for not taking action against these suppoosed travesties, I guess I get a little angry.
As for utilising a surveillance system that would be right at home in an Orwellian dystopia, I can see where you’re coming from, but I don’t quite make that connection myself. Granted it is tracking the movements of particular vehicles over a stretch of road, but merely to enforce a law that would already be enforced by any police officer who spotted a violation.
@PCH: If they need to raise revenue, I’d prefer they get the cash from speeders rather than a blanket charge on all motorists, law abiding or not.
I’d prefer they get the cash from speeders rather than a blanket charge on all motorists, law abiding or not.
The only thing that defines a “speeder” under these circumstances is an inappropriate law that is designed to be violated.
With this sort of enforcement, it is really just an arbitrarily assessed driving tax. With excessively low limits, everyone becomes a criminal. The only people who won’t be speeding are the ones who ride the bus (although the driver might be.)
Well if you find speed limits to be ‘inappropriate’ then I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I have no problem with sticking to 70mph on a motorway, but some people do, things are getting riskier for them, so I guess they’re angry, for me it’s not a problem.
I have wondered when US would get on board with speed monitoring, using fastlane toll booth videos.
With time date stamp on license plates, its easy to catch people averaging too fast a speed.
Also, GPS on every car with uplink to cops.
Even better, governers. I was following a jeep today, he was driving aggressive as most do, with worst handling vehicle out there, and I was thinking his car should have a 55 mph electronic governer.
I am OK with guns but mostly not in urban and suburban areas, where you cant shoot outside, just as I am disapproving of 200 mph cars for public highways.
As the most lefty, pinko, commie, liberal member of TTAC, I can think of no better use for a gun then blasting out all the “smart” traffic cameras in England.
The British people, for now anyways, have the right to vote, so they could put an end to these abuses of governmental powers relatively easily
It’s a pretty coarse-grained democracy in Britain; you vote for your least un-favorite politician once every four years and the party with the most politicians elected runs the government until next time. With the two main parties so far apart in ideologies on a lot of things, the bigger issues win out. Hence health care, jobs and the economy are much more likely to sway people’s votes than what to do with those who break the speed limit.
Topdog,
About Canada…
they don’t have all the rights, and they do have guns.
I lived there. I watched the sadly liberal news casts. There are places in Vancouver and Toronto that rival the worst places in the US. It is spreading because the liberal policies simply will not work in a densely populated, culturally diverse country which southern Canada is becoming.
My favorite story was the report of the border patrol guys who were tired of being unarmed. They have panic buttons which, in many places, auto dial the US agents on the other side for help dealing with armed perpetrators.
Sort of sums up the whole Canadian sovereignty issue.
LOL@ aggrazel!
Great argument! Are you a lawyer, by any chance?
As for the cameras, it’s just getting ridiculous this obsession: ever more combative and adversarial approach, as if “motorist” is a different person than “voter”.
I spent the majority of my formative years in Toronto. I have seen a man get shot right in front of my eyes (near Kennedy and Lawrence). I have spent many days and nights in places like Scarborough, Regent Park, Rexdale, etc. That said, I have never once felt the need to own a gun for my personal safety, and I would not feel afraid of living anywhere in Toronto
I have also read that most of the guns used in crimes in Toronto have been illegally smuggled in from the US. Not sure how accurate that is though
By no means should border patrol (or any other kind of law enforcement) not have guns
Topdog,
Perhaps the guns were smuggled in, or not. It doesn’t matter. The fact is that gun laws do not stop criminals from having guns. It’s not a just a semantic argument about only criminals having guns. Seriously think about it. Even in police states people show up with guns.
Even in Britain and Japan where you have the IDEAL setting for a workable gun law (homogenous populations with strong social ethics who live on islands), there are lots of illegal guns. The fact is that they would likely not be shooting each other much in those countries without any laws.
Gun laws are nothing but a hassle for honest people who want or need guns, and a liberal hoax on people who believe that government really accomplishes things.
Another tax/attack on the defenceless motorist.
Britain needs a general election – now – this government is driving us to hell in a handcart…
I can’t help but wonder where Switzerland fits into all this: a neutral country with mandatory military training, where nearly all adult males have guns and ammunition in their homes, and have been trained how to properly use – and respect – it.
It makes me think that with guns, like cars, the key might not be freedom-limiting laws, but proper education so that people *choose* to act in a sane manner.
Jonny Lieberman :
As the most lefty, pinko, commie, liberal member of TTAC,
Sorry, mate. I win that title….
# yournamehere :
April 16th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
handguns should flat out be illegal for use by the public. to easy to hide/conceal. to easy to acquire.
I think gun ranges should have a storage facility on site, so if you want to go shoot your gun, go to the range and shoot it. then leave it there and go home. if you want to take it somewhere you are not aloud to buy or have bullets on your person.
every other gun should be painted BRIGHT pink.
if you dont like it, i dont care.
Once again, criminals do not respect anti-gun laws. If they want to get a gun, they’ll get one regardless of what laws are there in place to prevent that. Bright pink guns? Whip out a can of Krylon and paint it black. Bullets aren’t that hard to come by, either.
The only thing your recommendations (which as I suspect were more of a emotional response rather than a rational one) will do is to rob law-abiding citizens the means to protect themselves in the circumstances that the police cannot come flying to their aid in a matter of minutes.
Actually, shooting speed cameras should be a use for guns that we all can agree on. Somebody should submit some photos of blasted cameras to Faux News. Even they couldn’t twist the intent of what that indicates. I suspect that there will be more and more attempts to milk drivers for using the increased capabilities of today’s cars.
Wow, another reason not to live in the U.K. Honestly, I think Americans can look to the U.K. to see what our government will try to pull if we let it. Let’s see, your metropolitan area has a budget shortfall and needs to make $150 million? Install some cameras! It pays for itself, and if people protest, well, they must be lawbreaking criminal speeders, so you can discount their opinion.
At least they admit that the cameras are for money, if that’s any consolation.
btw, the comments actually make me want to go and buy a gun, specifically to exercise my 2nd amendment rights.
“Oh right, I forgot for a moment. Her Majesty’s gracious government has taken away all the guns belonging to the citizens”
Really? – I must be imagining that Parker-Hale 7.62mm rifle that I legally own, along with a couple of shotguns.
(but it’s true that we all have a picture of the Queen on the wall, by law, we all have rotten teeth and we say ‘What what!” all the time…)