"harry newton" wrote in message
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MacArthur was sure of his point and he conveniently ignored the
complexities (which he was forced to admit and which was proven in the
subsequent congressional hearings).
MacArthur took what I'm calling the childish side of the argument.
It's the same side that the iOS apologists *always* take.
It's the same side the gun control advocates *always* take.
It's the same side the abortion-restriction advocates *always* take.
it's the same side the global-warming alarmists *always* take.

Gun control is probably one issue where US and UK will always have different
views. I suppose having been brought up in trouble-free, relatively
crime-free areas of the UK, I have never felt the *need* for a gun - or even
a knife. I suppose I tend to think of *not* having a gun as the default
state, and you need to make a damn good case to have or use one. To live in
such fear of being attacked that you accidentally kill your loved ones (as
in the case of Oscar Pistorius in South Africa) must be hell.

I freely admit that this is a one-side view. At least I can see that not
everyone will feel that way, firstly in the US where there's a culture of
owning guns (it's even in your Constitution - the Right to Bear Arms), and
secondly if you live in an area where crime and attack from housebreakers is
likely.

The nearest I've got to organised violence is when I was at university in
Bristol in the 1980s and I once took a wrong turning and ended up in the St
Pauls district which had been in the news a few weeks earlier when there had
been inner-city violence in many cities. To see burned-out cars, fragments
of bricks stren across the streets, broken windows and areas scorched by
petrol bombs is quite a shock when only a mile or so away was the peaceful
suburb where my hall of residence was and the peaceful roads that I walked
between there to university. And yet even in that area, someone tried to mug
me. I was *very* lucky that I managed to catch the guy off guard and somehow
miraculously managed to throw him to the ground, and someone came along to
help me just as he was getting up again, so he ran off. Thankfully he was
relying on surprise and strength, rather than being armed with a knife or a
gun. Thank goodness I live in an environment where weapons like that are
rare - and that I know which areas (most cities have them) to avoid at
night.

I've often thought that Britain's self-defence laws should be strengthened,
to put the onus much more on an "invader" to someone's property/back yard to
prove that they had an innocent reason to be there, rather than punishing
people who attack an "invader" because they are in fear of their lives. The
guidance is too vague and there are too many cases of people who are fed up
to their back teeth of being repeatedly broke into getting prosecuted for
fighting off attackers by using "too much force". I'm of the opinion that if
you are being attacked you hit as hard as you possibly can to avoid being
attacked again (and to send a message to anyone else) and then walk away.
There are those who continue to attack even after their assailant is
incapacitated and no longer a threat, out of revenge and retaliation, and
that is probably crossing the line.