Have we become obsessed with eliminating risk?

[GordonBennet]

I don't usually agree with anything in the Guardian newspaper, but today I've just read an article that's bang on.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/03/politics-fear-security-lobby-money

 

In the wake of the Cumbrian shootings, there will inevitably be calls for bans and crackdowns on gun ownership, pointless public inquiries and lots of politicians bleating on about "lessons learned", but how can you stop such an incident happening again?

 

The simple answer is that you can't, there's no way you can eliminate all forms of risk from life. Yet we've become such a scared society that we've completely lost the plot and now many of us seem to have become scared of non-existent threats to the extent that we now seem to think that every stranger we meet might be a paedophile, nutter, terrorist or whatever.

 

NuLabour spent 13 years placing more and more limitations on our freedom by inventing bogeymen to scare us. Isn't it time we woke up and simply accepted that there will always be risk and to live without it isn't really living at all?

[alchresearch]

Did you hear the news at the weekend that it was found the two teenagers who died after allegedly taking M-CAT hadn't taken it at all, but their deaths spearheaded the knee-jerk campaign to rush through a ban.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/05/29/teenagers-deaths-not-linked-to-meow-meow-115875-22294052/

 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gmfGkPVeK9aHbdIR-CYJ-6GRuLQQ

[spinac]

Risk needs to be assessed and managed but it cannot and should not be eliminated. You stop living when you stop taking risks, but there comes a point when the risk is unacceptable. Usually that's a personal judgement, but when it comes to gun ownership it needs to be a collective decision, a government decision.

 

Personally I don't see why anyone needs to possess a gun except perhaps for farmers who use them as a tool for vermin control??? Sports guns should be held at clubs and locked up, not owned and held by individuals at home. There are too many people who have no criminal record, no past record of mental illness who could legally hold guns. I don't want to see that.

 

The profile of most killers who go on shooting rampages? Lone men with grievances, often unemployed living with their mum. S'funny that ... I'm going to meet a nice guy later at a beer festival, a friend of a friend who was made redundant about a year ago. He's a big buy, overweight, never had a girlfriend and lives with his mum. He's always had a good job as a computer programmer, never been in trouble with the law, but has suffered depression. I'd say if you put a gun in his hand he'd have no interest in it. But what about in another year's time if he's still unemployed, still has no girlfriend, is still living with his mum ... will he still be as trustworthy with a lethal weapon, or could he "snap" as many others have?

 

Let's be safe ... let's keep guns in their place and that's NOT in the hands of the general public.

 

You want risk? Go on a rollercoaster, go bungee jumping, hangliding, just don't ask to be let loose in public with a gun.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, I'd agree. There are meddling busy bodies who want to wrap us all in cotton wool and eliminate risk altogether. I can't say I have any respect for them. Get a life! Take a few risks ...

[spinac]

I don't usually agree with anything in the Guardian newspaper, but today I've just read an article that's bang on.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/03/politics-fear-security-lobby-money

 

 

From that article - "Removing risk lowers the protective instinct of individuals and communities, and paradoxically leaves them in greater danger."

 

Hear, hear! I'd still ban guns. That won't stop murder, but it will make killing sprees more difficult. If anyone wants to understand risk and play with danger, let them expose themselves to that risk and danger, not others.

[llamatron]

I heard on the radio a police officer saying everyone should resist the urge to go in rivers when the weather was hot-it made me mad!

[spinac]

I heard on the radio a police officer saying everyone should resist the urge to go in rivers when the weather was hot-it made me mad!

 

Likewise ... check out http://www.wildswimming.co.uk/

[lobster]

its not about the elimination of risk its ore about the compensation culture and the fear of being sued

[Jonny5]

It's all about mainting a climate of fear. Now that the powers-that-be can't use religion to keep us all afraid and in check they use the news. Adam Curtis has made a few documentaries about this.

 

You are right about this Gordon. Nulabour went out of their way to encourage this. Surprisingly Cameron has so far moved away from this approach. Early days for him though.

[Dozy]

Risk needs to be assessed and managed but it cannot and should not be eliminated. You stop living when you stop taking risks, but there comes a point when the risk is unacceptable. Usually that's a personal judgement, but when it comes to gun ownership it needs to be a collective decision, a government decision.

 

Personally I don't see why anyone needs to possess a gun except perhaps for farmers who use them as a tool for vermin control??? Sports guns should be held at clubs and locked up, not owned and held by individuals at home. There are too many people who have no criminal record, no past record of mental illness who could legally hold guns. I don't want to see that.

 

The profile of most killers who go on shooting rampages? Lone men with grievances, often unemployed living with their mum. S'funny that ... I'm going to meet a nice guy later at a beer festival, a friend of a friend who was made redundant about a year ago. He's a big buy, overweight, never had a girlfriend and lives with his mum. He's always had a good job as a computer programmer, never been in trouble with the law, but has suffered depression. I'd say if you put a gun in his hand he'd have no interest in it. But what about in another year's time if he's still unemployed, still has no girlfriend, is still living with his mum ... will he still be as trustworthy with a lethal weapon, or could he "snap" as many others have?

 

Let's be safe ... let's keep guns in their place and that's NOT in the hands of the general public.

 

You want risk? Go on a rollercoaster, go bungee jumping, hangliding, just don't ask to be let loose in public with a gun.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, I'd agree. There are meddling busy bodies who want to wrap us all in cotton wool and eliminate risk altogether. I can't say I have any respect for them. Get a life! Take a few risks ...

My bold

 

My dad always had a shotgun, properly licenced and properly locked away in a gun cabinet. He wasn't a farmer but, like others, he went shooting on farms when vermin control was required, or to get a few rabbits for the pot. He lived in the country and lots of other people had guns, too, but nobody ever went berserk and started shooting people.

 

Thankfully, shooting sprees like this are few and far between, and I don't think knee-jerk "let's ban anybody from having a shotgun/rifle" is appropriate.

[spinac]

There was a stat on Newsnight last night. Did you know that in Britain there are 5 guns in circulation per 100 people. I had no idea it was that high. I've never met someone who owns a gun (or they just haven't mentioned it).

 

I personally don't have a problem with vermin control by shotgun - better than poison, surely, neither bagging a rabbit for the casserole dish. Wouldn't want to see every other townie with a shotgun though claiming to have a taste for rabbit.