Singapore Expats

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/12/us/alabam ... e-beating/

Unfortunate incident. Apparently this old man peeped into garages and houses and someone called the police. The fact that he didnt know English and kept walking away from the police didnt help. Just goes to show lack of communication and cultural differences can be fatal.

Wd40 wrote:http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/12/us/alabam ... e-beating/

Unfortunate incident. Apparently this old man peeped into garages and houses and someone called the police. The fact that he didnt know English and kept walking away from the police didnt help. Just goes to show lack of communication and cultural differences can be fatal.

Yeah, we don't like peeping toms much, peeping patels even less. Strange choice of words you used though. lack of communication and cultural differences? Culturally it's okay to be a peeping tom in India? Yeah, I suppose so, looking at the gang rape culture there.

F*cking cops are out of control all over the USA. This is just one of a hundred incidents that occurred in the last few weeks. US cops are not your friend, they are your enemy.

When cops are armed like Paramilitary storm troopers, I'd say the country is in deep do-do. Hob-nail boots next?

Strong Eagle wrote:F*cking cops are out of control all over the USA. This is just one of a hundred incidents that occurred in the last few weeks. US cops are not your friend, they are your enemy.

this! and when they aren't chasing people they are too busy shooting dogs

So WD40, why did you actually decide to post it here?

It's interesting that the gun nuts always felt their government would turn against them and let the US Army loose on them when it's actually their own local country PD's they need to watch out for.

HOWEVER the poor man's family is partly at fault. My US friends have always been at pains to tell me not to wander onto other people's property (particularly in TX), not to make sudden movements around cops and to assume every driver has a gun in their hand that they will shoot at you if you have a road rage incident.

^ Well quite.

Same way I was drilled by friends in NYC, against a map, 'Don't go east of here, west of here, north of here, and NEVER go north of here! Got it!?'. This was years ago now (so it's changed I'm quite sure), but was roughly, Alphabet City, the Meatpacking District, Spanish Harlem[?] (say c97th+ on the east-side, and certainly not north of say 106th), and don't even think of going to 125th or north of it, as 'you're inviting death' [roughly ]

'You're the wrong person, the wrong look, obviously not local, and/or wrong colour too, in the wrong place, and stand out like a sore thumb. A recipe for inviting trouble.'

This applies to many places I've visited. Around many train and bus terminii in major UK and European cities be very aware of junkies and crime. In Managua, Nicaragua, there are very clear 'no-go zones'. Same in Lima, Peru. Same for the posh English boys that got shot in the wrong side of a Florida city just a few years back, where they should never have been.

Same reason despite 20+ years living in London I've never been to Brixton. I expect it's not now what it was considered to be, but it still has major stigma. I could probably on a good day walk there from my home.... but no thanks. It's the same walk as 95 Manhattan streets (blocks). 5 miles, not far, but odds on I'll never go.

Don't walk into a barrio in a Brazilian city, nor a 'trailer park' pretty much anywhere in the US, nor a 'township' in South Africa, nor the wrong part off Saigon. The list is endless.

It's not just the US, it's common sense for when abroad, and it helps if someone (your host) ensures you have taken on board.

It wouldn't surprise me if you strayed into the wrong area or place in a place even as close as JB, after dark, that you might be inviting potential major trouble...

Because people do own guns and one wrong move, it can cost the cops their lives. But still it leaves a lot to be desired. The way they are trained...........the preemptive strike mentality.

earthfriendly wrote:Because people do own guns and one wrong move, it can cost the cops their lives. But still it leaves a lot to be desired. The way they are trained...........the preemptive strike mentality.

I don't really think it's a preemptive strike mentality, but more of a "I've seen too many of my colleagues walk up to a car for a traffic citation and get blown away by a crackhead behind the wheel" type of thing. I'd love to see the US enact Singapore's drug laws AND follow it thru. After hanging 50K or so the first year, you'd see the drug problem abate enormously (obviously not all though), the prisons empty out and then we'd only have to worry about illegal immigrants running guns on the border with our southern neighbours. Amnesty my arse. Treat them the same way illegal immigrants are treated here in Singapore. Draconian measures? Sure they are, but the problem is out of hand and I reckon nothing else will work at this juncture.

sundaymorningstaple wrote:

earthfriendly wrote:Because people do own guns and one wrong move, it can cost the cops their lives. But still it leaves a lot to be desired. The way they are trained...........the preemptive strike mentality.

I don't really think it's a preemptive strike mentality, but more of a "I've seen too many of my colleagues walk up to a car for a traffic citation and get blown away by a crackhead behind the wheel" type of thing. I'd love to see the US enact Singapore's drug laws AND follow it thru. After hanging 50K or so the first year, you'd see the drug problem abate enormously (obviously not all though), the prisons empty out and then we'd only have to worry about illegal immigrants running guns on the border with our southern neighbours. Amnesty my arse. Treat them the same way illegal immigrants are treated here in Singapore. Draconian measures? Sure they are, but the problem is out of hand and I reckon nothing else will work at this juncture.

you do think the US can afford to execute 50k people without human rights groups and amnesty international go berserk?

^ +1 [SMS], quite.

I don't believe it is an issue of legal gun ownership, as enact any law you like (even one annulling a Constitutional Right), and the criminals will still have them. Look at the UK for example, historically it had a very low gun crime rate despite relatively very liberal gun ownership laws. Perhaps (?) after WW2 this began to change, perhaps as as result of many weapons being brought home as 'war trophies'.

So I recall my father having a couple of shotguns (for shooting 'game' i.e. things you intend to eat), and they were not secured in any way. He also had a .22 rifle (an Eley bolt-action, of 1930's) that had been given to him by his parents when he was a boy. The ammunition for neither was secured, which was in his gun-bag, hanging in the coat-room, plus other boxes of it on the shelf above. This can't be considered in any way reckless, it was normal country life, that also included being taught from a very young age to respect 'guns'.

At some point (1970-75?) the rifle and it's ammunition was moved to somewhere out of view. That likely coincided with the introduction of the 'Firearms Certificate'. This was effectively the beginning of state control of any firearms 'above' simple shotguns. I.e. rifles, any guns with any automation (auto, semi-auto, pump action... I expect the concept of 'belt-fed' hadn't arrived that point )

The shotgun stayed where it was, and continued to be used. Later (80s) I recall him having to get a 'Shotgun Certificate' for it. AFAIR the only hurdle for that was the extent of any criminal record. I don't recall there being storage or gun-lock requirements. When my parents made a once in a lifetime move from one side of the country to the other to be nearer the grand-children (where they remain today), my father realised his need for the shotgun would be lost, since his days out shooting with his circle of farming friends would be lost. So he gave that gun to one of his friends (who as a farmer had both a rock-solid case for owning it, plus a use for it). AFAIR also at that time he resigned himself to having to discard of his rifle. He had brought it with him on the move (deep sentimental value) but once they'd settled in, I understand he decided there soon came a point he realised he had no use for it, and indeed it was a potential liability (esp. regarding grand-children brought up with nil country knowledge/lore of guns), even if kept with it's bolt removed and hidden in another place. So, he told me he took the rifle to the crusher at the local waste/recycling centre, where he could discard it anonymously, and IIRC he threw the bolt into a local rural river. And that was the end after 50+ years for him and 'gun'-ownership.

I'd like to see that kind of direct experience, which I'm sure was repeated in thousands of other households, graphed versus the rates of UK gun crime, over say a period of say 1900 - to date. The current rate of gun crime, since and despite the above laws, is heading off the scale, it's many multiples of anything from earlier decades.

So no amount of gun-control has achieved anything, apart from removing a legitimate working tool and leisure pursuit away from the law-abiding. Perverse; the 'law of unintended consequences'. What has caused this spiralling crime rate? I don't know, since my access to a day out shooting is so restricted, I don't even consider it as a thing that is possible, so it's not of much interest to me. > But the end-result is whereas in earlier times I might have assumed I'd inherit my father's guns, these days I effectively might as well forget about even a simple a day out at a regulated/licensed gun-range and hiring a gun there. The current UK situation in this regard seems very similar to that in Singapore.

I reckon the key drivers include international mobility of people, drugs, and guns. And maybe the imported glamorisation of 'gangstas' and it's associated gun culture.

I'm unconvinced that wealth disparity is a primary driver, since that was waaaaay higher in my father's youth, prior to the introduction of any benefits system, than it is today.

Just my 200 cents


p.s. I have relatives elsewhere in Europe. They have a 'war trophy' mounted on the wall of their stairs, a Thompson submachine gun [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_submachine_gun - aka 'Tommy gun']. Quite a statement piece Another relative in the same city had my grand-fathers WW2 service handgun, which he showed to me as a child. Something like a Browning 9mm semi-auto. During these times, that country had and still has one of the lowest national gun-crimes rates in the world. How does an advocate of gun control explain away that apparent contradiction? ... Maybe because it is a more traditional, and less open and internationalised country, with all the parallel issues that that seems to have brought to the UK since the circa 1960s.

rajagainstthemachine wrote:
you do think the US can afford to execute 50k people without human rights groups and amnesty international go berserk?

Can they afford to? Yes. Do they have the cajones to do it? No. And therein lies the problem. Far as I'm concerned, the HR groups and Amnesty Int'l both need their wings clipped as they are causing more damage and strife in the US than they are solving. It's like unions. In philosophy, they are a good thing, however, in reality, when they get too much power, they become crippling to the economy to the point they need to have another Jimmy Hoffa.

^+1 again!

rajagainstthemachine wrote:you do think the US can afford to execute 50k people without human rights groups and amnesty international go berserk?

I'm all for human rights and everything but AI and others are as effective as the UN. What will they do, release a sternly-worded letter?