This.
The public should be invited to reject the politics of fear, that sees life as a perpetual terror of what might happen and a perpetual investigation of what has. It should not be asked to regard every child as a victim and every adult a paedophile, a terrorist or a mass murderer. The government should stop spending stupid amounts of money on a security lobby now running amok through the public sector.
There is no such thing as safe. There is only safer, and safer can require the greater watchfulness that comes with taking risks, witness new theories of road safety. Removing risk lowers the protective instinct of individuals and communities, and paradoxically leaves them in greater danger. But there is no government agency charged with averting that danger. There is no money in it.
Magnificent.
AJ
Al Jahom's Final Word 
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I saw this in feed reader, and thought you’d plucked it from the comments on an article in the Guardian
But it’s from an actual column, in the actual Guardian.
He won’t last long there, some of the comments are priceless, note Platonic at 7.45, someone you know cheerlearders the smoking ban as well.
God I hate these people (Platonic that is),
In fact they are why they took the guns from us, because they wouldn’t last a day.
He’s a right Trojan that Jenkins… either that or the Guardian staff are on drugs… perhaps it’s a desperate attempt to hang on to their government advertising “grant”.
That “Platonic” person has obviously never spent any time in the developing world, where maniac killing sprees are more common amongst the legit carriers of firearms, like the police:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woo_Bum-kon
I bet he’d be the first to go on about the Stockwell tube shooting… but not about the 2004 Stanley shooting http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3965207.stm (he just wasn’t fashionably foreign enough I suppose [rolls eyes]).
The average Gaydian reader seems to get all their info second hand via modular sociology courses, the splenetic lefty internet or media, or via the conjectures of their chinless pontificating bum chums.
I blame country and western music myself… it was clearly a copycat thing:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1581130/John-Denver-karaoke-sparks-Thai-killing-spree.html
Excellent, thank you for mentioning this article. It’s brilliant and has been read, digested and some of the comments discussed over at my place.
Couldn’t have done that without seeing it here so, of course, there’s a link back.