What law would you change?

[Lincsbodger]

You're lucky im not snico, he would have jumped on you for googling it...........personally i dont care where people get thre info, as long as its relevant and interesting

But hes not a serial Googler is he

neither am i, but he'll have you for it.

 

[Deluks]

ive been drinking in pubs nearly 50 years. I can tell you from personal experience the levels of violence have escalated ten fold since 24 hour drinking - ask and police officer of A&E doctor, its clearly the case. People got drunk on the old laws, but its the scale thats the problem, theres now 953,000 cases of drink related violence every year, which is ten times the year before 24 hour drinking was introduced. To try and argue there isnt a problem is being blind to the facts and the truth.

I don't know where the true facts lie...

For example:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7014059.ece

There are too many ways to interpret the figures, maybe the police are less likely to arrest people for being drunk due to paperwork, maybe people charged with violent crimes are being dealt with less harshly by the courts, and are re-offending, maybe the price of alcohol is a factor, unemployment? recession? rising popularity of UFC?

People who get into fights when they are drunk will do so at whatever time they get drunk. So pubs closing earlier will just move the problem to a different time.

 

[Lincsbodger]

ive been drinking in pubs nearly 50 years. I can tell you from personal experience the levels of violence have escalated ten fold since 24 hour drinking - ask and police officer of A&E doctor, its clearly the case. People got drunk on the old laws, but its the scale thats the problem, theres now 953,000 cases of drink related violence every year, which is ten times the year before 24 hour drinking was introduced. To try and argue there isnt a problem is being blind to the facts and the truth.

I don't know where the true facts lie...

For example:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7014059.ece

There are too many ways to interpret the figures, maybe the police are less likely to arrest people for being drunk due to paperwork, maybe people charged with violent crimes are being dealt with less harshly by the courts, and are re-offending, maybe the price of alcohol is a factor, unemployment? recession? rising popularity of UFC?

People who get into fights when they are drunk will do so at whatever time they get drunk. So pubs closing earlier will just move the problem to a different time.

well its a fact that the number of drunken violence incidents has rocketed since 24 hour drinking.

The problem is that young people dont know how to drink socially, the concept of getting ONE drink then sitting and socialising with our friends, and not getting too tipsy seems to be an alien concept. Then you have the AMOUNT of time people can drink for, the vast amounts that clubs sell to people - in Thailand ( which is very similar) you buy a LITRE bucket of spirits to drink, and then you have supermarkets selling industrial amounts of drink to kids at pence per gallon so they start drinking at 4 in the afternoon or earlier. Some kids arent even aware that drinking a whole 70 cl bottle of spirits in 20 minutes can kill you.

SO, theres several issues to address - 1) education 2) cut drinking hours 3) minimum price for drink, higher than the pubs 4) stop pubs selling vast amounts in one go, and make them liable for police time for trouble.

Another thing is to make people liable for injury or damage to themselves or others if they are drunk. When you have to pay out £200 for breaking the glass in a bus shelter or £75 for having the taxi valeted when you puke in it, they might calm it down a bit.

 

[securespark]

The prosecution and subsequent conviction of people that defend their property and families, against burglars found inside their homes........

ALL legal rights of the burglar should be gone, the moment they step inside someones property.......

F*ck 'em.

You cannot seriously be proposing that a householder be allowed to take the law into their own hands in this situation?

Reasonable force, yes.

Eg: If a burglar entered your property and you had a gun, shooting to kill would not be reasonable, but a bullet in the foot would disable him enough to stop him becoming a direct threat.

 

[Lincsbodger]

The prosecution and subsequent conviction of people that defend their property and families, against burglars found inside their homes........

ALL legal rights of the burglar should be gone, the moment they step inside someones property.......

F*ck 'em.

You cannot seriously be proposing that a householder be allowed to take the law into their own hands in this situation?

Reasonable force, yes.

Eg: If a burglar entered your property and you had a gun, shooting to kill would not be reasonable, but a bullet in the foot would disable him enough to stop him becoming a direct threat.

I agree with LMB. I think that you should be entitled to take whatever steps YOU feel necessary to ensure the safety of you and your family if you discover an intruder on your property. Thats include blowing the guy away if you feel thats what it needs. There needs to be a legal principle that if you trespass in someones house late at night in such a way as to induce alarm and fear, then you have no protection by the law from those actions deemed necessary by the owner to nullify the threat he percieves you pose.

Moral - dont break into peoples houses, and theres no problem.

 

[LastMagicBean]

You cannot seriously be proposing that a householder be allowed to take the law into their own hands in this situation?

.
Couldn't be more serious.........

Reasonable force, yes.

.
The 'reasonable force law' as it currently stands, can't even be definitively interpreted by the judges let alone anybody else.....

Eg: If a burglar entered your property and you had a gun, shooting to kill would not be reasonable, but a bullet in the foot would disable him enough to stop him becoming a direct threat

.
Are you serious..?????? Shoot him in the FOOT... ?????????
NO..........absolutely ANY means, required at the time, to protect our homes and families ..IS REASONABLE........(and should be in the eyes of the law)..... IMHO.

As I said before ....F*ck 'em.............

 

[securespark]

We shall beg to differ then!!

 

[Lincsbodger]

We shall beg to differ then!!

i will if he wont.

 

[Space cat]

I'm horrified; horrified at how little I can think of to add to this thread! Forty years ago I could have reeled off a list of laws I wanted changing and griped at great length about how neither major political party would touch them with a barge pole. (For that reason alone I've always voted Liberal.)

So what's happened:

Free speech - Ok, that was a cliche because we had it already.
Free love - Yes, that was technically legal but 'the establishment' erected barriers at every turn. Not anymore.
Free radio - perhaps the one good thing we got out of Thatcher.
Homosexuality - accepted by the majority as normal for our species.
Licensing laws - almost gone.
Fox hunting - severely curtailed.
Censorship - replaced by a ratings system that I argued for in 1970.

What is an aging hippy supposed to do these days? Half of me is happy that most of what I wanted finally arrived while the other half can't help feeling that there's a load of injustices out there that still need putting right.

 

[Lincsbodger]

well the rest of us aging hippies got into technology and now all have allotments............

 

[imamartian]

I think Parole boards should be scrapped - of what benefit are they to society?

The human rights act, if not scrapped, needs a measure put in place that declares the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the one. Needs a bit of work - a company might need to be seen as an individual... i don't know, but the aim is to stop a crim claiming their human rights are infringed and getting freed and infinging the rights of their victim/s.

Ban tax havens..... people/companies operating in this country, must declare a base in this country and pay the appropriate level of tax... unlike many many rich business people/companies/football clubs etc

I also think the DNA database needs a huge rethink!

 

[Space cat]

well the rest of us aging hippies got into technology and now all have allotments............

That sounds about right. I love technology and, although I haven't got an allotment, I do have a caravan. Does that count?

I think it's time to let a new generation of idealists to pick up the baton, though we might have to wait a while before they appear. When does Jupiter align with Mars again ---

 

[Lincsbodger]

well the rest of us aging hippies got into technology and now all have allotments............

That sounds about right. I love technology and, although I haven't got an allotment, I do have a caravan. Does that count?

I think it's time to let a new generation of idealists to pick up the baton, though we might have to wait a while before they appear. When does Jupiter align with Mars again ---

yea but your behind, we all had caravans when we had kids 15 years ago.

Next alignment of Jupiter and Mars is July 2011