The DEATH PENALTY: Homicide Rates Since Abolition:

Did you ever hear an "EXPERT" tell you that capital punishment didn't work because ..

"DETERRENTS DON'T WORK" ..  crooks & nutters don't think about getting caught and punished when they are on the job" ?

- Now it is not easy to tease-out the truth of the matter - because the way these crimes are recorded and defined have changed - for example a double-murder used to be one crime but currently it might be recorded as two offences.

- And what would have been a 'murder' back then could now be classed as 'manslaughter' or accidental death. Plus - as I remember it - anyone taking part in a criminal act when a death resulted used to be charged with murder even if someone else caused the fatality .. say in a robbery.

But the figures for UK DO CLEARLY INDICATE HOMICIDE DEATH RATES HAVE DOUBLED SINCE THE DEATH PENALTY WAS ABOLISHED.

https://fullfact.org/news/has-murder-rate-doubled-hanging-was-abolished/

And here in New Zealand the figures have been messed with too - particularly with the introduction of a truly rubbish police computer system - but you can extract a picture if you persist ..

The last person hanged in NZ was in 1957 - and the Death Penalty for 'murder' was abolished in 1961.

 The NZ figures 
Annual murder rate per million people (WITH the Death Penalty)
1926-1970: 6 

_____________________Death Penalty ABOLISHED IN 1961.
1985-1992: 21 
1994-1998: 15 
1999-2003: 14 
2004-2008: 12

Not being an "expert" I would claim that the NZ Murder rate has increased by a factor of two to three times since 'abolition'.

Note: - those figures come from an article from 2009 that is headed "NEW ZEALAND MURDER RATES HALVED IN PAST 20 YEARS" ... You judge whether that is a truthful story.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10565563

There is no question but that anyone wrongly convicted and executed has grounds for serious complaint - but that would be another failure of our law enforcement and Courts system - not of Justice.

I know that the death penalty is not nice .. but neither is violent murder.

- It has also been affirmed that the death penalty is the ONLY criminal sentence that has a ZERO recidivism rate .. (recidivism is "falling back & offending again"  - It comes from the Latin word recidivus, which means "recurring.")(I had to look-up the word for the spelling eh).

Marty K.
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Weapons Of Flag Fen & 'Must Farm':

My lot on Mum's side come from the Fenland around Wisbech and Peterborough in UK's East Anglia.

- Whereas my Dad's lot were the MacMurrough-Kavanagh (12th century tribal-kings of Leinster, Eire - around Co. Wicklow).

Socketed Bronze Axe From 'Must Farm' Dig.

Mum was a 'Spriggs' and I like to think that her blood might go all the way back 3,000 years to around the bronze-age settlement at MUST FARM and Flag Fen near Peterborough - where two meters below today's soil level they are finding extraordinary artifacts preserved in the wet marsh.

I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about Bronze Age weapons and tools .. but it seems that archaeologists are excited at what they are carefully revealing in the waterlogged mud of what used to be a fenced defended settlement of circular timber wattle & daub houses built raised on stilts in a body of water.

Bronze Spear From Must Farm

You can watch this Doco with an attractive presenter explaining why East Anglian burnt remains in sloshy mud are something to get 'all unnecessary' about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShfJBBMOrik

When I was a lad Peterborough was famous for it's brick works, smelly sugar beet factory, and for me bravely trying not to cry after slamming the train door on my finger. ( "Does this train go to Murrow? - "No my dear .. it goes today.")(In the 1950s 'Murrow' was the nearest train station to Parson Drove)(The Station Master kept a lovely vegetable garden at the end of the platform - and beautiful flower beds on the platform.)

Ah - THOSE Were The Days!

Bronze is basically Copper alloyed with 12% Tin and it is (so I read) actually harder than wrought iron - which is interesting - as it was replaced in it's turn by the iron age eh. The Bronze Age was noted for extensive long distance trade goods movement (beads made from amber, glass & ostrich eggshell found on this marshland site.)

I guess if there's any particular point to this tale - it's that we made weapons long before the Bronze Age - and are still making them - for the same reasons - thousands of years later.

Marty K.
After researching & writing 1,036 blogs I've got something NEW to try .. I've signed-up to Patreon. - In over five years I've not made one cent from this .. NOW you can send me a wee support $ - starting from $1. to get all this stuff from New Zealand - over a year that's nearly the price of one Shooting magazine. - Am I worth it?

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NZ & UK's Violence:

London 2018: NZ National Radio tells us that so far this year there have been 73 Fatal Stabbings in London alone.

New Zealand is sadly also subject to violence .. we have a ongoing investigation of a young British girl visitor's murder in the Auckland area and our Primes Minister Jacinda Ardern  has publicly apologized to Grace Millane's family. - I would wish to add my own sadness and outrage at this cruel murder.

- New Zealand has not escaped increasing dirty crime.

But London's/Britain's knife violence is at an extreme level generally and is being linked to high drug use (cocaine).

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5251268/london-stabbings-2018-clapham-shepherds-bush-crouch-hill-kingsland-hammersmith-latest/

There have been thousands of stabbings in my old 'home town' - where knives seem to be reckoned a necessary arm for young city men.

As with every such social issue - there will be many reasons. - I'd be guessing that low police numbers, overcrowded and run-down city areas, - and high levels of "self medication" by young active folk both looking for relief from stress and 'fun' will be part of it.

I'm no sociologist but we must not accept such a rise in violent crime as 'normal'.

One fix might be TUI ..

In New Zealand we have a lovely songbird called The TUI ..

A Tui - they really are good singers.

Then we have a brand of half-decent BEER from brewers TUI .. their adverts display a popular whimsical brand of humor ..

.. But the TUI that I'd like to mention here is solid copper ammunition from Fort Scott Munitions having designed-in instability 'weight rearwards' to Tumble Upon Impact.

Pointed 115 gn TUI 9 mm projectile compared with a Classic round-nose.

Tests indicate that these solids do work and do tumble on impact. While I'm not offering such pills as a magic pill remedy for all violent criminals - they are lead-free, anti-bacterial, and non polluting.

- The older that I get - the more pro capital punishment I seem to be. Whether this is because I'm getting irritable & bad tempered OR maybe because I've learned stuff as time passes-by my head, is debatable.

Marty K.

Hi Marty

 Merry Christmas to you as well!  Just another wee point, the .303 Mk VII bullet (1910) was designed with a lightweight nose filler (aluminium, paper, or plastic) to make it base heavy.  This improved accuracy (just like the hollow point match bullets of today) and the full-metal jacket complied with the Hague Convention.  These bullets killed very well and clipping a bone almost guaranteed tumbling.  I don’t think that was a design feature as much as a fortunate side effect which is why it served well for over 50 years.  The ability of a bullet to kill well is the sole rationale for its use!

Cheers

Rod

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The American GARDNER Machine Gun:

In 1874 one American ex Union Captain William Gardner developed his hand cranked machine gun.

- Another hand-cranked - the rotary Gatling Gun had already been developed and used in The 1861-65 Civil War - And ten years after the Gardner .. a recoil operated machine gun - The Maxim - was invented by another American born munitions man Hiram Maxim ..

 Strange to relate both of these killing machines had to migrate to The British Empire to be adopted and play their part in Britain's slaughter of indigenous natives.

William Gardner Was With The British at 

The BATTLE OF ABU KLEA Sudan -17 January 1885.

Here's Youtube video that clearly shows the function of a two-barrel Gardner .. but it was also built in a single and a five barrel iteration. (NON-rotating barrels).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPnIIM4Il9U

Gardner got The PRATT & WHITNEY Company to work with his invention .. but despite their best efforts and successful demonstrations (Including 1880 trials at Sandy Hook) they failed to excite any interest from the US Army (they already had The Gatling Gun in various calibers).

 - but the British Royal Navy - who had also embraced The Gatling Gun (Yet another American invention dating from 1861) - bought the manufacturing rights and deployed all three Brand types (Gatling, Gardner, & Maxim) famously in The ZULU WARS.. (and variously also against the Matabele, The Beduoin, and The Mahdists. - The Brits weren't fussy about who or how they slaughtered - neither were the Imperial Russians who enjoyed the use of some 400 Gatlings against The Turkmen and others in Central Asia.

My homeland England has long claimed it's noble civilizing and democratic world influence (& boasted of it's "unarmed" Police) - but truth-be-known they were a bunch of greedy raggedy-arsed pirates who grasped at every new weapon they could find to invade and subjugate any folk who got in their way .. by using their remains to fertilize the fields and replaced their numbers where convenient with the UK's transplanted homeless miss-fits and convicts.

- In the second half of the sixteenth century Elizabeth I was so keen to make gunpowder from charcoal, saltpeter & brimstone that she formed The Royal Saltpetre Men to dig-out the excrement from latrines for their potassium nitrate makings.

- And did you know why 'BRIMSTONE' - Sulfur was so called? - it's because it was gathered from the brims of active volcanoes in hellish conditions 😈.

(I never thought of that)

The British company Vickers bought the Maxim Company outright in 1896 and further developed and lightened it as a belt-fed weapon - using The 'Vickers' until it was replaced by the (American again) Browning Model 1919 m/c gun.

The Lewis Light Machine gun was yet another American automatic arm (invented in 1911) that failed to be adopted there but found a warm welcome in Belgium & UK .. being made by BSA and then Savage Arms in USA. - Colonel Isaac Newton Lewis became very wealthy from his Royalty payments.

Historically it does rather sound like England gave a warm welcome to every war machine invented eh.

There can be "gold" in weapons and munitions - for their exploiters.

Marty K.
I knew this would happen  😊!

Hi Marty

 The Vickers was replaced by the FN MAG58.  The Brownings were in British service from the mid 1930’s with the RAF (Spits, Hurricanes, Lancasters, etc) and as tank MG’s during WW2 (as well as the BESA).  The MAG58 is a belt-fed variant of Browning’s 1918 BAR crossed with the feed system of the MG42, and incorporating the quick-change barrel of the FN Model D BAR.

Cheers, Rod

After researching & writing 1,036 blogs I've got something NEW to try .. I've signed-up to Patreon. - In over five years I've not made one cent from this .. NOW you can send me a wee support $ - starting from $1. to get all this stuff from New Zealand - over a year that's nearly the price of one Shooting magazine. - Am I worth it?

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NZ Invasion By The US Great White Fleet:

Since the end of WWII the US forces are said to have intervened militarily or mounted an armed attack in around some seventy nations .. Indeed one story claims that there are only 3 nations that they haven't attacked .. named as  Andorra, Bhutan, and Liechtenstein:
 https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/these-are-the-only-3-countries-america-hasnt-invaded

- But some years before both World Wars, on August 9th 1908 the US Navy "Great White Fleet" of 16 warships lead by USS Connecticut entered the Waitemata Harbor at Auckland to "show the flag".

USS CONNECTICUT.

Little old New Zealand welcomed the US Forces with open arms and the best display of hospitality we could afford .. a large fern-clad Arch of Welcome plus parades welcomed the crews into Auckland's Queen Street.

- Few in that cheering crowd would have guessed that the Americans were here planning an invasion of New Zealand.

Both nations were concerned about the growing military strength and intent of the Japanese and sought answers to deal with Emperor Hirohito (aka Emperor Showa). - Kiwis hoped that the USA might use it's growing strength under Teddy Roosevelt to discourage Japans ambitions ..

 But because of The Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902) US believed that 'Great Britain' and it's Empire would side with Japan - so planned a rapid surprise attack on our sheep inhabited green hills.

The U.S. fleet was actually in town to plan an invasion of New Zealand. 

Fortresses along the North shore were analyzed for tactical value, size, and armaments. U.S. military officials wrote back to Washington, "Any of them could probably be occupied with little or no opposition provided the attack was sudden." - Newly-conquered Auckland would make a fine U.S. base of operations in the region.

US Military Transport Planes At Their Base

 Harewood Airport Christchurch NZ.

The 1908 plan developed by the 14,000 strong naval force named the Manukau Harbour as the best invasion point "in case the defenses of Auckland Harbor proper prove too strong for a direct frontal attack" - It includes loading guns onto Rangitoto island to shell forts on the North Shore.

The US document Naval War Plan for the Attack of Auckland, New Zealand, details the strength of Auckland forts and describes the size and number of guns.

Referring to the harbors in the North Island, the report says: "Any of them could probably be occupied with little or no opposition provided the attack was sudden."

- They were almost certainly correct .. Not many people know that eh. - It might have been the making of the place 110 years ago.

Camo C-5 Galaxy At Christchurch 1992

Marty K.
After researching & writing 1,036 blogs I've got something NEW to try .. I've signed-up to Patreon. - In over five years I've not made one cent from this .. NOW you can send me a wee support $ - starting from $1. to get all this stuff from New Zealand - over a year that's nearly the price of one Shooting magazine. - Am I worth it?

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Gun & Other Issues:

Is MISGUIDANCE the opposite of EDUCATION? .. Maybe 'Obfuscation' might be closer.

- Please be patient as there's a thought forming inside my bespectacled thinning-haired head and I'm trying to grasp it ...

A small "aside" .. I've been watching Mudlarking on London's River Thames - and I'm most entertained by their filthy finds - just by looking and when using metal detectors ... so many live old small-arms rounds, spent cartridge cases, fuzes and fired bullets turn-up in the rubble, slime, and detritus of centuries past. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sLyHQtjmzQ 

(It seems that you require a LICENSE from the Port of London Authority to fossick along this grubby river!) - Of course Guns & all ammunition components are generally BANNED there ..

Percussion Tube Fuzes based on .303 cartridge.
(Trench Mortar, Bagged Charge??)

Section 1 of the UK Firearms Act 1968 creates offences connected with being in possession of ammo to which this section applies without a firearm certificate. Subject to any exemption under this Act, it is an offence for a person - to have in his possession, or to purchase or acquire, any ammunition to which this section applies without holding a firearm certificate in force at the time.

Anyway .. NZ radio was discussing the disastrous dumping & pollution by waste plastics - & the lady presenter interjected something like "How bad is this - as I belong to a generation that fully expected to be blown to bits by a Nuclear war?"

Plastic Trash etc - Can You Smell It?

And I thought "so do I" - then I thought - "BUT THAT DANGER IS STILL THERE - IT'S JUST HAD THESE OTHER STUPIDITIES DUMPED ON TOP."

Various good thinking folk take their turn at promoting their particular and real concerns. Plastic Pollution - Animal Extinctions - Climate Change - Oil Exploration - Fracking - Mental Health Issues - Mercury Poisoning - Under Resourced Law Enforcement - Obesity - Water Pollution/Supply - Overpopulation - Commercial Fish Dumping - Ozone Depletion - Drug Addiction - Cadmium in Fertilizers - Vaccinations - Prison Over Crowding - Housing Shortages - Violent Crime Levels ..  ..  ..

You could probably fill the next ten pages (and more ..) with truly serious issues and immediate dangers that you know urgently need fixing. They loom large in front of us - and then slide off to the side - without being fixed.

So the list keeps on getting longer and the multiple dangers keep-on stacking up - BUT the original BIGGIE hasn't gone away .. Currently we are living with an estimated 15,000 active, targeted, ready-to-go whiz-bang instant thermo-nuclear devices aimed from all around - with the likes of crazed Putins & Trumps in charge.  Think about that .. 15,000 plus nukes aimed at you and your kids and their kids. - They are all around us.

Hiroshima.

Now go back to that pink highlighted list of urgent issues. - I reckon that each and every one of these ills is DIRECTLY the result of greedy, mentally unbalanced, profit and power seeking, tax avoiding, corrupt & unrestrained capitalists. Examine each issue for yourself.

Don't get me wrong here - I know that greed, aggression & ambition are natural human qualities that drive our actions .. but so are empathy, concern and reason.

It's just that WE have the power to restrict, limit & control the bad motivators and to promote the higher level functions.

How is it that failed corporate executives get cash payouts when kicked out of power? - how is it that politicians get REAL wage increases every year while their employers (us) haven't had proper raises in 40 plus years? - How is it that Londoners have been so brainwashed about guns that they are protesting fearfully at police plans to increase the numbers of armed patrols to directly counter knife wielding street thugs!
 - Why is religion still taught in school .. but not 'civics' *

 Obfuscation and Misguidance.

We can fix it .. indeed we MUST fix it. - You and me, there's nobody else.

Marty K.

*The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines civics as "the study of the rights and duties of citizens and of how government works." - The definition from dictionary.com is: "the study or science of the privileges and obligations of citizens."

After researching & writing 1,036 blogs I've got something NEW to try .. I've signed-up to Patreon. - In over five years I've not made one cent from this .. NOW you can send me a wee support $ - starting from $1. to get all this stuff from New Zealand - over a year that's nearly the price of one Shooting magazine. - Am I worth it?

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SKULL & BONES at YALE - Influence In Life & Death:

The pirates 'Jolly Roger' or 'Skull & Crossbones' flag dates back into the dim days of the 17th century ..

- and legend insists that Corsairs in the Americas would fly such flags when plundering the wealth of others.

- Of course this flag and it's murderous thieving way of life should not be confused with the similar Skull & Bones logo associated with elitist members of Yale University's undergraduate student society. (See Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones  )

- Some say that the '322' refers to the BC date of the suicide death of Demosthenes and the establishing of a plutocratic regime in Athens.

Plutocratic: Relating to or characterized by government by the wealthy.

- I of course couldn't possibly comment - but among the members of this "Bones" secret society - founded in 1832 .. and it's members who are said, by some, - to run the CIA .. are

 - US Presidents Taft, George H W Bush & probably his son President George Bush, -they head the list of prominent US leaders from this Yale Secret Society - but it is too long for me to copy .. so refer
to:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Skull_and_Bones_members

I'm sure that many of this group (- as with members of The Free Masons) - are good & worthy people.

The recent death of President George H W "Pappy" Bush may well generate renewed interest in this family's history and the particular services that the sadly departed rendered while associated with and serving with the CIA before his term as President - in the era when President J F Kennedy was assassinated.

Secret Societies & Intelligence - lubricated by Middle Eastern oil and Top 1% Wealth appears to add-up to a winning combination.

Marty K.
In my surprisingly numerous years - all the people that I've known have been human beings .. but some of them were much more greedy and selfish than most.

After researching & writing 1,036 blogs I've got something NEW to try .. I've signed-up to Patreon. - In over five years I've not made one cent from this .. NOW you can send me a wee support $ - starting from $1. to get all this stuff from New Zealand - over a year that's nearly the price of one Shooting magazine. - Am I worth it?

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