The Odds and the System in Britain Favor the Rioters
August 17 | Posted by mrossol | American Thought, Social Engineering, The LeftSome letters to the editor WSJ.
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Regarding “London Riots: ‘The Police Did Nothing'” by Anne Jolis (op-ed, Aug. 11): The London riots would not be nearly so widespread if the looters faced immediate and harsh consequences. The looters know that they outnumber the police and the citizens they are attacking. They also know that only criminals are armed, due to the draconian gun laws of Britain.
Matt Gibson- Phoenix
A fact not lost on anybody who follows the gun-control debate is that the population of Great Britain was effectively disarmed beginning in 1968, and especially since 1997. When private ownership of almost all types of guns was outlawed, the people were assured that the authorities would be able to handle any situation. Say what you might about gun control, I can’t imagine this brand of hooliganism flourishing for long in any U.S. city. The local populace would stand up, then step up, and put an end to it. [ This I doubt. The gun owning citizenry is rightfully afraid that they will be taken to task and legally ‘ruined’ for protecting what is there, even if the government is miserably failing to do it.]
Chris Blasco
Newport Beach, Calif.
In all the wailing and gnashing of teeth from British liberals following the truly sad display of humanity run amok in their country, no one seems to have offered up the most pithy and concise summary of their position, courtesy of Monty Python’s Flying Circus: “It’s a fair cop, but society is to blame.” Of course, that was written as comedy, not a political statement.
Linda Aldrich
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Regarding Peggy Noonan’s “After the London Riots” (Declarations, Aug. 13): This was not a protest against the government in any meaningful sense. From my experience of living in Britain for 20 years, this was just the kind of violent criminality that is a regular feature of life there magnified on a grand scale. No one in the U.K.’s government will have the political nerve to fix the problem. Government created the problem through the growth of an ever more generous welfare state. Leftist do-gooders have made it possible for teenagers to drop out of school and begin having children, for whom the state provides everything—housing, food and regular income—making the father or even the extended family obsolete. This has led to the destruction of the social fabric and to generations of fatherless feral youths without skills or ambition. Unless Britain addresses the welfare state’s role in this mayhem, the underclass will continue to grow and the rest of the population will suffer the consequences. [And what is happening in the USA?????]
Lisa Aitken
Grand Rapids, Mich.
The Odds and the System in Britain Favor the Rioters — Letters to the Editor – WSJ.com.
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