----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Lambert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 2:51 PM
Subject: Re: 2 clippings from UK's Independent of sideline interest
"Clay Young" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> No explicit mention of guns, but...
>
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=477413
>
> "Listeners to BBC Radio 4's Today programme were asked to suggest a piece of
> legislation to improve life in Britain, with the promise that an MP would then
> attempt to get it onto the statute books. But yesterday, 26,000 votes later,
> the winning proposal was denounced as a "ludicrous, brutal, unworkable
> blood-stained piece of legislation" - by Stephen Pound, the very MP whose job
> it is to try to push it through Parliament.
>
> Mr Pound's reaction was provoked by the news that the winner of Today's
> "Listeners' Law" poll was a plan to allow homeowners "to use any means to
> defend their home from intruders" - a prospect that could see householders
> free to kill burglars, without question.
This was a self-selected poll, so the results do not mean anything.
More at
http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/2004/01#badpoll
***********************
"do not mean anything" is an overstatement. It would be more accurate to say (as you
more or less
said in your blog) that it only applies to Radio 4 listeners at that time of day who
were willing to
make the effort to participate (and select from a limited number of choices, etc etc),
but should
not be immediately be assumed to be the same for the population as a whole.
The general population seem more in favour of the idea than Radio4's results would
indicate,
according to the Guardian/Observer's survey from early last year.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/crime/_story/0,13260,942118,00.html
"Do you think it is acceptable or unacceptable for householders to use potentially
deadly force to
protect their property against intruders?
Acceptable 68%
Unacceptable 32%
There is strong support for householders using potentially deadly force to protect
property against
intruders. The results indicate a considerable level of support for the view that
criminals forfeit
certain rights when illegally entering a property. "
---cy
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