The Cynical Libertarian remarks forthrightly on this BBC item about how
Young trainee officers at Strathclyde Police search social networking sites for pictures of people posing with weapons, mainly knives… Superintendent Bob Hamilton… says…If they were posing in a public place, like on the street or a park, the law has been broken and they’ll be arrested. Even when pictures are taken in private, though, which isn’t technically breaking the law, he says the weapons are so dangerous his officers pay a visit to the people involved….”We show the parents their pictures,” he explained, “recover the weapons and make sure they know that behaviour is unacceptable.”
Hmm. This is a bit alarming. On the header of this blog there is an image of a round of .303 Ball, undoubtedly lethal, and my WordPress avatar (which I now discover is, in fact, visible to everybody except myself; sorry about the death-threats, WordPress) is a sketch of a public-school chap with a Lee-Enfield (it’s not actually me, though; I’m fatter than that, and my hat is different).
What happens in Strathclyde to people foolish enough to use ’social networking sites’ who are also clay-pigeon shooters, fencers or members of the Sealed Knot Society? Or have all of these things now been banned in Strathclyde?
Though I have perhaps more residual sympathy for the police than is available at From the barrel of a gun (being, satisfactorily, another Lee-Enfield), I, too, wonder how soon, if ever, someone will dare to prosecute the police for ‘recovering’ legitimately-owned property.
I never use ’social networking’ sites because I am such a tiresome old bigot as to believe that they are a strongly timewasting malware distribution system without which I can happily do, but, were this not the case, I should be strongly inclined to take a picture of myself with a real ‘weapon’, make up a suitable cover story, post it all, anonymously e-mail the link to Strathclyde Police, and wait to see what happens.
luc, whilst your animadversion to social net-working & on-line balls licking generally is an opinion up with I may indeed put, the fact is I am minded now to ‘log on’ one of these places — and, to pose around in my pot belly with my longbow!
['Logging off' happens, abruptly, when a chap is having a nice sit-down in the loo with Fowler to sort out 'that' and 'which', and then SWMBO bangs on the door to demand why one didn't answer the last (inevitably telemarketing) call....]
I don’t have a longbow as such (Olympic type recurve target bows definitely don’t count). I do have a small Korean horse-bow, but, as a sizeable red-haired Celt, would look perhaps even sillier dressed up as a Mongolian hordesman on a tiny pony than did the President of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries.
Alternatively I might play the Race Card by celebrating the traditions of my Scots ancestors, appearing properly dressed in five yards of tweed and a dirty great safety-pin, with the traditional cultural artefacts answerable thereunto (five-foot, five-pound claidgh mor, Norse-pattern battle-axe, short spear, dirk and skean dhu). One wonders what Strathclyde Police would make of that.
Don’t tempt me, damn it.
Some of these Vikings got pretty emphatic with just hammers — and, I wasn’t so bad myself on the railroad. Come to that I have a twenty-pound maul kicking around here now, for the tougher red elm knots…but do get a bit winded, don’t you know? I should! /regularize/ this, though, go out and do ten or so whacks maybe every three days on the old splitting stump, fast as Hell, go up a couple reps every other session. By God, I believe a guy could get it back pretty good that way! THAT would be something for The Boys to remember, if their Grampa ever did go on the rag THEN about something or other Publicly Stupid! Except the example would be lost, just lost, on all the saps around here…forget it. They ain’t worth going to gaol, er, jail for, nice thought though: “Grampa Smith raised Hell at the County Board this week and is now in the jug in Blue Earth, awaiting mental analysis by The Trained State Liberals.” I mean that’s what they do, they’d make ME out to be the asshole and off my rocker, that’s how this BS works around here. These people just plain do NOT have any of the habits of liberty anymore.
Well, ain’t that the truth?