London Riots
 

Surprised there's no post on here re: the London Riots yet. Is it getting much press over in the States?

Not enough, but I've been following the feeds online from Sky News and BBC. Crazy stuff.

One of the areas where our 2nd Amendment really shows its benefits.

No one here cares.

Really struggling to care. That's why police and military get paid....to take care of shit.

I've been following them. My Sister In Law and her husband live in England so I was a little nervous. They are about 3 miles from the main area in Islington and hear a lot of sirens and such. Basically she said it is a bunch of thugs looking for an excuse to riot.

There something on the news about it today, but it's not getting much attention. In fact, hardly any of the riots that have occurred in Europe over the last several years have gotten any real press here.

I refuse to care about countries with little to no oil as well

Read the coverage Tuesday morning (U.S. time) with considerable interest & read several versions to get more detail.

Was a lead story on the U.S. print wires during that part of the day, steadily dropped down the list as the day wore on.

From a social standpoint, I think I saw 3-5 FB friends comment on it (out of the 100ish ppl that looked active today), all rather mortified at the lax police response & sympathetic to those who were victimized by it (the 100 year old furniture store struck a particular nerve for both & them).

As Rainmaker said, I'd think it's pretty hard for a U.S. resident not to look at these & think about the 2nd amendment. It crossed my mind somewhere around the point where I saw references to homes being broken into & families trying to figure out how to safely flee the area.

If they had the second amendment the rioters would probably be out there with guns. Making a bad situation worse.

There was an article that Amazon.co.uk saw a 6000% spike in the orders for batons and baseball bats.

Riot Gear Hits Amazon UK's Best-Seller List | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

FWIW, the latest update on the story is in the top story (top left) position of ajc.com (the Atlanta daily newspaper's website)
That's pretty unusual prominence for an international story, especially one that doesn't involve the U.S. directly nor a natural disaster.

dola,

the 2nd amendment didn't seem to stop the various riots in L.A. over the past 40 years, nor the Chicago riots in '68, nor the Cincinnati riots in 2001, etc.

All the talk of riots and no mention of Detroit?

Detroit, Newark, Seattle (WTO). There are numerous example of multi-day riots in the recent history of the US.

This thread is about to take a predictable turn...

:popcorn:

I just visited the homes of everyone who was about to post in this thread and chatted with them about gun rights, or threatened them with a gun, accordingly. So I think we're all set here.

whoa!

Are you Santa Clause?

I'm sort of shocked by the lack of response by the police. Watching on the various news channels, they have reporters just watching looters go in and out of stores and no response from police.

I feel like it's been getting a proper amount of attention here, and maybe that builds if the riots start to move more into what I guess is central London? I deal with guys in London regularly for work and they're definitely scared, as they should be. A conference call I had today got cut off early because they were told to close the office at 3pm and get out.

I have a trip there planned next month. I'm guessing if we were supposed to go next week, we wouldn't be allowed to.

This is how I feel. When I read about someone being shot defending his property, my first thought was more relief that more of the rioters didn't have guns, than it being a shame that the guy defending his home didn't.

I am indeed authorized by the little known Santa Clause of the Constitution.

yet another chapter in the "people don't know how to fucking spell" handbook

That was over 50 years ago! There aren't enough people in Detroit for a proper riot.

Just a couple odd points. Listening to British politicians start announcing around Monday that "Mr. so and so will be cancelling his holiday to deal with this crisis."

Uh, yeah, your capital city is on fire. You may want to get that checked out.

The other was in an article about the guy who was shot that was the spark to this whole thing exploding.
Even British gang names are classier than their American counterparts!

I really haven't seen much about what's going on over there or what started it. I did see that several independent record labels' stock may have been completely destroyed in a warehouse fire, which sucks.

Didn't the riots originate because a police officer shot and killed someone who was armed (but hadn't fired the weapon)?

Does anyone think we're slipping back into the late 70's? I mean the oil crisis, Middle East sagas, austerity, the malaise with government, high unemployment, general uncertainty, mobs roaming the streets...

I can only imagine the rise of punk bands, roller rinks, and movies with Charles Bronson coming back soon.

and... DISCO!

Friend of mine's wife is a foreign service officer in London. Been trying to get ahold of him to see how things are doing, haven't been able to catch him on IM.

I'm betting they've got themselves a military bodyguard at this point.

When the zombie apocalypse happens you'll wish you had my .22 and 9mm.

Don't worry, everything will be fine because we've got Ronald Palin coming to the rescue.

This is just absurd. The LA riots did not involve many guns, and the most publicized incident from it (the truck driver) was a plain beating. How many in Detroit back in the day when we didn't even have most of the gun control laws in place now?

I guess I should have been paying more attention to this.

Is there a tea and crumpets shortage or something?

I have a friend of mine who lives there. He was playing hockey the other night and the folks at the rink told them they had to leave before the game was done because the riots were getting closer. Some guys in a car threw an egg at my friend when he was walking home. They missed.

That's all I got on this.

Please. It's shotguns or die come the zombie apocalypse.

But don't you have to be at close range, thus risking splatterage getting into your orifices and thus turning you into a zombie yourself?

Don't agree with shotguns but does raise an interesting question. I know a 9mm will do the job but will a .22 headshot kill a zombie?

Oh, also do have a kukri (to clear brush in the backyard). But that's only for the last resort, out-of-ammo situation.

Well, good news is, my friend and his family are doing fine. They've had a few horror stories from their friends who live in less safe areas, though.

I get the joke of having Vader in there, but what is the reason for 'shopping in Jason Sudeikis?

It seems less like riots and more like smash and grabbers.

Have a co-worker that grew up in London. He keeps seeing pictures of all the places he used to visit/hang out, now in flames or burnt down.

.

That's the part I find interesting. It seems like there is a segment of people using BBM's etc. to organize "flash robs" while using the riots as cover.

There is probably more anger over the class disparity there then there is over this shooting. The shooting was just the spark that ignited the frustration over high unemployment and the growing chasm between the wealthy and poor.

My family is a ways from London thankfully, but are still worried that things could erupt where they are as well, since some of the smaller townships are in even worse shape.

I find it somewhat humorous that some wealthy british celebs have come out asking for calm, as this will only anger some of these groups more.

It's just a bunch of bitchy kids that have no respect for people's property, like every group of rioters.

I have no idea who that is or why they put him in there. I just recognized Vader. :)

From what I can tell its partially frustrations with the austerity program, increases in cost of education and unemployment causing the protests ... however the rioting is mainly from ars*holes who are just interested in trying to get a few freebies and cause chaos.

I expect now that theres increasing publicity of the ones who have been arrested being processed through the system and 'going down' things will start to calm down somewhat in the next few days as they realize that they haven't had a 'free lunch' .... and thus be more reluctant to get involved going forward (thats my hope anyway).

The thing about rioting now versus back when the LA riots happened is... TVs are much easier to carry around now. One person can pretty much run away with a pretty awesome 40+ inch HD. Try that 20 years ago.

"Prison officials say health care costs have risen due to the unusually high number of hernia repair surgeries that have been required recently"

Just heard from one of my sisters who lives far from the chaos, that another of my sisters that lives near Bristol has had to go and stay with some friends because things are getting worse in that area. Everyone is safe thankfully, but a lot of scattered chaos still.

BTW - That is some good insight Marc, I hadn't thought of that, but you are right in that is likely a big factor as well.

This is really just a small preview of what's going to happen in the US at some point down the road.

It's not actually Sudeikis (SNL cast member, currently can be seen in Horrible Bosses), just a guy that I feel looks a lot like him. So, umm, basically just a dumb joke on my part that probably no one got :)

I keep thinking this same thing. How much BS will this country take from both political parties?

As much as we've taken for 200+ years?

But we didn't have Facebook(tm).

George Washington just tweeted: OMFG!

At least the rioters, in spite of not knowing what they want, know how to get it.

Except all the looters will have to get in their minivans and drive to the local wal-mart or best buy

I can't imagine what would happen where I live if the cops shot a black man.

This is the closest I've got to so far. Started out as a legit and peaceful protest about the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Mark Duggan, one flashpoint led to small amount of trouble that night, then the opportunists took over.

This was no more political than football hooliganism, just robbery on a huge scale.

That might have been what this was about the first night but it's become nothing more than a bunch of criminals at this point.