How many of you carry a gun as part of your cycling equipment?

[LONGPATH]

Stevebaby, hyperbole becomes you! I have realtives in Gunchester, sorry, Manchester. The crime rate is going up in your major cities. In the end we could debate this ad nauseum. I have guns and I have a right to keep and use them for defense of self as is my right. You do not have such a right so it is a mute point discussing gun ownership.

We exist in different realities and our points of view are rather far apart. So let us agree to disagree. But I can't resist.

Why do fighter pilots and aircrew have parachutes? Because there may be one time when they have to bail. Interestingly they have the chutes all the time not just in combat. They won't let me take a parachute on a commercial plane. Hmmmmmm?

If I were swimming in a local lake I probably do not need a speargun. If I were foolish enough to be in shark infested waters it might be very prudent to take some precautions. Sadly most shark attacks take place in waist deep water so you never see it coming. Would it not be nice to defend yourself though. Oh, generally a shark bites and releases as you are not a prey species. The two legged sharks are not so discerning eh?

As for a helmet....only in combat, construction sites, sky diving, cycling, drag racing, motorbiking, mining, and other such endeavours.

Yes, it only takes one miscreant to cripple, rape, kill, etc.....

Does the word Pollyanna mean anything to you? Oh well you know us chicken little types. Sometimes the sky does fall and ones parade gets rained on. I have a high calibre firearm and you have an umbrella.

May your reality be a pleasant one. Cheery Bye!

 

[EoinC]

Is it pedal powered?

It is actually driven off the rear wheel so, for those with the benefit of gears, one can get sufficient torque to deal with the toughest customers. I ride a fixie, so it can take a while to get up to a decent cadence, but the end results are great, and I appreciate the greater feel that comes with a fixie-powered torture aid.
My rack comes with velcro straps for securing limbs. These are quick and efficient, but I have had some slippage. The victims can find it very disconcerting to have me have to back-pedal to release tension, reset the velcro, and spin up to spine-tearing loads part way through the job - to avoid disappointment, pay attention when locking down that velcro.
I forked out (that's a torturer's pun) for the "quartering" option. This is a lightweight portable frame that allows the limbs to be separated in a star pattern. The advantage it has over the mini-rack is that you can pop those sockets one-by-one. I try to guess at which combination is going to let go first, but it's not always the sequence that I expect.
There are motorised versions on the market, but I like to do my bit for the envirnoment, and enjoy the health benefits associated with use of the cyclo-rack.

 

[bobbyOCR]

WTF.

I thought this was about guns.

 

[EoinC]

WTF.

I thought this was about guns.

It's a tangental extension of people's perception that they need to carry items intended to cause grievious bodily harm whilst enjoying their carefree cycling experience. Guns, Mace, Torture Racks? - Let's not split hairs over weaponry...

 

[bobbyOCR]

It's a tangental extension of people's perception that they need to carry items intended to cause grievious bodily harm whilst enjoying their carefree cycling experience. Guns, Mace, Torture Racks? - Let's not split hairs over weaponry...

Ah, OK. I find using a rack too slow. I like to duct tape hunting knives to my bullhorns and ride my fixie around on paths without a bell.......charges pending.....

 

[LONGPATH]

EoinC, torture is specifically forbidden by the International Bicycle Accords of 1929. The same accords allow cyclists to defend themselves and other cyclists from highwaymen! Firearms and Epees( at the insistance of the French Delegation) are considered legitimate means of cyclist defense. Sound thrashings, unless used to find the whereabouts of stolen bicycles, are expressly forbidden in several European countries where self defense is frowned upon.

America was not s signatory to this Accord and so using a firearm to defend your bicycle, worth several thousands of dollars, is perfectly acceptable.

We are presently working to have bicycle thieves hung just like they'd hang horse thieves in the old west. You know us unsophistocated Americans and our cowboy mentality. Remember good old Sigmund!!


A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." --Sigmund Freud in "General Introduction to Psychoanalysis""

 

[cbjesseeNH]

Then why is Britain so much safer than the USA?

Safe

Dictionary Definition: 1 : free from harm or risk ; 2 : secure from threat of danger, harm, or loss

Anti-gun Definition: Not shot by a gun

The UK (and AUS and NZ, as they keep coming in and out of the discussion) may be safer than the US by the second definition, which wouldn’t count stomping (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=58921), stabbing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6466189.stm), bludgeoning [with beer bottles!!] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/3327715.stm) or other such non-firearms-related rises in crime.


…and if you can’t count on others to stomp, stab and beat you to death, you can off yourself – with the US falling at the lower end of the short list of suicide rates among AUS, NZ, US, UK (at rates per 100,000 of 30.6, 25.3, 21.6, 15.1, respectively http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/).


Data show the ranking of countries by % of population as victims of crime are topped by AUS, NZ and UK (at 30.1%, 29.4%, 26.4%) with the US down at #15 at 21.1.%. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_vic-crime-total-victims).


Counting only unjustifiable firearms-related homicide rates doesn’t describe the safety of a population – slave laborers are safe by that definition, as they are beaten regularly but kept alive to work [or pay taxes, as might be the modern definition of a people allowed no self-defense against crime].


Americans idolize, perhaps somewhat mythically, the words of our Founding Fathers, including those attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”


So feel as safe as you want to, at the cost you are willing to pay, to reduce firearms shootings the 3-fold quoted as the difference between the US and AUS. One thing you can be sure of, is that your fellow countrymen who stomp, stab, beat and steal from you are not doing so because we have more guns in the US than you do in your safer countries.


That’s your own choice.

 

[POGATA]

One of the local car drivers

 

[zaskar]

Are you sick? What attitude is that? You also wear a gun while going to the theatre with your girl?
Well I guess it's just typical american behaviour. I saw that movie once "Bowling for Columbine". You should watch that, it gives you a whole other look on the carrying of weapons.
Answer to you question: No I don't carry a weapon on training!

**** YOU. aND HE SAID FOR CROSS COUNTRY TOURING ***** eyes, not training!!

 

[Virenque]

Heh..I remember that post. It`s funny that belgian told american to watch Bowling for Columbine..

 

[EoinC]

...So feel as safe as you want to, at the cost you are willing to pay...

I have spent considerable time living in Australia and New Zealand, with brief forays to the UK (I'll be there on Thursday morning, as it happens). I continue to feel as safe in those Countries as I have felt anywhere. I'm not sure what the cost of that is, as they haven't sent me an itemised invoice yet.

 

[cbjesseeNH]

I have spent considerable time living in Australia and New Zealand, with brief forays to the UK (I'll be there on Thursday morning, as it happens). I continue to feel as safe in those Countries as I have felt anywhere. I'm not sure what the cost of that is, as they haven't sent me an itemised invoice yet.

And I have lived in the US for almost 50 years, the UK off and on for almost 2 years, and have visited AUS twice - and have never been shot, robbed, assualted or otherwise violently victimized. Not because I now carry a concealed handgun or didn't in the past. But because I was never chosen by another to be victimized and/or made sure to minimize my risk behavior and choices. And because more people in more of the US might be lawfully carrying a concealed handgun.

Any individuals, in any specific locations in a given country, will have very different experiences. If this thread only addressed a few individuals' experiences, there would be nothing to talk about.

As it turns out, the emphasis has been on statistics of countries, states and regions for populations, rather than what one person in AUS and one person in US experience. If personal experience were the standard, then SB and I could simply confirm we have not been shot to death, proving no difference in gun-control policy outcomes between US and AUS.

If you chose to make decisions based on your personal experience, that's your choice. Your willingness to walk down a street after a surge in crime has been reported really doesn't address the point at hand. The forecast might be rain, but if it's not raining outside your window, your choice to not bring an umbrella doesn't effect the weather, just whether you will get wet or not.

Most victims of crime do indeed feel safe, as they walk through life unaware of their surroundings - at least until they become victims.

 

[EoinC]

...Most victims of crime do indeed feel safe, as they walk through life unaware of their surroundings - at least until they become victims.

Perhaps you are right. I felt fairly safe when I worked in Afghanistan in 1990-91, despite me not carrying a weapon whilst the World around me were busy shooting the **** out of each other (in a very civilised manner, I might add). I found my best protection was to not give anyone any reason to shoot me.
Whilst it is not a statistic, I have been in many situations in many Countries where there has been an escalation of violence (implied or actual), but have never actually felt in any of those situations that I would be better off carrying a weapon of any kind, other than my mouth and my patience.
I am now writing from a West African Country where one of my colleagues feels naked without packin' a piece, and my other colleagues do not. I can't provide any statistics of the crime rates here (I think they noosed the last statician), but the police are armed, and often drunk. Even working over here I'm much more likely to suffer death or injury from getting hit by a car than I am from being in a situation where a gun could have saved my sorry ****.
You may like your guns, and that's fine by me. I like living in a community where possession of guns is an exception, rather than a rule - to each their own...Oh, and I don't possess an umbrella either, so I guess if the forecast is right (50/50?), I may get wet.

 

[peet9471]

I do, but I have the badge to go along with it.

 

[cbjesseeNH]

I do, but I have the badge to go along with it.

"Badges? We don't need no steenking badges!"

Just a permit (and not even that in AK, VT).

All kidding aside, are you a Bicycle Patrol LEO?

 

[Lionfish]

Ah, OK. I find using a rack too slow. I like to duct tape hunting knives to my bullhorns and ride my fixie around on paths without a bell.......charges pending.....

LOL!!!!

 

[6fhscjess]

Then why is Britain so much safer than the USA?

It isn't. I have not heard of mothers buying stab proof or bullet proof vests for their kids in the U.S.
British citizens are now more likely to become a victim of crime than are people in the US.
In 1998, a study conducted jointly by statisticians from the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the University of Cambridge in England found that most crime is now worse in England than in the United States.
"You are more likely to be mugged in England than in the United States," stated the Reuters news agency in summarizing the study."The rate of robbery is now 1.4 times higher in England and Wales than in the United States, and the British burglary rate is nearly double America's." The murder rate in the United States is reportedly higher than in England, but according to the DOJ study," the difference between the murder rates in the two countries has narrowed over the past 16 years.

The United Nations confirmed these results in 2000 when it reported that the crime rate in England is higher than the crime rates of 16 other industrialized nations, including the U.S.

Gun free England not such a Utopia after all. According to the BBC News, handgun crime in the UK rose by 40% in the two years after it passed its draconian gun ban in 1997.

Nationwide. Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing how often a homeowner is present when a burglar strikes:
Homeowner occupancy rate in the gun control countries of Great Britain, Canada and the Netherlands: 45% (average of the 3 countries); and,
Homeowner occupancy rate in the United States: 12.7% (Source Kleck,Point Blank, at 140.)
They are not even safe in their own homes.
It sure sounds like Govt. and people like you are more concerned with criminal rights instead of the rights of the innocent people they have victimized.
In fact it looks like the criminals are dictating what goes on in prison. They have been handed the keys to their cells:
www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444586&in_...

 

[mitosis]

Then there was the Irish man who carried a bomb every time he travelled by plane because he knew a bit of maths and figured out that the chances of two bombs being on a plane was extremely slim and he would be much safer if he carrried his (bomb). A bit like carrying a gun for "protection" really.

 

[BigUgly]

I'm a police officer in Los Angeles County and when I first started riding recreationally (5 years ago) I used to carry my back-up duty weapon (Ti S&W 5-shot revolver). When I became more familiar with my routes and became more competative, I stopped carrying a weapon. It seemed stupid to me to spend 6K on a sub 16lbs bike, only to weigh it down with a weapon (even a hyperlight). I do enjoy weapons. I have 3 handguns and 3 rifles and shoot competitively, but, at the end of the day, I feel that I am fit and aware of my surroundings enough that I can get away from most knuckleheads with my bike. If they can run fast enough to catch me, or if they surprize me, then I deserve to get mugged. It's just motivation to train harder and a reminder not to get complacent.

I live in Canada so no handgun for me. And even if I could I'm not to sure I'd want to. I have nothing against guns I've been hunting and shooting my whole life but guns on a bike ride never heard of that one.

 

[stevebaby]

Blahblahblah....




to reduce firearms shootings the 3-fold quoted as the difference between the US and AUS. One thing you can be sure of, is that your fellow countrymen who stomp, stab, beat and steal from you are not doing so because we have more guns in the US than you do in your safer countries. [/size][/font]


That’s your own choice.

In fact...the murder rate for the US,by any means (guns,knives,etc)..way exceeds that of Britain,Australia or New Zealand.
Why is that?