David's Daily Diversions

Um, can you say scary!

Your comments are racist, unfounded and offensive.

Which part?

I'm not sure how I can be racist, as I didn't refer to any race.

My comments came right out of newspaper reports, though admittedly the newspapers get things wrong.

As for offensive, I'm not sure if you offended because I don't like bounties on people's heads, that I don't like unarmed, ineffective police, or that I believe in self-defence with deadly force.

David,
British Gypsies are a legally recognised ethnic minority. Any comments that might incite hated or abuse towards them as a group of people, are actually illegal. A fact that the press appear to be blatently ignoring. Not so long ago, it was ok to make shitty generalisations about Black people -would anyone dare to do that now? How many Gypsies do you know personally? I work with and have befriended many. The Gypsies of my aquaintence are good, decent living people. That is one reason why I find your comments offensive. There is no concrete evidence that any Gypsy has put a bounty on Martin's head but it's ok to shout about that because it fits the stereotype people feel comfortable with. The press have also reported that Tony Martin hated Gypsies but I don't see anyone standing up and shouting about that, apparently, it's ok to hate Gypsies. I guess it follows that Hitler had the right idea. Secondly, Fred Barras was a 16 year-old child. You can say he was a bad child [ and not a single Gypsy of my aquaintance thinks that Fred should have been at Martin's house that night] but he was still a child. A child was shot to death WHEN HE WAS RUNNING AWAY and everyone says "good riddance".

Jeannette,

I'm not sure what comments I made might incite hatred or abuse of Gypsies. If you think about it though, "might" is an awfully vague term. What is the level probably required to meet this standard? Does it mean that it is more likely than not that the average person who otherwise has no opinion about a particular group, upon reading my blog, will go out a beat up members of that group?

The legality is a moot point, because this blog is created on and published on a server in the United States. However, I watch my broadsheet sources fairly closely. If they print a retraction or apology, I will comment on it as well. Like I said, newspapers (which in this case included at least two broadsheets and four tabloids) get it wrong.

Actually I am acquainted with a number of Rumney Gypsies. All of the ones I know are nice people.

No one said the Gypsies should be annihilated or even persecuted in any way. I did not see any reports in the press that Fred Barras was a Gypsy until the death threats, which the police are taking seriously, were publicised. These reports were based upon, and included quotes from, interviews with Gypsies, who themselves invoked the revenge motivation of the Traveller community. These were not generalisations, but what they themselves said.

I don't see why anyone should stand up and shout about Tony Martin hating Gypsies. I don't know whether he does or not. First, he did not stop to determine whether any of his intruders were Gypsies and decide to shoot on that basis. Second, Tony Martin has the right to hate whomever he wants. I may disagree with his hatred, but he's entitled to it. I know that the politically correct thought police want to tell us what we are allowed to feel as well as what we are allowed to write and they will soon convince Parliament to imprison anyone suspected of feeling the wrong feelings toward any group, ethnic or otherwise.

Here in Herefordshire we have the largest Gyspy population in England and no one is out to get them. The are very rarely in the press and in my four years of living here, I've never seen an attempt to make "shitty generalisations" of them in the press.

We have to disagree about whether Fred Barras was a child. No 16-year-old that I've met in the last decade has been a child. He had 29 criminal convictions and had been a regular in the dock since the age of 13. If Fred Barras had been the one with the gun, he would have been called "a 16-year-old man".

He was only retreating while Tony Martin had the torch shining in his face. If I walk downstairs and an intruder blinds me with a torch, I'm going to open fire in the direction of the light as well. And he wasn't shot to death while running away. He could have been saved if Brendan Fearon hadn't failed to mention Barras when he dragged himself to te next farmhouse. Fearon left Barras to bleed to death, only to be discovered in the light of day.

No one here is saying "good riddance".

David,
Gypsies are an internationally-recognised ethnic minority. The World-wide web is just that, World-wide and you are publishing your opinions World-wide. Your first blog made sweeping generalisations about Gypsies as a collective group. Not one particular family, ALL Gypsies. Try replacing "Jew "or "Black" for Gypsy, or "wog" for gyppo, in the above text and you will, I hope, see that your generalisations are indeed, inappropriate and offensive. It is possible that what you wrote could misinform and create prejudice amongst those who have no knowledge of Gypsies.
I'm not a member of the thought police but I do try to live my life according to Christ's teachings and he expounded love, compassion and tolerence. Great oaks of genocide do indeed grow from little acorns of prejudice and misinformation. Is there any difference between violence and the condoning of violence?
As I understand it, your wife's family are Travellers. This is your children's cultural heritage that you are misrepresenting.Will you show this blog to your son when he grows up?
I live very near Hereford. I know Travellers who have lived in Hereford, If you don't hear of the problems that Travellers face locally, nationally and internationally, then I suggest that you talk, or more appropriately, listen more to your in-laws.
The language your wife and her family speak is Romany, not Rumney - that's a place in Wales.

In my political incorrectness, you should have realised that I don't care who recognises what and on what level.

Second, in my initial blog I didn't make any sweeping generalisations. In fact, I dispelled some, by saying things such as: They don't all live in the horse-drawn wagons or car-pulled caravans in laybys, fields, and public car parks. I did relay what was reported in reputable news sources, in which Gypsies did say that the Travelling community had placed a bounty on Tony Martin's head.

I'm sure there are individual Gypsies who disapprove of the bounty. The Americans have placed a bounty on Saddam Hussein's head, even though there are Americans who disapprove and had nothing to do with it. Does that mean I have to hate Americans if I report on this? Americans are, by the way, a world-wide ethnic minority, even if this hasn't been internationally recoginised.

I'm glad you mentioned Jews as a parallel example. In Israel the Jews are horribly persecuting the Palestinian Christians. To a lesser degree, they are mistreating the Armenian Christians. Not every single Jew is doing this. However a Jewish state, where non-Jews are legally second-class citizens, supported by the majority of the Jewish population, is doing this. Jewish-owned businesses in Israel are doing this as well. Not every single one, but the vast majority. But if I report on it, it doesn't mean I'm anti-Jew. I'm just telling it like it is.

It doesn't mean I lack love, compassion, or tolerance. In fact, in the above example, if I'm not honest about the plight of indigenous Christians in Palestine, I am showing a lack of those qualities, even if it makes the Jews look bad. Nor does my compassion for the Christian Palestinians mean that I can't comment if they were to put a hit out on Ariel Sharon.

Yes, my wife has family who are Travellers. There's nothing that I have written that she or even those who are proud of their Gypsies heritage and lifestyle find misrepresentative. My son will be a lot more likely to read my blog than he will be to do the things his relatives want to teach him.

I listen a lot to my in-laws. I know that Gypsies do face problems, though many of them are self-inflicted.

And when I used the term "Rumney", I was writing phonetically, using the pronunciations that I hear and the spellings I'm given, since mandi's got Rumney (or "Rumminy" or in properly Anglicised spelling "Romany") mushes.

And since it seems to have been lost in all of this, the point I was originally trying to make is that if Tony Martin had killed someone who was ethnically "British" (whatever that is) there would have been no larger community desiring to seek revenge. However, since he killed a Gypsy, he raised the ire of a much larger close-knit society which is capable of exacting that revenge through an extensive network of families - at least according to the decedent's own extended family themselves.

I would just like to say that i am a 17 year old student and i am studying this story for my English class. It is obvious to me that you are both in the right. While David is sayin that some Gypsys are not angels and Jeanette seems to think they are, judging by the friends she is aquianted with. In my view whether it be gypsies, Asians, English or Blacks unfortunately some people do turn bad david was not saying all gypsies mean trouble. Also i disagree with Jeanette as to Fred Barras being referred to as a child i am 17 and would be offended to be called a child, but what i do think is that Barras was old enough to commit Burglary he unfortunately had to face the consequences of bein denied the chance to be a father and a Husband and to continue his life which probably would have been endless prison time and drug abuse as Fearon was a heroin dealer. In my opinion he was put out of his misery to the life he faced ahead. So please dont write back to offend me everyone is entitled to an opinion it does not mean you have to force it upon other people.

Regardless of his ethnic background, this "child" was a criminal who got what was coming to him. You don't want to be shot at, don't burglarize people's homes.

So Luis, if you were a judge you would hand out the death penalty for burglary would you? Fred Barras did wrong and deserved to be punished. HE DID NOT DESERVE TO DIE. Also if we are talking about breaking the law what about the fact that Tony Martin didn't even have a licence for his shotgun? Teenage boys good and bad often get into trouble, does this mean that they deserve to be shot in the back, left to drag themselves into a ditch to die like a wounded animal? If your teenage boy got in with the wrong crowd, burgled a house and was shot and killed by a crazy old coot with an illegal weapon would you feel that he had 'got what he deserved'?

I thank god I left the UK behind. I know that if someone attacks me or my family in the street or in my home I will stand a fighting chance of defending myself. And if I will someone who is trying to kill me, then I will not go to jail for it.

The farmer who shot the kid in the back was not in danger from that kid, and should not have fired. Deadly force should not be used to protect property, but deadly force *should* be allowed to protect life.

Bear this in mind; If I catch a burglar in my house then he will be ordered to the ground at gunpoint. If he leaves my house then I will let him leave. If he continues then I will get in his way. Armed or not, if he gets within 5 feet of my and my shotgun then he will be shot to prevent him from taking the weapon from me. If he is armed then he will be shot on sight before he has a chance to shoot me.

The farmer should be given his shotgun back so that he may defend himself. The law as it stands is leaving him defenseless, and the police are not going to be able to help him.

Emma has got it right. Tony Martin is now a convicted psychopath, and rightly so. Remember, even burglars can be burgled, so does this give them the right to bear an illegal firearm? If it does, then we would descend into anarchy. That night, Tony Martin committed the first offence by having the illegal anti personnel weapon, and so let him without sin fire the first shot. If misguided folk think it is ok to own illegal firearms, will they apply this to those young adults in Birmingham?

Tony Martin is not a convicted psychopath. There is nothing in the actions surrounding his conviction or in his past to indicate psychopathic behaviour. He did not have previous convictions. By calling a shotgun an "anti personnel weapon" you give away your bias on the whole issue of firearms generally and the right to use deadly force to protect oneself.

Tony Martin was acting in defense of himself and his property. Historically, before nanny state socialism decided that it was more enlightened to keep everyone in nappies because they weren't capable of looking after themselves, an Englishman's house was his castle. Before you think this idea of deadly force is some sort of American radical right-wing idea, remember it is derived from English common law. It is the UK Parliament that decided that Britons are too stupid to protect themselves.

This is distinct from the right to bear arms enshrined in the US Consitution. That was the right to defend oneself against an oppressive government, made necessary by the way the British citizens of the American colonies had been treated.

It may be an tired maxim that when guns are criminalised only criminals will have guns, but it has been proven overwhelmingly in the UK in the last few years. Guns laws get tighter and tighter. Gun crime continues to rise at an extraordinary rate. The Tony Martin's of this country are by far the exception. With deaths from firearms in the West Midlands happening virtually everyday, how many of them are by homeowners on their own property? None. How many are perpetrated by habitual criminals who are unaffected by gun laws? All the rest.

newark isnt as bad as people make out , yeah it has got some travellers , yeah it has got some trouble makers but it isnt the only town that has these you know , if people are not from newark they just want to hear what they want . Yeah Fred , Fearon and that other person shouldnt of bin there but they was and yeah they had been in trouble with the police , and are you telling me none of you havent been in trouble with the police more than once

Tony Martin used diminished responsibility in his defence so this would appear to justify Norfolk police revoking his firearms licence.