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About LinkBacksIt'd be pretty neat if the flamethrower anti-theft device wouldn't get you sued/jailed or what have you.
Instant BBQ chav.
It'd be pretty neat if the flamethrower anti-theft device wouldn't get you sued/jailed or what have you.
Instant BBQ chav.
Originally Posted by Agent
The obvious response is "Daily Mail"?
But no, it isn't new to me. Not hardly.
I carefully said I didn't see why he would think staying at a cops house should make any difference, not whether it would. Having come from a household with serving police officers in it, I could curdle your toes with some of the tales.
You may have noticed, over a period, that I'm very cynical about the way the law works. In large measure, it works for those with either power, or money, or preferably, both.
For instance, the thread where the OP was threatened with "a caution or a criminal record" if he didn't apologise over an alleged assault. Do we think that a police officer would say that if attending the home of a multimillionaire who could afford to engage the best lawyers in the country without even denting the petty cash fund, or would he be standing there, cap in hand, asking permission to ask a few questions?
I wonder if a policeman said that to John Prescott when he (with some provocation, it must be said) thumped that protester? Or would they usher Prescott away and nick the protester, probably for hitting Prescott on the fist with his nose?
I'm also aware of a very amusing anecdote of a young PC who knocked on a door and tried much that type of officious "caution" bluff, only to become rather more deferential when the bloke he was "threatening" produced a warrant card identifying himself as a Chief Superintendent. His attitude .... erm ... changed.
My point wasn't that the police have or don't have ways of looking after themselves. I'm not that naive ... not by a very large margin. Rather, it was that he'd post on here thinking he's entitled to it, and apparently a bit aggrieved at not getting special attention.
Agreed, as long as it worked on those it was supposed to and not on others, yes. But it wouldn't.
The trouble is, it'd end up being the favourite toy of the criminal classes, or the very scumbags most of us wouldn't object to seeing incinerated. It's a bit like guns .... if they're widely available, responsible people use them responsibly. But not everyone is responsible and they are the problem ones when they get a gun.
Ahh, but then there's the other side of things, where controlling the populous leaves it only an option to the criminals.
True enough, but at least it's far easier to convict someone of possessing, say, a firearm if merely possessing it is a serious offence. On the other hand, if possessing a gun was legal, for the police to be able to take them off criminals they'd have to prove it was in some way being abused and that'd be far harder.
Suppose we had the laws common in much of the US, where a citizen (in many states) can get a licence even to carry a concealed firearm. Until such time as I abuse that, and start waving it about in public, as long as I'm licenced, I can carry it and therefore might lose my temper and use it. Or get mugged and have it used on me. If merely having it is illegal, most people won't possess them so if you catch someone that does, you've got them without having to prove they misused it or threatened someone with it.
The same is true of a car-mounted flame-thrower.
There comes a point where extreme defensive measures might be justified, and perhaps, even when they're illegal. If the law won't or can't protect us, how far are we entitled to go to protect ourselves? But really, that's another thread.
TBH I didn't expect a different level of service just because he was a police officer. It was he who called the police and instructed me what I should do. He was surprised that no-one came out as he had a lot of trouble with a gang threatening him and breaking into his house and normally they would send someone strait out.
After reading through the insurance blurb it is obviously not worth claiming, but this is something I can conclude with a bit of research, hell, I'm a reasonable person. What's not reasonable is my dads first reaction of "I'm sorry to hear that, but your not claiming on my insurance", that is what I take issue with.
I guess it was just all a bit of a shock, I live in area where we don't even bother locking our front door ffs. I sure won't be making the same mistake again, and am very happy that I took my laptop into the house with me.
Still the police finally called and where surprised when I had the serial numbers ready for them. I was a bit annoyed to hear that I should have been instructed in the first call to take my car to their motor vehicle police squad garage for dusting and what nots. unfortunately I had commitments to keep and am not in the area any more. They where very nice and helpful though and as it turns out there was an drastic increase in car break ins over the past couple nights. Apparently its Christmas for criminals with people leaving presents in their cars.
Yer, am thinking of getting a 16GB card for my phone £26 and one less thing to carry arround.ipod shuffle, sorted
£60, 4 GB - plenty of room for lots of music, 1000mp3s, 4 CDs even in lossless (remember portable cd players? we don't think about how good we have it now and take it for granted) - it's daft anyway to store your whole music collection on a portable device, and people who put their music on loud because they want other people to know what they listen to are just sad.
As it turns out my new stereo works very well with my little USB HDD, so am sorted in this respect.
I might be back in the area on the 28th to take the girlfriend to the her mother for her birthday, although the police think that any finger prints might have degraded over time due to the weather, and my own work in fingerprint recognition would agree with this.
If I have time I might stop by, but I'm resided in the fact that I probably won't see my stuff again.
Fair enough. That's not quite how it came across, or at least, not quite how I read it, but fair enough.
Perhaps that's just the reaction of experience?
I wasn't there, don't know you or your Dad, so it's just a general observation, but on reading the account, my gut reaction was that at best, it's going (IMHO, of course) to be borderline whether it's worth claiming or not. Had I been your Dad, my reaction would probably have been the same. I hope I'd have at least explained why, but that would have been my instinctive reaction too.
Bear in mind that if he does, and depending on his previous claims history (or lack of), he may end up paying increased premiums for some years as a result, and may well know that. It might be a surprise to you, but may not be to him. It's not beyond possibility that he'd end up paying more in increased premiums that you get in payout.
It's often the case that, despite the impression the insurance companies might give, the insurance is really there for the big things and we'd be better off not claiming for the smaller ones. That's why I often opt to increase the basic voluntary excess ... but check to see how much difference it makes first. And if you do, of course, you accept that if you make a claim, it's going to cost you. What you're really doing is making the bet that you won't have a big enough incident to be worth claiming, and you save on premiums by making that bet. And, of course, by accepting a decent chunk of any claim yourself, you're also telling the insurer you won't be making small claims. There's a not of fraudulent claims on insurance, and they eliminate a lot of it if the excess goes up, so it's also tantamount to declaring you're not going to be trying it on, at least not on small scale.
It's always a shock, to be fair, and the more so if you've never had this type of thing happen to you before. First the shock arrives .... then the anger. Some of the things that have happened to me still make me angry years later. And if I ever find out who it was .....
I wouldn't get too upset about that. In all likelihood, like with me, the little beggars would have been bright enough not to leave fingerprints, and all you'd have achieved is giving yourself the half-hour of "fun" it took me getting all that sticky little black dust off the car.
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