Okay when watching the news last night I discovered that he had an unlicenced gun because he'd been declared unfit to own one.
That's fairly significant wouldn't you say?
Missi,
Whist I totally agree with most of your assertions, I must take you to task over your comments on the police.
Only the other day we found the body of a Rastafarian with 17 knife wounds in the back.
It was a terrible tragedy and probably the worst case of suicide I, or any of my colleagues, have ever come across.
BTW,
I notice correspondents opposed to your views taking exception at the description of "gypsies", yet another refers to Tony Martin as a "glorified squatter in his own home"!! There does appear to be a certain degree of double standards, if not contradictions amongst your critics.
I go awol for a day and look what happens. Larph goes off on one of his infantile 'I'm talented and you're not' benders, then starts multiple threads about inane topics. He trots my name out everytime someone has a pop at him because he can't contemplate that he is actually unpopular with many people here. Larph, you are of only average intelligence, your writing is much the same as most people here, it is readable with ocassional flashes of brilliance but for the most part is nothing special; very few here are special. Along with your pals your biggest asset is your ability to entertain on the forums; you have given so many laughs with your ridiculous diatribes on everything from the Iraq war to Tony Martin, popular music, writing, theatre and now your unshakeable belief that you are among the 'finest new writers'. A real life Walter Mitty if ever there was one.
As an aside, having read down this thread I notice you claim to be fit and able, having been a county boxer. If this is the case why didn't you deal with your mugger at Glastonbury? Or for that matter the guy that gave you a clout a while back over an attempted bike theft?
Given Tony Martin's psychology, what happened was almost inevitable. The police are responsible in the sense that they should have prevented the crime of his owning a gun and the crime of the repeated break-ins. Rich tax-payers are responsible as they pay proportionately far less money than middle-income earners (by clever tax-dodging deals) and so make for an unequal and divided society (in which some badly educated and excluded people resort to crime), and arguably also for an underfunded and under-resourced police force. The burglars, however, must bear a great deal of the responsibility as no-one directly forced them to commit their crimes. For all I know, Tony Martin himself, while I don't take to him at all, may be deranged enough not to be responsible!
For me two things are clear: (1) we should work towards a more egalitarian society in which the press and politicians are not controlled by wealthy fascist tax dodgers (e.g. Rupert Murdoch), and (2) we should work even harder to eliminate guns from our society. On the latter point see "Bowling for Columbine".
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