Ozexpatriate

Birthday.

If I understand you correctly, this is mind boggling to me. This cheque cannot be deposited in a bank branch? (I sort of comprehend issues with a mobile telephone app.)

I think there's a pendulum effect in rule of law. There's no end of stories of highwaymen on the roads of jolly old, jumping in front of carriages with their trademark "Stand and deliver!". "Lawlessness" seems to ebb and flow in societies. The same tales exist in the "Wild" west of the US (holding up the stagecoach or robbing a train) or the bushrangers of Australia etc. Rule of law seems to sit better when societies have their "needs" (shelter, food, etc) covered. Lawlessness increases with opportunity and when a society does not offer basic needs.

Can you rent a storage shed on the downlow?

Officers per country: (multiple sources including Wikipedia) US: 708,000 Canada: 70,000 Australia: 65,000 Germany: 289,900 England and Wales: 135,301 Scotland: 17,296 Law enforcement killings per 1,000 officers: US: 1.44 Canada: 0.74 Australia: 0.24 Germany: 0.03 UK: 0.03 Yes, the US numbers are higher but only 2X that of Canada. I think your premise is sound, but relative comparisons should be used.

One of the problems with Police Unions here is that an officer's discipline record is not public or accessible outside the department. An officer can literally be fired for serious issues and get a job as a sworn officer in the town next door, because there is no tracking of their discipline record outside the original department. I support their right to unionize and their work to protect their members, but not at risk to the public.

In practice, they tend to be used as weapons of force - in the "put your hands up or I'll tase you" scenario. Or the local scenario in a recent court case with one pressed against a shoplifter's intentionally uncovered family jewels - to subdue someone who stole candy. Often not. It can take multiple charges to disable a determined individual. That is the hope. It doesn't always work that way.

We have a Scottish chippie in a suburban food cart pod who calls himself the "The Frying Scotsman". It's good.

Not the fifth - that's all jurisprudence - grand jury, double jeopardy, self incrimination*, due process, etc * "Taking the Fifth".

People have been proposing magazine limitations for years. In 2022, the citizens of Oregon voted on a Measure (114) to require gun owners to complete a gun safety class, have a permit to purchase, insist on background checks and limit magazine sizes to 10. Due to court challenges, it is still not in effect.

Yes and no. Sometimes they are effective. Sometimes their use (or threatened use) gets really complicated.

The reference is to the Yorktown campaign - which not coincidently, happened during hurricane season in the Caribbean. Cornwallis placed himself at Yorktown (his back to deep water, so the RN could rescue him if need be). Admiral de Grasse cut him off and at the Battle of the Capes prevented the RN (under Admiral Graves) from dislodging him. It wasn't just de Grasse though. The siege artillery that effected the victory at Yorktown (on land) all of which was French, was delivered by the French navy with a fleet commanded by Admiral de Barras who shipped it from Newport - by an intentionally circuitous route, avoiding British patrols. Without the French navy - there would be no artillery to bombard Cornwallis' position, and he could have easily escaped by sea, prolonging the war. Cornwallis did attempt to escape at night across the York River, but this was disrupted by thunderstorms. The British knew the French fleet was coming. Hood looked into the Chesapeake before heading to New York, but he had got there just five days before de Grasse and found it empty. Hood was junior to Graves who took too long to move the British fleet south from New York - by which time de Grasse had arrived in the Chesapeake - blockading Cornwallis ashore. It didn't help that Rodney had split his fleet - sending three ships of the line to Jamaica and taking three ships of the line home to defend his questionable* sack of Sint Eustatius, sending Hood's depleted squadron north to the 13 colonies. Had Rodney stayed in theatre the British might have had sufficient superiority to win at The Capes. * Britain was not at war with the Dutch Republic at the time - though they were supplying American traders. The whole of the campaign hinged on the movements of the two navies and the RN lost. Cornwallis' surrender led to the fall of the North government, ending the war in the 13** colonies, though war with France would continue in India and the Caribbean. There was no victory at Yorktown without the French navy - no artillery and Cornwallis escapes. The strength of the French navy would not have been deployed at all - were it not for the dangers of staying in the Caribbean during hurricane season. ** It was actually 14, but one of them was not part of the revolution. (And I'm not talking about British Canada.)

That's one firearm for every 7 people in Australia. In the US it is more than one per person (1.2) - though this is concentrated. 42% of households have a firearm. (Three in 10 say they own a gun and 11% say they live with someone who does.) A rough extrapolation suggests that gun owners have an average of 4 firearms per person, compared with zero for the other 70%.

Ease of access is the primary factor. Glorification of guns is secondary, but contributes. I was thinking the other day - I don't directly know any shooting victims. Having said that, a colleague lost his daughter to a university shooting (6 fatalities). I know someone who knew a victim of a local mall shooting (3 fatalities) and a former colleague was present (and sensibly ran away from) the Route 91 Festival shooting in Las Vegas (60 fatalities). The degrees of separation is small.

Yes and no. Don't believe everything you see in the movies. Even Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974) has the Governor (THE GOV) Lepetomane (Mel Brooks) overseeing executions. In the clip, Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) is on the Governor's staff.

No, it's nothing to do with this. The bones of the judicial system are identical. They are all based on English Common Law. There are variations in policing - that is separate from the judicial system. For the most part, capital crimes are (and were like Australia) managed at the state level. Australia and the US have very similar policing structures at the Federal and State level. Where they vary is that in the US there are police forces at the county (Sheriff) and local city. The lowest level of legal process in the US is county courts - which is (I think) somewhat similar in Australia - the District Courts.

Not wanting to be nasty, but let's not forget the Christchurch mosque shooting in 2019 - 51 were murdered. It is important to remember these things - even if they are horrible. There's a lot to unpack there (what you say is a nice summary of what many people believe) - but I'll give it a go and try to be brief. I have spent a lot of time pondering the US proclivity for "guns and God". I did a lot of reading - focused on the colonial period until the penny dropped. First of all you have to absorb the 17th century in England and 'her' colonies. This was the 'formative' period of the 13 colonies. It happened against a backdrop of the English Civil War - and religiosity in the US is directly related to this period. Where modern Britain might have evolved (in some ways), the colonies were a time capsule for many things - like the use of "Fall" for "Autumn". (It's totally English.) English citizens in the Colonies held onto a lot of 17th century ideas - like the English Bill of Rights (William and Mary / Glorious Revolution - 1688 etc) where I quote: The Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States (enacted barely a century after the English Bill of Rights) is directly related to this "right' of Englishmen. Over the years much revisionist history has evolved over the revolution. What is forgotten is that the French Royal Navy (Ancien régime) essentially won the revolution*. (They would later lose the wider revolutionary war to the RN in places like the Caribbean and Indian Ocean.) * Happy to expound on this thesis to any who are interested - it's a bit of a soapbox, so I'll spare you. In it's place the myth of the citizen soldier taking arms and winning against the world's superpower has overtaken the reality that the war in North America was won by France (and lost globally).

It happens in those countries too. The US has a large population and many more reported incidents - but there is a very high relative per capita rate in the US. The majority (54%) of gun deaths in the US are suicides. Different sources will give you different rates. In one the US is the 28th in gun violence fatalities per 100,000. In this Wikipedia page, the US is 21st by gun homicides per 100,000 (4.05). To offer a random observation, in 2021, Bermuda was higher (4.67).

Kent State was perpetrated by the Ohio National Guard in 1970. They shot Vietnam war protestors. There is a big movement right now on campuses nationwide to hold 'camp-ins'* to protest the actions of the State of Israel in Gaza. * To co-opt a 60's term. The first big mass school shooting was the University of Texas "tower" shooting in 1966, where someone took a rifle (an M1 Carbine*) to the top of the clock tower on the UT campus in Austin, Texas. He killed 15. * Standard US military issue during WWII and the Korean War. Oops - I see @pH posted this first:

Let's not conflate Disney* policy, FCC requirements for Children's television and gun violence. * They have problems enough with their own catalogue - like "Song of the South". They are redoing the "Splash Mountain" log rides at their parks because they are related to "Song of the South". You will find that a substantial portion of the US population sees nothing "normal" about the perceived need for Active Shooter drills. Had PM Howard not implemented the buy-back, by now you'd probably have active shooter drills in Australian schools too.

The LZ-1 Zeppelin first flew in 1900. The concept was patented in Germany in 1895. I don't know whether the term "hangar" was used for the factory at Friedrichshafen. British airships built by Stanley Spencer first flew in 1902. Much of the early development was concurrent - both the rigid airships and flying machines needed the same high power to weight internal combustion engines to be effective. It seems unlikely the term 'hangar' (which is French) was adopted for airships before aeroplanes. I can easily see them both using the term at the same time. French and American experiments focused on aeroplanes, the Germans on airships. Britain did both. Germany entered the Great War with aircraft from Royal Dutch Fokker - not established until 1912.

Taken literally, that is not something a young boy, should know about, whether it hurts, or how much. I'm surprised the line wasn't "bloody bu99ery" or would that have offended Australian television censors? 😉

I thought they predated the war - in that turn of the century period where many of the innovations over the Wright Brothers' wing warping (the Flyer first flew in 1903) were French. Blériot crossed the channel in 1909 in his monoplane (with elevators). Wikipedia The rapidity of explosive experimentation in that period between 1903 and 1914 is quite amazing.

They have, but there aren't very many. One is in New Guinea - the Hooded Pitohui.

Google suggests for the etymology: FRENCH - late 17th century (in the sense ‘shelter’): from French; probably from Germanic bases meaning ‘hamlet’ and ‘enclosure’. Certainly the aeroplane interpretation is from French as are many aeronautical terms - like: fuselage, empennage, aileron, etc.