At about the same time as a 20-year-old gunman took aim at former US president Trump in an assassination attempt, I was reading a news story that vending machines will soon be installed in grocery stores in three southern States selling ammunition.
Yes, you read it right – ammunition. Each machine will sell ammunition for various firearm calibers, including rifles, shotguns and handguns, according to American Rounds, the company behind the idea.
The machines will be installed in Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma and American Rounds plan to expand into more states, having already received offers from stores in California, Florida and Hawaii, among others. The company is setting up two more dispensers in Texas and Colorado within the next couple of weeks.
American Rounds say they use AI technology to scan the customers’ identification as well as facial recognition software to verify a customer’s identity, according to the company’s website.
The software works together to verify the buyer’s age and that the person using the machine matches the identification scanned.
All very well, but I’m sure AI does not screen customers attempting to buy ammunition as to whether they are mentally A1.
And this is America’s biggest problem – one which would really frighten me if I was living there.
The fact is that millions of Americans carry guns in their handbags or concealed about their person and you simply don’t know whether that person you meet on the street is having a bad day or has a mental problem.
You would have thought that by now with endless school shootings, shootings in shopping malls, or politicians being shot and or killed the result would have been a successful bid to put an end to mass gun possession.
But no, so many Americans still think they belong to the Wild West – and until there’s a radical re-think the bloodshed will continue.
And that risk is made so much more real when politicians pour fuel on the fire with rhetoric which is close to incitement to violence.
Goodness knows what prompted a 20-year-old who apparently was a Republican supporter to want to kill Trump, but the fact remains he was allowed to possess a semi-automatic rifle and bomb making materials were found by police at the suspect’s home.
Clearly he was deranged, and the big question remains – just how many more Americans are just like him and posing a threat?
Finally on this, I am saddened to think that many Americans, wavering in whether to support Trump for another presidential term, will now view him has an “all American action hero” and be drawn to him. And that doesn’t bode well for the future of NATO or for Ukranians.
WITHHOLDING EVIDENCE
I am sure that many readers were saddened when they heard that Alec Baldwin had been arrested after he shot dead cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Western film, “Rust” almost three years ago.
I failed to understand how he was expected to know that the prop gun he was using had a live round in it rather than a blank.
It seemed that prosecuters were on a mission to get him convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
Alec Baldwin faced up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
At the time of the shooting on October 21, 2021, Baldwin was practicing a cross draw – pulling a gun from a holster on the side of his body opposite to his draw hand, with a prop gun at a church on the film’s New Mexico set when it fired a live round, killing Halyna Hutchins and injuring “Rust” director Joel Souza.
The judge threw the case out when it was established that the prosecution withheld vital evidence “potentially pointing to an external source of the live ammunition because the evidence would be favorable to Baldwin,”
Thank goodness that in the UK we have a more robust legal system where police submit their evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service which reviews the case against a defendant and decides whether it is sufficient to bring the case to trial.
The danger arises when there is no independent review – as in the case of the Post Office which carried out appalling acts of injustice against its post office staff, accusing them of theft to cover up a failed computer system.
It seems to me that America needs to re-learn much about the British way of life – about gun control, fair play when it comes to elections, electioneering and far less bad blood from the loser, and the judicial system – a way of life that it turned its back on centuries ago.
BODIES IN SUITCASES
We know that America has more than its fair share of mentally ill capable of anything, but it seems the UK is not exempt.
I’m sure that Brits were appalled to hear the news that body parts of two men were found in suitcases left at the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and later more body parts were found in the flat of a 24-year-old Columbian national in London, these belonging to the two victims.
It raises the issue as to who we have allowed into Britain and whether there should be much stricter controls on immigration.
We know that immigration was the deciding factor as to why a slim majority voted for Brexit, believing that being in control of our borders would work. We all know where that went, don’t we?
Further on this, UK prisons are full to capacity and the government is being forced into a decision to allow some to be released early. But there are growing calls for foreign prisoners – and there are many – to be simply deported.
Last week former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, Piers Pottinger, said the UK prison system is on the point of collapse, and allowing prisoners to be released early would simply put more criminals back on the streets.
He says deporting foreign prisoners would be welcomed by the majority of people in the UK , and free up valuable prison space to accommodate those who should be locked up.
He says it would be inevitable that human rights lawyers would gang up to try to oppose the idea, but the government could win the case against them.
He said: “There is no reason why we can’t deport them. It’s nothing to do with human rights, they are convicted criminals.
“I think we should take a stronger view on that. We are going to get criminals on the streets who will undoubtedly offend again.”
Personally I totally agree with him. When a foreigner ignores British hospitality and turns criminal then we should throw them out and ensure they never return. A extremely tough, no nonsense policy on immigration would be the best possible deterrent.
