Duke of Edinburgh.

M0nica. You are being completely ridiculous. The man in Dunblane shot 16 innocent children one after another, some of them as they were trying to crawl away. And killed their teacher who was trying to protect them. The whole argument about its not guns that kill people, its people that kill people is just so wrong.

The root cause was that the guy was a nutter and had access to weapons that could kill little children on an industrial scale. End of.

suziewoozie Actually I wouldn't. I would be hellbent on finding out why the person was allowed to be in a situation where they could commit the crime, because finding and stopping the pathway that took the assailant there is more important than the weapon. He could just as easily have used a knife or a flame thrower or all kinds of other weapons.

Obviously considerations about the availability of the weapon would form part of the enquiry, but the main enquiry I would want would be into how the assailant was able to plan something like this and be able to do it.

When the Aberfan disaster happened, people didn't go round blaming the coal tip for slipping. They did the enquiry into why the coal tip was ever put there in the first place and what was the decision making process and what were the failures in everything that led up to the slip.

If it was my child in such an incident that is the enquiry I would want, knee jerk actions and political actions that read well with the voters are often window dressing for a total failure to deal with the root cause of events.

He has a right on every issue

M0nica

I am happy to ban hand guns, but I agree with the DoE 's comment.

Every time something like this happens, somebody jumps up to ban something and all that happens is that the next person committing such atrocities uses a different weapon - look at all the terror attacks where the weapon of choice was a kitchen knife - and how many people the knife wielders kill. What should they do? Ban knives and make us buy all our meat and veg ready prepared?

It would be better to address the reason the person did what they did and make sure that they get help/arrested/ detained in some other way before they do it.

Sorry, I am with the DoE in this comment

Not the best time to make such comments.

25 years ago tomorrow.

Smileless2012

I had no idea you knew him well enough to know all that he cares about suziewoozie.

As for "not even bright enough to know when to keep quiet" IMO that's just, if not more applicable to his GS and his GS's wife, in terms of washing their dirty linen in public.

And again - not going there. What’s that about two wrongs not making a right?

EllanVannin

" no right to a public opinion ?" . It's alright for MM then ?

Whatsboutery - not going there.

Anniebach

No right to a public opinion ?

Absolutely no right at all on this issue.

" no right to a public opinion ?" . It's alright for MM then ?

No right to a public opinion ?

I had no idea you knew him well enough to know all that he cares about suziewoozie.

As for "not even bright enough to know when to keep quiet" IMO that's just, if not more applicable to his GS and his GS's wife, in terms of washing their dirty linen in public.

Hand guns are not part of a shoot

Monica it was not his role to pass opinions on that matter on national radio and especially on a matter where the self interest of him and his ilk was so nakedly obvious. And over an issue of such grief and heartbreak . The least he should have done was say absolutely nothing in public. . He had no right at all to a public opinion.

Agree *MOnica, .

I note no objection to ‘privileged white men’,

Too right*M0nica*.

I'm with merlotgran.

Just imagine, your 5 year old dgc went to school one day and never came home again. You joined a group fighting to ban handguns and to protect other peoples dgc and you heard him saying that on the radio. You’d have said, well there you go, different generation - he was only in his 60s then and we’d all seen many other school massacres in the states. All he cared about was his freedom to shoot and own guns being protected. As I said, selfish, no empathy and not even bright enough to know when to keep quiet

I am happy to ban hand guns, but I agree with the DoE 's comment.

Every time something like this happens, somebody jumps up to ban something and all that happens is that the next person committing such atrocities uses a different weapon - look at all the terror attacks where the weapon of choice was a kitchen knife - and how many people the knife wielders kill. What should they do? Ban knives and make us buy all our meat and veg ready prepared?

It would be better to address the reason the person did what they did and make sure that they get help/arrested/ detained in some other way before they do it.

Sorry, I am with the DoE in this comment

The man's more of a " gaff " merchant than a racist. He speaks out of turn which doesn't amount to him being racist, just a case of not engaging his brain before opening his mouth.

I agree with M0nica and Smileless.

If only it could be irrelevant when criticising M's behaviour that she's of mixed race suziewoozie.

Exactly, M0nica. Remember some of the sit-coms of the sixties and seventies? Attitudes have certainly changed.

I can't bring myself to criticise the Duke of Edinburgh as he remains in hospital, old, sick and frail. What is to be gained by focussing on his past gaffes. What good does it do?

I prefer to think fondly of the role he has played in supporting the Queen, modernising the RF and the success of the DofE Award Scheme.

As well as his racism, he said the following when giving his opinion on the Snowdrop campaign to ban handguns after the beyond words tragedy of Dunblane. He’s a selfish, opinionated, out of touch, not very bright man who’s been a poor show as a father ( and it’s irrelevant he’s ill in hospital when criticising him).

If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean are you going to ban cricket bats?"

Is there anything on our websites/ news that corroborates with this ?

I've never excused or made light of the D of E's remarks and don't personally know anyone who has.

With all that's going on with H&M and his state of health is it really necessary to drag this up again? As you've posted kirkcubbin "we have heard all this before" and if there's a racist in the family it doesn't mean that everyone else in the family is a racist too.

It looks if there are some who don't want him to be "out of the picture at the moment" and despite his poor health are doing whatever they can to drag him into it.

Spot on M0nica