jeepster

It's not the NRA, the people want to have access to guns because they don't trust their government. Gives people a sense of security.

Gun murder rates are cultural. Ethnic European areas have low murder rates, Hispanic and Black areas are much higher because murder rates in South America and Africa are higher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._homicide_rate).

dc koop

The .303 was gone from service when I joined up. They kept 2 or 3 in the armoury which the BSM and a couple of other NCOs used on the range for off duty target practice. They didn't think too much of the FNs apparently

We weren't issued rifles on guard duty, We were given pick axe handles instead. On jungle warfare training exercises we were issued SLRs and live ammo. We also found another use for condoms other than the usual one. Slipped over the end of the rifle barrel it protected it from water when wading across rivers. A grenade tossed in the river provided a fish dinner as a change from army rations and it always poured down with rain around 2 in the morning. Happy days !

dc koop

Which is plain stupid because this is not the early 18th century and people these days are not going to rise up en masse against the government,
The whole idea of allowing citizenry to bear arms was to have a ready made army available in case of invasion..

If the Founding Fathers could have seen what the "right to bear arms" has become they would I think have torn up the Second Amendment and flushed it down the pot.

dc koop

I cant fault my heating system. The furnace is in the attic and runs on natural gas and is about as reliable as it gets. I think the British system of wall radiators is wasted space in a room.

I was surprised when I first came here to see wall plugs with two prongs and no ground and outlets the same . My first house built in 1951 still had those old plugs and outlets and instead of a sewer line a septic tank buried in the ground at the back of the house. That housing development had been built to house the thousands of WW2 vets moving to sunny California so they were strictly constructed as starter homes

uk_grenada

H&k were german, bought by the british royal ordinance factory [rof] almost a decade ago [aka the british government] and now make weapons in america the uk and elsewhere. Much favoured by police forces.

zzrmark

I liked my warm air system in the UK, not just because of the lack of radiators, the heat was instantaneous whereas radiators can take a while to warm a room from cold. It was pricey to run compared to a radiator system... not that it came on very often, I liked to keep the thermostat cranked down to 53F. This Florida heat's killing me, we're still in the low 80's and it's over 70 this morning before the sun even rises... (at 5.30pm! )

EDIT: ...And, although it didn't have A/C, on hot days you could run the blower without heat which sent a nice breeze through the place.

SultanOfSwing

Weren't H&K owned by British Aerospace at one point?

uk_grenada

Dont know, possibly.

Pulaski

I drafted this, but for some reason it didn't post. ..... Luckily I still had a copy of it. British Aerospace became BAE, and then BAE Systems.
Having read the Wikipedia entry which I linked ..... I see buried in the history, it says that H&K was bought by BAE, and remains within the BAE systems organization. ..... I see no mention of the Royal Ordnance .... or had that already been absorbed into BAE?

SultanOfSwing

It was always something that stuck in my head from ages ago when my mate and I were (not sure how it came up in conversation) that the MP5 was a British gun and I was all "Aren't H&K German?" Just one of those bits of useless information that sticks in my head that I may never need, unless it comes up as a random point of discussion on the internet.

mrken30

We were also issued with pick helms when I was in OTC. In the Army, we had a loaded magazine in our pocket, but an unloaded magazine on the SA80 when on guard duty.

mrken30

Quite recently some people took over a federal building by force using arms. Not quite the same, but if the public were not armed it wouldn't have happened.

ddsrph

As I have mentioned before I am in process of building a new house and trying to overcome some of the poor quality being mentioned. I wired in myself and in the process learned a lot. For example you can buy a wall outlet for .90 or you can buy a 20 amp commercial grade for $4.50. Same for switches, from less than a dollar to several dollars for commercial or even higher industrial quality. Same for many other electrical and plumbing parts. I used all commercial or industrial stuff in my house and still came out much cheaper by the labor savings. I designed and installed my own heating system using a Thrane heat pump and exposed ductwork. This coupled with my super over the top polyiso insulation will make heating so cheap it will be a total non issue.
You can build a house here that will rival anything build anywhere, but you have to know what to ask for and be ready to pay the price. Many are now being built out of steel I beam frames and steel wall studs, covered by brick.

I have a question about British home construction. With the double block wall, what kind of wall finish do you have inside? Painted block or interior framing for a plaster type wall? Also about what would it cost to build a house in the UK, say 3000 sq foot, detached, hardwood and tile floors, granite counter tops and nice custom cabinets, central heat and air?

mrken30

These sites may answer most of your questions

Building Methods
House Construction Methods

Twinkle0927

Bring "fresh off the boat" I have been reading through this with interest. Some things I have yet to encounter. Some I have already encountered. And some I hope I never encounter.

Right now I'm getting frustrated looking for good news coverage on the TV with a person actually reading the news, rather than a few people discussing the news amongst themselves (which is why I hate breakfast TV in the UK). When I used to visit The Husband it never bothered me too much that I couldn't find a good news source - we had better things to do in our short visits and I knew could catch up on news when I got home. But now I'm here permanently it's becoming more important.

Flags - don't get me started. The Husband is very well versed in flag protocol and had already begun my induction course in flag flying before we got married. He'd be the type to stop and tell someone there was something wrong with the way they are flying a flag. I told him to never make the mistake of going to Primark if he's ever in the UK and in need of a cheap t-shirt or sweatshirt. It is physically impossible in there to buy an item of men's wear that does not have the flag on it somewhere or the name of a random US city or state on it. Usually worn by people that would struggle to place said city or state on a map. I was very surprised to see a pile of WSU Cougars sweatshirts in there once and commented to an assistant that it was nice to see something from Washington instead of the usual New York and LA stuff. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said "well Washington is the capital, you know, so it's like London to us really". Another case of "wrong Washington".