In 30 years, I've never had a 'drug crazed attacker' threaten me in Poland or anywhere else. Or come across anyone that I'd feel the need to point a gun at.
@jon357 Did I at any time say drug crazed attacker? No, you did. I hang out in Rynek in Krakow and affluent areas of the city. I still see drug use walking through Planty. I see it when I am in Warsaw, and other places too. Your opinion is an oppressive one, a controlling one, one that reminds me of an extreme far left group in the US. You cite no real statistics, just general comparisons from Poland to the USA, and then sometimes the EU. No guns, no guns, when it should be responsible guns, responsible guns. But hey, when a war, or intruder comes, and your neighbor kills the POS that was about to kill you, you can thank him then and forget you want to limit access to people with good intentions.
Did I at any time say drug crazed attacker? No, you did.
No, somebody else did.
Yet for some reason you made it about yourself.
Your opinion is an
And you for some reason decide to attack someone expressing an opposing (and entirely mainstream) view to yourself.
But hey, when a war, or intruder comes, and your neighbor kills the POS that was about to kill you,
I'll borrow from your book and turn the issue onto my interlocutor: if you think something like that is at all likely in Poland, you must lead a very strange life.
And of course there is no significant appetite in Poland to weaken the current very successful status quo.
how would you defend yourself if you were attacked by some meth head hooligan with a knife.
Jim, You are missing the point completely! The fact is that we Europeans don't have to worry about meth head hooligans in any way near as much as you do is because they are pretty rare here.. the fact that they are a common problem in your country should be your primary focus.
Actually you are the one missing the point. It is a very simple question, "What would you do to defend yourself against a knife wielding druggie higher than a kite ?" And your answer is ?
@Miloslaw Sorry but I have to disagree with drugs not being a problem in Poland. Have you been to a football (soccer) game lately? Been to a club lately? I have seen people sniffing in bathrooms at Michelin Star restaurants. Its not just in a city like Warsaw or Krakow, but in smaller cities. Hooligans, who control most of the drug trade are everywhere. I remember being on a trip to Gdansk with a whole train full of hooligans, drunk, doing drugs in the bathroom, and completely crazy. I will say that alcohol is a much larger issue in Poland, but drugs with young people from certain groups is rampant. Lots of Poles, young men, carry knives and that is very well known. The knife wielding scenario is a very real scenario regardless of the drug or alcohol a person may be using.
While everyone's opinion, mine included, is shaped by their environments, there is a danger in not looking at todays environment. Today, in Poland we all need to recognize that the world around us is changing. There is more crime. Inflation, the war, COVID, and the influx of Ukraine people have created an environment ripe for trouble of this nature. Sure, some people hate guns. I have no problem with their opinions, except for when they inhibit my ability to defend my life, my family's lives, my home and my property. The threats of criminal activity in Lodz are much different than those in Nowy Sach, as they are different in Warsaw and Sanok. But there are threats, and the threat level is rising. While everyone can insulate themselves to a degree, there are no completely safe places. Safe, controlled, and responsible gun ownership anywhere in the world is a good thing.
They've been a problem since the 1980s (maybe 1970s).
It hasn't been a massive problem with epidemics like the crack cocaine epidemic that destroyed decades of African American economic and social progress or the meth epidemic that hollowed out middle America or the fentanyl epidemic that creates street zombies.... but there've been junkies in Warsaw since the 1980s and amphetamines have been widespread since the early 1990s (popular among students since the preferred Polish academic strategy is to slack off for most of the semester and then cram like crazy for a week before exams).
Polonia tends to have unrealistic and anachronistic ideas of what life in Poland is really like.....
What are the chances of a knife wielding junkie spending 6 zloty on tram fare to come to my quiet suburban street ?
If he did and he was "high" then I would run away. Or if it came to a confrontation then I would feel more confident with fists and kicks than I would firing a gun
And besides I wouldn't be walking around town with a loaded gun on me - you can't even do that in lots of US cities
There are occasional drunks and junkies in the city center but there are also police, Straz and other passers by. A knife wielded would be quickly arrested
@jon357 I am surprised genuinely that you haven't seen a hooligan. I see them nearly every day in Krakow for one football team or the other. I have seen them in Warsaw, Gdansk, Chorzow, and a whole lot of other cities. They are not difficult to spot whether its at a match or just roaming around.
I see them nearly every day in Krakow for one football team
Best not to confuse a football fan (we Europeans are used to football fandom and all have our favourite teams; some of us even join in the singing and the chants and even get drunk with them) with a drug-crazed 'attacker'.
People can be loud, male, working class, a bit rough and not go around attacking perfect strangers to the point that they feel they need to repel them with guns.
Paranoia, much....
What are the chances of a knife wielding junkie spending 6 zloty on tram fare to come to my quiet suburban street ?
It's about as likely as a crazed zombie gnashing its teeth and biting the heads off kittens.
And besides I wouldn't be walking around town with a loaded gun on me
Who the hell would want to? It's Warsaw and not Caracas or Port Moresby.
@jon357 I know football fans, and I know hooligans and how to differentiate. My first year here, I was in a Wisla neighborhood wearing Cracovia baseball hat and had the pleasure of meeting hooligans. They spoke to me and told me how things were there and gave me a pass because I was American. Football fans I see every day and there is a big difference.
@jon357 Context Jon, context. I had just moved here. I had no clue there were two teams in the city. That encounter is how I found out. It was not a rough neighborhood at all.
No. I do not feel the need to carry a gun here at all. I can handle myself without one in most cases. I don't feel the need to carry in the US either unless I am carrying a lot of cash or traveling through a bad area that I am aware of. Both cases are very rare.
I am a dual citizen now Jon, and no, I would not shoot someone anywhere unless I felt threatened or my family was in danger. A couple hooligans do not scare me when I know they do not have guns.
I do however subscribe to gun ownership for the protection of your home and family. I subscribe to hunting and other shooting pursuits that are fun and require skill. I do not support crazy access for everyone.
@jon357 Most big cities don't have two competing football teams in the same league. Within 10 minutes walking distance from each other. American cities do not have professional sports teams located that close to each other playing in the same league except in American Football in the case of the NY Jets and NY Giants who share an arena. There is no trouble between those fans because hooligans just do not exist in US sports.
Not once have I said I wanted a gun because of them. Really man you need to stop trying to twist what people say in order to fit your narrative. Please show me a poll, unbiased one, thats been done to check the desire of Poles for gun ownership. If there isn't one, one should be done. I think there would be 40% or more in favor of more streamlined licensing. Again, I have never said guns for everyone. But everyone who wants one, who is legally allowed to have one, regardless of reason, if they can prove it will be kept safely and managed properly, should have the ability to get one. The process exists, it should just be tweaked a bit to speed it along.
@jon357 If? I can get one now, I have Polish citizenship. I would not carry one on the street here unless I was in Lodz or a few other places. I have never used the word "quality" of the gun laws here. There is no such thing as a "quality" law in any respect because all man made laws are technically imperfect and subject to interpretation, which is why we have courts.
I have been in two situations in Poland where I felt there could be violence. The one as I described with hooligans, and one at the train station in Warsaw. As I said, I can handle myself and am not a small or timid man. Neither would have required a gun, but the one at the train station was sketchy enough to make me think now that it could have easily escalated into a situation where it would have been warranted.
As for pointing out cities that have multiple teams, Krakow's teams are direct rivals, this changes the dynamic of the hooligan rivalry. The rivalry between team hooligans at different levels is nothing like the one between top level teams in Krakow. When teams have to take a bus with police security just to travel a few blocks, and have to wait inside the stadium until all fans have been cleared out, and those fans have to be physically separated inside the stadium, you have a very different environment. A team in the third or fourth league in Krakow is not even considered in the hooligan rivalry here. Comparing "fans" to hooligans is not something I do. Fans, and hooligans are very different.
Not once have I said I wanted a gun because of them.
Why did you write about them then? It looked like you were giving them as an example why one would need to own a gun in Poland...
Btw, there's been a problem with hooligans in Poland since I can remember. It was especially bad when PO went at war with them - they were destroying Warsaw during Independence Marches then. But normally they appear in large groups only if there's a match in the city. Normal people simply avoid them then. Usually they "sing" songs when they come back from a match, so you can hear them from afar, which makes avoiding them pretty easy. And there's no way in hell I would board a train full of hooligans/"football fans" going to or from a match lol I remember reading articles about trains and buses getting devastated, including in my city :( Those morons shouldn't reproduce... :/
A couple hooligans do not scare me when I know they do not have guns.
That's the thing, if gun laws were relaxed in Poland they could get them. There's enough problems with them already - imagine if they started shooting at each other or at other people when drunk or high. We would have something similar to gang violence in the US. No, thank you.
they were destroying Warsaw during Independence Marches then
it has been shown that hooligans were targeted by police provocations (in youtube videos) - also in a recorded conversation between Paweł Wojtunik (the ex chief of Polish secret service) with another PO figure (Elżbieta Bieńskowska)) he mentioned that 'Sienkiewicz's people' set the guardhouse by the Russian embassy on fire (Sienkiewicz was the interior minister(responsible for police and secret services) during PO rule): another major PO provocation
also Donald Tusk initiated a war against football hooligans only after portions of them raised a slogan: Donald, matole, twój rząd obalą kibole. (Donald, you moron, football hooligans will topple your government) : one aspect of the war was that one of the leaders of Warsaw football hooligans spent over a year in prison on trumped up charges - he was then awarded a compensation of a couple of thousands of PLN by court (laughable)
@gumishu, sorry, but even if that was true (which I doubt) - how on Earth did that gave the hools the right to destroy public property in Warsaw???
And what about hooligans getting arrested for criminal activity these days - are those "PiS provocations"? lol :)))
As I wrote - there's been problems with hooligans in Poland since I can remember. What has PO or any other political party to do with hooligans devastating trains and buses (and stadiums) for years in Poland? Are those "PO provocations" too? Even nowadays? lol
Trust me, hools don't need any "provocations" to show what destructive morons they are.
Trust me, hools don't need any "provocations" to show what destructive morons they are.
yeah, so Wojtunik joked about 'Sienkiewicz's men' burning the Russian embassy guardhouse, sure sure also I haven't heard of any major devastations by hooligans in recent years - I may be wrong though so feel free to update me on that
@gumishu, "major"? Do they have to destroy the city center so it would "matter" to you? They devastate trains, buses and stadiums on regular basis - those are just a few articles from different years about train devastations only:
@jon357 Again you try to twist words. No one said anything about shots fired at the train station. Everything you comment on is completely twisted and any conversation with you is just a waste of time. Enjoy your day.
@Paulina If you read what I wrote when the conversation was involving drugs and crazed meth heads you will find how it lead to hooligans. While normal in Europe, they do not exist in North America, so being new to Poland, I could not have anticipated being confronted by them. I certainly wouldn't have known about two teams in one city after just moving there and not being a big football fan.
Anyway, my only discussion point is that safe gun ownership, and the process by which it can be accomplished should be streamlined, not in any way resembling the US. But people, all people in Europe, should be trained how to use fire arms as long as Russia exists as a threat.
