Cleverley family 'shaken' after robbery

If pond scum like that broke into my house they'd look like Swiss cheese in about 2 seconds.

Glad Mr Cleverley and family are okay.

Back to the subject matter I can't even begin to imagine how horrific, scary and traumatic this must be to his family and wish them all the best.

When I lived in Cambridge our house was broken into about 10 mins after my wife left to pick up my then 8 year old daughter from school.

Had they been 10 minutes earlier my wife would have been in the shower and 1 hour later they would both have been in the house.

At the time I was away in Italy but years later they are both still traumatized by what might have been.

Any house burglars deserve the swiss cheese treatment. They are total scum who rather than go out and do a day's work will prey on others.

I am now in America and thankfully there is no law against killing intruders.

And yes, I too have been burgled, twice as it happens (once when the family were asleep in their beds) and had a car stolen and never recovered.

Try telling the no physical harm story to a poor pensioner who has just had all her life's savings, family mementos, jewellery robbed by some scum bag.

I came home from the Everton versus Liverpool cup final, the one that went to extra time, to find the house had been screwed. It made a very bad day much worse. I wouldn't mind betting it was a red supporter who did the dastardly deed.

I am not a rootin tootin cousin from across the pond. I was Scotty Road born and bred at a time when you all left your front doors open and neighbours were good neighbours.

With the advent of TV and the glorification of drugs, fast cars and grabbing what you want rather than deserve, that neighbourly spirit and trust has largely gone out of the window but for me anyone who breaks into someone's home, whether it was a family member or not, deserves to get bitten in the arse big time.

I abhor war and guns but to me your home is your castle and god help intruders.

There's a job for you at my house next time we go on Holiday. I'll fill the fridge with beer and raw steak, I'll even throw a match ticket in for you.

As you say, "anyone who breaks into someones home whether it was a family member or not deserves to get bitten in the arse big time". Maybe a big fuck-off Doberman would do that job as opposed to a big fuck-off 12-bore.

The problem with a society that arms themselves with firearms, is that the burglars don't break in holding baseball bats. They are aware that you may well have a gun and will very likely carry one themselves. Then what?

What would have ended in you handing over watches and Range Rovers which can be replaced. You get into a shootout and potentially have to deal with dead family members, if you survive yourself!!

I accept. Now getting the firearm across the pond is going to be challenging...

The rootin' tootin' Yank tag is very justified. I'm actually one "Merican who supports moderate, intelligent gun control. Limit magazines, illegalize assault weapons (tough but in my opinion can easily be done with a rpm [rounds per minute] analysis and calculation), etc.

However, I'm a 155 lbs, 5'11" man. So if a 240 lbs man planning on stealing my shit invades my home with my wife and 5 kids there?

A firearm instantaneously levels the playing field. And, as I'm the one being wronged, I have a right (at least here in this gun-toting country) to defend myself. And Colin Glassar - the bat thing.... what if there are multiple assailants? Your bat will get one of them, while the rest beat you to a bloody pulp. Not good for you or your family sir.

Frankly I wish Tom Cleverley had been afforded the right to defend himself as he deems fit, preferably with a firearm.

Off to blast country music (not really, hate the shit..), put in a chew, grab an AR-15, and plink away! ;0)

Walking on eggshells with my English cousins...

Oh... and these guys scare me... but why do I giggle every time I watch??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y88VNIeNSZo

Anyone who involves themselves in any kind of sinister crime such as this waives their human rights, and anything that happens to them (shot or injured by the homeowner for example) is fair game. They're scum, human lowlife, oxygen thieves. People work hard for a living and this scum think they can just take what they want. When I come to power, they'll be strung up along with the murderers and rapists.

A horrible thing to have to endure. Glad to hear there are no physical injuries - what is often overlooked though are the mental scars caused by incidents like this.

Firstly I wouldn't give your average PL footballer the Sky remote never mind a firearm.

Secondly, I wouldn't dream of telling you how your country should conduct its business, ultimately you can decide for yourselves.

I understand the cultural significance of the right to bear arms. However, it would be remiss of me not to point out that your Second Amendment right does make it about 40 times more likely that you will die as a result of gun crime in the US than in the UK.

Btw Jamie, do you agree with Donald Trump regarding the arming of school teachers?

You forgot peadophiles, cop killers and those people who park in the parent and child spaces at Tesco.

Yes, I'm more likely to die from a gun crime here than over yonder. Because we have guns, and you don't. So your numbers surely stack up. And I need to make this crystal clear - England definitely has an argument to be made! No guns, no death by guns. But see my point of an assailant... what am I to do? What if a 240-lb man enters my home with ill intentions? I can't take a man that large down – not even with a badminton racquet!!!

I'd prefer to live in a world where I might die from a firearm while knowing I can defend my family owning one responsibly and safely. As you say, cultural differences. It's defo in our DNA over here. And I, for one, think Tom Cleverley's invaders would not be strolling around greater Liverpool in his Range Rover right now had Tom owned, knew how to operate, and fire a weapon.

If only he was smart enough to put the fucking remote down and grab the gun!

I hate Donald Trump. He's an arrogant, self-absorbed jackass of a human being.

I do not favor arming school teachers at all.

I DO favor armed police at every school. We have them at every high school in the county I live in here in Florida. Not sure about the elementary schools or middle schools, but if they are there I'm all for it and think they should be. I think it's a marvelous idea and wish it was a national requirement to keep our kids safe.

But to impose an American view of the world on a British issue is strange. Trust me: no-one here is lying awake at night in fear of burglary and thinking if I only had a big fucking gun I'd be alright,

I'm not being ugly American and imposing anything on you.

I'm offering my opinion and engaging in some intelligent and dare I say fun debate.

But I'm imposing nothing.

As I said, there is a [fantastic] argument to be made for the English system regarding firearms.

I like "our" way. I completely recognize and appreciate the intellectual argument for outlawing firearms. I just don't agree with it.

Yeeeehawwww!!!!

Pick up the phone and cancel your cards, phone the police and then your insurance. Let them go back to their shit existences and get back on with your own, repairing the small dent that's been made in your pride. A much better proposition than any of the alternatives that a gun might offer.

I agree, but you are making an assumption.

What if the criminals want more than the TV and iPad?

Then what?

Three men jacked on coke enter your house. They have bats (or badminton racquets). They want your TV. You say, "Take it, it's yours."

Then one of them, with a wrap sheet the size of Texas, looks at your wife and says, "She's pretty..."

Some want more than the TV, friend.

First night in my new house back in 2001. I was on my own, having not moved everything in and the previous place still furnished. Anyway, long story short, I heard a loud crash in my new house at about 1:.30am.

Now I'm not particularly brave and avoid trouble whenever possible. But that fight-or-flight thing kicked in. I went into Full Metal Jacket / Taxi Driver / Rambo (Part I) mode. I checked every room in the house. No lights. Stalk mode. The cost of the mortgage was fuelling me on in the quest to find some meffy twat running off through the back garden with the telly (an old Grundig 24-inch CRT that would have given Mr T a hernia).

It turned out to be a mirror had fallen (somehow mysteriously in the early hours) into the washbasin. I swear that, as I returned to bed, I was disappointed not to actually find anyone half-inching my stuff.

(I'm not comparing my 'incident' to the aggravated nature of this as that must be traumatic – it just came to mind on reading this.)

On a separate note, I'm currently working in Killarney. Got talking to an American Republican over a couple of pints. He agreed with me about Trump – a complete bell-end. Was confident he won't get the nomination. He'll get early publicity but when it comes to the crunch. Still, Bush got elected...

We can all get emotional about this kind of offence, as one never knows what could happen if some intruders enter your home.

Here, the law takes a fairly dim view of so-called disproportionate violence towards thieves of this kind. However, if two or more men broke into my home, I would not know that they were just after a few trinkets, and not intent on murder or rape for example. I would personally get stuck-in using whatever comes to hand, and face the consequences later.

if you live in parts of the States, where gun ownership is commonplace, then shouldn't you expect the possibility of an armed response?

How many people died as a result of gun crime in the US last year?

How many people were raped in their homes at gunpoint by intruders in the US last year?

And why isn't the UK being over-run with gun-toting, knife-wielding, bat-swinging, house-breaking rapists when we don't have the right to defend ourselves with a gun? Surely we should be easy meat... no?

How many school kids have been killed in the US in the last decade, despite having armed security, compared to the UK, which has none?

Guns don't prevent crime, they just escalate it.

Brits:

Link

Yanks:

Link

Will you most likely be acquitted of said action? Yes. Yet it is still illegal.

Mike Green, I agree with you. It seems to me that catching these people would be a deterrent and the chances of that seems unlikely. It happens every day and those responsible know they will likely get away with it.

I don't know what I would do if placed in such peril and understand those who take different views but I wouldn't expect the state to kill someone who burgled my home so I wouldn't want to be shooting them myself.

Failing that I'll get up as normal, go to work, send my kids off to school with almost absolute certainly that none of us will finish the day, or the one after that, or the one after that with any likelihood whatsoever of having been shot. Which to be honest, is how I'd prefer it to be.

Night night.

Then I have to go to Darren Hind's house...

John Daley - you found the inculcation video for Merican youth for firearms! These folks also sell candy cigarettes to the little kiddies!

Because you are all SO proper and polite!!

"Break and enter?? No, no, no chap. We've not received a proper invite for tea! Wouldn't want to impose, ol' boy. Right! Chip-chip. Cheerio!"

;0)

Maybe it's a cultural thing.

For what it's worth, I have lived in the US for the last 10 years and my view is that guns kept in the home by sane sensible people are no threat or incentive to violence.

12 miles north of St Augustine. NE Florida.

And I concur regarding your opinion of safe, responsible gun ownership.

Now back to the footy, and I am glad the Cleverley family is unharmed, and hope the perpurtrators are found and punished accordingly within the bounds of English law.

Gonna go eat some Swiss cheese.

All those armed individuals in the Navy Yard and the Army base didn't seem to prevent that gunman from killing people. If every house had guns all it would ensure is that every burglar would come in guns blazing. Remember, the robber knows he's coming, you're asleep.

Glad you slept well.

Surprisingly for this American, I'm in jail after standing watch... Come bail me out?

;0)

Some interesting facts, including some statistics from Britain.

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Approx 11,000 firearms murders in USA.
Approx 1 million reported instances of firearms used to defend owner or others from crime.

Any way you slice it, the toothpaste is out of the tube in Merica.

I'm making no opinion one way or the other here - just interesting.

If guns are a good thing in terms of crime prevention, as Jamie might be suggesting, perhaps we should look at total crime levels? US has about 12 million crimes per year while UK & Germany have half as many. If we adjust for population numbers it is actually significantly safer to live in the US than in either European country - you are less than half as likely to experience crime personally as there are five times as many people in the US.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Total-crimes

Insofar as total crime figures are concerned we might conclude guns work in reducing crime – though of course we are neglecting all other possible influencing factors, eg, investment in police forces, what these figures define as crime etc!

Also see https://www.quora.com/How-much-safer-or-not-is-the-U-S-versus-various-European-countries-for-the-average-resident

and http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WhosCounting/story?id=98678&page=1

Jury is still out!

I think the key challenge there is "sane sensible people"!

Jamie Crowley – I'm coming to burgle you with a howitzer.

Mike Green – I'm coming to burgle you with hire van and thank you cake.

I doubt it.

Scum as they are, no one died and the biggest risk to anyone was a baseball bat bruise on the bonce.

Is there one gang who target footballers as the Liverpool and Manchester clubs have had their fair share of intruders?

Also, maybe shooting an intruder is a bit harsh. Unless your life and safety is under threat (self defence). I would maybe thump an intruder with the daughter's old hockey stick, our maybe the son's old cricket bat. Barring all that, I'd set the wife on to them. That should do the trick.

All joking aside, those thugs need to be caught. Same gang or not, Cleverley has not been the only Everton player burgled. That gang sound professional hard men , to me. I hope that Tom is back playing football soon. I actually like what he brings to the team.

Not to mention the relentless massacres. I mean c'mon. How anyone can say it's sensible to allow the general public access to guns when there is a shining example right across the Atlantic of what happens if when you do. It's there for all to see.

32,000 gun deaths a year and 84,000 woundings. More people under 26 are killed in America by guns than by cars.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2015/08/26/americas-gun-violence-problem-in-three-charts/

Thankfully we will never see those kind of stats over here because we'll never legalise guns like America has. I'd sooner risk getting burgled than get my head blown off by some nut with a gun any day.

One more thing. If we did legalise guns the burglars would have them as well so they would just shoot you and take your stuff anyway if you got in the way.

I feel a bit like a bit of revenge coming on because the same thing happened to a friend of mine in Manchester around two weeks ago. In this case, they burst into the house of a one-man landscape gardener and took his weekly income after threatening his wife in the same way total scumbags.

Forget the gun-crazed Yank thread, they live on a different and very violent planet that no civilised person would want to go near, I just wish we wouldn't play their car-crashing, gun-firing macho videos on the away supporters bus on the longer journeys.

William's comment #45 Myself I go for the baseball bat, but that's just me... was of particular concern.

Personally, I go for a three-pronged approach: axe, pliers and bare live electric flex with plug attached at one end.

Call me old-fashioned but if a job's worth doing ......

As the law has changed recently the dogs can rip the burglar's bollocks off and can still get away with it. Don't forget though, a dog is for life not just a burglary.

The lads who robbed Cleverley aren't just a couple of scallys off the street. These lads are pros. They don't run if you catch them. They don't give a fuck. I really don't think it's the money or possessions that got pinched that will bother Cleverley. It's the fact that his wife and child was in the house at the time. They probably won't feel safe in that house again.

Whereas this is a serious topic, I laughed out loud at Brent Stephens, Colin Glassar, and Mike Hughes' comments. Side-splittingly funny.

One can say this thread, while loosely tied to Tom Cleverley's unfortunate experience, has naught to do with Everton football Club.

But it has a LOT to do with TW, for me at least.

One of the things I absolutely love about this site is that I get a different perspective on all things. A different cultural stance and viewpoint. It helps me to understand, despite the English and Irish adhering to the same Judeo-Christian societal set up, the viewpoint of those I "converse" with on these boards. Where they come from and how they see things.

I believe because of threads just like this one, it helps me to be a "better" contributor on TW. Why? Because it helps me to understand the viewpoint of a people that lived and grew up in an area an ocean away.

Whether it's banter on guns, the debate over "distance Blues" and "local Blues", the conversation of matters of Liverpool.... it's all, at it's core, and intellectual and learning experience, with a ton of wit and humor thrown in for good measure.

And it speaks to the caliber of human being on these boards. I rarely see any thread that is completely devoid of respect. Sure, there's the occasional "muppet" or "fuck off" comment. But when you really look at it, it doesn't happen all that often. There's a respect.

And it's simply fantastic.

TY Mike Green for bailing me out. I owe you.