UK Home Secretary Bans US Martial Arts Expert

Big Hairy Ian writes "An American expert in violent self-defense has been excluded from entering the UK by the Home Office. From the article: 'Tim Larkin tried to board a plane from his home in Las Vegas on Tuesday, but was given a UK Border Agency letter saying "his presence here was not conducive to the public good." Mr Larkin, who was due to host seminars, told the BBC the move was a "gross over-reaction." The Home Office said he was subject to an exclusion order. A spokeswoman said: "The home secretary will seek to exclude an individual if she considers that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good." Mr Larkin — who trained as a US Navy Seal — runs a company teaching combat to military and law enforcement clients in the United States.'"

Re:Turn about is fair play.

[Fluffeh]

This is not the first time someone has been prevented from entering a country.

I think the story here isn't that someone got knocked back from entering the UK, but rather the reasons behind it. TFA doesn't mention that he has a criminal record, it doesn't mention anything about hate speech or promoting violence. The guy teaches martial arts and speaks his mind on it. He doesn't come across as someone who will run down the street attacking everyone in sight, he isn't radical and (apart from knowing a lot of martial arts) doesn't seem to be anyone out of the ordinary.

Having said that, I do sort of agree that this isn't all that newsworthy for /. even though I generally do froth at the mouth at personal freedom abuses - which I do think that this falls into.

They let racist terror-lovers in

[TheMiddleRoad]

This monster came and gave his hate-fest speech to a happy audience.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2126914/Sheikh-Raed-Salah-wins-appeal-UK-Governments-attempts-deport-him.html [dailymail.co.uk]
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2012/04/party-in-london-to-celebrate-anti.html [blogspot.com]

The UK is going to hell.

Re:In the UK self defense = racism, extremism

[mwvdlee]

I think the reason may have more to do with this (from TFA):

A visit in 2009 to Slough, in Berkshire, where Mr Larkin held a class intended to teach how to "maim and kill in self-defence", provoked widespread condemnation from the community.

Re:In the UK self defense = racism, extremism

[aiht]

He is speaking in two areas that were affected by riots in 2011. In these riots, almost half of the rioters were Black (see wikipedia). Therefore in the twisted minds of the UK authorities, teaching people in areas affected by riots to defend themselves is equivalent to racism and extremism.

from TFA:

Mr Larkin had been invited to be a keynote speaker at The Martial Arts Show conference in Birmingham on 12 and 13 May, and to hold a seminar in Tottenham.

Both areas were targeted by rioters last August.

The section of TFA that you quoted shows not the slightest hint of a mention of racism or extremism.
Did you copy the wrong sentence, or are you just making shit up?

Re:Turn about is fair play.

[Chrisq]

This is a guy who was going to go to the UK to teach people how to kill people IN SELF-DEFENSE. (Really, read the article.)

Unlike the USA the UK has a concept of minimum force. If you see a black guy in your neighbourhood and think he may be causing trouble you are not just allowed to kill him.

Re:Turn about is fair play.

[JasterBobaMereel]

He teaches not self defence but how to attack and injure people deliberately... he was going to talk to areas hit by riots last year to promote his methods

Re:Turn about is fair play.

[Alranor]

Actually, the concept in UK law is "reasonable" force, which isn't the same thing at all.

Inciting violence

[Anonymous Coward]

He advocated using force against the British police and he asks people to use lethal force despite it being illegal in the UK.

Tim Larkin was never an US Navy SEAL

[Anonymous Coward]

First, the word SEAL is an abbreviation and is therefore capitalized. Also, Tim Larkin was never a Navy SEAL according to real US Navy SEAL authenticators. He dropped out of BUD/S and therefore never qualified as a SEAL. He's been lying about his service for years.
Proof: http://www.socnet.com/showthread.php?t=47063

Re:Turn about is fair play.

[Pieroxy]

Hmmm. Only Zimmerman himself can assert to that version, so I'd call it dubious at best.

The facts that can be verified by other parties are the following: Zimmerman called the cops saying "there's a suspicious looking dude". The cops specifically told him not to follow or get involved in any way. He did it anyways. Now the "suspicious dude" is dead. He shot him.

That's pretty much all we know. I won't take a word of Zimmerman at face value if it cannot be verified by a trusted third party, such as the police.

If I was in his place, I'd lie through my teeth to try to get away as a free citizen. So I strongly suspect he does the same.

Re:Different kind of anti-social

[arth1]

the problem with that is you know have an activity that's legal for everybody except the person to who the asbo applies, for him/her it is punishable by I think it was 5 years of jail.
in other words the UK has explicitly abandonded the principle that everyone is equal before the law.

That's the same in the US; they just don't call it an ASBO, and it isn't restricted to anti-social behavior.

But there are plenty of people here who have special restrictions forced upon them that the general population doesn't have.
Whether it be to not use a computer, not ever be within X feet of Y, not speak about something, having to report any travel they do, or not be allowed to vote.
It's all up to the discretion of the judges. Or, in the case of not speaking about something, not even subject to going through a court - the federal police serves around 60,000 gag orders a year.

Re:Different kind of anti-social

[JosKarith]

Sucessive UK governments have become addicted to legislating increasingly petty levels of people's behaviour. Rather than looking at and tackling the root causes of mass levels of anti-social behaviour they have been focussing on the headline-grabbing band-aid solutions of making each and every specific incident illegal. The net effect of this is a web of at times contradictory laws. For example - if an emergency services vehicle is behind you with its sirens on you have a duty to move ot the way if at all possible. Last year a man was taken to court because his only safe option to do so involved driving through a red light. He was quite literally faced with a situation not of his own making where there was no legal option - he either "ran" the red light, drove across the pavement or obstructed and emergency services vehicle in its duty.

Re:Turn about is fair play.

[arth1]

any western european country I know of has the concept of 'reasonable force' for self defence,
basically you can use the same amount of force to defend yourself, as the person attacking you is using.

No... that is not what it means at all. That's proportionate force, which is not the same at all.
Reasonable force is the least force available to you that can reasonably expect to stop the assailant. The point being the least amount of damage to both you and the assailant afterwards is what's reasonable.
What "reasonable force" is depends on a lot of circumstances. An old or infirm person might be justified on calling his dogs to attack unarmed assailants, or grab a kitchen knife, despite either being disproportionate force.
A weapons expert might be justified in firing a warning shot, but if stronger than the assailant might be expected to follow up a continued attack with wresting the person to the ground, not shooting him.

Re:Turn about is fair play.

[Attila Dimedici]

The U.S. refused entry to Yusuf Islam (the name that Cat Stevens has gone by since 1977) on one occasion for reasons that are unclear (he has since been admitted to the U.S.). The Department of Homeland Security said that he was denied entry because "concerns of ties he may have to potential terrorist-related activities." This could be a result of two things (and is likely the result of these two things coming together). The first, and the one that he subscribes to, is that his name in Arabic is the same as another man with ties to terrorist organizations. The second is that a number of the charitable organizations he has worked with have been found to have ties to terrorist organizations.*


*Yusuf Islam denies working with any organization that he knows has ties with terrorist organizations and has ceased working with organizations when their ties to terrorist organizations become public knowledge (he may, also, do so if he becomes aware of such ties before it becomes public knowledge, but we have no way to know if such is actually the case),

Re:Different kind of anti-social

[semi-extrinsic]

I've never understood this need of US/UK people to drink and drive. Here in Norway, there is a zero-tolerance for alcohol when driving (technically, the limit is 0.02 % BAC), and it's been that way since I was about 9 years old. No one complains about this, and there is a pretty big social stigmatization of people who drink even "just one pint" before driving. Our lives are not impaired in any meaningful way, but we have less road accidents, fatalities and injuries per capita.

Re:Different kind of anti-social

[PremiumCarrion]

Well, you do have a significantly smaller population, and a larger country than the UK, so population density is much reduced, I think when this happens a per capita death rate for the roads is expected to be less, as every day on the roads there are less opportunities for a crash per capita.

Furthermore in 2010 Norway's per capita road deaths were higher than the UK
"In 2010 there were 210 road deaths in Norway (source: DfT). This equates to 4.3 road deaths per 100,000 of population and compares to the UK average of 3.1 road deaths per 100,000 of population in 2010."
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/europe/norway [fco.gov.uk]

I only chose this measure because the statistics are easy to pull up, and due to a driver re-education course I recently had to go on I found out that the UK actually has pretty good road safety statistics.

Re:UK

[Robadob]

From what i remember a small group of guys were doing urbex in the unused london undeground tunnels around the time of something big happening in London. They got caught and under the guise of terrorism or something (due to the event) they got banned from communicating with each other for a decade or something. (I'm not the guy who you replied to)

Re:Different kind of anti-social

[Anonymous Coward]

That was Denmark...A whole different outlook on things like beer.

Re:Different kind of anti-social

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "the other Norway" you mean "Denmark" then yes.

Re:Different kind of anti-social

[colinnwn]

But research indicates people don't hang up a phone, or put down the burger, or turn down the radio. They crash while they are distracted by those things in approximately the same frequency as being intoxicated over .08 BAC. So the results are ths same, and there is nothing idiotic about pointing that fact out, in fact it is idiotic not to.

Re:Different kind of anti-social

[operagost]

The creator of MADD quit the group because she felt it had achieved its purpose of creating awareness of the dangers of drunk driving. It's too bad she didn't disband it first, because it turned into a temperance lobby.