BBC 英语学习 6分钟英语 没有枪支的枪支管制

Hello and welcome to Six Minute English, this show that brings you an interesting topic, authentic listening practice and vocabulary to help you improve your language skills.

I'm Dan, and I'm Neil. In this program will be discussing armed police as well as teaching you six new items of vocabulary.

Of course. Can we get this done quickly today?

Neil only, I've got to shoot off to a party later.

Shoot off, meaning leave quickly. Of course we can.

And it's funny you should mention shooting, because our topic this week is gun control without guns.

Is that? So I have a question about that for you.

Fire away, then fire away an expression giving permission for someone to ask a question or speak.

So which country has the oldest gun control laws in the world?

Is it A, the USA, b Iceland or C Japan?

I'm going to guess b Iceland, just because I've never been there.

Well, we'll find out if you're right a bit later on.

Now, imagine the scene. You are a police officer who's been called out to deal with an incident.

When you arrive on scene, you find a dangerous criminal.

Do you reach for a gun or a blanket?

It's got to be a gun.

Well, in most countries in the world, you'd be right, but not in Japan.

Despite carrying guns, japanese police almost never use them.

Instead, they rely on a combination of martial arts, and in many cases where a person is violent, they bring out the futon, which is a kind of blanket, and they wrap them up and restrain them or prevent them from moving.

You are pulling my leg? Nope.

Listen to Japanese journalist Anthony burto described the situation.

What most Japanese police will do is to get huge food times and essentially roll up the person who is being violent or drunk into a little burrito and carry them back to the station and calm them down.

The response to violence is never violence.

It's always to de escalate it so they safely restrain the person and wait for the situation to de escalate or become less intense, unless a criminal has a gun.

Japanese police never fire their weapons.

Surely that means that the criminals always have the advantage.

Then you'd think so. But no, it seems that guns don't really featuring crimes much in Japan.

Well, that's astonishing. So do you think the criminals don't carry guns because the police don't carry guns, or that the police don't carry guns because the criminals don't carry guns?

Well, that makes my head hurt.

Well, I don't know, but listen to what Ian Overton, the executive director of Action on Armed Violence, says about armed police in society.

The American model has been militized the police.

But the challenge I have is that there is very little evidence that a more militized police results in a more peaceful society.

And I'm very concerned that if you have too many police pulling out guns at the 1st instance of crime, then you lead to a miniature arms race between police and criminals.

So America tends to militarize its police, meaning to equip them and use them as an army, and that causes an arms race with the criminals, which is a competition between two groups to have more weapons than the other groups.

He also said there is not a strong connection between armed police and a peaceful society.

So does that mean that Japanese society is more peaceful?

Well, violent crime still happens there, but criminals tend to carry other weapons, such as swords and knives.

But at least it's a step in the right direction.

Now, can you remember the quiz question I asked?

I think so. You ask me which country has the oldest gun control laws in the world?

The a USA, b Iceland or c Japan.

And I said, b Iceland, well, I'm sorry, neal, that's not right, but don't shoot the messenger.

OK? Is Japan, which implemented its gun control laws in 1685.

How interesting. Now, let's take a look at the vocabulary from this program.

Sure, we had shoot off. If you shoot off, it means you leave somewhere in a hurry.

What type of verb is it?

Neil, can you give us an example?

It's a frasal verb, so it's used conversationally, and usually in an informal context.

As for an example, when he heard his wife was sick, he shot off to the hospital.

Synonyms could be dash off or run off.

Next, we had fire away. Now, far aways and expression, giving permission for someone to ask a question or speak.

Can you think of any other ways to say the same thing?

Dan? If I said, can I ask you a question?

I'd say Yes, of course. Go ahead.

Please do. Or by all means, restrain.

If you restrain someone, you prevent them from moving.

In another sense, you might restrain yourself from doing something, e.g.

eating chocolate. Have you ever had to restrain your children for anything new?

I have to restrain my children all the time, then otherwise they would fight like mad.

I have to pull them apart and restrain them.

Okay? De escalate. If something de escalates, it becomes less intense.

This is often used in the context of conflicts or argument.

Can you think of a historical example then?

Well, in the 1960s, the Cuban missile crisis escalated over a period of two weeks and de escalated only after diplomatic negotiations were successful.

But it was pretty close to World War Three at one point.

Militarized. If something is militarized, it is equipped and used like an army.

Give me an example of people have become militarized now.

Yes, when I was a student in the United Kingdom, some of the foreign students had to go home to take part in national service.

That's join the army. For a couple of years, became militarized.

Now, an arms race. An arms race is a competition between two groups to gain more weapons than the other group got.

An example of that time, the most famous example of this is the Cold War.

Both the USSR and the USA became involved in an arms race to stockpile as many nuclear weapons as possible.

Well, that's the end of today's six minute English Please join us again soon.

And we're on social media too, so make sure to visit us on Facebook, twitter, instagram and youtube.

Good Bye, bye.

扫码查看听力音频