Yes the situation that a large number of people were on the streets who wouldn't normally be there as a result of a protest about a police shooting.

Your English comprehension is letting you down. The looters on the streets was not "a result of" the protest at the police station. It was something that those who looted did as a completely separate personal choice.

Unless you can provide evidence that any single individual looted a shop because that was his chosen method of protesting against the Duggan shooting. Can you?

Also, even if some cretin [iadvanced[/i that as a cause-and-effect, surely you are not so stupid as to [iaccept [/iit as the truth? How does stealing from a shop and burning it down "protest", in any any the English language recognises, against a shooting by police of an individual? It doesn't. The cretin would obviously be lying.

But the fact is that NO reported convicted rioter has yet claimed he/she did it for Duggan, so where does that leave your theory? I really don't know why you would persist in trying to make this purely bogus causative link.

Looks like we will have to agree to disagree then.

It's simple factual causation for me (and I suspect many others).

Don't really know why you have to start trying to be offensive with your posts though, 'cretin etc', bit immature isn't it?

My considered view of a hypothetical scumbag looter/arsonist who chose to loot and burn down shops trying to blame his actions on the shooting of Mark Duggan would be a "cretin". What's your problem with that, exactly? What has it to do with "maturity"? You've lost me.

This

You're the one losing the argument. Without the shooting of Mark Duggan and the subsequent peaceful march on the police station taking place, the subsequent rioting/looting would not have taken place and it wouldn't have escalated to other cities.

With all due respect, the view of "World of Redboy" as to which arguments are being won or lost is not a benchmark I suspect many use, but it would be of benefit to the discussion if you actually understood what the argument was.

Sadly though it's clear you're another one that can't come to grips with the simple idea that just because A follows B, that is not the same thing as "A causes B".

Without Celtic playing Rangers, there would be no sectarian chanting at the games. The games do not cause the sectarian chanting. Without Anuj Bidve travelling to Salford and walking in Ordsall Lane, he would not have been shot by some lunatic. But his travelling to Salford or his walking in Ordsall Lane did not CAUSE the shooting.

Am I making this any clearer for you?

I think it's fair to say the shooting of Duggan was the cause of a single protest march, which then kicked off. However, it seems the protest was mainly peaceful until a rumour spread that [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/07/tottenham-riots-peaceful-protestpolice had beaten a 16 year-old girl[/url. It could therefore be argued that this rumour was in fact the cause of riots?

Still, that doesn't mean that the sudden growth of violence was caused by the protest march or rumour - what caused the explosion of rioting was people seeing an opportunity when it became clear the police weren't geared up for such disorder, and were adopting a stand-off policy.

Further, consider that in the investigations and interviews with participants, the shooting simply hasn't been cited. Not, it seems, once. The shooting did not cause gangs to riot in Croydon. The shooting did not cause teenagers from Salford to go out and smash up Salford precinct [size=85(but then who could tell the difference?)[/size. What caused that trouble was the perception that the police weren't interested in tackling looters or rioters, and/or had lost control, a desire to be part of the events, and the chance to get hold of free loot.

Causation is not the same as a chain of linked events.

I am with FA. There is no due respect for workshy people who resent the powers of the law intervening in their drug deals. Seriously, these people can fro as far as I'm concerned. No DUE respect not a lot to do with sectaririanism.

Good post.

He may still be confused, unless you change it a bit.