How are those Gun Laws working out for you, England?

originally posted by: skalla
a reply to: StallionDuck
And i seriously believe it would be carnage if gun control suddenly stopped here. Not enough of an established culture of gun safety and ownership to support it.

This is an excellent point. I would happily see the existing licensing system and requirements kept, but handguns and semiauto rifles moved back to section 1. The club system provides an excellent resource for bringing people safely into the fold.

We have nearly 2 million legally held firearms in this country, yet the regular firearms incidents we continue to see (the most recent shooting that comes to mind was a short while ago and just up the road from me) involve people who probably couldn't get a certificate, using firearms that aren't legal to own anyway.Who exactly is being punished here? It's not the bad guys.

originally posted by: SoEpic

I don't see myself as a target but too many people carry knives. Unfortunately there have been too many cuts to the police force.

Carrying a knife doesn't cause anything. Stupidity does. I carried a pocket knife every single day when I was a kid all the way up until I was in my 20s and it never cut anything living. Where I grew up it was normal for people to carry a pocket knife and there was no knife violence to speak of. I guess people around there weren't psychologically conditioned to believe that if they carried a knife they were supposed to be violent.

The only reason I stopped carrying one was because I moved to the city where it was not the norm and might have even been illegal depending on what kind of knife it was.

originally posted by: Freeborn

Hand gun restrictions do seem quite severe.....but then again we have amazingly low hand gun related deaths so maybe they are just fine?

...

We have enough problems of our own here in the UK, we don't need to add to them by relaxing our gun control laws.

Yet we still have handgun deaths, which suggests the restrictions do not prevent it. Aside from the occasional outlier (notable for their rarity, even when handguns were more widely available) hundreds of millions of people across the West manage to legally own firearms without ever killing anyone. It's almost as if the people who are willing to go through the legal process are significantly less likely to commit murder.

I do not believe that moving handguns and semiauto rifles back to section 1 would create any significant contribution to the problems we are having with illegal weapons already in the possession of the bad guys. The illegal Baikal semiauto pistol currently in favour "on the street" costs less than my legally-acquired revolver.

a reply to: StallionDuck

BWAHAHAHA..


That is hilarious when London only has a fraction of the murders of a major us city..


It’s not suprising a conservative would think that was a valid counterpoint.. lol..


God knows none of them ever took a debate class to understand what logical fallacies are...


You can’t compare a yearly stat after 2 months lmao..

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
That is hilarious when London only has a fraction of the murders of a major us city..

The article isn't about the overall number, it's about the per capita being higher than New York.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
That is hilarious when London only has a fraction of the murders of a major us city..

The article isn't about the overall number, it's about the per capita being higher than New York.

Over a very short time period.

a reply to: ScepticScot


True.

You can do anything you want with statistics.

a reply to: SprocketUK

Consider that your home office does not report a homicde until a conviction is rendered ( which can take 5-10 years) how do you honestly know? Their could be hundreds even thousands of murders a year that are not tallied until some time has passed or even never tallied if unsolved.

Ok, we're on page two at least and i've been polite and sensible in my approach so far but the OP must have smashed her or his head in and lost a significant proportion of their brain matter to think it's a good idea trying to poke at Britain's murder rate/gun control equation from the US of all places.

Have their been any notable gun/death events in the US over the past few months i wonder?

Are you all going totally mental over it and tearing each other to shreds and ting?

Of course you are.

originally posted by: router404
UK gun laws work pretty damn well thanks!

In the last 25 years, in the whole of the UK (not just England), I can only think of two mass/spree shooting events.
Dunblane in 1996 and the Cumbria shootings in 2010. In total, I think around 28 people, unfortunately, lost their lives in those incidents.

In the US the figures from 1st Jan 2013 to the Parkland Shooting in February 2018 are dead 1,875 and injured 6,848.
Source: The Guardian The Guardian US Shooting Stats

So unless you're totally insane I think you can see gun control works better over here.

Yes, there is a rise in knife crime and even acid being used as a weapon and this needs to be addressed quickly but it is still harder to kill a lot of people with a knife than a Los Vegas stile shooter, so I'll happily live with our gun control thanks.

Shhhh...
The point of this thread is to inaccurately compare less 30 days to a fiscal year, and call it 'mic dropped'. But only the many with the right iq size will jump on 19 days to argue an entire governing law.

The op should ask the same question around December and compare numbers...
...

originally posted by: network dude

originally posted by: Freeborn


More guns here would only result in more deaths.

why?

Basic statistics and probability. Forget guns, put 4 red balls and 4 blue ball in a box and reach for a random color, now add 10 more red balls and reach again, and I can guarantee you will grab a red ball. Why common sense stops at guns, I don't know. Do you really fail to see why

Among all this rhetoric is a common theme.... K I L L I N G.

Not much addressing that issue going on. Guns, cars, knives, rocks dropped from bridges, machetes, what has become of the world ?

a reply to: StallionDuck

Don't bother. People in UK and Aus act like a violent knifing is a harmless tradition.

Just a lark, mate! Calm your tits!

originally posted by: Freeborn
a reply to: SoEpic

Gun laws here in England suck!

Gun laws here are just fine.

Only the criminals have guns here.

The vast majority of criminals here in the UK don't use guns.

More guns here would only result in more deaths.

I shoot shotguns at a club and wish I could own a hand gun for club shooting.

Anyone can own and use shotguns here in the UK providing safety regulations and background check requirements are met.
Hand gun restrictions do seem quite severe.....but then again we have amazingly low hand gun related deaths so maybe they are just fine?

Violence here is getting worse.....

No it isn't - things were far, far more violent back in the 80's and 90's.
The reporting, measuring and tolerance of violent crimes has definitely changed - a reflection of the overall changes within our society.

.... and I would love a gun for self defence.

Why?
Have you ever been in a situation where the possession of a gun would have made a significant difference?

I don't see myself as a target but too many people carry knives.

People have always carried knives and slashings were fairly common years ago.
There is a general perception that knife crime is something new; not at all but I'd tend to agree that knife related deaths do seem to be increasing, perhaps someone could supply some stats to either confirm or deny that impression.

Unfortunately there have been too many cuts to the police force.

On that we can most definitely agree - the party of law and order have been in my opinion criminally negligent in cutting funding and resources to our police forces.
To what end? A discussion for another thread methinks.

Comparing UK and US gun laws is apples and pears.

Gun ownership is entrenched in the collective US psyche and its a matter for the US alone.
From the outside looking in it does seem pretty obvious that something just isn't right but whether gun controls are the answer or whether the relatively large number of gun related deaths etc are just a manifestation of a deeper malaise within US society only Americans can ask themselves and hopefully start addressing.

We have enough problems of our own here in the UK, we don't need to add to them by relaxing our gun control laws.

You are so out of touch! You can't live in London.

I used to live in London 11 years ago. My wife was mugged at knifepoint. If I had been there with a legal gun it wouldn't have happened. People think more before taking actions if they think the person they want to attack may be carrying a gun. Other civilians that are armed may step in and help.

When I was a child in the 80s I never heard of knife crime but now it's commonplace - it's far worse than it's ever been! How can you say its been reduced? This is why we moved out of London.

a reply to: StallionDuck

I suppose it's true... If someone wants to kill someone else, they really don't need a gun to do it.

This is true but in some cases, you'll have a better chance at a better outcome.
My nephew was stabbed a couple of months ago and almost died. He was being a dumb kid (he's a young man age 24) in a place/situation that he should have never been in. I'm thankful that neither of them had a gun although that doesn't change my mind about citizens and legal weapons. Incidentally, neither of them are allowed to own a gun, legally, under the current law.

a reply to: network dude

why?

Because there would be more guns in circulation - I really thought that would be self-explanatory.

a reply to: EvillerBob

Yet we still have handgun deaths,......

Yes, but thankfully very few.

......which suggests the restrictions do not prevent it.

I don't think anyone has suggested that we'll ever completely eliminate gun related deaths and crimes, the best we can do is try to minimise it. We don't do too bad at that at present when comparing stats with other countries.

As I stated in a previous post hand gun controls do seem quite severe. I personally don't see why the current legal requirements required for shotgun etc ownership can't be applied to hand gun ownership.

I just don't want to see any move towards concealed / open carry laws being introduced or something similar to The Second Amendment being legislated here in the UK.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: ScepticScot


True.

You can do anything you want with statistics.

Funny you'd say that, considering theirs recently been some major budget cuts imposed on police in England. Seems it'd kind of be in their best interest to tweak their own crime statistics a little, to make them look as bad as possible.

Obviously, that's not whats happening here though... I'm sure the English police have far to much integrity to pull something like that.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: ScepticScot


True.

You can do anything you want with statistics.

I bet you do some nasty stuff to your statistics in that old killing basement of yours.

Pffft. Masons! Can't live with 'em, can't get out of their basement.

Well, what do these mass killers have in common. Ninety percent of them are skinny. I guess people who are fat don't have the drive to go shoot up a school or nightclub or haven't the energy to haul piles of guns up into a hotel room in Las Vegas.

Let's just take away all the salads from people.

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
Funny you'd say that, considering theirs recently been some major budget cuts imposed on police in England. Seems it'd kind of be in their best interest to tweak their own crime statistics a little, to make them look as bad as possible.

Obviously, that's not whats happening here though... I'm sure the English police have far to much integrity to pull something like that.

I'm not gonna go all conspiracy theorist on this one particularly considering the sample size is quite small.

originally posted by: NarcolepticBuddha
I bet you do some nasty stuff to your statistics in that old killing basement of yours.

Stop fishing for stars with this tired old joke.