Dunblane School Massacre....ended handgun rights in UK

America makes up 5% of the population and yet has about 50% of all the guns in the world.

I think this insane figure right here highlights America's sick obsession with guns.

reply to post by Mark Harris

he could be my god too, what's your point ?

which objective points ??
you didn't offer any.

The very last one might be particularly relevant

do you mean this one ??

You want to do what's best to support gun rights, perhaps you should be quiet

yes, that is what prompted the response. the rest was BS.

reply to post by Painterz

a tyrant is a tyrant, it doesn't matter what other label you give them.
they are all the same tyrant.

if they do not behave as a tyrant, they will not be treated as a tyrant.
it is a simple case of live and let live.
what's so hard about that ?

Originally posted by Mark Harris

This emotion based outright refusal to accept that a suggestion holds any merit as opposed to acknowledging it's advantages and disadvantages, it's strong and weak points and then refuting one by forwarding your understanding of how it is outweighed by the other only detracts from your position. The very best that can be said is that it is intellectually dishonest.

the refusal to entertain a reasoned and honest perspective is a failing which both 'sides' are guilty at present and just hampers the debate.

Originally posted by Honor93
reply to post by Mark Harris

 

which objective points ??
you didn't offer any.

but just in case



Groucho Marx

A five year old could understand this. Someone get me a five year old!

The handgun ban has done nothing stop gun crime in the UK. When my girlfriend was working in Dagenham, the tube was delayed as there was a sort of tit for tat gang incident on a tube station. Not the station she was on, but one of the ones on her trains line. It more or less went as follows.

Gang one member stabbed someone from gang two. Gang two member cuts up girl from gang ones face with a craft knife. Gang one member stabs another member of gang two. Gang two member gets fed up and shoots a member of gang one. On a platform. This was not reported in the national news and there were very few details in the local papers. However, it happened. I would bet my testicles the person who shot another person hadn't obtained that firearm legally. Criminals, by their very nature, have a complete disregard for the law.

Where I live, there is very little gun crime. I can't really think of anything other than a car dealer getting shot a couple years ago. He survived. I said in an earlier post that Devon and Cornwall have the highest concentration of legally held firearms in the country, but there is very little gun crime. I say very little, as I suspect incidents do happen but are unreported or down played, but it's extremely rare to read about such things. I know loads of people who legally own shotguns and hunting rifles. None of them have flipped and started killing people. Nobody with the intention of killing other people goes through the process of gaining a licence. I highly doubt Derrick Bird got his weapons to shoot people with. Given that this was the first mass shooting since Dunblane, I'd say legal gun owners are not the problem. Criminals with illegal firearms are the problem, and with gun crime happening daily in various parts of the country, I'd say the handgun ban has achieved very little if anything.

I recently enquired at my local gun club about membership and gun ownership in Scotland. Once you pass certain tests and acquire your license you can legally own a handgun or rifle which can be stored at the gun club in a secured case. You are not allowed to take your gun from the club , but can take it out on shoot days which are held at local shooting ranges or military bases.

So you have to get a license from the MOD after meeting certain checks and passing gun safety tests once you are deemed responsible / capable you can legally own a gun.

This contradicts what I've read about owning a gun and storing it at your home residence.

Just a thought on the 2nd and your right to own guns, it just states that you have a right to bare arms, so that anyone has this right ? Even children when they are born are legally allowed to own a handgun ?

You have the right to defend yourself , but you can defend yourself without a weapon , its just that its the fear aspect that other people have a gun or a knife so you must be equally armed in order to survive.
Or is it the fear that the shady government gets to facist and takes away all your rights so you need those guns to revolt !

in my opinion , america got pretty facist and nasty with taking your rights , so why havent you guys removed those nasty tyrants yet , seems like they just got pretty old school brittish and started telling you what you can and cant do! - maybe for another thread huH!

reply to post by Logarock


No automatic weapons as well.

The difference that not having a gun makes was rather well demonstarted after Dunblance when a nutter busted into a pre school with a machete. No deaths, a few scars, but no deaths.

The legislation brought in after Dunblane also involves rather more in depth study of the applicant for a gun liscence, which has also had a lot to do with the lower number of gun rampages since.

reply to post by Mark Harris

classy ... NOT
however, since i did read your silly statement that said ...

The very last one might be particularly relevant.

i found it and responded.

now, since you haven't offered ANY discussable or objective points, i guess that signals we're done here

i'll leave you to your visionary fantasy and wish ya well.

in case you don't follow, let me be clear.

This emotion based outright refusal to accept that a suggestion holds any merit as opposed to acknowledging it's advantages and disadvantages, it's strong and weak points and then refuting one by forwarding your understanding of how it is outweighed by the other only detracts from your position.

doesn't apply to me one iota. but if you want to continue proving your own point, be my guest.

The very best that can be said is that it is intellectually dishonest.

yes, i would agree, however, if that's your thing, have at it.

the refusal to entertain a reasoned and honest perspective is a failing which both 'sides' are guilty at present and just hampers the debate

so, are you offering a self-descriptive here or what exactly ?
i have been open to all kinds of discussion on this topic and i have yet to read ANY argument strong enough to sway my opinion.

if you want to try, go ahead, i'm not stopping you.
however, you need to offer some objective points otherwise it's pure hogwash.

reply to post by sapien82


I know you guys north of the border have some different laws to us English folk, but we can own as many shotguns as we like and hold as many shotgun cartridges as we like once a shotgun certificate is issued. All shotguns must be kept in a locked safe the is bolted to a wall.

With rifles and shotguns that have a magazine capacity greater than two cartridges, you must get a firearms certificate. Rifles must also be kept the same way as shotgus, and you have a limit to the amount of ammunition you can hold. The ammunition must be kept in a seperate locked box. You must also provide a reason for owning rifles and section one shotguns, an have the land you use them on checked.

I assune the Scottish laws are different? I'm currently working in Scotland, and I heard on a local radio station that the SNP are pushing to get airguns banned. Are the laws here more strict?

reply to post by Vulcha

The handgun ban has done nothing stop gun crime in the UK.

I'd disagree. Our gun homicide rate is one of the lowest around. We have about 40 gun homicides a year, about .03 per 100,000 populaiton.Our handgun homicides are less than 5 in a normal year.

We (the citizenry) also have a very low chance of encountering a pistol wielding burglar or mugger; most gun crimes are criminal on criminal. I'm happy with the UK gun laws. I know multiple shotgun and rifle owners in my area (semi rural). It's concealable side arms that have a strong connection to crime and murder. Walk around with a 3 ft rifle and you're a bit obvious.

reply to post by sapien82

no, handguns are age restricted.
however, long guns/rifles are not and yes, they can and they do, without a license of any kind.

they cannot march around town with it, they cannot patrol the playground or anything outrageous like that but they can possess, discharge, maintain, compete and utilize it at their leisure.

reply to post by Apollumi

Oh how convenient for people to extol this tragedy. If we went by statistics alone "Drowning and submersion while in or falling into bath-tub" would outdo by a wide margin annual mass murder in the US. Those bath tubs are deadly instruments you know. How about the common flu? You know what I think? The same thing I always have. People run amok and make decisions based on emotion instead of reason. Me personally I'm afraid of what will happen to us if we lose our right to bear arms. Everything is cause and effect and IMHO people that want those guns to go away would want them back after they had to live in the police state we'd have without them

The issues are

A: that you have handguns, easily concealable for crime.
B: you have automatic weapons.
C: you have very little legislation to check on whether gunownes are sane responsible adults
D: you appear to think it's okay to allow children access to automatic weapons and have no discernable consistent legislation insisting that guns are kept securely locked away.

If Lanza didn't have access to those guns, all those kids would be opening their presents this year

reply to post by Heresy


It was before the ban too. I would imagine if someone wanted a gun to use when burgaling or mugging people, they would get one anyway. I don't see the harm in law abiding people having handguns. Gun crime is still a problem in the UK, which is why I believe the ban was ineffective. Given it is lower than most other countires, but this wa the case even before the ban.

reply to post by Heresy

and this is how and where you lose credibility ...

The issues are

A: that you have handguns, easily concealable for crime.
B: you have automatic weapons.
C: you have very little legislation to check on whether gunownes are sane responsible adults
D: you appear to think it's okay to allow children access to automatic weapons and have no discernable consistent legislation insisting that guns are kept securely locked away.

If Lanza didn't have access to those guns, all those kids would be opening their presents this year

IF you realized that Lanza killed the gun owner to illegally gain access to the guns, you might have a point.

IF we knew for sure that's what actually happened, you'd have no point whatsoever.
IF he owned them legally, what was stopping him from doing the same thing ? Nothing.
IF B or D were true, things could be a whole lot worse than they are today.

and on the flip side, IF one of the adults had been armed, perhaps all of those kids would be alive, today. (whether they had presents or not)

Originally posted by Honor93
reply to post by Mark Harris

 

i have been open to all kinds of discussion on this topic and i have yet to read ANY argument strong enough to sway my opinion.

if you want to try, go ahead, i'm not stopping you.

Ok, I'll grant that it wasn't the most highbrow response but seeing as though you completely missed the obvious point I was trying to offer something a little base to highlight it. The quote above though shows you still just don't get it.

I could not care less about swaying your opinion.

Read the posts again and, difficult though it may be (seriously) just for a minute try imagine the possibility of someone offering a perspective on this topic without needing or attempting to advance any particular stance. Either I'm not attacking any 'side', or I am attacking both but that up untill now at least you cannot see either of those possibilities (despite the 'both sides' reference) goes to show the intended point is valid.

reply to post by KingIcarus




mind you, your average US citizen has a low chance of being shot, it may be higher than the UK, but it still an unlikely occurrence- murder rates have also approx halved in the US in the last 20 years

reply to post by stargatetravels




maybe it also, in a way, shows how responsible Americans are- they may own 50% of the world's guns but do not account for 50% of gun murders

reply to post by Mark Harris

if you believe there was a point in there, perhaps you should be more specific cause all i saw was a bunch of whine and cheese.

swaying opinions is the goal of a 'debate'.
if you are not attempting to sway mine nor i yours, why debate at all ??

is it your position to simply tell as many ppl as you can that they are wrong and that is that ?
if so, what will that accomplish ?

read it again ? why ? i quoted it and responded to each sentence.
you don't like the response, fine, rebuke it don't rehash it.

you haven't offered anything to debate other than you disagree with guns. yeah ok, you're not alone but what stance are you offering besides that one ?

including the post i'm responding to, you've only made 5 posts in this thread and 3 of them were directed to me, personally.
now, if you don't want to have a conversation about this issue with me, why are you replying to me directly ?

of those 5, you have yet to offer any objective points.
please, if that is your intent, get on with it.

reply to post by Honor93

Originally posted by Honor93
reply to post by Logos23

 

The massive rise in violent crime rates portrayed for the UK is mainly media based hype and political propaganda ....It's not a secret.... the truth is out there.

yes, it is and i posted government stats some pages ago. see my history for the links.
(not msm, not opinion, not exaggerated, the stats legislators consider)

I don't have time to post links because I'm off to beddy bye's right now...but if you want to get a hint of what I am talking about in the meantime, look at the Wikipedia entry for " violent crime" and see what it say's about violent crime for the UK and the graph attached.

now that's priceless ... consult Wiki

... for factual information ... yeah, ok, you do that

Oh my goodness....you so didn't criticize my source did you in favour of your statistics you gave a link to? I am a little bemused to say the least!

First of all....and very IMPORTANTLY the document you gave a link to that was a very lengthy damning comparison between the US and UK related to the period of 1981 to 1995 and whether one wanted to argue it's validity or not, considering those statistics are 17 years out of date at best AND also considering that the ban on handguns was introduced in 1997 the link you gave was a total waste of reading and consideration for the purposes of this thread content!

I didn't point you to Wiki because I blindly take everything i read on there as gospel....I pointed to Wiki that it would give you a hint of what I was trying to convey because I had already sourced the information it gave on there...I don't use Wiki to give me definitive answers.

So on that subject.....Wiki gives the figures and graph relating to the period of 1981 - 2008....so considering that the ban on handguns was in 1997 which is somewhere near the middle of the graph showing the statistics either side of that period, it at least show's the information on there for consideration is valid pertaining to this debate.

Further to this...the information Wiki uses for it's section on UK violent crime is the CBS which is the Home Office Statistical Bulletin on crime.....it has been gathering statistics on Crime for the last 30 years and as not changed the way in which it collects or reports it's data during that time.....while other sources have done. Therefore it shows comparable trends over the last few decades......infact the BCS is accepted internationally as a gold standard for reflecting crime rates.
It shows that violent crime since it's peak in 95 as steadily experienced a downwards trend. It's figures for 2010/2011 show there as been a decline in violence of around 47% since it's peak in 1995.

Look I'm not here to express a view that banning guns in the US is plausible, and that it would be any sort of answer to your problem, I have already expressed that's not what I believe.
But I find it unfair when the violent crime thing pertaining to the UK is bashed on here....and when unfair comparisons are made...I outlined in an earlier post that the way in which violent crime is classified in the UK is very different to the US.Our violent crime statistics incorporate ALL violence including ALL sexual crimes...the US only categorizes five types of crime as violent crime and thus it's statistics on violent crime only reflect those five categories.

I don't have issue with you or anybody who is pro gun....I have no beef with you.
But if you are going to compare statistics for the purpose of this thread please know WHAT it is you are comparing and be sensible about the time period you cover and make sure it's relevant.
There is always a bigger picture.

I think the problem here is that people compare their different countries to each other's...and then each believes it is better of ....but the truth is, apart from a few exceptions we are all bollocksed one way or another!

Just as a side issue.....yes as plenty of people point out it is the criminal's who have guns on the street here.......but it is also mainly the criminal's who use these guns against EACH OTHER, because of gangs and drugs.
The average person on the street does not worry about being involved in a gun crime.