BB - to attempt discussion with a paranoid, terrified, gun-obsessed individual is pointless. But here's my position - I certainly don't expect you, paranoid and terrified as you clearly are, to understand or accept it - but when I see statistics indicating <100 shooting deaths per annum in my country vs. 13,000 per annum in the US, and when I read, for instance, your fear-driven rhetoric, I'm very strongly persuaded that we have got it right, and the US has it very badly wrong indeed.

I live in a country with very strong gun-ownership regulations. In order to own a gun, you have to show a genuine need for a gun, and giving 'self-defence', or 'protection of my property', or 'to challenge the government if it gets a bit uppity' as reasons will ensure that you will not Be granted a firearms licence.

If you satisfy the authorities that (a) you have a genuine need for a gun, and (b) that you are a suitable person to be granted a permit to possess a gun, you are subject to regulations regarding storage of the weapon and ammunition, and these are inspected periodically by the police. A licence also has to be renewed periodically, and the checks and balances must also be complied with at renewal-time.

Many types of gun are banned here. Certainly, automatic and semi-automatic 'military-style' are illegal, as are hand-guns, ownership of which was banned when our government took strong and immediate action after our one and only school-massacre over twenty years ago.

It is illegal to carry a firearm in public, except in certain instances, and carrying one in public, whether loaded or not, is likely to result in the person carrying it being subject to prosecution.

Our police are unarmed, except for an expanding baton and a CS Spray. A small number of police officers carry Taser devices, and a smaller number still are trained and armed as members of specialist Armed Response Units.

Because it is so difficult to obtain a gun in the UK, and because it's very unlikely that a criminal would be confronted by a police officer armed with a gun, and because the penalty for carrying an offensive weapon (including not only guns, but knives, box-cutters, etc.) in the commission of any crime is an automatic doubling of the sentence for that crime, individuals involved in criminal activities very seldom carry those weapons. By 'very seldom', I mean 'hardly ever'.

So, we in the UK have a relaxed attitude - we don't feel the 'need' for guns because so few people actually possess guns, and those that do possess them are subject to strong regulation and control. Criminals seldom carry guns because they don't feel the need to, our police being unarmed, our populace being generally unarmed, and the law stacked against them should they be apprehended.

Yes, we have crime just as you do in the US, but we don't have the death penalty - either as applied by the courts nor by, for instance, a guy who shits his boxers and decides to blow away the young punk he finds in his living room stealing the TV. Our laws regarding 'self-defence' or 'protection of property' as a defence are based on 'proportionate force' - it's not considered 'proportionate' to kill someone for stealing your possessions.

The average Joe here neither 'needs' nor wants a gun. I'm 71 years old, and I've never seen a gun except in the hands of a farmer, a gun-club member, members of the armed forces, or members of the police Armed Response Units. People here don't have guns to wave around, and people who are shot by 'The Bad Guys' are usually also 'The Bad Guys' - drug-gang-members settling scores.

And before you drag up the issue of knives, yes we have had a comparatively small number of stabbings - maybe 100 since New Year. It won't reach the number of shootings in the US. Our government will take action on this short-term problem. And it's very difficult, probably impossible, to go on a rampage and kill 30 or 40 people at close range with a knife.

UK Firearms Regulations

Carrying a Firearm in Public