BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?

Subject: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 08:34 AM

From the thread on the Amish School shooting tragedy.

Here is what I posted:

From the British left...

From the British right....

And here is what Straight Dope says...

Certainly fodder for a whole thread there, huh? Interesting stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 08:44 AM

Yes, on the whole, although I think gun crime in the UK is increasing, it is 99.99% recurring drug related.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 09:18 AM

All hand guns are illegal in the UK, and most licences are for shotguns and hunting rifles, although deer are just about the only animal we have to shoot with a rifle, and most of our sport shooting consists of game bird shoots. A private citizen is unlikely to get a licence for any sort of automatic or repeat firing gun, i e no AK47s or Uzis.
Since the opening of the European borders due to the advent of the Common Market, and increasing number of illegal guns are appearing in the UK. This is also fuelled by the collapse of the communist bloc, and the increased availability of weapons that has caused.
On the whole guns are still comparatively rare in the UK as compared to the US, but unfortunately this is changing rapidly, and as has been said largely due to drug related activities.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Mr Fox
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 09:29 AM

It's not just the law - the whole culture is different. This side of the pond we've NEVER had the easy access to guns that Americans have, and don't particularly want it. In fact, anyone with an interest in guns (handguns and automatics anyway) is regarded with deep suspicion by most people.

Shotguns are another matter. Farmers and toffs have those and they're a fairly normal sight in the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 09:35 AM

It seems to me that each of you is saying that violent crime but it is "largely due to drug related activities". What that indicates to me is that the new restrictions on the guns makes my point. Criminals will always get guns. It isn't the availability of guns for legitimate use that is the danger. It is social and economic factors that cause crime and violence. The gun is the tool, but the laws really don't impact the criminals ability to be obtain that tool. They just create a black market, which will always exist.

The shooting in the schoolhouse yesterday doesn't seem to bolster either side's arguments. This guy was a model parent and neighbor carrying around a 20 year old grievance that had festered. He had guns, stun gun, knives. Do you really believe that if the guns weren't for sale he wouldn't have found a way to express his mental illness? Would it have been less horrific with a knife or bat?

I am just not convinced that gun laws aren't a case of treating the symptoms and ignoring the disease.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 09:39 AM

Why are deer hunted with a rifle in the UK?

A shotgun slug will drop one quite effectively and has far less range than a rifle bullet (say 250 yards as opposed to more than a mile just for a .22). Of course, you DO have to get closer to the deer, and that takes more skill....

Likewise muzzleloading firearms have less range than a modern rifle but can and do take animals up bears. Again, they take stalking skills to get close enough for an effective shot.

And bows, too. Bow hunting is quite effective and deer can be taken quite humanely by a trained bowhunter.

In all of these cases the range of the projectile is considerably less than that of a rifle. Indeed, in Midwestern states such as Illlinois, shotgun, muzzleloader, and bow are the primary LEGAL weapons weapons allowed for hunting (pistol too, but these are highly restricted as weapons for hunting deer -- only certain calibers, barrel lengths, etc.). This is because these states are flat and a bullet from high-powered rifle travels a very long way and could easily hit someone or something. The UK is highly populated (average number of people per acre), so why are rifles used for hunting there?

(I shan't say anything about the waterfowl hunting practices except that it's my own opinion that the weapons and practices used remove such hunting from sport.)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 09:48 AM

Criminals will always get guns. It isn't the availability of guns for legitimate use that is the danger. It is social and economic factors that cause crime and violence.

I agree there are other very relavant factors but from my UK perspective I'd rather not have guns at all. If guns were allowed and there was a chance I had one in the house, I'd feel more threatened, not safer. Why? because IMO that policy would encourage the criminal who intends robbing me to have a gun to protect himself from my gun. It's a downward spiral.

It's different I think in the US where guns have unfortunately been part of the culture for so long.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Gervase
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 09:50 AM

I have to say I don't recognise the country described in that first link (from the South African gun control campaign), although their statistics seem to finish in the late Nineties.
The second link is more recogniseable, but again comes from a particular slant, and even Cecil Adams seems to be comparing apples with oranges when he compares the UK to the US.

What I would say is that, unless you're young and black or involved in the drugs trade, you are extremely unlikely to come across gun crime in the UK.

Those cases where 'ordinary blokes' are shot make headline news because they are so rare. Young black kids are being shot on an almost weekly basis in the UK, but that doesn't seem tobother anyone apart from the Met's Operation Trident team.

What the stricter firearms laws do seem to have done is weed out the nutters who previously owned guns - the sort responsible for the Hungerford and Dunblane killings. They have had no effect at all on the criminal possession of firearms - save to prompt a small increase in the number of black-market handguns when possession became strictly illegal and a lot of WWII souvenirs found their way onto the black market.

Today, however, the vast majority of illicit weaponry has never been legally held.
As such, the UK gun laws are largely irrelevant when it comes to our current level of gun-related crime.

Nevertheless, there are few in the UK who would want to see them relaxed - even though, for people like me who do shoot, the laws have made the process more bureaucratic.

The Tony Martin case became a cause celebre with the British right-wing press, but he makes an unpalatable 'hero'. He did not have a certificate for the shotgun with which he killed the teenager. He had told people beforehand that he intended to kill anyone trespasasing on his land, and the teenager was shot outside the house as he was running away. In law, I'm afraid, that made any plea of self-defence quite meaningless - and so ilt should.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 09:50 AM

Switzerland. Israel. Various Arab countries.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Bassic
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 09:59 AM

Thanks for the links Mick, I am glad that my "gut feeling" analysis of the situation in the UK seems to be born out by other posters and by those articles. The thing I reacted to was the implication (as I interpreted it) in your statement on the other thread that having increased gun controls in the UK was related to a rise in violent crime since then.
It is clear that crime involving guns is on the increase in certain inner cities in the UK but as others have pointed out, it is the increase in the availability of illegal arms from Eastern Europe and the like that has fueled this. I would venture to suggest that the kinds of tragedy that we are talking about in the school house these past few days, and the Dunblaine situation which prompted the new laws, are less likely to occur now in the UK than they were before. That's what the legislation was primarily targeted at as I understand it, taking legal "sport" guns beyond the reach of the temporarily deranged and unstable......not primarily at the use of guns by criminals/drug gangs. That is a whole different problem and needs tackling in a different way. It is what should be part of normal police work in tackling organised criminals and gangs. It is predictable and people and organisations and society can take steps to prevent and minimise the risks. Its the unpredictable and "beyond belief" outrages that most upset people and in that respect, the general consensus over here seems to be that keeping guns out of the hands of the general population makes people in the UK feels safer. However I can quite see that with so many guns being in general circulation in the US that the circumstances could dictate an opposite view there.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 10:03 AM

Yeah, Bassic, I wrote from memory and after several posters started to go after me on it, I realized I had better track some stuff down. Interesting takes on it, eh?

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: GUEST,Dazbo
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 10:06 AM

Rapaire, as far as I know bow hunting in the UK is illegal and has been for ages (due to the percieved likelyhood that the animal will not be immediately fatally wounded and will escape to die a long, lingering death). I believe, but could be wrong, that muzzle loaders can't be used for hunting for the same reason. The mountains should stop the bullets as long as the deer isn't on the skyline.

.22 rifles are commonly used by farmers for pest control. Deer are generally hunted in the Highlands of Scotland which have a lower population density than they did before the Highland Clearances 200 years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Bassic
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 10:06 AM

Ooops! Crossed post there, you said it so much more eloquently Gervaise;-). Whats does appear to be the case in the UK is that there is much more consensus about support for the current legislation amongst the general population than in the US. It would take a very great change in circumstances in this country to change that I feel.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 10:07 AM

He had told people beforehand that he intended to kill anyone trespasasing on his land, and the teenager was shot outside the house as he was running away. In law, I'm afraid, that made any plea of self-defence quite meaningless - and so ilt should.

He should have been disarmed based upon his intent to shoot to kill any trespassers.

Even in the US you can't shoot someone if they are no immediate, real, and deadly threat to you -- and even if someone has hacked your family to death and is now running away, you cannot shoot them dead (although in this case you might very well be acquitted if you did). The threat must be real, immediate, and threaten deadly harm to you or another (and that last has to also be real and immediate). There is also "discrepancy of force" -- an old woman in a wheelchair would be under less restriction in the use of deadly force if she shot an attacking 20 year old male in good health, for example.

Nope, even in the US you cann't shoot a fleeing intruder in the back.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Bassic
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 10:09 AM

Yes Mick. Interesting topic.

I really dont know how I would feel if I lived in the US though. I guess to a certain extent it depends on where you live? Or is the need to own a gun now an endemic fact of life wherever you live in the US?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 10:16 AM

A relative in rural England kept legal licensed hunting shotguns.
Locked up in his house in a proper security cabinet.

All his adult life he was a responsible and safe gun owner.

Then one day in a mood of dark despair

he sawed the barrels off one of his guns and blasted his heart out.

Luckily he wasn't too angry with anyone else.

So do all legal gun owners need regular psychiatric testing
as a condition of ownership ?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Grab
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 11:10 AM

Reducing guns held in private ownership (or at least ensuring they're kept securely) *does* help with gun crime though. It's simple market forces, really - make them harder to get, and you'll reduce the number of people who'll get access to them - and in general, it's easier to break into someone's house than it is to do a deal with the Russian Mafia. So as always, the people who *really* want them can get them, but your average burglar probably won't be able to get them easily.

Re deer-hunting, as Dazbo says, deer-keeping in the UK is mostly a Scottish thing, and the Scottish Highlands are mostly tree-free, giving you a massive open approach to the deer. So whatever you're going to shoot a deer with, it'll need to cover a good quarter-mile accurately and with enough energy to kill at the other end, because the deer aren't going to let you get any closer.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Gervase
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 11:23 AM

So do all legal gun owners need regular psychiatric testing
as a condition of ownership
An application for a shotgun certificate needs to be countersigned by someone who has known you for at least two years and is a person 'of some standing', by which they mean a doctor, lawyer, minister of religion or other professional. You also have to state if you have suffered from any illness (including mental) and give the details of your doctor, which the police may choose to follow up. There is no testing per se.
For a firearms certificate (for rifles) you need to supply two character witnesses and to show that you have 'good reason' to own the weapon and somewhere where you may legally use it. But, again, there is no testing.
it is a also a legal requirement for any gun owner to keep the weapons safe. This has been interpreted by the police and Home office as meaning in a steel safe securely fixed to the fabric of the house with at least two five-lever deadlocks.
Effectively you won;t get a licence until the police have been to our house, approved all the locks and security arrangements and seen that you have an approved gun-safe fitted and working.
Thus it's actually rather rare these days for legitimately owned guns to be stolen. It's a lot easer for a criminal to pay £60 on the black market for a reactivated Russian or Chinese pistol (shipped in by the container-load) than it is to break open a gunsafe and then saw up a double-barrelled shotgun.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 11:26 AM

Interstingly Switzerland has had enough of guns being held at home by private individuals, because every so often someone takes said gun and slaughters his family and himself. However as in the US, political pressure was brought to bear by vested interests, and the vote did not take place as planned. Here
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Gervase
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 11:35 AM

Bow hunting is indeed illegal. Muzzle-loading shotguns are not, as some of the larger-bore fowling pieces used as punt guns are still muzzle-loaded.
Also the .22 is really only used for rabbits and squirrels. For foxes, the smallest calibre most forces will authorise is a .243. For deer in England and Wales, the commonest calibre is .270 (although the .243 will probably also soon be used for most species of deer, according to DEFRA). In Scotland you may legally shoot the smaller roe deer with a .222 round.
You can't shoot burglars with anything!

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 11:55 AM

Gun laws in the US are varied by State. In general, it is not about "need". I don't feel the need to own my guns. They are just something I own, and enjoy shooting. They have been a part of my life since I was a small boy, and were the instruments of rites of passage for me. I remember the first time being allowed to shoot a shotgun under very controlled conditions. I remember the first time I was allowed to carry a gun hunting, after very rigorous and lengthy instruction from Uncles and my Da. I remember camping and hunting trips, my first rifle, my first sidearm. I also remember some darker times in the very early 70's which I have recorded elsewhere (in the military). I use them for sporting purposes, and have legally carried them for self defense purposes in high crime areas. As a civilian, I have never pulled one on a person, but my training and background would allow that if necessary.

Friend Graham and I have our disagreements from time to time, and I would take issue with something he said above. He indicated reducing legal ownership reduces gun crime, using the market forces analogy. The problem with that statement is that is just doesn't hold water. One cannot use the horrific actions such as we have witnessed in the last few days, as they are not relevant statistically. They are aberrations, perpetrated by unbalanced individuals. The numbers reflect the same thing here that they do in GB. Taking guns from those that legally possess them don't statistically reduce the violent crime numbers among criminals. In fact those numbers go up, as many of you have attested to using the alibi (not said in the perjorative, rather illustrative) that it is only among the drug communities. The only thing that is prevented is the occasional high profile crime of passion or act of an unbalanced individual. These, though, are not statistically relevant.

I agree that the culture of Great Britain is different than the culture of the US. My simplistic historic view of why is that there was a need by monarchs to disarm the populace as a method of control. I believe that is why Americans, in revolt against the monarchy, vowed not to be disarmed. Over the several centuries hence, this has evolved in the minds of many of my countrymen into a right to own these weapons. For whatever reason, though, guns are a part of our culture that will never be removed.

As to what the States is like, why not ask your countrymen who have visited, say for Getaway. Giok has stayed in my home, and I would wager he never saw any evidence of my weapons, even though I had them at the time. Bill Sables, Micca, Catsphiddle, jacqui C, Andrew and Carole, Noreen and Stewart, ask any of them about this land and its people. We are not wild eyed, gun totin' cowboys. But many of us own weapons. Many of us do not.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 12:05 PM

I don't think too many people would see being pro-gun (or opposed to rigorous control) as being a position held by the mainstream right in the UK. I think most people, including most Conservatives, would see it as just nutty. And even if there were any politicians who didn't see it that way, they'd keep pretty quiet about, because it's a definite vote-loser.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: eddie1
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 12:20 PM

I don't have the chapter and verse to back this up but I was told by a friend who was in to such things that during the Thatcher era, a then just-retired high ranking officer in the Met was commissioned to prepare a report on the links between legal weapons and crime. His conclusion was that of seized weapons used in crime, less than 1% had ever been legal. This was not what the establishment wanted the report to say so the results were sat on.
No doubt anyone with more interest in weapons than I can verify this. I understand the report was eventually published.
I do remember that just after the Dunblane tragedy a Glasgow reporter told of the weaponry for sale in a pub - including a double barrelled automatic shotgun! Does such an animal exist?
As others have said, I do not believe that the increasing use of guns by the criminal fraternity in the UK has anything to do with our gun laws. If the fairly stringent controls prevent someone like the killer of the Amish girls in the US, or Peter Hamilton at Dunblane from running amok - then let's have them the way they are!

Eddie

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: GUEST,Ard Mhacha
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 12:26 PM

Gervase is correct that major gun crime in England occours with the black gangs in large cities like Manchester, Birmingham and London.
The situation is getting worse an the police seem powerless to stop it, there is no way that young blacks will co-operate with the authorities, as they feel isolated, mainly due to harrassment from the police.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 12:43 PM

Sorry Ard, while you are right that the young blacks have a bit more attention from the boys in blue, this is largely due to the existence in their culture of anti authoritarian habits. Ally this with a strange almost pathological requirement to be respected by others, and the fact that people have reportedly been killed in that community for 'dissing' [disrespecting], another member of that community.
A macho, anti authoritarian society is always going to attract the attention of the forces of law and order.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Mr Fox
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 12:45 PM

Big Mick wrote "I agree that the culture of Great Britain is different than the culture of the US. My simplistic historic view of why is that there was a need by monarchs to disarm the populace as a method of control."

Didn't work for Charles I.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 12:53 PM

Maybe so, maybe England is as bad as you say Ard - possibly worse. But I still don't want guns to be more freely available.

All youth is disaffected - that's their job. I taught for years in the inner city, and I don't remember the black youths being any more criminally inclined than the white ones. in fact most of the church going types were black.

as for police harrassment. the cops stay out of those areas - they leave the job of harrassing to the teachers.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 12:57 PM

Gun culture in Ireland is a lot closer to that of the UK than it to that in the USA, which rather undermines that "simplistic historic view".

The fact that people may see guns as appropriate for fighting the government in certain circumstances, does not imply that they need to see posession of guns as necessary to personal dignity (or whatever) in normal life.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 01:14 PM

Like others here, I have a permit to carry a concealed weapon. I have had one for many years now. I very rarely do so -- once, for instance, when I accompanied a friend to the bank as she made a deposit of the money from a festival (around USD 30,000), I carried concealed. There have been other times, few and far between.

If I felt the need to pack a gun, I'd much rather do it openly. I can shave a bit off my draw (measured time, on a police range) that way. But ranges (and far too infrequently hunting) is where I carry a weapon (well, to fencing, but that's not the sort of thing I talking about here).

Like Big Mick, I grew up with firearms. They were used to feed my family when I was young (yes, I kid about it, but we really WERE extremely short of cash). They are tools to use, like a hammer or a sickle, not solutions in themselves. And I hold those who present them as solutions instead of tools guilty of many things.

By the way, an arrow kills by hemmorhage and a bullet by shock. An animal will die quicker and more humanely from a well-placed arrow than from a well-placed bullet -- and it is very rare indeed for an animal (including humans) to drop dead immediately. And a .50 caliber, 250 grain lead ball or Minie ball propelled by (perhaps) 70 grains of black powder WILL drop a 200 pound deer as effectively and quickly as a .30-06 with a 150 grain bullet.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 01:38 PM

Wrong premise, Kevin. Your analogy doesn't hold water. The Irish were never able to arm effectively, nor were they able to throw off the Crown shackles, in the same way as the Americans. The society formed around the fight, and the fight went on until recently. The US society was based on the defeat of the crown forces, in a historically "instant" way, the creating of a new governmental unit, with a brand new Constitution that incorporated many new ideals into some very old ones. It was a reaction to the Crown, and a determination to not come under the control of a monarchy again. Now we all know that it took until after the War of 1812 for it to gel, and we know that it was the "New Americans" of what was then the West of the United States that really defined the new American character. These were woodsmen, born of the frontier, steeped in the idea that they were not tied to the Crown. Andrew Jackson was their leader. The Irish struggle, and ultimate formation of the Irish Republic, came in a whole different way.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 03:17 PM

If it's the "New Americans of the West" that really defined the new American character I'd think that the relevant enemy involved wouldn't have been the Crown, but the native inhabitants of the continent into which they were expanding. That of course didn't apply in the case of Ireland.

Put that way it seems quite plausible. It's a pattern that recurs in some other settler societies.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 04:22 PM

Prior to 1923, it was fairly commonplace for British police and a few citizens to carry a privately obtained personal firearm for defense. It was the rise of communism and the return from Europe of the WW1 veterans that brought in the first "gun controls" They did not work then, they have not worked since. Criminals will always have access to them. We were unable to disarm the IRA in 500 years of violent history.

When I lived in England, many people owned illegal firearms, and it was fairly common thing to see people target shooting on isolated farms and moorland. Because it always was an expensive illegal sport, it was not as popular as archery or golf. I know of several people who owned firearms illegally; one of them a police officer of many years seniority who owned a WW2 9mm Sten gun and ammunition.

In Peshawar they make them using foot operated lathes. You can buy very good quality reproductions of any type of automatic firearm in use today. With the type of machinery and steel available to the average North American, it would be a booming industry to manufacture these and sell them at high profit. Simply put, you cannot control guns, only people. http://www.world66.com/asia/southasia/pakistan/darraadamkhel/history

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 05:23 PM

Simply put, you cannot control guns, only people.

Great Sage, Dave (the ancient mariner)

Pray tell us your great wisdom on how to control people. Thousands of years worth of leaders haven't been able to. The world awaits your answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 05:27 PM

Obviously professional criminals aren't going to be put off having guns by laws, and there are ways of getting hold of them. But gun controls make it that bit harder - they can ensure that there aren't as many around to get stolen, for example, and those that are around are less easily accessible.

And some of the most terrible gun murders, such as the Amish school massacre in Pennsylvania this week, or Dunblane, have been carried oput by people who were not professional criminals, and who used guns that had been obtained legally.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 05:35 PM

Most people (myself included) obey the gun laws.....However we are not inclined to be murdered in our own homes, and probably would defend ourselves with what we own despite the law saying we should not. It was a point I made with tounge in cheek Guest ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: BanjoRay
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 06:37 PM

The link to the article on Swiss gun control showed the truth of it. In Switzerland everyone has to serve in the Swiss army on a part-time basis for part of their lives, and during this service they MUST keep a rifle at home. They have a very high rate of suicides and family murders. QED.
Mick says Americans are not all gun toting cowboys. In June I was visiting Mount Airy, North Carolina and I person I met there showed me round his property. While we walked round his fishing pond I spotted a small black snake swimming in the water and pointed it out. The person whipped out a pistol and shot it before I could blink. The gun vanished equally quickly and we carried on with our walk. I realized then that I was truly abroad. I was told that in those parts you could by a gun at a car boot sale (they had a different term for it)with no permit or paperwork required for not much money. If you really needed to shoot a few Amish kids you could achieve it with very little effort.
Ray

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 06:37 PM

Actually, Kevin, you would have to study the history of the US during the War of 1812. Westerners in those days would be the Tennesseans, Kentuckians, Louisiana Purchase folks. These were, arguably, the ones that were the most ready to fight the Brits. They saw themselves as true Americans. In NYC and Boston, and throughout New England, there were many who still considered themselves Loyalists. They wanted the country to remain the original 13, and saw themselves as dependent on sea trade with England. It was the westerners who supported the President, and allowed the second war of independence to be successful. It was said of this war that they won independence in the Revolutionary War, but they proved they deserved in during the War of 1812. It was the British they fought, it was the Crown they fought, and their was a dramatic difference in tone between those who followed Andrew Jackson, and the New Englanders. The defining American attitude probably evolved more from the frontiersmen/soldiers than the Easterners.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 07:19 PM

Fighting the British and "the Crown", but surely over a more extended period, fighting, and being prepared to fight the people who were being displaced in the process of expansion by the settlers into parts of America where they hadn't previously been; and a sense that holding on to what had been taken from the people who were there previously was a matter for individuals and families rather than just for the government.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 09:50 PM

Yes, at a later date, that was all true. But the subject of this thread isn't westward expansion and displacement of native peoples. That is certainly a thread worthy of having. The only reason this was brought up by me was to give what I believe was the genesis of the American view on owning guns. It lies in part, IMO, with the very concept of the populace never again being unarmed in the face of oppression. I believe it also lies in the frontier ideals of survival and hunting. This wasn't all that long ago. I was raised by depression era folks. Hunting and fishing for my Da and his brothers had to do with eating. And we, to this day, eat every single animal or fish we take. My father stressed humane kills, using everything you take from the woods, leaving the woods cleaner than you found it in terms of litter, never killing wantonly, and never wasting ammunition.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Grab
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 08:35 AM

I believe it also lies in the frontier ideals of survival and hunting.

I think that's the key to the difference - Britain hasn't had this "frontier ideal" for centuries, since the ancient forests became deer parks.

Mick, I disagree with you (as you know ;-) about legal ownership, because although the legal owners might not be the criminals (although the example of Switzerland makes that questionable for violence against friends and family), it increases the pool of guns to which a criminal could get access. I have to say though that I don't have any evidence for it though, so it's just my gut feeling.

Eddie's point about whether illegal guns were ever stolen is very interesting, and is certainly something which might make me change my mind. For the UK though, private gun ownership is low enough (and the guns are stashed in safe enough places) that stolen guns can't be a significant source for criminals. For comparison, I'd be *very* interested in knowing what proportion of illegally-held (or more importantly, illegally-used) guns in the US are stolen.

If the US example shows that most illegal guns have come in from Mexico, Russia or wherever, then my position is clearly wrong. But if the US example shows that more illegal guns were *once* legal and were stolen from their owners, then restriction on gun ownership (or at least restriction on gun storage to being kept in a safe in a well-secured armoury) is very likely to reduce criminal use by getting rid of that possible source. So would anyone be able to get numbers on that?

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Gurney
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 02:49 AM

Shambles, my personal information about Britain is well out of date, but 30 years ago, deer in most of Britain were 'stalked,' not 'hunted.' The terminology was used by the people who did it, because they mostly stalked over open moorland, not by waiting by a forest clearing. Long wet crawls upwind through sopping heather, long shots at shy animals. Rifle business without a doubt.
It has probably changed now.

When I was growing up there, carrying a gun (just carrying, not even presenting) in the pursuance of a crime (terminology something like that) meant an legislated automatic DOUBLING of the sentence. Does this still happen? Gun crime was rare then. Favoured weapon was a pick-axe handle.....

Here in NZ a good deal of gun crime involves stolen, cut-down sporting weapons, but there are military and hand weapons used, usually by career criminals. We also have had instances of gun-nuts running with their 'collectors weapons.'

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 04:37 AM

there are more gun incidents nowadays. society took a huge downward movement in the Thatcher years. Because of the ruthless way her policies were implemented, for the first time there were lots homeless on the streets. Places like the Nottinghamshire mining villages became the centre for the hard drugs trade - the introduction of which to England was her other crowning achievement. Dealers from Sheffield would come out to places like that to score. Those places had been pretty much unpoliceable before - big tough miners had their own codes of justice. when the mines went, hard drugs took their place. So Nottingham became the gun crime capital of England.

However having said that, if you're not in the drugs business, you have very little chance of encountering anyone with a gun. For most of us life is still pretty much as it has always been. Although its unquantifiably more dangerous for young kids.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Grab
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 12:29 PM

Re the "supply-and-demand" thing, there was an interesting article in NewScientist this week about this. Turns out that cheap guns from a particular shop took an average of just 90 days to be used in crimes (or more accurately, to be recovered by police after crimes). When the shop stopped selling them, legal guns stopped turning up in crimes.

Link here.

Sadly it doesn't say whether gun crime overall went down as a result or whether criminals found another source, which seems a bit of an omission.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 12:54 PM

Maybe they could start putting out defective guns, which were liable to explode in the hand when fired...

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 02:23 PM

This week there was a suspected gang-related shooting less than half a mile from where I was working. One person was killed and the other critically injured.


Thios will seem a bit of a rant, but.....

The murder weapon at some stage would have been manufactured and sold for profit that would have been distributed to shareholders.

Therefore a number shareholders would have profited on the back of the murder. Therefore, shouldn't the weapons manufacturers, anbd every person who profitted from the sale of the murder weapoin be an accessory to murder and suffer the full consequence of the law - which is nothing compared with the victim and his loved ones?

End of rant bit.

On a matter of curiosity my local paper had a quote from a resident who was not allowed to pass the police cordon to return to her flat in the same place where the murder took place. My question is therefore, if the policedo not allow people to pass the cordon, and if uit means they have nowhere to sleep, who has the responsibility for providing and paying for temporary accomodation?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 03:15 PM

We recently spent three weeks in England, and I have to say, it was the first time that I felt a bit uneasy, especially in London.
I was told by a resident that if I or Jacqui was mugged I did not have the right to deck that bastard. He can commit robbery but I can't commit assault. I told the resident that I would do it and be on the next plane.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 03:48 PM

So if a driver runs his or her car over someone, the stockholders should bear part of the cost/blame? Keep that line of thought up and you'll start sounding like the US Congress.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Megan L
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 03:52 PM

Orkney deals with armed raider Armed hold up

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: kendall
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 08:20 PM

Store keepers in America have a way of "Culling" the low life bastards who try to rob them.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Britain's gun laws - Do they work?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 10:17 PM

""I agree that the culture of Great Britain is different than the culture of the US. My simplistic historic view of why is that there was a need by monarchs to disarm the populace as a method of control.""

A false premise! The UK has never since the establishment of the "Constitutional Monarchy" had a King or Queen with the power to disarm any citizen.

UK citizens who chose to do so carried arms freely until the 1920s, when licensing was introduced. Even before this time the number of people with personal weapons, i.e. hand guns, was very small.

It had diminished gradually from the late Victorian era, as the police forces became more and more effective.

Somebody up thread pointed out that only 1% of the illegal arms in the UK had ever been legally owned, and seemed to be suggesting that therefore our gun laws were somehow deficient.

In fact it's a no brainer. If hardly anybody in the country owns a legal hand gun, there ain't many for the criminals to steal.

Increase the number of legal guns and the number stolen and used for crime will increase.

Don T.