UK.. We Messed Up Letting The Government Take Our Guns..

Originally posted by woogleuk
reply to post by EvillerBob

 

oi, watch it, I'm not 33 until the 12th of next month, cheeky sod

Thing is though, had it happened last year, the self defence argument would have worked.

As much as I hate the Tories, they did make sure our right to self defence came to be.

My cousin was staying the night at his elderly parents house when a burglar broke in...lets just say he is pretty well accomplished in MMA and he "took care" of the scum...it went to court and my cousin walked away with an aquittal.
It was out of order that it even had to go that far ...but justice was done!
I believe that things may have been different years ago but that now the laws and attitudes have changed.....but I also think that the tabloids are responsible in the UK for making people feel they cannot defend themselves today for fear of reprisal...

Originally posted by woogleuk
reply to post by EvillerBob

 

oi, watch it, I'm not 33 until the 12th of next month, cheeky sod

Thing is though, had it happened last year, the self defence argument would have worked.

As much as I hate the Tories, they did make sure our right to self defence came to be.

It would have worked then as well. The difference is that your solicitor probably realised there was little for you to lose by taking the slap on the wrist and you could be home in time for Red Dwarf.

Self defence law is often only vaguely understood. Several times over the years they have looked at it in detail and decided it works as intended. The current "changes" are mostly there to nudge the police (not the courts, the police and CPS) back on track to cut down on the number of pointless prosecutions. We are suffering from Labour's destruction of policing and police discretion, combined with the awful target culture.

Most of the "shock horror" cases of innocent victims going to jail for defending themselves are quite different when you look at the facts. What usually happens is that the victim defends themselves and stops the attack legitimately... but then goes on the offensive when there is no need to continue the fight - ie the attacker is unconcious, or is running away (in the case of Tony Martin).

reply to post by eriktheawful


Ha ok i'll give you that one

If you can find another i'll be really impressed !

Originally posted by misscurious
NO we didn't .. why do we need guns here?

Actually re reading your post I've never heard so Much nonsense.. so instead of demonstrating peacefully we take to the streets with guns? I'm glad we don't have more people like you livng here...

edit on 15-1-2013 by misscurious because: (no reason given)

EvanB, please excuse the ignorance displayed by some of our members. This mentality is why the Obama administration feels emboldened to act on their dictatorial wet dreams. People like her are everywhere here. People like me are why they will fail.

Molon Labe.

reply to post by AwakeinNM


fus ro dah

Originally posted by misscurious
NO we didn't .. why do we need guns here?

Actually re reading your post I've never heard so Much nonsense.. so instead of demonstrating peacefully we take to the streets with guns? I'm glad we don't have more people like you livng here...

edit on 15-1-2013 by misscurious because: (no reason given)

Whoever you are- you are gorgeous lol, BUT you are wrong. I've studied history and the crime stats. It is indeed true that we need our guns. No debating about it, simply fact. I encourage you to do some research on the issue (from an unbiased source). Keep an open mind and you will see that the pro gun peeps are right.

S+F to the English chap who wrote this post. Spot on

reply to post by EvanB


You are absolutely right.
I don't mean to steal any attention from your thread, but I think it works well coupled with this one I had written a while back.

Gun banning - Why would gun control measures that didn't work in the UK, work in the US? (Hungerford, Dunblane, Cumbria)

It gives a little history (I am an American so I may not have it all correct), but I am interested in hearing from you (if you were told enough to remember all of these) what it was like during those times when bans were being pushed. Why did you folk from the UK submit so easily. I mean we have people ready to do the same here, but did you not have the same amount of opposition to these bills that we have here?

Originally posted by Wide-Eyes
reply to post by SpearMint

 

They would never win. How can you win when everyone is dead? The government and the army are still a minority. Also, chances are, not every soldier will turn on his own people in such a war. The US GOVERNMENT ARE TOO VULNERABLE RIGHT NOW TO EVEN RISK TAKING THE CITIZENS GUNS AWAY...

Sorry caps.

So the solution is to let everyone die. Great plan.

Originally posted by GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by EvanB

 

You are absolutely right.
I don't mean to steal any attention from your thread, but I think it works well coupled with this one I had written a while back.

Gun banning - Why would gun control measures that didn't work in the UK, work in the US? (Hungerford, Dunblane, Cumbria)

It gives a little history (I am an American so I may not have it all correct), but I am interested in hearing from you (if you were told enough to remember all of these) what it was like during those times when bans were being pushed. Why did you folk from the UK submit so easily. I mean we have people ready to do the same here, but did you not have the same amount of opposition to these bills that we have here?

Hungerford was before I started paying attention to the media, but I remember Dunblane.

Timing, media hype, election year, crying mothers, lots of reasons.

Labour was fighting to get elected and had been milking every bit of the populist vote that it could. The newpapers pick a side for an argument based on what will sell more copies, and pictures of tragedy sell well. The "snowdrop" campaign of tearful mothers was perfect front page material so the newspapers supported it. Because the newspapers supported it, Labour supported it. Once they won the election on a promise of rainbows and unicorn #e for every man woman and child in the country, they passed the amendments to reclassify handguns. They then went on to screw this country is ways so deep that we will not recover from it within our lifetimes.

Shooting, while popular, has always been slightly divided here. The strongest lobby (who were mainly shotgun users) happily threw the handgun users under the bus to appease the masses. The handgun shooting community was simply too small and unsupported to mount an effective political fight.

Interestingly enough, Hamilton (the Dunblane killer) should not have had firearms. The police even took them away at one point, only for them to be returned on appeal. If the system had correctly worked then the massacre would not have happened in the same way. It is entirely possible and likely that he would have gone and killed the same children in the same location, but using a different weapon.

The problem with the "system" was that, although there were several flags from different sources that would have identified the danger from Hamilton, this information was never correctly shared. The exact same situation existed with the Virginia Tech shooting, where the killer had several major interactions with different bodies within the institution that together would have been a massive red flag, but the information was never shared. A clear pattern of disturbing behaviour emerged, but each different department thought it was a "one-off", "first time", "not going to happen again" situation.

reply to post by misscurious


What are you talking about? If you actually bothered with research gun crime has risen in the UK since the banning. Also massacres with guns have continued in the UK (remember Cumbria? those were with guns that were not banned by your two previous gun bans). Also I bet if you looked back in your history you didn't have any more or less massacres before the first ban was put into place in the late 80s.

You don't know what you are talking about and you are less free because you support your own ignorance.

Originally posted by sxt004
reply to post by SpearMint

 

uh you must be looking at Piers Morgan numbers. Your violent crime rate blows ours out of the water...so yeah. Seems that even after they took your guns you found ways like knives and what not to get your crime fix. Nice try though.

You must be looking at gun nut statistics. Look at the real ones and get back to me.

Originally posted by EvillerBob

Originally posted by SpearMint
No way. The UK doesn't need guns, it's doing fine without them and has one of the lowest homicide rates in the world.

Actually some of our major cities have a comparable level of gun crime to some US cities. Liverpool seems to have an awful lot of shootings for a "gun free" country. Mind you, there's an estimated 4 million or so privately owned firearms in the country, so it's not exactly "gun free". I bet the Liverpool shootings weren't carried out by the 2 million registered (legally held) firearms.

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk...

And we're about halfway up the table for homicide in Europe. If memory serves, there was one point in the last decade where our level of violent crime per capita was the highest (or very close to the top of the table) of any first world country.

I said homicide, not gun crime, and I'm talking about the UK as a whole. If you pick and choose locations then the US will still come out on top when talking about gun homicides.

Originally posted by OperationLovestrike

Originally posted by misscurious
NO we didn't .. why do we need guns here?

Actually re reading your post I've never heard so Much nonsense.. so instead of demonstrating peacefully we take to the streets with guns? I'm glad we don't have more people like you livng here...

edit on 15-1-2013 by misscurious because: (no reason given)

Whoever you are- you are gorgeous lol, BUT you are wrong. I've studied history and the crime stats. It is indeed true that we need our guns. No debating about it, simply fact. I encourage you to do some research on the issue (from an unbiased source). Keep an open mind and you will see that the pro gun peeps are right.

S+F to the English chap who wrote this post. Spot on

First off, I don't think that is a true likeness of the poster, that picture is floating around on several sites, here is an example

Secondly, what works in the US would not work in the UK. I can assure you the death toll would be high if easy access to firearms was the norm here.

Anybody in the UK has the right to own a shotgun, it is up to the police to prove you are not suitable, however it is not difficult for them to produce evidence (criminal or medical) to say no.

Rifles you have to prove you have a good reason for wanting one, and again, criminal + medical reports will go against you if needed.

reply to post by EvillerBob


Edit to say: btw that was a great post evillerbob

That is what is interesting about the UK. You guys are basically a perfect example of how limited gun control turns into all out disarmament.

The Hungerford massacre was perpetrated with an "assault rifle" so you banned "assault rifles" (i put that in quotations because the guns our media refers to as assault rifles aren't actually. they are just self loading guns which by design can take high capacity mags. Assault rifles are selective fire weapons which aren't legal without a special license, regular registration, and at a huge expense). After Hungerford they banned "assault rifles" and only handguns, bolt actions, and shotguns (maybe just single shot shotguns, not sure) were allowed.

Then you have Dunblane, he used guns that were still available to the public after the Hungerford ban, handguns. He achieved about the same amount of carnage and near exact body count. So after that they bannded handguns in the UK.

Finally Cumbria, as with Dunblane, the killer used guns that were still available and not on the banned list. He used bold actions and a double barrel shotgun. He also achieved around the same body count. That was 2010.

Now a lot of people around, 3 mass shootings in 20 or so years is nothing. America gets that in a week. Here's the thing though. You guys allowed your rights to be stripped away each time after a single event. Literally one person caused every citizen their "ARs" and then a single person cost a nation their handguns. How ridiculous.

Final point, not only did taking these weapons stop massacres, but when people point out that there are very few.. I have to ask, how many were thee before the bans really? Massacres that is? Were they anymore or less common?

I go a but more in depth in my post above, I think it is a complements this thread nicely. Again, not trying to add my thread I just think together my thread and the OP's paint a picture.

reply to post by EvanB


I read about that guy. It's a damn shame. He should have a thousand people outside his prison demanding his freedom every day.

Here is a link saying that since 1996 when Australia introduced the ban on guns, there are now as many if not more guns than before. Interesting I think.
www.activistpost.com...

Originally posted by SpearMint

Originally posted by EvillerBob
...
And we're about halfway up the table for homicide in Europe. If memory serves, there was one point in the last decade where our level of violent crime per capita was the highest (or very close to the top of the table) of any first world country...

I said homicide, not gun crime, and I'm talking about the UK as a whole.

Good for you. So did I. And so was I. The bit about Liverpool was just to point out that there are still guns and still gun crimes that are entirely unaffected by gun control.

Originally posted by SpearMintIf you pick and choose locations then the US will still come out on top when talking about gun homicides.

Yes, absolutely, For instance, Chicago alone reported 446 murders in 2005 - 75% of those involved firearms. Very impressive for a city that has the strictest gun control in the country, with some measures even stricter than the UK.

reply to post by EvillerBob


Well most of your post wasn't about homicide. You can't compare city to city, it doesn't mean anything because they're all different, if you want to compare cities then compare the worst from each country, but even then it isn't a fair comparison. As for the strict gun laws in Chicago, I'm not sure what your point is, but gun laws don't work if you're surrounded by guns.

Originally posted by GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by EvillerBob

 

Edit to say: btw that was a great post evillerbob

That is what is interesting about the UK. You guys are basically a perfect example of how limited gun control turns into all out disarmament.

The Hungerford massacre was perpetrated with an "assault rifle" so you banned "assault rifles" (i put that in quotations because the guns our media refers to as assault rifles aren't actually. they are just self loading guns which by design can take high capacity mags. Assault rifles are selective fire weapons which aren't legal without a special license, regular registration, and at a huge expense). After Hungerford they banned "assault rifles" and only handguns, bolt actions, and shotguns (maybe just single shot shotguns, not sure) were allowed.

Then you have Dunblane, he used guns that were still available to the public after the Hungerford ban, handguns. He achieved about the same amount of carnage and near exact body count. So after that they bannded handguns in the UK.

Finally Cumbria, as with Dunblane, the killer used guns that were still available and not on the banned list. He used bold actions and a double barrel shotgun. He also achieved around the same body count. That was 2010.

Now a lot of people around, 3 mass shootings in 20 or so years is nothing. America gets that in a week. Here's the thing though. You guys allowed your rights to be stripped away each time after a single event. Literally one person caused every citizen their "ARs" and then a single person cost a nation their handguns. How ridiculous.

Final point, not only did taking these weapons stop massacres, but when people point out that there are very few.. I have to ask, how many were thee before the bans really? Massacres that is? Were they anymore or less common?

I go a but more in depth in my post above, I think it is a complements this thread nicely. Again, not trying to add my thread I just think together my thread and the OP's paint a picture.

edit on 15-1-2013 by GogoVicMorrow because: (no reason given)

On a minor technical note, ARs are still legal here though ours lack a gas tube or gas port in the barrel to restrict them to single shot firearms when using a centrefire bolt. .22RF semi auto is still fine and CMMG bolt adaptors are fairly widespread in the UK AR15 community.

There have always been massacres. Even in the US, the largest massacres have not used firearms but have used bombs, or in some cases just simple hand tools. There always will be massacres. They are not frequent but that is likely why they receive such coverage, certainly here. The modern age of instant access and the fight for first press means that papers will spew out the most sensational things they can find just to get the ratings. Just look at Newtown - how much erroneous information was thrown out long before people actually had any real information?

The position I take is that someone who is going to kill will kill anyway. Telling 60 million people that they cannot have firearms, cricket bats, hot pokers or pop-tarts just because 1 person might go mental is, to my mind, ridiculous. Why not put that effort into providing effective policing and mental health? As for the unexpected turns - Derrick Bird comes to mind, from Cumbria - then unfortunately there is nothing we can really do to stop that kind of snap. If the police were routinely armed here then the Cumbria incident could have be drawn to a close much earlier - the police at one point confronted him and had to retreat and let him continue on his way.

We cannot control every second and every aspect of our lives. Existence just doesn't work that way - at least, not any existence that I would consider worth having. I don't want risk, I don't want my daughters to be subject to risk, but the only way to achieve that is to give them a life that is not really any life at all. I'd rather give them the tools (by which I mean understanding, observation, common sense, knowledge) to assess and handle risk.

I don't know if it is relevant or not, but I am pretty much just a target shooter. I have a great time on the range, mixing with friends and making holes in paper. I would happily add centrefire semiauto rifles and pistols to the rangebag if they were legal again. I would not want to carry a firearm in public and I would not keep one "available" for home defence, even if it was legal to do so. I believe that I should have the right to do so if I so chose, but the choice should be made by me not the curtain-twitching Daily Mail reader down the road whose only exposure to firearms was accidentally turning her TV to Rambo while searching for the News at 10. I believe we should have that right until we do something that shows us to be unsafe or unsuitable (ie criminal conviction, mental issues).

reply to post by misscurious


I don't know if second poster got all those stars because they like her post or because something else?