Hand-Guns should be legal. The ban punishes property owners and rewards vicious criminals.
In the UK it is almost sacrilege to suggest that the 1997 Hand-Gun ban was anything less than a triumphant step towards a utopian peace. Over here comedians, pundits, papers and television routinely mock the USA for it’s gun culture; we are more enlightened, more “progressive” is the underlying sentiment.
But as anybody with any common sense could easily have concluded long in advance, prohibiting guns does not get rid of them, it only drives them underground. As the cliche goes: If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.
On the 2nd of June Derrick Bird embarked on a killing spree that left 12 people dead in his wake. This is comparable to the 17 who died in the tragic Dunblane massacre which was the pretext for the hand-gun ban in the first place. Derrick Bird was not deterred from carrying a gun because Derrick Bird was batshit fucking insane. His victims, and the bystanders who saw what happened (fearing lengthy jail terms if caught with a weapon), were unarmed and unable to stop this madman.
In fact since the ban there has been absolutely no reduction in the number of homicides from firearms.
Now let’s forget the facts that the ban has not reduced murders, and let’s forget the obvious truth that you simply cannot legislate guns out of the hands of criminals and let’s talk about what really matters: the individual.
The government makes it impossible for individuals to protect their homes, and their families!
This might sound like hyperbole but that’s probably because you’ve never been targeted by a criminal.
If you are an average sized Male, living on your own, you cannot protect yourself against determined criminals.
Criminals are typically hard bastards, they’re used to fighting, they’re used to carrying weapons and using them, they’re often big and what’s more they’ll kick down your door and steal everything you have if they think they can get away with it. Here’s the crux: what are you going to do to stop them?
Phone the police? All the police can do is arrive after the scene of the robbery. Sure they can take a few details, but the vast majority of crimes are never solved. Maybe they’ll take a fingerprint or two, but if you’ve ever dealt with the boys in blue you’ll know that the chances of anything coming from that are about as remote as Mel Gibson teaching anger management classes.
When the individual property owner (a property owner is somebody who has agreed to live amongst society. He is playing the long game. Working. Producing. Accumulating wealth and becoming known in his community. He is the opposite of the criminal) cannot defend himself against the thug who wants to take by force what he has not earned through toil you have a recipe for a decaying civilisation.
It’s no coincidence that the worst places to live are the inner city ghettos, where the criminals are most likely to carry, and the victims are least able to invest in any kind of decent home security.
It’s also no coincidence that it is always the government who seeks to disarm the law-abiding and productive in favour of the psychopaths; the violent criminals…
They are the same people.
Where the criminal plays the short game, using violence to take what he wants in the moment, the government plays the long game; taking the fruits of your labour pay-cheque to pay-cheque, under the threat of its own guns, which it always finds a way to justify it needs.
Because remember citizen: ethics are not universal; there is one rule for us and another for them.
Why?
BECAUSE WE HAVE THE GUNS, THAT’S WHY!







July 23rd, 2010 at 10:13 am
Seriously? Please take another look at America and see how effective guns are in the hands of the general public. How many shooting sprees go on there every year? How many people are accidentally shot or injured every year?
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:24 am
The fact is that most of the worst examples of death by gun in the UK over the years were committed with legally owned guns, here l include death suicide and there have been several examples of this in the last twelve months where men have wiped out their family. If hand guns were available there would be many more because it is much easier to use one of these in a fit of temper or suicidal rage.
July 23rd, 2010 at 11:14 am
The trouble with simplistic analysis like that Martin is that your thesis needs to explain things like
# The extremely low homicide rate by guns in Canada despite most people over there owning firearms
# The same story in Switzerland
# The fact that most of the worst areas of gun crime in America are in the inner cities of places like Baltimore, New York and Washington DC; all areas that have BANNED firearms
# The fact that homicides by gun have NOT fallen in the UK since the ban
The causes of crime are many. The war on drugs and the poverty of the American inner cities offers a far greater correlation to gun homicides than do places that allow/disallow guns.
Not to mention you don’t see the unseen crimes that get prevented or never occur because criminals know that their victims might be armed.
Not to mention the moral argument that liberty is more important than safety. Otherwise why not just ban fatty foods, let alone alcohol and cigarettes which as we all know kill ORDERS OF MAGNITUDES more people than guns ever have… even in American ghettos.
July 23rd, 2010 at 11:16 am
A source to your statistics would be good because I haven’t heard them.
Obviously if you want to kill yourself a gun is a good way to do it, but people are going to find a way either way. But then I don’t think suicide should be illegal anyway.
Again, what X nutcase decides to do with a gun should have no baring on MY RIGHT to defend myself, my family and my property. People have been known to get drunk and drive their cars into incoming traffic. That’s not my problem and I will continue to drive. Thank you very much.
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Davy, are you just intentionally ignoring facts? Both Canada and Switzerland have massive levels of gun homicides compared to the UK and they are not extremely low (unlike the UK
Gun ownership, world wide is directly correlated with chance of dying by gunshot.
Gun deaths in recent years in the UK had fallen to a record 20 year low.
Perhaps you’d better think about who is doing the simplistic analysis.
Liberty is not always more important than safety. There’s a reason you are required by law to wear a seatbelt and obey the speed limit.
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:17 pm
This ignores that at present there are still few guns in the hands of criminals (relative to the USA). If you then make them easy to get hold of, suddenly every two-bit punk will have a gun, and you will find people being regularly gunned down in minor arguments.
[If you discount murders where both sides are part of it, such as gang-on-gang violence] I am willing to bet you would be hard pressed to find many people being shot in this country by a burglar, but put guns into the hands of the burglar (which allowing guns to be generally owned would lead to), and watch that murder rate rocket….
Also, a criminal who owns a gun is more likely to have used it than someone that just owns it for self defence, so the end result might be that both the criminal and the homeowner have a gun, but the criminal is both better with the gun, and more importantly, less likely to hesitate before using it.
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Ugh. Martin, what’s wrong with you? Didn’t you learn as a child that the ends don’t justify the means? It’s never okay to use aggressive force against someone, even if you think it might do them good. As Davy said, why not outlaw fatty food, alcohol, cigarettes, etc?
Liberty always trumps enforced “safety”.
As or your final argument with seat belts, wtf is wrong with your head? This is exactly the kind of thing Davy is rightly arguing against. Davy says, people shouldn’t do X, to which you respond, “People do X! Therefore it makes sense that X is done!” Seriously?
Good work, Davy.
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Hey Martin…
Seriously? The UK has the highest crime rate in all of Europe. the homicide rate in Canada is MUCH lower than in the UK. Canada has a similar rate of gun ownership to citizen as america does but lacks the inner city gang culture that american ghetto’s have acquired.. Most of the gun related homicides in America are gang related. I know it’s hard to wrap your head around this.. but.. America isn’t an old western shootout like you’d like to believe. And Liberty is ALWAYS more important than safety, you mindless fucking drone.
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:12 pm
I very much doubt a free society will have much demand or use for private weapons. After all, most of the major incentives to commit crime are opportunities caused either by the state (drug prohibition) or are a secondary consequence of statism (eg, poverty).
And of course, anyone who advocates banning guns being in the possession of citizens, but not in possession of the state, is a utter loon.
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:50 pm
If you don’t own a gun, the king of England can just come into your house and start pushing you around. I for one won’t stand for it.
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Martin just says whatever he needs to justify his “points”. Sound familiar?
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:15 pm
If guns are freely available then yes petty crime will be more likely to escalate into a gun fight. That sounds like it’s a bad thing, but it’s actually good. It means there will be substantially less petty crime occurring, because the criminals wont be willing to risk their life for the sake of the desired goal.
For instance, if you’re a fundie Christian and you don’t like that a particular store opens on Sundays you might decide to vandalise the place. So every Sunday you go down there and smash up his shop if he remains open. If guns are freely available, then eventually the store owner is going to purchase and pull a gun on you to defend his store. He will threaten to shoot you if you dare smash up his stuff again.
So now some would argue the criminal will have free access to guns too, so that makes it even. They would argue that it’s worse than having no guns, because now they’re going to have a gun battle instead and things could get ugly.
But you have to remember the desired goal of the vandal. His goal wasn’t to murder the store-owner, it was to smash up his stuff. Would the vandal be really willing to engage in deadly street warfare for the sake of a couple of broken windows? I don’t think so. So the crime is averted and the gun battle never even occurs.
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:26 pm
I assume most of you will be aware that the US supreme court overturned a ban on guns in 2008 in Washington DC and the resultant move in the murder stats? If not – why don’t you find out?
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:35 pm
There are a lot of guns in the US, but there are a lot of ‘gun free zones’ too, so is it any wonder their gun crime rate is rather high? Not only is it fucking easy to get a gun, but then it’s also fucking easy to walk into an area where 99% of the people don’t. Genius.
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:51 pm
David, colour me lazy, but could you link me to the stats? they sound very interesting.
July 23rd, 2010 at 7:13 pm
I’m 100% with you on this. The UK DESPERATELY needs guns. Why? Because we are VictimLand. We cannot do a damn thing to defend ourselves. If you get attacked you better lay down and take it, maybe let them beat you to death. Because if you defend yourself even with a 3″ blade (let alone a bad-ass .44 Magnum), you’ll end up in Hotel Slammer.
I’ve been arguing for Gun Rights in the UK for years.
Believe it or not, I get serious threats from British “liberals” for doing so – by liberals I mean the authoritarian Nazi Socialists that appear to dominate our sad, ineffectual culture.
The bottom line is: There are lots of legitimate statistics to show that crime is actually WORSE in sad Britannia than it is in the U.S. We have more home invasions (break-ins) than the U.S. Why? Because in America householders can defend their property with firearms. This makes criminals very wary of breaking in.
Over here, criminals break in and beat the f*ck out of whoever lives in the house.
On so many levels Britain is a disaster. The blame in my view lies with socialism, which is always authoritarian and restrictive. It’s taken the heart out of our culture, left us defenseless and made it a “sin” to even consider making money or being an entrepreneur.
The other thing we desperately need in pussy Britain is free market economics and libertarianism. Let’s have some freedom and take responsibility for ourselves and our actions. And for Christ’s sake, let us defend ourselves. Self-defense has got to be a basic human right.
July 23rd, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Martin says
“Seriously? Please take another look at America and see how effective guns are in the hands of the general public. How many shooting sprees go on there every year?”
Fair enough. In the US murder rates and violent crime rates tend to be lower in states where there is a high rate of gun ownership than in states where there is a low rate. Sometimes the states where rates of gun ownership is very high have lower violent crime rates than England or Scotland.
Meanwhile, if you think gun BANS work, please look at… the UK! The homicide by gun rate has not fallen since the handgun ban (http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42575000/gif/_42575833_homicide_1998_06_203.gif) and the gun crime rate has risen (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JVmzEEeYZww/TAkMRm-eVCI/AAAAAAAAAIs/QXMBOmakOuY/s1600/fire+arm+crimes.gif). The handgun ban does not seem to have made anything better.
July 24th, 2010 at 3:19 am
“Please take another look at America and see how effective guns are in the hands of the general public. How many shooting sprees go on there every year?”
To answer this question, look at the states with very libertarian gun laws (where people can carry guns around) – these states have the lowest homicide rates.
States and cities that make it impossible to get a gun have driven homicide rates way up.
July 24th, 2010 at 7:32 am
Homicide rates by nation. (Note UK has higher homicide rates than many pro gun European states like Czech Republic, Switzerland, Ireland Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Norway, and Iceland)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
The Majority of US “gun violence” are suicides.
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html
Americans US guns defensively millions of times each year (usually without even firing)
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html
Gun Ownership is growing in the US
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/405240_guns17ww.html
but violent crime is declining
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/25/violent-crimes-drop-in-us-for-third-straight-year/
UK has strictest gun laws in Europe but still has highest crime in Europe (despite being an Island)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/5712573/UK-is-violent-crime-capital-of-Europe.html
The rate of accidental gun death is tiny far more deadly is falling, cars, poison, fire, or your doctor.
http://www.anesi.com/accdeath.htm
I own 7 guns, all but one of which would be totally banned for private ownership in the UK. Not only that but in the area I live 75% plus of the households have at least 1 (and usually several) guns. There is practically no violent crime to speak off. There are 60,000 people in my county with on average one homicide every two or three years (that’s 1/120,000) far less than the UK’s. About one person a year commits suicide with a gun, and about 2 people a year drowned in the local river to say nothing of car accidents and lung cancer.
July 25th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
>Martin just says whatever he needs to justify his “points”. >Sound familiar?
I believe this how arguments proceed, but nevertheless.
I took these numbers from wikipedia, if people disagree with them then I would welcome correction. This is in reply to Davy’s suggestion that Canada and Switzerland have low levels of gun crime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence
Numbers are %ownership of handguns, then per capita gun homicide, non gun homicide, and total homicide
Canada 34 0.54 1.04 1.58
Switzerland 37 0.56 0.96 1.52
United States 65 2.97 1.58 4.55
England & Wales 8 0.12 1.33 1.45
If people have reliable sources of the latest figures, links would be handy. Although using Yankswithgun(s) homicide list for last year, the UK still ranks belows Canada.
Richard Garner:
You claim the current homicide by gun hasn’t fallen since the ban, yet post date 4 years out of date. Last years figure is (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/15/crime-figures-fall-bcs-survey) but it had been falling year on year (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/britain-records-18-fall-in-gun-deaths-1232069.html) and according to the provisional police figures in the BCS “firearm offences now being 22 per cent below the level in 2002/03, this being
largely driven by reductions in imitation firearms rather than handguns and other firearms”. http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs10/hosb1210chap1.pdf
Of course, statistics should always be debated, and are always changing making comparisons very difficult.
Anyways, numbers aside, my point is this:
If you want to say, we should be free to own guns. That’s your opinion, and I respect that.
If you want to say we should be free to own guns, because it’ll make us safer. Then I think you should have some damn good numbers to back you up, and I don’t see them.
July 26th, 2010 at 10:14 am
“Liberty is not always more important than safety. There’s a reason you are required by law to wear a seatbelt and obey the speed limit.”
What’s the reason?
Last time I checked, Libertarians and their kin were agaisnt seatbelt laws, and speed was proven by the Governments own study to be a minor cause of road accidents.
The actual reason, before you give a made up safety one, is because the government stole all the roads and now has to produce absurd “one rule fits all” systems to keep people in check and to let them know who is boss. Private roads would solve the problem, Private Individuals would solve the problems created by gun ownership in a statist world.
In a similar feel to what I have said on the forums, if you really believe everyone is out to get you, and that only the lack of a gun is preventing it, then why aren’t you hiding in a cave? And why are you advocating government, when they have ALL the guns and are just as human as you or I.
July 26th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
The reason, is to stop you killing yourself and other people, and by minor, do you mean a quarter of fatal accidents?
Reported Road Casualties Great Britain: 2008 Annual Report
http://www.dft.gov.uk/adobepdf/162469/221412/221549/227755/rrcgb2008.pdf
Fourteen per cent of accidents had a speed related contributory factor reported, either
exceeding the speed limit or travelling too fast for conditions. This rose to 24 per cent
for fatal accidents, accounting for 25 per cent of all road deaths.
Forty one per cent of male fatalities aged 16-25 were in
accidents where a speed factor was reported.
July 28th, 2010 at 6:52 am
Gun Owners of America is a good information source:
http://gunowners.org/
Keep up the fight, and one day we might get back our ancient rights and liberties.
http://englandsfreedome.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-contribution-to-national-debate.html
July 30th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Yes, we should be free to own and carry guns. As said by others in not so many words, an armed society is a polite society. It also reduces the risk of fascist states overrunning their population. That is why Hitler disarmed his own population in the 1930′s
October 27th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
PUSSY BRITAIN. Too fucking right it is. We need to stand up to these assholes that’s running this criminal loving shithole. we may as well put up signs saying: BURGLARS BURGLE US, DO WHAT YOU WANT TO US,cos we’ll end up in jail if we do something to ya. UK GOVERNMENT, GET UP OFF YOUR NAMBY PAMBY FUCKIN ARSES AN DO SUMMAT ABOUT IT,AN GIVE US BACK OUR RIGHT TO DEFEND OUR FUCKIN BASTARD SELVES AND GIVE US OUR FUCKIN GUNS BACK!
January 16th, 2011 at 9:46 am
@Martin: Davy blew you out of the water on his first post. Sorry to be the one who has to say it but he did. Anyway, regardless of how “easily accesible” a firearm is, you are missing something. No “two-bit punk” is going to walk into a gunshop and buy a gun. It aint that simple. Handguns cost $600 in rural areas where crime is low. In cities, $1000 and up. Not only that but you must be 21 years old, and not a felon. I don’t care what you think, but a criminal is not gonna waste that much money on a gun when he can buy a baseball bat for $20, or buy a blackmarket pistol for $100. Guns that you buy in the shop, can be traced back to you. If you kill someone, you’re fucked. No ifs, ands, or buts. Take the number of people killed each year with firearms. 80% are suicides. In Wyoming (in the U.S.) there is a very very low crime rate. The majority of people in that state have a firearm. They are LAW ABIDING citizens. That means they GO BY THE LAW! They aren’t gonna go crazy and kill people over stupid shit like “Hey! You door dinged me!” We aren’t cavemen, we’re human beings that have reason and understanding of what the hell is going on. If it does result in a showdown at point blank range, then so be it. Its the price of freedom. But they probably wont because the victor gets 15 years in prison for unlawfully pulling a gun on someone and using it… Successfully. Also, its the only reason the U.S. Isn’t a dictatorship. If the Government wasn’t afraid of being overrun by bloodthirsty Rednecks, we’d be a police state by now. The government aint the boss, we are! The guns are there as a reminder that if they like the feeling of their lungs filling with air, it better fucking stay that way!
January 18th, 2011 at 2:25 am
Here is a website calling for relaxing restrictions on private firearm ownership in the UK, the forum mostly being inhabited by fellow libertarians.
http://www.armbritain.com
April 28th, 2011 at 5:44 am
The reason hand guns are banned is to make the public dependent on the elites at the top so when they bring in there police state they can take over no problem. The big banks in the UK have been running that country into the ground for years now.
May 29th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Dear Martin and Colin. You might want to check your facts as you may find the opposite is true. You do not get facts from newspapers, you get opinions. Find out where they got their information from, read it and interpret if for yourself.
August 11th, 2011 at 4:55 am
Libertarians in the UK? What will they think of next? After many years of chatting with Canadians and Brits, and coming to the conclusion that they were a magnitude of being stupid below the American anti-gunners, that I am familiar with, it’s a pleasure to see there are some sane Brits after all.
I just read this excellent article on your gun history in Reason Magazine and wanted to recommend it to everyone:
http://reason.com/archives/2002/11/01/gun-controls-twisted-outcome
Best
Joe
August 11th, 2011 at 5:06 am
There is a wonderful book about called “Death by Government” that exposes the genocide in the 20th century of people by their own governments after they disarmed them.
There is also a movie on the same theme:
Innocents Betrayed – Gun Control History
http://freeviewdocumentaries.com/2010/03/04/innocents-betrayed-gun-control-history/
“170,000,000. That’s the number of civilians that have been murdered by their own governments in the 20th century alone. 170,000,000 men, women, and children who were defenseless to protect themselves. 170,000,000 victims of gun control. You have never seen anything like Innocents Betrayed. This story has never been told in a documentary film. In this powerful documentary produced by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, you will learn how governments have historically deprived people of firearms … and then wiped them from the face of the earth. 58 minutes that will open eyes. Destroy myths. Change minds. Save lives. “Only the police and military should have guns; private citizens don’t need them.” Innocents Betrayed shows what happens when the government alone has all power. “It’s sensible to license guns and register their owners.” Innocents Betrayed shows how licensing and registration were key elements to disarming populations, leaving them vulnerable to methodical slaughter. “America should follow the lead of the rest of the world— strict ‘gun control.’” Innocents Betrayed shows how the “rest of the world” lost 170,000,000 innocent, non-combatant men, women and children. “It can’t happen here.” It already has. Innocents Betrayed documents mass murders and vicious brutality in the US as a result of gun control. The victims left disarmed and powerless, by law. See with your own eyes the facts that the mainstream media has ignored and concealed for decades.”
April 8th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Guns should be legalised in the UK. When the people aren’t armed there can never be a revolution. This is the real reason for strict gun control
July 11th, 2012 at 2:10 am
America is a bad example of why gun laws should be more relaxed in the Uk, yes america does have a greater murder rate but then again there’s more people, there is evidence actually that the american murder rate and crime in general has been falling recently, where as murder(with fire arms no less) in britain has increased and violent crime has also increased, each time the government passed the laws that have restricted guns in Britain, the crime rate has increased, look it up it’s amazing. it’s also worth noting that the vast vast majority of gun deaths in the uk are enacted by criminals using “illegally” held guns. there is very little evidence to suggest that legally held guns in the hands of law abiding citizens have actually caused any where near as many deaths, as is asserted by somebody here. a much better example to look for relaxed guns laws, is Switzerland, the swiss have some of the largest rates of private gun ownership in the world, and yet it is a fact that not only is crime(both violent and otherwise) very low in Switzerland, but that murder and suicide involving guns is also very low, these are uncontrovertable facts, again as was asserted by other commentors that the Swiss had alot of murders, they don’t they simply don’t. Britain has also historically had very low rates of gun crime even long before gun legislation was tightened, and surprisingly after it was tightened our rates increased dramatically. There are an awful lot more variables to consider when looking to americas gun crime and murder rates, not least that the country has a huge disparrity between the wealthy and the poor, and that also their economy is fundementally capitalist and elitist, as well as widespread societal racism. All these things;Crime statistics and murder rates are in the end meaningless, the fact is that the government and the law, should have no right to dictate to me, that i cannot own a gun, they should have no right to dictate anything to me; “if a man is allowed to govern himself, or other government is tyranny”, i shall decide my own will and my own morals.
July 11th, 2012 at 7:59 am
America has different laws in different states so it’s a pretty good place to look at to see the effects of gun-laws, actually. For example many of the most dangerous places to live in terms of getting shot–baltimore, washington, NYC–have some of the strictest handgun laws. Then there are other states where it’s literally legal to just walk around open-carrying and the statistics are much lower.
But I agree with your points about the UK of course.
Thanks for commenting.
August 20th, 2012 at 9:42 pm
I am currently looking with serious intent at applying for and acquiring a shotgun and certificate, it has recently occured to me, that whilst we complain about the restrictive nature of this countries gun laws, we do not do much to push the boundaries of these laws. Shotgun license’s are easier to get than full fire arms certificates, so why do we not on mass try to get shotguns, or for that matter airguns, or since our laws are so restrictive and unjust, why do we not try and aquire illegal hand guns and such. After all in the words of Philip Luty, “only through mass non-compliance with Britains fascist anti-gun laws, will we ever defeat them”. Apply for a shotgun certificate, buy an illegal gun if you’ve got the nerve or try and make one, join a gun club, you want a gun get one.
August 31st, 2012 at 4:31 am
@ My name is none of your business
Check out strict liability before advocating the illegal possession of guns. Really, really bad idea.
Shotgun licence by all means. Change the law by all means but illegal guns are just dumb and likely unreliable anyway.
December 15th, 2012 at 3:27 am
Can i state, Switzerland has the highest gun related SUICIDE incidents. Not HOMICIDE incidents.
This is primarily because the military is almost fully part time (Territorial Army type troops)and the government issues assault weapons to troops which they keep AT HOME. Nearly everyone over 18 is in the military at some stage so everyone is familiar with firearms.
The homicide top ten in europe is currently:
1. Slovakia
2. Germany
3. Czech Republic
4. Ukraine
5. Albania
6. Poland
7. Spain
8. Portugal
9. Croatia
10. Switzerland
The UK is currently 39 th in the world for gun related homicides.
There are 196 countries in the world currently alot of them have little or no gun law at all.
I appreciate that they probably dont keep statistics either but 39th in the world is pretty poor for a country with “the tightest gun laws” of all the worlds democracys. This suggests that the weapons used are mostly illegal because they are uncontrolled and untraceable.
I think it is wrong to label all fire arm users as irresponsible as quite often happens. The handgun ban did nothing to lower gun crime levels. it just made people feel better and the government look like they were acting.
Afterall, if someone dies in a motorcycle accident, the police rarely blame the bike! In the same way, guns are simply innanimate objects. You cannot ban because of the negligence or irresponsibility of individuals. Its simply not fair.
I have to agree we have a reactive Police service in the UK with an armed capability that is laughable. If i am attacked, the police will be looking for a murderer. NOT an attempted murderer. This misconception that calling 999 will sort everything needs to be addressed.
It rarely does. I know first hand having been a Police officer. We rely on CCTV and the hope that someone saw something because people are too scared to protect themselves. The criminal is becoming king in the UK. The laws seem to slap thier wrists instead of punish them. I feel that changes need to be made with self protection issues. I do not think guns are that change. Other devices and items maybe. Not guns.
I am a gun owner. I like it. I enjoy the precision and skill involved in shooting. Shooting and killing are NOT one and the same. It rightly took me a long process and alot of money to take part in my sport. I have a lawful reason to own firearms. I would not dream of using my guns to protect myself. It would be an absolutely counterproductive nightmare to do so anyway! The security i keep them under is immense!
If i was about to die and a gun was near me…. I would use it without question. Anyone would.
The crux is, its likely im going to prison either way (self defence or intent to kill) and that is fundamentally wrong. Until the government make a persons home their castle again, we will all have to bow down to the burglar. The burglar knows this. The police will send armed units if necessary but don’t expect them to be close and don’t expect the door to burst open and heros to run through the door. It just doesn’t happen like that here. They will spend hours debating how to save the man who just killed you so he can go to one of our “prisons” if you like to call them that. They will shoot him and the officer that fired will likely go to prison for firing.
See where this is going?…… Again…….
February 7th, 2013 at 5:22 pm
Why is it that every time there is a debate about firearms, specifically when concerned with the right to carry and the right to self defence (which according to the U.N. By th way is no longer a basic human right.) does everyone pick and choose which stats to look at and which to ignore. Gun control is a very serious issue that should be looked at in great depth, I believe this goes without saying and I’m sure that all would agree. It concerns me that anti-gun lobbyists would only be concerned with homicides commited with firearms ad their only argument for more stringent laws on possession of firearms. Most pro-gun lobbyists only argue for sporting purposes or refuse to admit that a reasonable reaction to repealing at least 1968 firearms act would result in a rise in gun crime. I believe this is the case however after a few assailants where shot in self defense this number would most likely to reduce to lower tHan present, this is I believe a fair statement based on what happens when they legalized concealed carry in Florida
February 7th, 2013 at 5:56 pm
Also we need to look at other crimes, we have one of the worst violent crime rates in theworld on par with developing countries such as south Africa with rapes assaults and muggings at an all time high an climbing year on year based on evidence supported by other nations such as Switzerland, U.S.A and Germany these numbers would almost immediately be significantly reduced if non lethal self defence devices where made legal and even more so if concealed or open carry of firearms was legalized. None of this however actually reaches the crux of the matter in the UK, we have laws that allow all citizens to defend themselves with reasonable force yet we are denied any and all tools which enable us to do so with any kind of success. Even when we can accomplish this we may get prosecuted and even sued by the assailants. I’m sure anybody regardless of their views would agree that this is confusing nuclear and even hypocritical as let’s face it our government hides behind armed police, bodyguards and the military. If we are all born equal why is this. Why in it that they enforce their rights of self defence on a daily bases whilst telling us we cant? Isn’t it obvious, its power. Look at recent history every time bar none that governments have taken control of everyone’s guns its just the beginning of a more sadistic plot genocide, dictatorship, anarchy. I’m not saying that’s what’s going on but if we had a right to firearms it would ensure it couldn’t happen in the future I for one have a god given right to defend myself from any person who wishes me harm and if applicable would exorcise that right would yo? If not why the hell not we do not need politicians to tell us we are allowed who the tuck are they trying to kid?