Sealord,

As your clearly haven’t read my posts (where do I advocate a total ban on firearrms?) or don’t understand the meaning of words such as ‘constrain,’ there is absoloutely no point in discussing this subject with you, as you obviously are not capable of understanding the issues.

Steve.

Actually when you analyse the figures (see my earlier post), they equate to just over 70 UK murders involving guns in 1999. Or put another way you would need a 400% increase to hit one murder per day. Even with ‘gun crime spiralling out of control’ as the media (and the pro gun lobby on here would like us to believe) we are no where near this figure.

The last figure I can find report a 27% increase in fire arms offences for 2005 half of which involved air-weapons; and a large proportion of the remainder were to down to inproper storage/transport of legally held weapons.

So in actual fact, whilst it is serious and cause for concern, the problem is far, far smaller than certain people would have us believe.

In answer to some of the other points raised;

No one has suggested that gun control eliminates gun crime – but what it does do is constrain both the amount and growth of firearms offences. Hence the fact that the UK fares so much better than the USA and indeed Switzerland in the statistics.

No one has suggested that there are not legitimate civillian use of firearms. But rather access should be restrict to those with legitimate needs.

As the use of recreational drugs has been increasing over recent years, drug control control obviously not working – do you therefore suggest we legalise drug use. (interestingly not even the US has gone down this road!)

Finally to compare firearms with motor viehcles is cretinous; they exist for entirely different reasons; and yes Sealord many people DO NEED cars because of the way our society is structured, few people need firearms.

Also fire arms ultimately exist for one reason to kill – be that animals or humans. I have no qualms about the use of shotguns for the phesant harvest. However in my experience the bulk of recreational shooters, are to a greater or lesser degree fantasists, indulging imature testoterone fuelled fantasys of a primeval hunter gather or military glory.

Steve.

Proof, Ok lets just look at a the Statistics;

Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated):

Homicide Suicide Unintentional

USA 4.08 (1999) 6.08 (1999) 0.42 (1999)

Canada 0.54 (1999) 2.65 (1997) 0.15 (1997)

Switzerland 0.50 (1999) 5.78 (1998) –

Scotland 0.12 (1999) 0.27 (1999) –

England/Wales 0.12 (1999/00) 0.22 (1999) 0.01 (1999)

Japan 0.04* (1998) 0.04 (1995) <0.01 (1997

For more info see here

http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF01.htm

Of course any sane person can see from this how gun control has kept firearms related deaths under control in the UK.

Suggest you occaisionally use Google, and stop your ignorant and inane rants.

Steve.

No one disputes the rise in gun crime within the UK; however the question needing to be asked is; if firearms weren’t largely illegal, in this country, how quickly would gun crime be rising?

I strongly suspect such offences would be increasing much faster than they are today – and hey who knows SealordLawerence might be their next innocent victim!

It is of course also worth noting that very few people in the UK need to posses a firearm – a few farmers and gamekeepers, and even then mainly shotguns.

Steve.

This is sad. I only met Mike a few times, as a punter at Russavia, but I will always remember flying in G-MOTH with him, and discussing its restoration as we flew.

May I offer my condolences to all his family and friends.

Steve.

When talking about children of today leaving school who have not mastered The Three Rs, we need to remember there have always been school leavers who are functionally illiterate. As such this is not a modern phenomena.

Really we should be comparing standards attained today against those of say ten, twenty, thirty years ago. If we do this the children of today come out very well. For instance according to Dfes figures 73% of fourteen year olds obtained level 5 for English in 2006, up around 20% since 1997. The recent slight falling off in these figures is probably due to increased immigration from Eastern Europe.

The big problem with measuring changes in attainment levels, is that before the current SATS testing regime figures are less than relliable.

Steve.

I suspect large sums are going out to various focus groups, surveys, consultants etc for ‘advice’ and ‘mangement services.’ There was even a rumour (joke?) going around the other weekend that the financial consultants hired to make sure the Olympics didn’t go over budget have already cost ten times as much as anticipated for the whole project;)

Steve.