I appreciate you writing a well balance post without the childishness.

Equal regards to yourself for your last.

its just the ones mentioned were the main primers for the bans. I agree there have been many incidents that could have and should have warranted more respect and who knows why they dont, maybe its the scale of certain events , maybe its simply the scale of the publics outcry as happened at Dunblane and without doubt had a influence on the ban.

Precisely my point John, and I think that of several others who are of the same heart here, these bans, to be credible, must do something to reduce the level of firearms related violence in the UK otherwise they were just the panacea (to borrow entirely the correct word from HPSauce) to the ‘righteous indignation’ all ‘right-thinking’ citizens displayed following Dunblane. Essentially you were literally criminalised, for possessing a firearm, for no more reason than a PR gimmick for the Govt. to prove it was doing ‘something’ in the wake of Dunblane.

I am sorry to me that is plain and simple victimisation of a minority and a blame shifting exercise that far too many folks bought in to. Simply put Thomas Hamilton should not have had 4 handguns and 743 rounds of ready ammunition that day as the Police had already a significant dossier on his suspect behaviour and actually has advocated the revocation of his license. Had they been more intent on their jobs and not on the ‘possible’ waste of funds trying to get his license revoked he, Hamilton, would have been aware of the scrutiny he was under and very likely dug himself a deep hole to get lost in.

but does that in itself make the firearms bans any more or less valid and yes I too felt the stigma from having an interest in a shooting hobby.

To be honest I can only recall two incidents of the misuse of legal firearms in the UK in my 33 years. One in 1987 and one 9 years later in 1996. Downplaying the significance or sickness of either incident is obviously reprehensible and I wouldnt attempt to do so, however, such a very low frequency of events was not indicative of a massive subculture of Rambo-wannabe’s or psychotic cases in the UK smallbore or fullbore shooting fraternity. The use of illegal firearms in the commissioning of crime, by comparison, in this country is daily…not something with a 9 year interval. More people die through the criminal use of illegal fireams in this country than ever have from legal ones. The governments actions though target the legal gun owner….thats what make the ban invalid…the injustice that legal shooters have been stigmatised on the strength of no credible evidence and to provide convenient scapegoats for the inadequacies of the local Constabulary.

See I dont get the analagies between saying car owners dont need to do 100mph so why should they be allowed the potential to break the law and kill someone speeding when I cant have a gun , sorry I’m not trying to be funny or argumentative but I just never have grasped that one and again how does it make the gun bans any more or less valid ? Or is it about fundamental freedom?

The point is that a Sports Car is not required to travel via road in the UK. A high performance car requires greater skill to be handled properly than a normal runabout. When handled recklessly a high performance car is a very dangerous piece of kit yet an 18 year old can go out a buy a Mitsubishi Evo straight after passing his driving test and kill himself and three friends on the first bend he comes at. Thats not illegal. Purchasing a Ruger .22 semiautomatic target pistol, keeping it at home in a police-verified secure gun safe, for the sole use of going down to the local range to pursue a skillful and demanding sport is not only illegal but marks you as a danger to society for even considering it. To my mind there is a sincere intellectual disconnect there!.

I would like to say I’m trying hard not to come across as argumentative and appologise if I do , I find it hard to communicate effectively at times and I really dont know how best to describe the mood of the time from what I saw , all I can really say is there were a number who wanted to protest and fight the ban but there were more that could not put hand on heart and say they didnt see the potential for more tragedies.

I am sad to say that you have little trouble with communication from my standpoint. Sad that is because the lack of response you describe to what is seemingly, an irreversable decline in the interest in our basic and fundamental freedoms. Not only ours but those of our kids. I, for one, am trying to teach the values of personal responsibility to my 11 year old, yet, I find myself more and more having to tell her that we are constrained in what we can say and do to avoid getting in trouble with the authorities and I can see her looking at me like I’m mental. Frankly I am at a loss to see how this is going to get any better.

John,

Your point is both clear and well made and it echoes the similarly veined posting made by lovemigs. You are both stating that the attrocities in the recent issue and Hungerford and Dunblane were all committed with legal weapons and therefore removal of legal weapons would, and has, forestalled any further repetiton of such a horrific event.

The only problem with that is that you are cherry-picking ‘attrocities’ to suit your argument. The incident in Jan 2003, in Birmingham, when 2 teenage girls were killed and 2 others wounded was no less tragic than Dunblane yet seemingly because it was in an inner city, not some middle class redoubt, it doesnt seem to count…as if its not as shocking so nothing need be done about it?.

Gun crime with illegally held weapons is responsible for many times more deaths and injuries than Hungerford and Dunblane put together yet the actions taken by the government do nothing to tackle illegal gun ownership and do everything to place suspicion on any person who happens to find sporting interest in a firearm.

The correct analogy here is the same as any time a carload of teenagers fatally wraps a Golf GTI or Subaru Impreza around a tree or some innocent child is killed on a crossing by a speeding motorist. The cry goes out, from ‘Concerned of Cheshire’ as to why we need to have cars that go 100mph plus or have great big 4×4 Jeeps used by mums on the school run.

The reality is that there is no need for a car to do 101mph in the UK and the only British people I can conceive of needing a 4×4 on the school run live on the Outer Hebrides, the Highlands of Scotland or on the Falkland Islands. It is also the reality that in the cases above the car is not the issue….its the manner in which its being driven and ‘Concerned of Cheshire’ is barking up the wrong tree in every important respect.

There is no fundamental difference between the availability of barely-road-legal rally car clones like Mitsibushi Evo’s or 200mph Porsche super cars and firearms. Both, in the publics hands, are intended for sporting purposes and both are entirely unecessary in everyday life. I used to enjoy going for track days at Oulton Park with friends driving Skylines, DIMMA’d Peugeots and Caterhams because there, on the track, I could drive like I would never dare to on the public roads. I also liked, on the rare occaision, to do a little smallbore target shooting at the local gun club when I was invited. One is now legal and one isnt and there is absolutely no logical justification for the difference.

Gollevainen

So then the root of all would be this: Are the total ammount of guns in UK rise after the ban, or just the ammount of illegal ones? Thats is what you havent answered yet, and remains the reason I keep pointing this out.

Well seeings that virtually all types of privately held firearm are now illegal in the UK the obvious answer is that the number of illegal guns is rising. The fact remains though that gaining access to such a firearm is, by no means, difficult and the use of such weapons inthe commission of crime is increasing. This is DESPITE the existence of the kind of all-encompassing ban on firearms that you say is needed to control gun crime.

It is very, very simple therefore to draw the conclusion that the absolute number and type of guns in circulation in a country, legally or otherwise, is of absolutely no (as in zero, nada) consequence to the rate of crimes commited with guns in that country. I’m sorry but I dont think I can explain it any clearer than that?!.

All Soviet Union misshaps were effects of basic idea of tyranny and despotism, something against Marx orginally begun to fougth for.

Ahh the mortal cry of the staunch Marxist. ‘You cant use the Soviet Union’s inequities against us as they were’nt true Marxists’. The understanding being that in their personal utopian ideal it would all just miraculously work. I wonder if an expanded capacity for self-delusion is essential for any remaining Marxists out there or its just coincidence that most seem to have it!.

The irony is that, in your denigration of the Soviet model, you provide yet another illustration of the circumstances where the presence of an armed citizenry would have prevented tyrannicism and the rise of a precession of despots.

HPSauce,

Exactly so – I’d just query your reference to the ban on automatic weapons sounding “reasonable”. This happened in 1936, for no clearly understood reason: automatics were denigrated as “gangster guns” but no evidence was given that British criminals had ever used a machine-gun in crime – unlike these days, 60 years after the “ban”, as drug-dealers tote sub-guns… My view is that every right-thinking person should have an automatic weapon (only slightly tongue in cheek..) just like 400,000 Swiss males do, as army reservists…

Issuing real military weapons to a civillian militia backed with rigorous military training is one thing and it seemingly works for the Swiss. Swiss culture and national character is the enabler for such widespread ownership of such weapons and is, I daresay, a difficult thing to transplant to other, perhaps more bellicose, cultures!.

I made a slight error in my earlier post in that I should have put that ‘reasonable’ you indicated in italics. My intent wasn’t to suggest that I thought it reasonable, as such, rather that the accepted wisdom became the fact that it was a reasonable request. Thats not to say, however, I am entirely in support of individuals with no military training having access to assault rifles.

If the only viable form of gun control is hitting what you aim at I would not be hopeful about the control of the greater proportion of ordinary civillians being able to hit a man-sized target at 400 yards with an M16!. I consider myself a fair shot and could get halfway decent groupings with an SA80 at 200 yards, however, others in my division were less convincing and these were people with an ‘interest’ in weaponry!.

In a real world context I would much rather dear old Uncle Ted down the end of the street not spray 40 rounds in a 30 degree arc, from his dear old Lewis Gun, trying to slot the guy who just nicked his car stereo. If you see my point!.

Capitalism is a conduct of the ills of the human, and socialism is need to whipe it off….despite what you like to say that I have low opinion of people, I (as a marxist) believe in the goodness of people and that is the main reason why I cannot understand why anyone needs to own military weapons decided to kill people.

Capitalism is the pragmatic reflection of the human condition and, in fact, most of the natural world. I want to do better than my fellow man so that my survival is assured over his, if need be. As Arthur C Clarke wrote ‘Marxism (communism) is absolutely the best form of governance….for insects and robots’. Read Orwell and his concept of ‘first amongst equals’ if you think Marxism has any benefit left to offer mankind.

The point about why one ‘needs to own military weapons’ is fatuous and irrelevent. Is a .22 Ruger target pistol a ‘military weapon’ – answer: no – yet that weapon was banned under the legislation passed in the UK post Dunblane. The problem with these bans is that they start off the slippery slope effect. In the UK it started off with automatic weapons bans etc which sounded reasonable, then hunting rifles, then handguns…each time nibbling away freedoms on the pretext of the ‘reasonable’ question ‘why do you need x type of guns’. The answer should always come back ‘why do you think we cannot be trusted with them’ but somehow that never happens.

the owners of the guns imposed a semi-totalitaritan rigthwing state that used armed ‘death-squad’ type civil militia to terror and indimiate the working class…only when the democracy returned after the WWII and these rigthwing militias were banned and their guns were confisicated.

This sounds like a failure of the government of the day to maintain law and order more than anything else. It also begs the question of how, if guns were readily available, your ‘working class’ didnt get guns themselves and defend themselves if their government were unwilling or unable to act on their behalf. In fact, if Finnish governmental authority has proven so weak in the past its a wonder that Finnish citizens are not MORE keen on the right to bear arms to prevent it ever happening again.

You have to remember, that the US…wich is a mere fraction of the world nations, is the sole one beliveing to this “rigth to be armed to the teath” ideology, You cannot generalise your own national oddity to cover the whole human race at one…

Who is using the American experience to cover the whole human race?. We’re using it to cover the western democracy’s and contrasting the US with the UK. Would you go to Somalia, the Congo, Nigeria, Haiti or any of those places and tell the public that they can throw away their guns if only they could all just be nice to each other?. If you ever do plan to do that Gollevainen please let me know in advance, being a good little capitalist, I’ll sell tickets!.

My logic of banning of all guns bases pretty much to the logical assumption (thougth Sealord has allready questioned the logic in this thread….) that with out any guns, there wouldnt be guns for illigal activities as well

Let me see if I get this right Gollevainen…your proposal would be to ban all guns so that gun manufacturers, presumably on a global basis, go out of business. Therefore there are no more problems with guns as old ones will wear out and, with no new ones being manufactured only sanctioned authorities wil ultimately (in thirty or forty years) end up in possession of the firearms.

I was being sarcastic when I noted that the best way to eliminate gun crime was to fix poverty or fix human nature you know!.

What happens with your plan is that regions of relative economic depravity go into the illegal gun manufacturing business. I remember watching a documentary on some region in Pakistan where the local light engineering firms specialised in building knockoffs of almost any kind of small-arm imagineable and, in the process, were actually assembling a pretty high quality product. Imagine the global market after your fantasy global ‘smallarms ban’ came into force. I think it would be a quicker, certainly more practical, solution to try and remove violence and jealousy from human nature!.

Gollevainen,

Criminals dissapear along with capitalism and class structure as a main factor of societies horizontal element, but while waiting for that We need to do as best as we can to limit the effects of criminal hazards

This is the part you do not seem willing to take on board though. The banning of legitimately owned firearms does not, based solely on statistical evidence, diminish the ownership of guns by the criminal element of society. So to use your words another method, other than the banning of guns, is necessary to ‘limit the effects of criminal hazards’.

The next logical step then being if the banning of legally owned firearms serves no value in a crime-reduction context then what is the value of such a move?. In the UK the guns bans have been undertaken over the decades, as HPSauce very eloquently states it, primarily to see the British populace disarmed. The greater proportion of the British public seem to think thats just fine so thats the legacy we leave our children and is a seperate issue to this debate.

The best post on this entire thread has been DJ’s regarding the failure of US background checks that led to this individual gaining access to a firearm. The post Ren logged up about the Dunblane lunatic, ironically, underscores the same issue. That being that in both cases responsible authorities had procedures in place to filter out the wrong sort of people gaining access to a firearm. In both cases the problem was that those procedures were not adhered to strictly enough to prevent two mentally suspect people slip past the vetting.

Simply put, with the FBI and the relevent local Scottish constabulary doing their jobs more thoroughly, those 30 college students are still alive and Dunblane is still just a nice little town somewhere near Perth – with a terrible Hilton hotel. Taking every legal firearm off everyone in the country does not achieve the same ends as either lunatic just goes out and gets an illegal gun.

Always amazes me how otherwise bright and intelligent people, from all over the world, find this one such a challenge to wrap their heads around.

Gun control i.e bans etc does not, and never will, work. It is a galactic failure in the UK save for one thing. The UK populace, generally, now see the firearm as an object to be uniformly loathed – which is exactly the ideal that govt. after govt, of all colours, has sought to do in the UK since the end of WW1. Protection of civil liberties is something few in the UK are concerned about though so I’ll not bother flogging that long dead horse.

Excepting a couple of blips around the tragic events at Hungerford and Dunblane gun crime in the UK has increased year on year and firearms ownership, in certain elements of the community, is now taken as a fashion statement!. Here I speak as a person who’s moved from Liverpool to Reading and noted firearms being readily available in both places. The process of acquiring one is a lot simpler than that described by our American friend and, unless you want a real ‘designer brand’ like the Glock described, very much cheaper.

So, seeings as the kneejerk wailing and bleating to ‘ban all guns’ is proven statistically to be espousing a losing plan, the question is what can be done to control gun crime. The answer is simply one of two options – firstly eradicate all want – if no-one needs steal anything armed crime would be stamped out at a stroke. Second option is a bit more Orwellian and that is to eradicate violence from human nature.

You may think I’m being facile here, I probably am, no more so than those people who think banning guns would have any effect whatsoever other than to outrage those people who own firearms and do so responsibly. The problem with guns and American culture is not so much to do with the guns and more to do with American culture…or more accurately some fairly distinct elements of it.

They’ll be claiming all sorts of abuse shortly, but I doubt their stories will match. A bit of torture and deprivation Sells books you see.

I’ll tell you this now the stories will be embellished and will tell of how the underfunded RN is trying to do its best without the resources to do the job properly. If I read the new 1SL right that is!