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Wonder how many are from the media?

Not really wanting to kick off another bout of firearm justification (or vice versa) but whilst it has been said many times (with some logic, it must be said) that if you make guns illegal then only the criminals will carry them…just how do criminals come by their weapons? It has been the case that, in Britain, in the past, several firearms were shown to have been ‘imported’ by soldiers from the policing of the former Yugoslavian states as personal souvenirs that made their way into criminal hands, and others – seemingly the majority – have been smuggled through our lax border controls. Most of the rest are, apparently, stolen and reactivated display weapons.
Where does the American criminal get their hardware from?

Not long ago I was involved in interviewing people who claimed to have seen big cats in Britain; this was the non-native, non-domestic big cat, not your standard fat lap cat.
Whilst the witnesses were quite convinced that they had seen something out of the ordinary, not next doors old black tom prowling in the undergrowth or a stray dog by a gate post, the facts just didn’t support the idea of a large, wild cat in the wilds of rural Britain.
A zoological contact, with experience of tracking African cats, said that there just wasn’t the means to support even ‘small’ big cats without their presence being noticed: things like savaged sheep and cattle, or chicken farm break ins would be constant indicators – a single cat needs a lot of food to stay healthy, a colony would need a hell of a lot more – but the overriding thing for him was the absence of scat and lack of territorial spray markers. If you’ve ever had a stray tomcat pay your garden an unwanted visit then you’ll know what that means, but the bigger the cat the more there is, the worse it smells. Yet there was never anything to show that there were any predators around other than the usual foxes.

It is the same with sasquatch, bigfoot, yowie, the yeti and all those other humanoid bipeds that apparently inhabit the worlds less populated areas. A few blurry videos, the odd grainy photograph, lots of witness reports from one or two people (never big groups), yet never any really good, hard evidence that might prove once and for all of their existence.
Of course, it is easy to hide something – or for something to hide – in dense forest where it is extremely likely that there is no human presence within a hundred miles or more nor had there been for several dozens of years, but the beasts that have recently been discovered or whose existence has been proven are small, the size of mice and smaller; there are animals thought to be larger that are only known due to the witnessing of decomposing copses, or aboriginal hunters dismembering an animal being photographed by an observer who later tried to identify it. As it stands currently, the vast majority of unknown creatures will be invertebrates.
Now, had the concept for an (as yet) undiscovered, larger creature been from the sea…that would have been much more understandable.

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?136082-Nazi-Gold-Train-reported-found-in-Poland-(Aviation-related-honest!)

Not got the details to hand but the first deaths were on the 3rd or 4th of September, a bit of foolhardiness by a gaggle of Blenheims that resulted in the loss of (I think) four aircraft and also the first British PoWs.

…As far as what the tool is used for, that is totally up to the owner at the time and the business of no one else…

Your reply paints a wonderful picture of a land where you are not safe, where violence awaits you at every turn, where the only condition for living in this land is to be a slave to the gun – you either have one or beholden to those who have.
I have been to America, lived there for a (short) while: what I saw and felt was nothing like that. Are you sure you are not being sold a pup by the arms manufacturers – you gotta have a gun, you have the right to have a gun, you need a gun, you must have a gun because it is unAmerican not to have one?

I must admit though, I have always wanted an old Navy, flintlock pistol. Why?, just for the simple fact of owning a bit of History, chances are I would never use it though.

SO would it matter to you if it was deactivated?

Charlie, Hungerford and Dunblane were deliberate acts by crazies, as was the Cumbria shootings in 2010, who all had licenses for their weapons; it kind of makes the old cliche about taking legal weapons away would mean only criminals have guns a bit lame – the only recent mass killings in Britain were carried out by legal gun owners committing criminal acts.
Unless some way is found to make sure that the mental state of a gun owner is constantly compatible with using dangerous weapons then who is going to change the law?

If one thinks they are owned for power, then the reason for not owning must be fear of them, as a firearm is an inanimate object that represents nothing but a tool.
The words some use to say firearms represent a penis, reflects strongly that that person may be suffering from a bit of animistic thinking as a firearm is nothing more than a chunk of metal or space age plastic and nothing more.

And what is the purpose of this tool?
Can it be used to remove bolts, hammer nails, cut wood, drill precise holes, grip material, bend metal, etc, etc, etc?
Or is it just something that can hang from your hip, make a loud noise and fire a projectile in a straight path towards a target with the potential to kill or maim?

And you say that where power is concerned, a reason for not owning one must be a fear of them. Please, wake up! If you walk down a street wearing a gun in a holster surely you are displaying that fact to all around, telling them that you are not to be messed with because you are armed – but in the 21st century no individual in a modern western first world country has a need to go to the supermarket, visit their dentist, walk the dog or even just admire the view whilst wearing a gun. Are you really that afraid of getting jumped by a squirrel, or that the paperboy might sneak up behind you?
When was the last time you needed to draw your weapon in town – or is it just the fact that you have a gun and wish to justify that by having the option, the power, to draw your weapon in the street?

Yes, a gun is just a lump of metal and cannot fire itself, so must be used by its owner in the same way as a screwdriver or a pair of pliers, but the screwdriver or pliers are useful whereas a gun…? A gun can’t help you change a tyre on your car or unblock a drain, and it certainly has no place in my toolbox, but it sure does feel good knowing that you have the ability to kill anybody who you perceive is a wrong ‘un (which is probably how the American police are regarded throughout the rest of the world), doesn’t it?

Do you see what I’m getting at?