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?

…a none ethnic person…

Do you mean non?

It is a bit amusing to read your ignorant, naive and paranoid comments of firearms in the U.S. of A.

Bit amusing to read your comments full stop, but lets leave it there.

There are age limits, some stricter now than thirty years ago.
Into the seventies it was not uncommon in my High School, Senior classes of over 200, for persons to take their shotgun to school and leave it in their lockers so they could go duck hunting after school.

Then again, back in the 70s, kids didn’t take their guns to school with the intention of slaughtering their teachers and classmates. Postal workers, maybe. McDonald’s workers, occasionally. There weren’t ‘popular’ songs about blowing people away – at least, not outside extremist groups.
In Britain, in 1996, there was a massacre of innocents at a school in Dunblane. 16 five year olds were gunned down along with their teacher; 15 others, children and teachers, were injured. The gunman shot himself. The result of this was the banning of almost all handguns after a mass media campaign backed by a popular demand for gun control.
But you are aware of this.
Must be nice to be able to ignore the fact that there will be other multiple death shootings, maybe within the next week or month, probably by the end of the year.
Is it not scary to wonder about the mental state of your neighbourhood weirdo, safe in the knowledge that he (it is generally a he) can obtain a weapon more or less at will? At least my local nutter can’t do much more than rant in the street or buy a hammer…

Nowadays a bracelet trinket that resembles a gun will get on expelled from school,
but then those school leaders probably spent time among person such as yourselves as children.

Maybe those school leaders dread the idea of a shooting happening at their schools?

Did any Royal navy Capital Ships survive the Second World War, I can’t think of one 🙂

Much easier to list those that sunk.

Seriously? On this forum?

More likely he meant the world in general.

Guess there is always someone who wants to muddy the water.

Not muddying the water, raising a point. Thank you for your informative post; my information was that sites became war graves when it was known that members of the crew had died on board and the bodies were unable to be recovered or that their recovery was inviable due to, for example, being aboard a sunken vessel.

It is an utter disgrace that not a single Royal Navy battleship (as opposed to warship) was preserved from that era; no battleship, no destroyer, no frigate, no corvette, no submarine that saw service in the Second World War has been preserved (in wartime configuration).

Not strictly true… HMS Belfast has been mentioned already and HMCS Sackville, the last surviving Flower class corvette, is a museum vessel in Canada. HMS Alliance is preserved, having been launched in July 1945, the destroyer HMS Cavalier (commissioned 11/1944) is preserved, HMS Wellington, a 1934 sloop, is preserved as the headquarters ship of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners on the Victoria Embankment on the Thames. LCT7074, a landing craft tank, is under restoration in Portsmouth with a target date of 2019, the 75th anniversary of D-Day. The 1943 patrol boat HMS Medusa (ML1387) is preserved. The mini subs X24 (1944) and XE8 (1945) are both preserved. The Tribal class destroyer HMCS Haida (1942) is preserved in Canada. The River class frigate HMAS Diamantina (1944) is preserved in Australia, as are the Bathurst class corvettes HMAS Castlemaine and HMAS Whyalla (both 1942).

It is not easy to keep a huge hunk of metal like a warship preserved in Britain – we just don’t have the weather for the mass survival of such beasts, nor the enthusiasm or (for that matter) the money.

Apart from the Duke of York’s engagement with Scharnhorst the others don’t seem to crop up very much, it always seems to be the ones that were sunk that you hear of the most, the size of that list surprises me. 🙂

But they were there, chasing around the Atlantic and Mediterranean, bombarding beach heads, you get the picture.

Some years ago (1986) I met a Hood sailor who was (lucky) posted dreckly before the ship sailed for Bismark..

Like a great uncle of mine and Jon Pertwee – both taken off at the last moment. A couple of other relatives were not so lucky.

I also don’t think they’d be dropping torpedoes in the Solent what with all that shipping in the area.

???

Stokes Bay torpedo dropping zone
The purpose of the Stokes Bay range was to observe the performance of torpedoes when they were dropped from aircraft. The torpedoes were not carrying any explosives and the anticipated use of the range was four drops per day.
Between 1930 and 1932 the Torpedo Development Flight flew out of RAF Station Gosport, situated at Grange Airfield between Forts Grange and Rowner at Gosport. The Torpedo Training Unit (Feb 1937 – 19 Mar 1940) also flew from RAF Station Gosport. The Torpedo Development Unit (1939 – 11 Nov 1943) then used the station and finally an armed services section known as the Air Torpedo Development Unit (Flight Section) ATDUFS maintained and flew various aircraft out of Grange airfield and launched torpedoes at the Dropping Zone sited off the beach at Stokes Bay from Nov 1943 – 18 May 1956. The aircraft used included the Vicker Vildebeest and the Bristol Brigand whilst numerous others underwent torpedo trials at Stokes Bay, such as the Blackburn Firebrand TF.III in 1945…
…In 1947 the ministry of Supply informed Gosport Borough Council that it wished to continue using Stokes Bay sea area as an aircraft range for research on torpedoes and torpedo installations in aircraft, as an air to sea range, and aircraft torpedo development unit; The Council agreed but wanted assurances that no torpedoes were to be dropped on Stokes Bay Beach!
In 1951 it was reported that the torpedo range at Stokes Bay was no longer satisfactory. The torpedo trials unit was moved to RNAS Culdrose in 1956 when RN Air Station HMS SISKIN was closed down and the airfield became HMS Sultan.

http://www.fortgilkicker.co.uk/torpedo.htm

That said, I do agree that the image doesn’t look very Solent-y.

Love the first comment on the article 😉

“There was a rumour that Steven Fry was going to write it.

Can you imagine..? Totally PC and ‘inclusive’ with 80% of the film focussing on a gay love affair between a pilot and a tail-gunner. (Oh and they did a bombing raid too – or something…)”

Stephen Fry wrote a script for Peter Jackson’s remake of The Dam Busters in 2007.
He has quite an interest in gadgets and history, as well as being an author. I doubt very much that there will be such a love affair as you describe and, it seems, wish for – although you might interest the Daily Mail in such tripe…

Thought the wreck of HMS Hood was a war grave?

The wreck of HMS Hood is designated under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. As well as providing a memorial, the recovery has prevented it from being taken by any illegal operation for personal gain.

http://www.paulallen.com/News/News-Articles/Hood-Bell-Recovery

I seem to recall a survivor of the Titanic was taken down to view the wreck that she was too young to remember sailing on and told that in order not to desecrate the site they could not bring up a tea cup that was laying on the sea bed; the remains of HMS Ark Royal is designated a war grave although only one man lost his life. If there is the chance of human remains being found then – usually – permission to dig up aircraft wreckage is withheld.
Yet if you are a multi-millionaire with connections then a little thing like respect for the grave site appears to get forgotten about rather quickly.

if you can amend the constitution to bestow a right, surely it can also be amended to take that right away for the greater good?

Usually they reply that you can only remove the gun from their cold, dead hand. That can be taken as after they have been gunned down by the police, maybe at the scene of a mass shooting.