We are ace !!

[Deadmanwalking]

On a related note, my local police had a "Gun Amnesty" last year where you could hand in any firearms you had, no questions asked.

All well and good you think.... not so.

First someone hands in an ak47 which later was found to have been fired in the last week. Fair enough shooting cans etc.

Then there is an automatic shogun handed in alongside several handguns and a few grenades. Then to top it all off there is a modern "personal anti armour device" - Rocket launcher to you and me.

 

[xane]

Its not the gun laws per se in this country.

Basically, whereas a rifle could possibly be used for hunting or target shooting, a handgun is for no other purpose than personal defence, specifically against people sized targets.

The law in this country is you are not allowed to "defend" yourself, some spurious bollocks about "reasonable force" applies but it does nothing if two yobbos wander into your kitchen at 2am and you do happen to take them out using reasonable force then it's their two words versus your one and in court that means you go down, the reason why most professional burglars hang around in pairs.

The law is more clear cut in America, if you are on my property, then I reserve the right to blow your head off, period.

As the law stands I think it is right to disallow handguns (note, that's not _all_ guns), the underlying issue I think is people should have the right to defend themselves or their personal property, and that's "personal" property so a farmer with 100 acres can't roam around popping off people who stray off the road either, let's keep it confined to inside a house.

Guns _are_ bad news, but I reckon burglars would think twice before robbing Mrs Old Lady if she's packing heat under her pillow and has a "Tony Martin fan club" sticker in her window.

 

[jo.]

Originally posted by xane
Guns _are_ bad news, but I reckon burglars would think twice before robbing Mrs Old Lady if she's packing heat under her pillow and has a "Tony Martin fan club" sticker in her window.

I reckon instead of them thinking twice, they'd just take their own legal handgun along with them.
By making it legal for people to own guns, the burglary rate won't drop to zero... people will still break into other peoples homes, and if theres a resonable chance the homeowner will have a gun they'd be stupid to go in unarmed. Then during the burglary, the homeowner wakes up, runs downstairs with his gun, panic ensues and someone ends up dead.

 

[Flamin_Squirrel]

Burglary wont ever drop to zero, but the idiotic assumtion that banning guns makes the slightest difference to gun crime irritates me no end, cos it doesnt.

Simply focus on the relationship between the banning of guns and gun crime and you'll see there has been no good resulting from the ban which was supposed to reduce it - making it pointless.

 

[L_Plates]

Originally posted by jo.
I reckon instead of them thinking twice, they'd just take their own legal handgun along with them.
By making it legal for people to own guns, the burglary rate won't drop to zero... people will still break into other peoples homes, and if theres a resonable chance the homeowner will have a gun they'd be stupid to go in unarmed. Then during the burglary, the homeowner wakes up, runs downstairs with his gun, panic ensues and someone ends up dead.

But if the law said you have to keep your firearm indoors then the burglar would be breaking the law by taking it out with them.

Guns in your home to protect YOUR property not the scummy ass damn burglars

I just hate the thought of anyone stealing what i have worked hard for it makes me feel sick :/

And if anyone broke in my house and threatend my wife !! All i can say is GUN or no GUN i would kill the T***

 

[Jonaldo]

Originally posted by L_Plates
But if the law said you have to keep your firearm indoors then the burglar would be breaking the law by taking it out with them./B]

The burglar would be breaking the law by breaking into your house anyway so I doubt taking a gun with him will bother him much, and as they know there will most likely be a gun at the house then there is more of a chance they will be taking their own weapon with them and willing to kill their victim.

The gun laws won't change in this country, and if they ever do it'll be long after we're all dead here so it's not really worth much discussion. If anyone wants to live in a gun filled uneasy atmosphere then go move to America.

I quite enjoy living in peace of mind here.

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Jonaldo
The burglar would be breaking the law by breaking into your house anyway so I doubt taking a gun with him will bother him much, and as they know there will most likely be a gun at the house then there is more of a chance they will be taking their own weapon with them and willing to kill their victim.

I fail to see this argument.

Right now, burglars can patrol the streets in the early hours and are within the law to do so, and if they do get caught entering private property then they are unlikely to be prosecuted for it, and if they do get injured whilst on private property it is the onus of the property owner.

By taking a gun before a burglary you have (a) started to break the law from the moment you leave the house, (b) broken the law by carrying a gun onto someone else's property, (c) reduced your claim in the event of an injury by the property owner from the fact you are carrying a weapon (with intent to use it).

Moving a basic crime from one where little or no risk exists from prosecution, to one where you could easily get arrested before the crime and even die as a result, I think would reduce the incidence of that crime.

 

[Jonaldo]

Feel free to join the small queue of people who want guns legalised then and I'll start to ignore your arguments too

 

[Daffeh]

Originally posted by Jonaldo
I quite enjoy living in peace of mind here.

TBH u are deluding yourself then, i dont think we are any safer at all since the change in the laws, except now the only people who have guns are the criminals who are also more likely to use them.

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Jonaldo
Feel free to join the small queue of people who want guns legalised then and I'll start to ignore your arguments too

Er, so I answer your argument and you accuse me of ignoring you ?

The whole question is less about guns and more about personal safety, actually I'd rather not have handguns (re-)legalised but have stuff like Tasers and Tear Gas Sprays available for use inside the home (against burglars that is, not for child discipline or amusement with the cat).

 

[Cdr]

Originally posted by xane
By taking a gun before a burglary you have (a) started to break the law from the moment you leave the house, (b) broken the law by carrying a gun onto someone else's property, (c) reduced your claim in the event of an injury by the property owner from the fact you are carrying a weapon (with intent to use it).

How is carrying something the same as the intent to use it?

Please, if you're going to start discussing Law, go away and read up on the difference between possession and intent, you'll find that there's a big difference.

The law regarding home defence is fine as it is, to allow people to have weapons in the house will not help anyone.

 

[throdgrain]

Id rather like a gun myself ...

 

[Cdr]

Originally posted by throdgrain
Id rather like a gun myself ...

hehe, I wouldnt trust you with a cap gun

(I've seen you shoot on DoD!)

 

[7th]

Anyone here who is anti-gun can suck my balls.

Gun control doesn't prevent deaths, this country has extreme laws yet we still get our Dunblane and Hungerford. In the past I've often viewed gun ownership as a bad thing and supported the laws restricting them, nowdays, faced with rising property crime and gun possesion amongst criminals, I think those laws need to be revised.

This man reads it like it is. The government have no inclination to tackle the REAL PROBLEM, that is, the people who used and use firearms irresponsibly. Instead they took the knee jerk route of simply banning firearms. People read "handguns banned!" in the newspaper and they're happy. Hey, it took a lot less man power to just ban handguns that to tackle the REAL PROBLEM eh?

No, instead they figured it's easier to just ban them than enforce the use of them. Decent responsible people who go did target shooting as a HOBBY had to suffer. how is that fair? similarly, airsoft is now under the spotlight, because townie pricks can pick up cheap £5 springers from markets and give every airsofter a bad name... so the government starts looking into banning all replicas, wether they can be modified to live ammo or not (for the record, no airsoft replica could withstand it and would just crumble)... so if they decide they want to put a nice hefty ban in place.. then a fair few thousand people up and down the length of the country will have their hobby taken away from them, all because of some irresponsible little twat called Kevin holding up a fucking petrol station with a godamn fucking cheap piece of shit pistol.

Our government are just a fucking bunch of ****s, all of them. Fuckwittage in the extreme.

To sum up my view. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

You know my solution? BREEDING LICENSES.

7th

p.s. may read like a rant. may not make sense. i dont give a fuck.

 

[Xtro 2.0]

Can't be arsed reading most of the thread but I've got a pink machine gun here and I'm trained to use it.

 

[Will]

There has been a 39 per cent fall in burglary since 1997, as measured by the BCS. The one per cent rise between the 2001/02 interviews and 2002/03 interviews is not statistically significant, but suggests a levelling off of the steep falls since 1995.

Overall, 3.4 per cent of households in England and Wales interviewed in 2002/03 had experienced at least one domestic burglary or attempted burglary in the previous 12 months. This is similar to levels in recent years, but substantially below the figure of 6.4 per cent in 1995.

The average household in England and Wales might expect to become a victim of a completed burglary once every 50 years. This, of course, is the risk across the whole of England and Wales, in some types of areas and for different groups of people, the risks are considerably higher.

Burglaries resulting in the loss of video recorders (14%) were much less common in 2002/03 than in 1997 (34%), and there have been similar falls over time for televisions, hi-fis, and jewellery. However, burglaries of computer equipment were twice as common in 2002/03 (14%) as they were in the mid-1990s, and similarly burglaries resulting in the loss of items such as bags, credit cards and cheque books, and mobile phones, became more common in 2002/03.

Why do you need guns when crime is falling?

 

[Flamin_Squirrel]

Gun crime has risen (as has violent crime in general). Would you rather be shot or burgled?

 

[Flamin_Squirrel]

Originally posted by Jonaldo
Feel free to join the small queue of people who want guns legalised then and I'll start to ignore your arguments too

And thats because you like most people are foolish. The reason you ban something is because doing so will reduce the problem it was causing - since the ban on guns has been introduced its got worse.

 

[Will]

Originally posted by Flamin_Squirrel
Gun crime has risen (as has violent crime in general). Would you rather be shot or burgled?

The BCS estimate for the number of violent incidents experienced by adults in England and Wales (2.8 million) is unchanged from 2001/02.

BCS violence has fallen by 19 per cent since 1999 and by 24 per cent since 1997, both statistically significant, due to reductions in domestic and acquaintance violence rather than stranger assaults.

The risk of becoming a victim of violent crime for those interviewed by the BCS in 2002/03 was 4.1 per cent. Young men aged 16 to 24 were most at risk, with 15.1 per cent experiencing a violent crime of some sort in the year.

In the police statistics, violent crime was one of the crime types most affected by the new crime recording standard. There were just under one million violent crimes recorded by the police in 2002/03, an increase of two per cent since 2001/02, after adjusting for changes in police recording practice.

Of the one million recorded violent crimes, 28 per cent were common assaults and 14 per cent harassment, both of which involve no physical injury to the victim. Furthermore, many of the 'other woundings' (35% of violent crime) will have resulted in minor injuries, such as bruising, grazes and black eyes.

The number of recorded robberies fell by 14 per cent in 2002/03.

Not got time to look up anything else, time to go home from work and stuff.

But remember kids, fear of crime is worse than crime.

[edit] Yeah, I know, those are poor statistics, but I'm running out the door.

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Cdr
How is carrying something the same as the intent to use it?

The original argument mentioned carrying a gun on a burglary in case the property owner used one against you, does that not qualify as "intending to use" ?

Otherwise I'd suppose robbing a bank with a shotgun is not "intending to use it" either ?

 

[Flamin_Squirrel]

Originally posted by xane
Otherwise I'd suppose robbing a bank with a shotgun is not "intending to use it" either ?

Thats right, it isnt. People use firearms when robbing a bank to increase the chances of getting the money they came for, they dont set out to kill someone.

 

[Gekul]

Why would you need a gun for self defence? If this was allowed then anyone you need to defend yourself against would almost certainly be carrying one. Back to square one then? Except now someone dies.

 

[Cdr]

Originally posted by Flamin_Squirrel
Thats right, it isnt. People use firearms when robbing a bank to increase the chances of getting the money they came for, they dont set out to kill someone.

Correct. Just because you carry something doesnt mean you have the intention to use it. You carry a gun in a bank robbery not to go in there and kill every member of staff, you use it as a threat to get the money quicker.

 

[Flamin_Squirrel]

Originally posted by Gekul
Why would you need a gun for self defence? If this was allowed then anyone you need to defend yourself against would almost certainly be carrying one. Back to square one then? Except now someone dies.

Not really sure what your on about. Im not avdocating American insanity where everyone has a gun all the time or whatever. Theres a big difference between licenced gun ownership and said American stupidity.

 

[Gumbo]

Guns don't kill people, bullets do!


At Dunblane two of the four handguns used were legally held, two were illegally held.

You'd think I'd have a point, but I'm tired.

I've used shotguns legally since I was, maybe 8? I've never shot anyone, I've never seen anyone shot in the 20 years since, all spent around shotguns.

It's not the guns, it's the crims. Legislating against the weapons themselves is pointless. Put someone carrying a weapon illegally away for 10 years. Then they won't be carrying a weapon illegally again for at least 10 years. Their mates who can't see him for the next 10 years might think twice about it too.

 

[Jonaldo]

After reading through this and thinking a bit more I've changed my stance on guns.

I think we should legalise them and the government could send out one 9mm pistol to each household in the country as this would obviously enforce peace and bring all crime down. And everybody could be happy by shooting at cans in their backyard.

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Flamin_Squirrel
Thats right, it isnt. People use firearms when robbing a bank to increase the chances of getting the money they came for, they dont set out to kill someone.

You don't have to kill someone to show intention, merely waving the thing around as a threat, even if unloaded, or even if its a replica, is "use". It is a crime to threaten to kill or injure as well.

 

[Cdr]

Originally posted by xane
You don't have to kill someone to show intention, merely waving the thing around as a threat, even if unloaded, or even if its a replica, is "use". It is a crime to threaten to kill or injure as well.

Waving it around does not show an intention to kill. Even pointing the gun at a person does not show an intention to kill. In some circumstances actually killing someone does not show an intention to kill.

 

[Flamin_Squirrel]

Originally posted by Jonaldo
After reading through this and thinking a bit more I've changed my stance on guns.

I think we should legalise them and the government could send out one 9mm pistol to each household in the country as this would obviously enforce peace and bring all crime down. And everybody could be happy by shooting at cans in their backyard.

In Switzerland where there is national service, at the end of it they send you home with more than just a pistol. Indeed, a fully automatic assault rifle (no idea why) and they suffer from one of the lowest rates of gun crime.

 

[Jonaldo]

Well don't hesitate to move there then
Enjoy your national service.