I have only used self defence once as an adult, fast food van after the pub, guy showing off to his gf grabbed me by the throat, I ended up with a drunk and disorderly conviction after a neat judo throw, bound over but still a taint on my record .
Should UK self-defence laws be reformed?
- Thread starter Stu999
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Then what's the point? The guys breaking into your house at 3am aren't going to politely wait while you go rummage through 3 different locked cabinets reassembling and loading your gun
Even though you're exponentially more likely to be mugged, and by making the mugger fear that you're also armed they're more likely to just stab you than give you the chance to pull your knife out?
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You have only quoted half of my post, then responded with a similar point to the question I asked in the bit you deleted.
Well, it wouldn’t be an issue for me. I don’t have kids so I wouldn’t have to worry about them pepper spraying themselves or something like that.Then what's the point? The guys breaking into your house at 3am aren't going to politely wait while you go rummage through 3 different locked cabinets reassembling and loading your gun
Even though you're exponentially more likely to be mugged, and by making the mugger fear that you're also armed they're more likely to just stab you than give you the chance to pull your knife out?
A mugger could just stab you instead now, so what have you lost through having an option?
If you think no changes are necessary that’s fine.
Yes, I’m confirming that it’s not just the mugger scenario I’m thinking of.
They could, but I'm not sure I agree with giving them more of a reason to do so.
I'm not sure why you keep suggesting that's what I want, when I've made it explicitly clear it isn't
Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Jan 2010
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No. There is no need for a change.
My opinion is it would increase violence as it would make little men think they were big and would increase the chance of an argument going to violence.
Yes.
The population should be unarmed.
Not only will arming the population utterly fail to stop robberies and muggings, it will also give easy access to lethal weapons to people to use in school shootings, crimes of passion, and all sorts of other situations.
I mean, they will happen anyway, but adding firearms into the mix doesn't make things better for one second. It just makes killing easier. For everyone.
Arming the population does not stop crime. I mean, don't we have ample evidence for this across the pond?
Well I believe that if someone breaks into my home then I should be allowed to use objects in my environment to defend myself.
For example unarmed burglar comes at me then I should be able to pick up chairs or whatever to fend them off.
Expecting me to bare knuckle box an unarmed 20 Stone 6"6 Anthony Joshua looking guy is completely comical. I would be KO`d in seconds.
For example unarmed burglar comes at me then I should be able to pick up chairs or whatever to fend them off.
Expecting me to bare knuckle box an unarmed 20 Stone 6"6 Anthony Joshua looking guy is completely comical. I would be KO`d in seconds.
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It's fine, just stick a kitchen knife in their cold hand when you've finished. Self defense mate.
No… it will just become a legal arms race between “offenders” and “defenders”…
at any moment (one bad day) a “defender” could become an “offender”.
There’s already too many idiots arming themselves for one reason or another, we don’t need to make it easier by making it more legal..
at any moment (one bad day) a “defender” could become an “offender”.
There’s already too many idiots arming themselves for one reason or another, we don’t need to make it easier by making it more legal..
The law as it stands is most reasonable in most cases. The homeowner who "killed" a theif from the local gypsy family was not prosecuted. Most self protection outside the home is deemed OK if no weapons are involved.
Start having citizens carrying guns and soon they are disposed by theft and burglary and all the crimson have guns.
Start having citizens carrying guns and soon they are disposed by theft and burglary and all the crimson have guns.
Then it's lucky the law agrees with you
And if you happen to be in the kitchen making dinner when they do so, then bad news for them
We need fewer weapons on the streets, not more. The current legislation is sufficient - the issues we face need dealing with in a more appropriate manner than just tooling up every man and his dog, which is highly unlikely to have a positive overall effect.
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Then it's lucky the law agrees with you
And if you happen to be in the kitchen making dinner when they do so, then bad news for them
The law even recognises that unreasonable force is acceptable in circumstances similar to those described by dave28.
I'd also point out to the OP that it is already perfectly legal to carry a knife for no reason. Folding knife with a less than 3"/7.6cm non-locking blade.
Still perfectly capable of doing a lot of potentially fatal damage. Still completely useless when someone jumps you with their knife/bat/crowbar already out and ready to use.
Unless you're suggesting carrying your weapon of choice ready in your hand at all times, then chances are you won't get a opportunity to use it anyway.
Still perfectly capable of doing a lot of potentially fatal damage. Still completely useless when someone jumps you with their knife/bat/crowbar already out and ready to use.
Unless you're suggesting carrying your weapon of choice ready in your hand at all times, then chances are you won't get a opportunity to use it anyway.
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Most criminals certainly don't have guns, as they are very hard to actually get hold and any marginally intelligent criminal (the sort that are more likely to have a clue about where to get a gun/be "trusted" by a seller/dealer*) also happen to know that if you use a gun in a crime, no matter how small the original crime was you're going to be looking at a concerted effort by not just the normal police to find you, but the armed police who won't take chances. They are also aware that merely carrying a gun is a big risk as it's an automatic prison term by default from memory.
As for knives again it's fairly similar, most half sensible criminals won't risk carrying one because it's one thing to do a mugging, it's another to do it with a weapon as in the former instance the Police might just give a crime number, but the latter is likely to have the police actively looking for you as once a weapon is involved there is a high chance of it being used and that changes the priority for the police a lot.
The idea that the average person is somehow going to be able to protect themselves by being able to simply carry a knife or a gun or whatever is fairly laughable**, given that the criminals will always get the choice of where and when they are going to try and commit their crime, and if they know people are possibly carrying weapons they're not likely to simply stop crimeing, they're likely to be slightly more selective about who and where they attack, so the mother loading a kid into the back of a car is going to be a really easy target because they've got their hands full, the old lady carrying her shopping, again easy, the guy who thinks he's the love child of John Rambo and Harold Callahan is going to be a nice target as he's putting stuff in the boot of his car.
Heck as it is most of the knife crime that makes the news in a big way is the sort of idiot that has always tended to carry a knife, and they're often going after the sort of people that wouldn't be able to protect themselves with knife, gun, pepper spray anyway and usually in situations where the victim wouldn't have had much or any chance to do anything, as for example if you stab someone at random as they're walking past you that person doesn't have much time to prepare and get their self defence gear up and ready, let alone out of a pocket/bag/holster.
We see a lot more "reports" of gun and knife crime these days than we used to thanks to 24/7 TV news, and the internet, but IIRC the actually numbers are down per capita on what they were in the 90's, let alone the 50's.
*The criminals who tend to actually hold/sell/rent the guns know that the police won't just go after the idiot that shoots some bystander, they'll go flat out for anyone who was involved at all, and that means they have to be a bit cautious as every time they deal with one of the users they're exposing themselves to a massive risk.
**I always find it sort of grimly amusing when some idiot US gun owner ends up getting shot by their own toddler because the "self defence" weapons that "must be loaded ready to use at a moment's notice" is for example left on the back seat or the car, or under the drivers seat and the kid can easily find it but they would spend ages fumbling for it in an emergency.
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This actually popped up in my feed yesterday, good watch for anyone who thinks carrying a weapon would allow them to protect themselves from someone who has decided they want to kill them:
m.youtube.com
(Hint: you're dead before you even realise they have a knife)
Scary Reality of Knife Attacks
Knife attacks happen fast and sometimes with little time to react. Too often do I see "knife defense" techniques for disarming if someone attacks you in a s...
m.youtube.com
(Hint: you're dead before you even realise they have a knife)
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Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Jan 2010
- Posts
- 3,826
This actually popped up in my feed yesterday, good watch for anyone who thinks carrying a weapon would allow them to protect themselves from someone who has decided they want to kill them:
Scary Reality of Knife Attacks
Knife attacks happen fast and sometimes with little time to react. Too often do I see "knife defense" techniques for disarming if someone attacks you in a s...
(Hint: you're dead before you even realise they have a knife)
Hahaha I was training with a 5th Dan, he asked me to attack, so he could demo a knife defense. I gave him 2 or 3 pokes before he could react.
Fair play, he smacked me a good one when he had the knife, as I tunnel visiined on only his knife hand and never saw it coming.
Knives are way worse than swords..
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