Your views on gun laws in the UK

[Pate]

Personally from a theoretical viewpoint, I firmly believe everyone should have the right to a firearm.

However the reality of the situation is that we have some very bad cultural vibes, and it just wouldn't be practical in this day and age to allow it.

London would kill itself in ethnic strife in a few days!


I do believe it shouldn't be QUITE as tight as it is though, there should be ways and ways of doing things, without blanket bans.


Oh yeah, and inb4 Kwerks arsenal.

 

[Energize]

Are you talking about the case in which someone was tried for killing someone outside his house by shooting him through the window... and was acquitted on the grounds of reasonable force?

Yes, the one where the attacker climbed up scaffolding to an upstairs window trying to break into his house shouting he was going to kill him, after making threatening phone calls. A clear case of self defence.

You try to make it sound like the attacker was sniped as he was walking down the street...

If so...where was that uzi?

I'm not aware he was carrying it with him. It simply demonstrates the character of the man, and that he was obviously trying to kill Mr Batchelor.

 

[D.P.]

I have some bad news for you. Plenty of people already own guns. How has this impacted your life?

17 innocent people, mostly children, were shot dead in my home town.

 

[RDM]

17 innocent people, mostly children, were shot dead in my home town.

Which was absolutely tragic, but should we really be making wide ranging laws on what is effectively a tragic but highly unusual event? Arguably the changes that came in after Dunblane will do nothing to stop another such tragedy occuring, all that will change is the nature of the firearms used.

 

[krooton]

We are not the wild west, and right to bear arms was drawn up in a time where having weapons was pretty much a necessity. The world has progressed a bit since then.

I can just imagine the number if binge-drink issues would be caused if guns were in the mix.

 

[ubersonic]

I think everyone should have the right to own a gun, atm the only people with them are the criminals.

"Good people do not need laws and bad people will break them anyway." - Plato

 

[olivier renault]

I think everyone should have the right to own a gun, atm the only people with them are the criminals.

"Good people do not need laws and bad people will break them anyway." - Plato

+1

Guns for everyone. Plato is awesome!

 

[Tefal]

You must have missed the case where a guy was tried for murder for shooting someone breaking into his house trying to kill him, a person who had been known to posess an uzi in fact.

if i recall the case you're talking about the man lay in wait for the guy knowing he was coming (after making no attempt to inform the police) then shot him with an illegal firearm.



It sort of crosses a line from defence to premeditated murder there.

 

[kwerk]

My dad told me he had a Star 1911 pistol and a shotgun when he was about 12 (in late 50s UK). Nobody had a problem with it, the government used to pay a bounty on gray squirrels and that's how he made pocket money. I don't know of any school shootings happening back then. The problem is something else I think.

 

[Energize]

if i recall the case you're talking about the man lay in wait for the guy knowing he was coming (after making no attempt to inform the police) then shot him with an illegal firearm.



It sort of crosses a line from defence to premeditated murder there.

The shotgun was legally owned and there is no moral or legal duty to inform the police. As the jury correctly decided, this was no murder.

 

[kwerk]

We are not the wild west, and right to bear arms was drawn up in a time where having weapons was pretty much a necessity. The world has progressed a bit since then.

I can just imagine the number if binge-drink issues would be caused if guns were in the mix.

See this is why I probabl;y wouldn't trust modern Brits with guns. Everything they know about guns is learned from movies and video games.

Reality: the old west was actually really safe. Much safer than any modern city.

http://www.unpopulartruth.com/2009/04/myths-of-old-west.html

In the real Dodge City of history, there were five killings in 1878, the most homicidal year in the little town's frontier history. In the most violent year in Deadwood, South Dakota, only four people were killed. In the worst year in Tombstone, home of the shoot-out at the OK Corral, only five people were killed. The only reason the OK Corral shoot-out even became famous was that town boosters deliberately overplayed the drama to attract new settlers. They cashed in on the tourist boom by inventing a myth.

 

[Mark A]

See this is why I probabl;y wouldn't trust modern Brits with guns. Everything they know about guns is learned from movies and video games.

Reality: the old west was actually really safe. Much safer than any modern city.

http://www.unpopulartruth.com/2009/04/myths-of-old-west.html

 

[Glaucus]

See this is why I probabl;y wouldn't trust modern Brits with guns. Everything they know about guns is learned from movies and video games.

Reality: the old west was actually really safe. Much safer than any modern city.

http://www.unpopulartruth.com/2009/04/myths-of-old-west.html

And the population?

 

[Leeroy123]

I don't think we should be allowed to carry guns at all, but one thing the strange lot of the states do get correct is, they are allowed to protect there own property, with or without force. They are allowed in many places to shoot if anyone breaks into there property don't they?. The uk should at least allow us to protect our homes.

 

[PermaBanned]

I don't think we should be allowed to carry guns at all, but one thing the strange lot of the states do get correct is, they are allowed to protect there own property, with or without force. They are allowed in many places to shoot if anyone breaks into there property don't they?. The uk should at least allow us to protect our homes.

Why should you be allowed to kill someone for breaking into your house? That's basically capital punishment, just without any sort of trial.

 

[D.P.]

I don't think we should be allowed to carry guns at all, but one thing the strange lot of the states do get correct is, they are allowed to protect there own property, with or without force. They are allowed in many places to shoot if anyone breaks into there property don't they?. The uk should at least allow us to protect our homes.

No, for the most part the laws on self defense in the US are not dissimilar to the UK. In the US like the UK you cannot simply murder someone just because they were on your property. In the US you are allowed to use reasonable force, just like the UK. In the UK you can still kill an intruder if they are a risk to you or your family's lives and killing them was act of reasonable force. You certainly cannot shoot someone in the back in the US, Tony Martin would have still been convicted of murder in a US court.

 

[Tefal]

The shotgun was legally owned and there is no moral or legal duty to inform the police. As the jury correctly decided, this was no murder.

right so your case to demonstration that Britain has poor defence laws is that a man was found innocent of shooting someone breaking into his house?

surely that proves the opposite of your point.

all it proves is that it was decided a judge and jury would be better judges than the cps.

 

[robj20]

Why should you be allowed to kill someone for breaking into your house? That's basically capital punishment, just without any sort of trial.

Because they shouldnt and have no right to be there, law or not i would aim to kill somone breaking into my house.

 

[D.P.]

Because they shouldnt and have no right to be there, law or not i would aim to kill somone breaking into my house.

And that is exactly why guns should be illegal because of idiots like you.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Basically you are saying that 34 lives in 20+ years are enough to strip rights from 62 million people (whether they choose to use them or not is irrelevant)

care to apply that logic to anything else, or is it just guns? after all, cars, kitchen knives, swimming pools, horse racing and just about every human activity in the modern world had higher death rates than that....

Just being picky but isn't 62m about the total population of the UK? I'm not convinced that giving rights to children and other people not judged to have capacity is a great plan.

Although I'd suggest you'll be waiting a while for anyone to provide figures regarding reduction in violent crime from banning handguns - you ask for broadly the same reason that I ask about evidence for capital punishment being effective as a deterrent. However I'm still not 100% sure that Britain's attitude to guns is the same as America's nor that you could easily draw a comparison to the effect that it would help to reduce violent crime having CCW permits - it may do but then again on a cost/benefit analysis I think we're looking at a fairly nebulous benefit.

For what it's worth I'd be open to the idea of greater access at firearms clubs for enthusiasts provided suitable security and vetting of participants was available.

Because they shouldnt and have no right to be there, law or not i would aim to kill somone breaking into my house.

That's not a great example of a responsible attitude to guns or indeed human life in general.