Gun Control

[ducati]

OK I've been challenged to start this thread.

So we will make it a poll.

Is society safer or less safe with guns in the hands of the public?

Feel free to add any comments

[Boozeburglar]

Less.....................................

[captain chaos]

Its not the guns that are dangerous, It's the idiots pulling the trigger

Since tighter gun (Hand Gun) laws were introduced in the UK there has been a huge increase in unlicenced hand guns. Its so easy to activate a replica that its now a cottage industry.

[joxville]

Its not the guns that are dangerous, It's the idiots pulling the trigger

Since tighter gun (Hand Gun) laws were introduced in the UK there has been a huge increase in unlicenced hand guns. Its so easy to activate a replica that its now a cottage industry.

Do they come with a thatched trigger? :)

[Phill]

I'm not sure where you are with "in the hands of the public" I assume you mean licensed.

Seeing as it is not overly difficult for a determined individual to get hold of a gun for a couple of hundred quid it's a little bit lost.

I still think the change after Dunblane was kneejerk and a wholesale ban on handguns hasn't removed them from society.

I don't know what the figures are but how many gun crimes are committed by licensed people?
I suspect more are committed by those with hooky weapons.

[George Brims]

The poll is a bit of a red herring. Thirty or forty years ago most guns in the hands of the public were either licensed, didn't have to be licensed (shotguns weren't licensed until 1968), or were wartime souvenirs gathering dust and rarely if ever fired. Now we have the situation following the Hungerford and Dunblane massacres, where no-one has a gun at all legally without exceptional reason, but a lot more illegal guns appear to be available. Newspapers trumpet a "gun crime epidemic" though the statistics are not cut and dried on that score.

It might seem that having Joe Public able to have a legal gun again might stem that trend, but in reality it is going to do precisely nothing to stop gun crime by the illegal gun owner. Despite the fact that guns outnumber people in the US, and the blustering nonsense spouted by Rambo wannabes on the internet, the number of crimes stopped by armed ordinary citizens is minuscule. Meanwhile THREE CHILDREN A DAY die in gun accidents in the USA, and having a gun in the home is recognised as the most potent risk factor for suicide by the National Institutes for Mental Health. Over half of all US suicides involve a gun.

So would the people of the UK be safer if they were once again able to own guns? Perhaps not.

In case anyone takes me for an anti-gun crusader, you should know I grew up with a .22 rifle in the umbrella stand in the house and a really decrepit shotgun in the garden shed (but Dad had the ammunition well hidden). I competed at smallbore rifle through most of my High School years, and the only reason I don't own a gun right now is the one I really want is very expensive. But I have no illusions that a gun is a benign toy.

[northener]

I'd have to answer 'not safe' in your poll, Ducati. In the same way that I'd have to answer 'not safe' if you changed the 'gun' word for knives/baseball bats/iron bars/pint glasses......

I do feel it is an over simplified poll. There never was a bad history of legitimately owned firearms being involved in crime in the UK. As GB as pointed out, there are virtually no legally owned hanguns in the public domain...yet there has never been as many illegally obtained/held handguns used in crime. These guns are not being sourced from legitimate owners......so it makes a mockery of the knee-jerk 'ban them' brigade.

Firearms Licence (and Shotgun Certificate) holders are subject to increasingly more rigorous checks - and rightly so. Those that flaunt regulations regarding keeping weapons secure should be hauled over the coals in no uncertain fashion. But to blame legitimate gun ownership for societies ills would be quite laughable.

[ducati]

Oh well thats probably long enough, the less safes have it by more or less 90% to 10%.

Now if we were a democracy the polis would be round to your places tonight to collect 'em. [lol]

Now I have to admit the poll was a bit leading :cool:

Like the nuclear debate: "do you want to grow 2 heads and have your skin fall off in big scaly lumps-or not".

But it does show a lot of anti' feeling-make of that what you will.

[northener]

Oh well thats probably long enough, the less safes have it by more or less 90% to 10%.

Now if we were a democracy the polis would be round to your places tonight to collect 'em. [lol]

Now I have to admit the poll was a bit leading :cool:

Like the nuclear debate: "do you want to grow 2 heads and have your skin fall off in big scaly lumps-or not".

But it does show a lot of anti' feeling-make of that what you will.


Au contraire, owd neep.

It is the obvious outcome of a poll worthy of the tabloids in it's over-simplification to arrive at the pollsters chosen conclusion.:Razz

[Boozeburglar]

I don't think the question asked was one designed to achieve a particular outcome, so for me the result stands.

[ducati]

Au contraire, owd neep.

It is the obvious outcome of a poll worthy of the tabloids in it's over-simplification to arrive at the pollsters chosen conclusion.:Razz

I know, thats what I said (without the froglish?):lol: