Could a homeowner's gun have saved this woman's life?

[JohnRich 4]

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Prior to the present gun control laws, we had to keep guns locked, and stored separately from ammo. Not very practical for personal security purposes, but perfectly adequate for sporting, and 'special interest' (such as maintaining antique firearms) applications.

Yes, first you took away the ability to use those firearms for personal self-defense in their own homes. And then that wasn't even good enough for the gun-grabbers, so they took the guns themselves. Now they can't even use a handgun for self-defense, even if they have the time to unlock it and load it.

And then those same people wonder why the criminals are emboldened and crime goes up...

[JohnRich 4]

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I think the perception that is being perpetuated here, that the UK has an exceptionally high crime rate is false.

If you want to talk about perceptions of crime in England, hang onto your seat, and read my next message which follows this one.

It is true that the UK had a low crime rate before, and still does, relatively speaking. But the trend for violence is upward, even for gun crime, despite the gun ban. Thus, it can be safely said, that the gun ban did nothing to deter gun crime.

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If we are talking about all crime then it is clear that in the UK all crime is falling. Violent crime is on the increase...

Thanks for that acknowledgement about violent crime.

It should also be noted that the UK has a higher violent crime rate than the U.S. Yeah, the U.S. has a higher murder rate. But the U.S. murder rate has dropped 10 years in a row, with no gun ban, while England's has gone up, even with a gun ban. So the trends mean something here.

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In the UK we need to tackle the real issue which has nothing to do with gun legislation, it is that we have to solve the rapidly growing problem associated with binge drinking.

Oh, but it was so much easier to attack a minority of the population that were law-abiding gun owners, and blame them for all of the nation's crime woes! Now that they're gone, I wonder who they'll blame next...

[JohnRich 4]

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The gun ban did nothing to stop gun crime, nor to reduce the number of murders. It is a failure, which deprived law-abiding people of their property and their sport, for nothing.

Actually, that's over dramatising the situation. Gun crime has never been as bad over here as it is in America, secondly without the gun control we now have, there would be far more criminals touting guns than there are currently. The gun laws have helped prevent a situation, not cure it.

The standard by which you judge your crime rates should not be America. You shouldn't take the attitude that; "Yeah, violence is bad and rising in England, but hey! As long as it isn't as bad as America, then we're okay!" You should measure it by your own past crime rates. And the fact is, violence is rising in England, by your own admission. And it is higher even than in America.

Source: Crime and Justice in the United States and in England and Wales, 1981-96: NCJ Report (pdf file)

Robbery, assault, and burglary rates are lower in the United States than they are in England and Wales, national crime victim surveys conducted in these countries reveal.

In 1995, the latest year for which comparable data are available, the English and Welsh crime survey rates exceeded those in the United States by 1.4 times for robbery, 2.3 times for assault and 1.7 times for burglary.

Comparing the crime victim survey rates from 1981 through 1995, robbery rose 81 percent in England and Wales but fell 28 percent in the United States, assault increased 53 percent in England and Wales but declined 27 percent in the United States, burglary doubled in England and Wales but fell by half in the United States.

Since that report was published in 1996, the disparity has grown even larger. England is not the idyllic crime-free haven that many people think it is.

Your theory that without the gun confiscation, that gun crime would be even worse, is pure speculation. Using such speculation, you could justify doing anything to anybody. And that would be a terrible way to run a free country.

The fact is, guns were confiscated, and gun crime continues to rise. What that demonstrates is that the people who previously owned the guns which were confiscated, were not the problem. And also that criminals don't give a darn about gun laws - they always manage to get the guns they want anyway on the black market.

[MBOF 0]

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I think the perception that is being perpetuated here, that the UK has an exceptionally high crime rate is false.

But the trend for violence is upward, even for gun crime, despite the gun ban. Thus, it can be safely said, that the gun ban did nothing to deter gun crime.

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Indeed this is true but gun crime constitutes 0.5% of all crime committed in the UK, and gun crimes that are associated with homicides and robberies are down by 15 and 13%, respectively (see Home Office website in my previous posting). I have no recent data for the US but am sure that gun crime constitutes a higher percentage of crime committed in the US. I guess I could try and dig the stats out if I get time.

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If we are talking about all crime then it is clear that in the UK all crime is falling. Violent crime is on the increase...

Thanks for that acknowledgement about violent crime.

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Just to reiterate due to the disproportionate amount of alcohol related violent crime. This will include incidents ranging from a shove outside a night club (pretty frequent) to a knife attack in a bar (comparatively infrequent). These are all lumped into the same statistic. We are not a nation of knife weilding maniacs, at least not last time I looked

It should also be noted that the UK has a higher violent crime rate than the U.S. Yeah, the U.S. has a higher murder rate. But the U.S. murder rate has dropped 10 years in a row, with no gun ban, while England's has gone up, even with a gun ban. So the trends mean something here

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I'd be very grateful if you could point me in the right direction where I may find a direct comparision of these statistics, ideally to include the definitions of the statistical groups.

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In the UK we need to tackle the real issue which has nothing to do with gun legislation, it is that we have to solve the rapidly growing problem associated with binge drinking.

Oh, but it was so much easier to attack a minority of the population that were law-abiding gun owners, and blame them for all of the nation's crime woes! Now that they're gone, I wonder who they'll blame next...

***

The UK has always had very strict gun controls compared to the US and these were further tightened largely in response to Hungerford and Dunblaine shootings. To be honest these incidents were not so much an indication of slack gun legislation, as more highlighting the fact that existing legislation was not being enforced correctly at the time. Thus, gun owners in the UK do/did have cause to complain, but since there were so few (compared to the non-gun owning populace) the decision to make the law stricter by banning handguns outright was easily passed.
As I mentioned in my first posting gun crime contributes (and always did play) a miniscule amount in all crime committed in the UK, gun owners (whether legal or not) were never blamed for any significant increase in violent crime. By far the biggest contributing factor is alcohol, however I would definitely not advocate banning this product especially since the USA has already shown this course of action to be an excerise in futility.

[Ripple 0]

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The standard by which you judge your crime rates should not be America. You shouldn't take the attitude that; "Yeah, violence is bad and rising in England, but hey! As long as it isn't as bad as America, then we're okay!" You should measure it by your own past crime rates. And the fact is, violence is rising in England, by your own admission. And it is higher even than in America.

Um, you're right, I shouldn't compare it to America. I guess I am though, because America has laxer gun laws than the UK and, in my opinion, America's gun crime figures reflect that.

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Source: Crime and Justice in the United States and in England and Wales, 1981-96: NCJ Report (pdf file)

Robbery, assault, and burglary rates are lower in the United States than they are in England and Wales, national crime victim surveys conducted in these countries reveal.

In 1995, the latest year for which comparable data are available, the English and Welsh crime survey rates exceeded those in the United States by 1.4 times for robbery, 2.3 times for assault and 1.7 times for burglary.

Comparing the crime victim survey rates from 1981 through 1995, robbery rose 81 percent in England and Wales but fell 28 percent in the United States, assault increased 53 percent in England and Wales but declined 27 percent in the United States, burglary doubled in England and Wales but fell by half in the United States.

Since that report was published in 1996, the disparity has grown even larger. England is not the idyllic crime-free haven that many people think it is.

I don't believe it, sorry. I think one can find any 'report' to support ones own arguement, whatever it is. That's another reason why I feel there is little point in linking to any material. I do believe that where police, in certain areas, have been given more authority, where police numbers have been increased, gun crime has gone down.

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Your theory that without the gun confiscation, that gun crime would be even worse, is pure speculation. Using such speculation, you could justify doing anything to anybody. And that would be a terrible way to run a free country.

Ah, but we are not a free country. We may be a democracy, but that does not necessarily equate to free.

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The fact is, guns were confiscated, and gun crime continues to rise. What that demonstrates is that the people who previously owned the guns which were confiscated, were not the problem. And also that criminals don't give a darn about gun laws - they always manage to get the guns they want anyway on the black market.

No, it has only increased in areas where policing has not been altered to reflect the insurgence of the criminal element.

There are many, many factors for the reasons for any increase or decrease in crime. The gun laws, in my opinion, have helped to stop gun crime increasing to the extent it would have done without them.

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[JohnRich 4]

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But the trend for violence is upward, even for gun crime, despite the gun ban. Thus, it can be safely said, that the gun ban did nothing to deter gun crime.***

Indeed this is true but gun crime constitutes 0.5% of all crime committed in the UK... am sure that gun crime constitutes a higher percentage of crime committed in the US.

Once again, the comparison with the U.S. is irrelevant. England banned guns, and gun crime went up. And regardless of how low the rate was to start with, gun crime went up - the opposite of what the gun-banners promised would happen. The gun ban is a failure, as measured by England's own crime statistics.

It is invalid and illogical to say; "Well yeah, gun crime is still going up here even after we banned guns, but we still consider that success because it's lower than the U.S. gun crime rate." Doh!

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Thanks for that acknowledgement about violent crime.

Just to reiterate due to the disproportionate amount of alcohol related violent crime.

Violence is violence. It doesn't matter what you blame it on. You can't dismiss it or consider it unimportant, just because you can pigeonhole a lot of it into a certain category.

Much of the U.S. murder rate is a problem with gangs murdering each other's members. But you won't hear me suggesting that those murders should be excluded from our murder statistics. Murder is murder. The statistics are what they are. Violence caused by drunks counts just as badly as violence caused by sober thugs.

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The UK has always had very strict gun controls compared to the US and these were further tightened largely in response to Hungerford and Dunblaine shootings. To be honest these incidents were not so much an indication of slack gun legislation, as more highlighting the fact that existing legislation was not being enforced correctly at the time. Thus, gun owners in the UK do/did have cause to complain, but since there were so few (compared to the non-gun owning populace) the decision to make the law stricter by banning handguns outright was easily passed.

Bingo! I completely agree with that statement. It's an acknowledgement that the politicians ran roughshod over a group of innocent people, depriving them of their property and their rights. That kind of knee-jerk political action should scare the hell out of every British citizen. And now they're doing it again to the fox hunters. Who will they come for next?

"In Germany, they first came for the communists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.

Then, they came for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. 

Then they came for the Catholics.

I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak up."


- Reverend Martin Niemoller, German Lutheran pastor arrested

by the Gestapo, 1937, a decorated U-Boat skipper during  

WWI.

[JohnRich 4]

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Source: Crime and Justice in the United States and in England and Wales, 1981-96

I don't believe it, sorry. I think one can find any 'report' to support ones own arguement, whatever it is. That's another reason why I feel there is little point in linking to any material.

In other words: "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is already made up."

Thanks for having an open and inquisitive mind on this issue.

[Ripple 0]

John, there are far more reasons for any crime going up or down than just one reason.

If gun crime increases after the gun legislation has been tightened (they haven't all been 'banned' btw) it is not necessarily due to the laws that have been introduced. Look at the wider picture, there are all sorts of changes that have occured that have influenced this matter. The matter of the EU, for instance, the influx of guns from Eastern Europe, the relaxing of borders, the increased availability of hardware, etc. etc.

Unless someone does a thorough, unbiased analysis of the overall situation, we're not going to know the actual reasons for any change in crime rate. But it has to be said that without controlling guns, gun crime would be even higher.

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[Ripple 0]

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In other words: "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is already made up."

Much like your goodself?

Next Mood Swing: 6 minutes

[MBOF 0]

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Once again, the comparison with the U.S. is irrelevant. England banned guns, and gun crime went up. And regardless of how low the rate was to start with, gun crime went up - the opposite of what the gun-banners promised would happen. The gun ban is a failure, as measured by England's own crime statistics.

Ok we agree that gun crime is comparatively higher in the USA than in the UK but that as you rightly point out this does not tell the whole story, in that the UK still has a rising gun crime rate (even though this is small). This however, does not answer the real question which is would gun crime have increased even more if gun laws were less restricted. I guess that you have your opinion on this and I have mine. I have to add that I used to own a shot gun before the current legislation made it too difficult.

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Violence is violence. It doesn't matter what you blame it on. You can't dismiss it or consider it unimportant, just because you can pigeonhole a lot of it into a certain category.

Ok by that rational we should be talking about all crime figures which clearly show that crime in the UK is declining. Does this mean that the policies on crime in the UK are effective? No, we have to talk about specifics and contributing factors.

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But you won't hear me suggesting that those murders should be excluded from our murder statistics. Murder is murder. The statistics are what they are. Violence caused by drunks counts just as badly as violence caused by sober thugs.

I never suggested that one statistical group be excluded, I was merely providing an answer to a question i.e. why is violent crime in the UK on the increase? Answer: statistics show that this is largely due to alcohol related violence.

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The UK has always had very strict gun controls compared to the US and these were further tightened largely in response to Hungerford and Dunblaine shootings. To be honest these incidents were not so much an indication of slack gun legislation, as more highlighting the fact that existing legislation was not being enforced correctly at the time. Thus, gun owners in the UK do/did have cause to complain, but since there were so few (compared to the non-gun owning populace) the decision to make the law stricter by banning handguns outright was easily passed.

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Bingo! I completely agree with that statement. It's an acknowledgement that the politicians ran roughshod over a group of innocent people, depriving them of their property and their rights. That kind of knee-jerk political action should scare the hell out of every British citizen. And now they're doing it again to the fox hunters. Who will the come for next?

Knee jerk political actions are not exclusive to the UK. I guess that in most cases where democracy rules the majority tend to get their way, although I'm not siggeesting that the fox hunters are necessarily in a minority. I'd like to ask a very hypothetical question, if it were absolutely proven that tighter gun legislation was effective in reducing gun crime (I'm by no way suggesting that it is), would you personally accept stricter gun control in the USA, even though that may mean giving up your right to own a gun or certain types of gun?

[JohnRich 4]

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If gun crime increases after the gun legislation has been tightened (they haven't all been 'banned' btw) it is not necessarily due to the laws that have been introduced.

I am not saying that gun crime went up *because* of the gun ban. I'm saying that it went up *despite* the gun ban. In other words, the gun ban was ineffective at stopping any gun crime.

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Look at the wider picture, there are all sorts of changes that have occured that have influenced this matter. The matter of the EU, for instance, the influx of guns from Eastern Europe, the relaxing of borders, the increased availability of hardware, etc. etc. Unless someone does a thorough, unbiased analysis of the overall situation, we're not going to know the actual reasons for any change in crime rate.

Using that philosophy then, *anything* can be justified, whether it accomplishes the intended effect or not. If it fails, you just say; "oh well, there are other factors involved." And then they come back and pass yet more laws, which will also be ineffective, and so it goes. Onward they march towards total confiscation of everything.

I have a novel idea: All laws should have an expiration period. If the law doesn't achieve the intended result, it should expire and be done with.

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But it has to be said that without controlling guns, gun crime would be even higher.

"The number of firearms required to satisfy the crime market is minute, and these are supplied no matter what controls are instituted... There is no case, either in the history of this country or in the experience of other countries, in which controls can be shown to have restricted the flow of weapons to criminals or in any way reduced armed crime."

- Metropolitan Police Superintendent, Colin Greenwood, West Yorkshire, England, 1996.

(Mr. Greenwood did a massive study on this issue during England's consideration toward banning guns, after the Dunblane disaster. The politician's ignored his advice, and subsequent history has proven his finding absolutely correct. Guns are banned, and violent crime continues to rise. So all they accomplished was to take them away from the law-abiding which weren't a problem in the first place...)

[JohnRich 4]

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In other words: "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is already made up."

Much like your goodself?

You are the one dismissing evidence that is contrary to your desired beliefs, and remarking about how following links to relevant reports is a waste of time.

I, on the other hand, document my position with referenced facts and logic.

If you choose to ignore such facts and logic, the credibility of your own position becomes perilous.

[JohnRich 4]

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This however, does not answer the real question which is would gun crime have increased even more if gun laws were less restricted.

There are countries with no legal guns and few gun murders.
There are countries with no legal guns and lots of gun murders.
There are countries with lots of legal guns and few gun murders.
There are countries with lots of legal guns and lots of gun murders.

Thus, one cannot conclude that gun ownership rates bear any correlation to gun murder rates.

Here's the big secret, the root cause for crime which no one wants to talk about: CULTURE.

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I have to add that I used to own a shot gun before the current legislation made it too difficult.

Was England made more safe by taking your shotgun away from you, by making the gun laws so difficult? Were you planning on shooting people with it if you had been able to keep it?

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Ok by that rational we should be talking about all crime figures which clearly show that crime in the UK is declining.

No, we're talking about gun crime. Unless you provide some kind of logic to indicate that gun-control laws have a reducing effect upon non-gun crimes. But I fail to see how banning guns would contribute to a reduction in, for example, car theft.

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I never suggested that one statistical group be excluded, I was merely providing an answer to a question i.e. why is violent crime in the UK on the increase? Answer: statistics show that this is largely due to alcohol related violence.

And reports showed that the previous gun laws weren't being enforced properly, which may have allowed the horrible school shooting to occur. But did the politicians blame the police for their failure, and move to make enforcement of existing gun laws more effective? Nope. Instead the punished everyone else who owns guns who didn't commit the crime. That's stupid and illogical, and contrary to freedom.

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I guess that in most cases where democracy rules the majority tend to get their way, although I'm not siggeesting that the fox hunters are necessarily in a minority.

The rights of minority groups, as long as they aren't hurting anyone, should be respected by majorities. If the city folks don't like fox-hunting - tough! The rural hunters like it, and it has been a long tradition in England. The majority city slickers have no right to make rural sports illegal.

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I'd like to ask a very hypothetical question, if it were absolutely proven that tighter gun legislation was effective in reducing gun crime (I'm by no way suggesting that it is), would you personally accept stricter gun control in the USA, even though that may mean giving up your right to own a gun or certain types of gun?

I can't accept the hypothesis, as such proof is impossible. My guns don't and won't hurt anyone. Therefore, taking them away from me would accomplish nothing. The people to concentrate upon are the criminals, not the law-abiding.

"The greatest danger of bombs (and guns) is in the explosion of stupidity that they provoke."
- Octave Mirbeau (1850-1917), French journalist, author.

[Kennedy 0]

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I don't believe it, sorry. I think one can find any 'report' to support ones own arguement, whatever it is.

So reports produced by the federal government are not good enough for you? What report would live up to your standards? Or have you just given up on all factual evidence and gone completely to relying on emotional responses?

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That's another reason why I feel there is little point in linking to any material.

Again, without facts, on what do you base your conclusions?

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America has laxer gun laws than the UK and, in my opinion, America's gun crime figures reflect that.

For the umpteenth time, comparing crime rates between nations so far apart and so different in history is naive at best.

There are countries with many guns and low crime.
There are countries with few guns and low crime.
There are countries with many guns and a great deal of crime.
There are countries with few guns and a great deal of crime.

Guns do not cause crime. They are tools. The sooner people understand that they are nothing but inanimate bits of metal and plastic, the sooner we will all be able to focus on the causes of crime, and do something about them.

Like kallend always says, every dollar spent on useless security is one more dollar not put into making us all safer.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[billvon 2,434]

John, Kate - cut it out.

[mr2mk1g 10]

Wow guys – somebody needs to PM me when we start a thread like this. Looks like I’ve missed a “wicked good” argument. Next time you all start an argument that we’ve done before a couple of dozen times let me know and I can come along and whine that we’ve done all this before and drag up a couple of old posts as I can’t be bothered to repeat myself.

Not sure I can be arsed to come in on it now at the end of page 7. Er… just imagine I argued for the middle ground. I neither think that gun legislation had a great impact on crime in the UK (up or down) nor that either the US or the UK would benefit greatly from adopting the others laws. I do think the US would benefit from a gradual change in their culture away from guns – arming everyone is not the way to prevent crime… that’s WAY too close to a M.A.D. strategy. (Do you want all countries to have nukes… or do you want no country to have nukes? There is no third option apparently as in this comparison if you have nukes so do the bad guys).

Just for the record, to correct what appears to be an error further up the page – we can still own shotguns here, in fact we can “as of right” unlike it ever was with firearms which were always a privilege.

Also, whilst the gun legislation here was indeed touted by some dumb politicians and by the media as being a way of preventing violence and gun crime, it was seen as far from that by parliament itself. If you read Hansard (I’ll try and find the link when I have time) you’ll see that when it was debated by Parliament those who actually made the law understood that it was far from being as simple as that. (Handsard is a published record of every debate in parliament).

There’s a lovely bit of text I’ll have to dig up again where an MP is telling the house how many guns make their way into criminals hands each year through various forms of theft from the legal market. They are right that if you eliminate the legal market all those guns each year that used to make it into criminals hands are no longer going to criminals. You have therefore cut off one way in which they get their guns.

Now of course I understand that many are going to say that’s an unacceptable step to take – the balance of ill is just too far skewed against the gun owner. True, that is a perfectly valid argument to make, and one with which I have ample sympathy. But you must also surely accept that if there are NO guns in the legal market, there can be NO seepage from that market into criminal’s hands.

The gun legislation therefore must have had an effect on that source at very least.

Now of course that is by no means the whole story – crims are just going to go elsewhere for their weapons. But we have one major advantage over the US in that respect – we are an island; with very good boarder controls.

Just imagine for a moment (lets pretend time) if it were possible to completely seal our boarders against illegal weapons AND there are none seeping onto the black market from the legal market. Criminals would have no guns (or at least their supply would be cut off so at some point in the future they would effectively run out). A utopian concept perhaps yes, and probably very difficult to achieve back in reality, but I think that’s what our legislators were aiming for.

The last step now is to stop the flow of weapons into our country from outside. We have the ability to do it… we just have to get better at doing it.

By the way John – If the city folk want to ban hunting with foxes cos they think it’s inhumane… we’ll they can, that’s democracy for you. Just like when the Northern States wanted to stop the Southern States farming with slaves because it was inhumane. Again – democracy at work. Just because the Southern farmers were a minority doing what they’d always done didn’t mean they were right, and it didn’t mean the Northerners weren’t right to try to stop them. (ok an oversimplification of the situation there but I’m sure you follow my point).

Oh, and I’m not in the slightest anti-hunt, but I recognise that the opinion polls are… although on a side note; when people here are given the third option of “I really couldn’t care less” as opposed to just “yes” or “no”; it’s the third option that wins by a long shot.

Now for my morning brew and damn… I really ought to start work.

[MBOF 0]

Thus, one cannot conclude that gun ownership rates bear any correlation to gun murder rates. Here's the big secret, the root cause for crime which no one wants to talk about: CULTURE.

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We agree on this point entirely, and is one that has been raised in previous threads. We have a very different culture in the UK in that gun ownership is nowhere near as an emotive subject as it is in the USA. We simply do not have a culture in which guns play an important role. We live on a small and somewhat overcrowded island where there is comparatively little space to go out and shoot a gun (one of the reasons I got rid of mine). This really limits people to shooting at gun clubs which is fine if you like that sort of thing but many gun owners don't see the point of owning a gun if they can't go outside and shoot it.

Was England made more safe by taking your shotgun away from you, by making the gun laws so difficult?

No, but as I mentioned above since there are few places where I could go out and shoot it seemed pointless keeping the weapon.

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Were you planning on shooting people with it if you had been able to keep it?***

No one immediately springs to mind!

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Ok by that rational we should be talking about all crime figures which clearly show that crime in the UK is declining

***No, we're talking about gun crime. Unless you provide some kind of logic to indicate that gun-control laws have a reducing effect upon non-gun crimes. But I fail to see how banning guns would contribute to a reduction in, for example, car theft.

I was replying to your original quote a few posts ago where you were talking about all violent crimes not just gun crimes:

'Violence is violence. It doesn't matter what you blame it on. You can't dismiss it or consider it unimportant, just because you can pigeonhole a lot of it into a certain category'

Therefore, by lumping all crime statisitics together to 'avoid pigeonholing' crime into certain categories as you suggested, we can state that all crime figures in the UK show a year on year reduction. Does this mean that the policies on policing in the UK are correct? We both know that this is not necessarily the case.

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And reports showed that the previous gun laws weren't being enforced properly, which may have allowed the horrible school shooting to occur. But did the politicians blame the police for their failure, and move to make enforcement of existing gun laws more effective? Nope. Instead the punished everyone else who owns guns who didn't commit the crime. That's stupid and illogical, and contrary to freedom.

Mmmm... I guess it comes down to a balancing act. On the one hand you have a very small number of people in the UK who own (or want to own guns). On the other you have an very large part of the population who have no desire to own or even see a gun coupled with the fact that many people have just witnessed an appauling act of violence against school children. Indeed the police at the time were also pressing for tighter gun controls. Although the decision may have been illogical I find that these days few policies are passed on the basis of sound logic. I have to be honest the pro-gun lobby at the time were simply too small. By far the majority of people wanted this type of legislation, although I'm not suggesting that this is still the situation.

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The rights of minority groups, as long as they aren't hurting anyone, should be respected by majorities. If the city folks don't like fox-hunting - tough! The rural hunters like it, and it has been a long tradition in England. The majority city slickers have no right to make rural sports illegal.

You should come over to the UK and join the happy pro -hunting crowds at Brighton beach where the Labour conference is being held at the moment.

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I'd like to ask a very hypothetical question, if it were absolutely proven that tighter gun legislation was effective in reducing gun crime (I'm by no way suggesting that it is), would you personally accept stricter gun control in the USA, even though that may mean giving up your right to own a gun or certain types of gun?

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I can't accept the hypothesis, as such proof is impossible. My guns don't and won't hurt anyone. Therefore, taking them away from me would accomplish nothing. The people to concentrate upon are the criminals, not the law-abiding.

This is not a hypothesis, it is a hypothetical question. I'm not suggesting that the situation is even remotely real but in answering the question I would have a better understanding of your obviously passionate views about gun ownership.

John, I'll be taking the day off work tomorrow to go jumping (just let THEM try and ban that!) so I'll let you have the last word on what has been an enlightening discussion.

[JohnRich 4]

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I do think the US would benefit from a gradual change in their culture away from guns – arming everyone is not the way to prevent crime… that’s WAY too close to a M.A.D. strategy. (Do you want all countries to have nukes… or do you want no country to have nukes?

What would be even more "MAD" is to have countries like North Korea and Iran armed with nukes, while America has none. That's the kind of policy for which the gun-grabbers advocate. It works out that way, because gun confiscations only affect the innocent and law-abiding citizens, while the criminals continue to get guns on the black market. And it is naive to think that you can prevent bad guys from getting bad weapons. Thus, the only real-world choice you have, is to make sure you can counter their threat in order to deter them. If you live your life based upon fairy tale principles, then the real world will eat you for lunch.

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if you eliminate the legal market all those guns each year that used to make it into criminals hands are no longer going to criminals. You have therefore cut off one way in which they get their guns... The gun legislation therefore must have had an effect on that source at very least.

But the criminals still get guns from other sources. The net result is *zero* - the criminals still get all the guns they need. The market adapts to fulfill the demand. Meanwhile, the law-abiding have been wronged.

Punishing the innocent, is never a good way to fight crime.

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Now of course that is by no means the whole story – crims are just going to go elsewhere for their weapons. But we have one major advantage over the US in that respect – we are an island; with very good boarder controls. Just imagine for a moment (lets pretend time) if it were possible to completely seal our boarders against illegal weapons AND there are none seeping onto the black market from the legal market. Criminals would have no guns (or at least their supply would be cut off so at some point in the future they would effectively run out). A utopian concept perhaps yes, and probably very difficult to achieve back in reality, but I think that’s what our legislators were aiming for. The last step now is to stop the flow of weapons into our country from outside. We have the ability to do it… we just have to get better at doing it.

It is a fairy tale to believe that you can stop the smuggling of small items into your country. You can't stop illegal drug imports, despite decades of trying, and you are not going to stop illegal gun imports. There is too much coastline, too many airplanes, too many packages, too many shipping containers.

Furthermore, that is not the only remaining source of guns. There are plenty left in circulation that weren't turned-in during the confiscation - and they are durable goods that last for a hundred years or more. There are replica guns being turned into real guns. There are home-made guns being made in machine shops. You will never, ever be able to stop the flow of guns to criminals.

Disarming victims, is counter-productive.

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If the city folk want to ban hunting with foxes cos they think it’s inhumane… we’ll they can, that’s democracy for you.

You can call it anything you want, but it is still wrong. If the majority voted to round up all Jews and house them in prison camps, would that be acceptable to you, just because it was a "democratic" decision?

A proper democracy respects the rights of minority groups, rather than trampling roughshod over them.

[JohnRich 4]

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Was England made more safe by taking your shotgun away from you, by making the gun laws so difficult?
Were you planning on shooting people with it if you had been able to keep it?***

No...
No one immediately springs to mind!

Thus, you admit that no social objective was achieved by taking your gun. It was all for show, to make emotional and irrational people feel better. That's a lousy way to manage freedom.

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I guess it comes down to a balancing act. On the one hand you have a very small number of people in the UK who own (or want to own guns). On the other you have an very large part of the population who have no desire to own or even see a gun coupled with the fact that many people have just witnessed an appauling act of violence against school children. Although the decision may have been illogical I find that these days few policies are passed on the basis of sound logic.

Another self-admission that the gun ban was illogical and unsound. People are starting to agree with me. Rather than accept such stupid laws fatalistically, they should be fought against by all legal means possible.

[mr2mk1g 10]

A civilized democracy stands up against injustice -especially on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves.

Isn't that why we're still in Iraq? Or should we just move on outa there now we can't find any WMD and quit trampling on the rights of the minority Ba'ath party?

If the people believe allowing a pack of dogs to rip foxes limb from limb is an injustice against something that cannot stand up for itself, I'm sure as hell not going to disagree with them.

Do you think that the Northern States should have stood up for the minority group of Southern farmers using slaves because the "niggers" belonged in the fields? So what if it's an injustice - just so long as we protect the farmers rights and traditions eh.

[JohnRich 4]

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A civilized democracy stands up against injustice -especially on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves.

Isn't that why we're still in Iraq? Or should we just move on outa there now we can't find any WMD and quit trampling on the rights of the minority Ba'ath party?

If the people believe allowing a pack of dogs to rip foxes limb from limb is an injustice against something that cannot stand up for itself, I'm sure as hell not going to disagree with them.

Do you think that the Northern States should have stood up for the minority group of Southern farmers using slaves because the "niggers" belonged in the fields? So what if it's an injustice - just so long as we protect the farmers rights and traditions eh.

All of the religious factions in Iraq are represented in the new government.

What do predators do in nature when they catch their prey? Should we outlaw nature? Shall we outlaw meat processing slaughter houses?

As for slavery, we ended that discrimination, as we should have, and are better off for it. The slave owner's did not deserve to have their "right" to own slaves preserved.

[mr2mk1g 10]

Exactly - the slave owners didn't deserve the right.

Do you think that someone should have the right to go into a pet store, buy a puppy, take it outside and jump up and down on its head for fun? Should people have the right to buy a cat, take it out and physically pull its legs off simply because it amuses them?

Would people call that acceptable behavior or would they call it unnecessary cruelty? Do you think those things are acceptable? Seriously do you? If that is what you really think I want to see you post that.

Now how do you distinguish between acts such as those and the act of having a pack of hounds rips the fox apart? They don’t need to do it culling - you can do that with rifles and it is done with rifles. Hell I've done it myself on many occasions – that’s a sport in its own right. It's certainly not for food; - we don’t eat fox and I’m quite sure the hunters are able to feeding the dogs themselves.

It's for fun, pure and simple. Fun – just like jumping up and down on that puppy’s head.

Assuming you said that jumping up and down on a puppy’s head purely for fun is not acceptable, why would having a pack of hounds to rip a fox apart purely for fun be acceptable? Are they that different that you are able to make the distinction? Neither serves any purpose; both are done simply for fun.

I personally cannot see why they can't call off the dogs and kill the fox. It's perfectly acceptable to some huntsmen who do that very thing. So why do others demand to have that grand finale? If they weren't so insistent on having the final coup de grass perhaps they wouldn't have the whole sport taken away from them.

I don’t have a thing against hunting in general, I’ve done it many times myself and will do so again in the future. But I simply cannot understand why the barbarism at the end of a fox hunt is necessary. A hunt can be carried out quite successfully without that happening.

It’s far from necessary and it serves no purpose beyond the gratification of those who watch. Hell, in the US fox hunts take place almost exactly as here in the UK except there is rarely any intention of actually catching the fox. Not even in the US do you want to rip the animal apart.

Nor do I actually understand why some people actually desire it. It’s barbarism, pure and simple.

As far as I’m concerned those who want that right do not deserve to have us protect it – just as the slave owners didn’t deserve our protection of their minority right. If they’d just stuck to hunting without ripping the crap out of the fox as was proposed years ago they would more than likely have been able to keep their sport. I’m afraid they have brought their misfortune upon themselves.

[Jimbo 0]

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But I simply cannot understand why the barbarism at the end of a fox hunt is necessary.

Why is it barbarism? Left alone, that's exactly what the dogs would do, it's how they survied for thousands of years before Alpo and Puppy Chow hit the market. That's nature, and I hardly think you can call it barbarism.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[kelpdiver 2]

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if you eliminate the legal market all those guns each year that used to make it into criminals hands are no longer going to criminals. You have therefore cut off one way in which they get their guns... The gun legislation therefore must have had an effect on that source at very least.

But the criminals still get guns from other sources. The net result is *zero* - the criminals still get all the guns they need. The market adapts to fulfill the demand. Meanwhile, the law-abiding have been wronged.

John, I don't think you can state that as a given. It's legitimate to question that the reduction in criminal gun possession is worth the price borne by the public, but it's logical to see that some reduction occurs when you remove legal ownership and commerce.

Criminals work with the best tools they can get. In England that may mean a shift to air guns, knives, bats, and strong arming. Certainly not all of them - anyone that can smuggle in drugs can smuggle in guns as well.

So they've opted to make a compromise that we would choose not to. If it continues to not work out, they can always change their mind.

[JohnRich 4]

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t's logical to see that some reduction occurs when you remove legal ownership and commerce.

But that is *not* being seen - gun crime has gone up since you removed legal ownership. It's a nice-sounding logical theory, but it has been proven false.

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If it continues to not work out, they can always change their mind.

You can't un-ring a bell. Their guns have already been taken and destroyed. The harm is already done. And I doubt that citizens will ever again be allowed to purchase new guns of the type which are now banned.

No, instead they're coming for the shotguns, the BB guns, and the non-firing replica guns. The madness continues...