V22 Osprey
Posts: 1593
Joined: 4/8/2008 From: Corona, CA Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ezz In the UK the gun laws generally followed the major wars. After the Napoleonic wars there was an act to disarm the population as many former soldiers, now unemployed, had taken to roaming the country robbing people. Same after the first world war. The major firearms act was in 1968. Firearms of any type, pistol, rifle etc are virtually unkown in the UK. A friend of mine is in the British rifle team otherwise I would know no-one who owns a weapon. I have never seen a pistol in a house in the UK. hunting is very rare too. Deer hunting would be considered a heinous crime. Squirel shooting too would get very strange looks if it was announced in a bar. The later firearms acts were knee jerk politician reactions to two massacres, Dunblane and Hungerford, but gun laws were already very strict and I doubt that having a semi or single shot weapon would have made a lot of difference. There has been a recent random shooting spree in June when a gunman killed 12 and injured 11. But generally in the UK gun deaths is ridiculously low by US standards. 42 deaths from firearms, including suicide, in 2008. In the USA it is around 11,000 from a population about 5 times larger than the UK. The firearm ownership statistics would show an even greater discrepancy. Its just cultural. In the UK guns are owned by farmers, a tiny minority of sporting shooters and then criminals. You never ever see them Most people would not be able to tell you where a gun shop is located as they would never have seen one. UK police are not armed and carry no weapons except a tin stick and a can of pepper. It is really strange when USA citizens talk of their gun collections. To a British resident it is just something {generally} we don't do.{Northern Ireland , at war for 30 years is slightly different} I'm not knocking gun ownership or disparaging it. Just agreeing with Judge. It is cultural. It might be like us all telling you "oh we all drive AFV's. We don't have automobiles. Just AFV's! Its sooo much safer. Sure a few thousand pedestrians are squashed in parking accidents but thats the price of safety..and then we go on to describe our recreational tank collections!" Yes, but the US is how many times bigger than UK, including land mass and population? I would also like to see cases in the UK which people get raped, mugged, or robbed even if in their own homes that could have been prevented if they had a gun to defend themselves.lets also factor in that most killings are by criminals. A criminal is going to carry a gun wheher it's against the law or not. A criminal is also going to kill whether he has a gun or not. The UK may get less firearm killings because there are less guns around, but that doesn't mean its safer.
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Art by rogueusmc.
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