paul1968mcr

How does owning a handgun equate to living in fear hole up in a suburban fortress. Why stop at hanguns? or are you gonna propose UK style limits on long guns aswell...no semi's restricted mags.....hey why not just .22 shorts?

People target shoot and hunt with both pistols and rifles, nuts commit mass murder with both aswell - remember Hungerford?

Hey sod it, let's be PC and not disadvantage one particular group, lets ban 'em all.

exvj

I agree that UK gun crime has gone up and it's the drug soddened criminals in the city centres shotting each other just like the US. However the mass shootings of innocents were usually carried out by guns held legally as in Dunblane and Hungerford - I dont recall any of these 'mass stranger shootings' for decades in the UK. Imagine a US where nobody can remember a crazed mall shooting, or a sacked employee wiping out his work colleages, for decades and decades - that would be wonderful and it can be done and it has been done 'over there'

I note that you pay tax for your kids and you keep a gun to provide security for your family. How many lost their family this week ? All this 'me and mine' and to blazes with everyone else doesn't work because it could be anyone any time. Your kids and my wife are not secure in this present system even if we buy an abrams tank each and a helicopter with a 50 caliber chain gun. We have to think deeper about this.

I guarantee it will be someone's wife and someone's kid before christmas and I guarantee some of the victims will have a husband and a father who has a house full of guns, but was unable to save their family who were at work or were shopping

The present set up isn't working and a lot of people seem to think the answer is more guns not less and I know that isn't the case

Cigs kill more than bullets, but nobody ever killed three police officers and 12 voluntary helpers by ambushing them with cigs. I am in an unusual position on this as I am a gun enthusiast and was a gun club officer, but I want to know that everyone who has a gun has been thoroughly vetted and trained, and that isn't the case right now. We all know people with no criminal convictions and no psychiatric hospital record who we would not want to have a gun. So having one as a right, is as out of date as having a slave by right or having public hangings - both of which date from the time of the second amendment... actually I am wrong there - the last lawful public hanging in the USA was august 14, 1936

Octang Frye

He lost me when he used the phrase "for the common good"...

Steerpike

Then you are easily lost. He makes a lot of very good points. In an ideal world, no one would even think of owning a gun - let's aim for some ideals, perhaps! Oh wait - we need guns to overthrow an oppressive government, I forgot ... and for that they should be worshiped and protected... yawn ...

NC Penguin

So, once you're an American citizen, you're going to run for public office?

You are rather idealistic IMO.

Now I know you're taking the proverbial piss.

Do you actually live in the real world? Who is "we" in any case?

I think that's a rather dramatic statement. Frankly, one could die any day under any circumstances. I would imagine in the USA more people die each day in car accidents than shooting sprees like what happened in NY state this past week.

How do you propose authorities identify "responsible stable people"? Also, do you think criminals abide by the law, especially in how they obtain their firearms?

paul1968mcr

Firstly I don't recall a right to own a slave being in the bill of rights, but I'll check just to be sure

Regarding these mass shootings, do you have any stats that would indicate pistols being the prefered weapons? what's the split between rifle/pistol rampages....I know Hungerford and Texas, plus the washington trunk sniper were all long guns....which pistol events are prompting you to exclusively melt them all down?

elfman

not directly, but that was essentially the ruling of the supreme court in the Dredd Scott decision of 1857

crg

The DC sniper was also an illegal alien. Let's add that issue to the mix. He wasn't allowed to possess that weapon at all.

The INS caught him and broke the law by releasing him. He went on to kill all of those people.

elfman

one of them was - the junior partner in the team

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Muhammad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Boyd_Malvo

paul1968mcr

Where's that farkin' furnace.

I'm throwin' in rifles, especially nasty black looking ones, and illegal aliens.

ps - I won't be throwing in my Henry Underlever .44mag as that clearly is a piece of art, and belongs above my mantlepiece - wheres the duraglit?

chartreuse

That's a rather odd way to use the word "usually". I think the word you are looking for is "both". The relative paucity of incidents (prior to the ban) reinforces the point made earlier about Switzerland, incidentally.

Given that Shipman, Sutcliffe, Nilsen, Wright, etc, etc, managed to rack up very respectable body counts without using firearms, this obsession is somewhat puzzling. Unless it's a cover for increased intrusion by the state into our private lives?

Ah, yes - SOP in the UK regarding people who hold these wonderful licences for long weapons is for the authorities to turn up when you're at work, trick your wife into admitting that she knows where the key to the gun cabinet is, then revoke your licence for allowing an unlicensed person access.

anotherlimey

That's not my point but.. now that you mention it, only the UK banned handguns (with the exception of NI), lots of other European countries allow them.

The UK gun owners were totally different to what you get in the US, you can't compare the two there's just too many variables. You're also assuming implementing one countries laws in another will produce the same result.

anotherlimey

When you come up with a test for crazy people, let me know will you?

Octang Frye

Sorry, SP, don't really have the inclination or the time to really throw into the discussion at the moment. All the best. OF

exvj

Yes I remember Hungerford - it was in August 19, 1987 - nearly 22 years ago. I want the US to be a country where we have to go back many decades to recall a mass gun murder. Unfortunately, we only have to go back a few days or a few weeks usually

As I said, it's most inconvenient to tell a sensible law abiding pistol owner to give up their weapon for the greater good. So long as the USA is all about the individual and not about society as a whole, the USA must stay as it is and this is reflected in health care and guns etc.

I suppose it comes down to this - that I view the world from a more socialist
perspective where people sacrifice something for the greater good, while the USA is basically still a right wing country where individuals and individual rights come first and the victims of illness and gun crime come a long second or nowhere at all.

It will be interesting see whether the slide to the left gathers pace or whether Obama is a 4 year wonder, and then we are back to the George W way of doing things.

I know there is not much protection against a crazy guy with an AK47 while we are in the swimming pool, so lets hope we, and our children and our spouses all survive the year out