Gun Culture in the uk

[Knoxville]

Been watching some of the stuff on BBC2 this week, and started wondering about how we're beginning to develop a gun culture by the looks of the statistics. Its raised a few questions in my mind.

Should we legalise hand guns?

It may seem like a step backwards but at least we'd be able to keep a better track on some of these weapons because currently they're all illegally bought into the country and nigh on untracable anyway.

Is the whole rap/r'n'b gun glory image to blame for some of the rise in gun crime?

Will we ultimatley have to arm all police officers in this country?

IMO this should already be in place, if i was in the police kevlar or not i'd want to be armed with something.

[Flibb]

I am one of the legal owners of firearms that would like to see pistols re-legalised, but under very strict conditions and starting with single shot target pistols. This was particularly pertinent during the Commonwealth Games where we paid for a state of the art pistol range to be built, and England won the gold. Unfortunately the UK teams will never be able to use the range again.
I do find some of the gun images portrayed in music to be slightly alarming, there was a program on a while ago wher they showed a photo shoot in the USA, the pictures showed some idiots carrying MP5's and trying to look cool. They were deactivated, but whats the point of showing somebody piting a machingun out of a hotel window? I was brought up from a very early age with a variety of firearms and was taught to respect them and be aware of the incredible damage they can do. Re-legalising pistols would probably have exactly the same impact as banning them had on armed crime, that is none. Most criminals are not interested in joing a gun club for a year and sitting tests to get there guns. Also ilegal guns are so easily got from the Continent and Ireland that target pistols wouldnt be worth the hassle. A lot of the stuff on the streats seems to be from the old Eastern Block, and includes some rather nasty machine pistols. These are suprisingly easy to get hold of in Europe and the Balkans.
Cheers
Flibb

[Dr. X]

Short post here, gotta put my lil' brother in the bath in a few mins.

Illegal guns will always exist in the UK, legalisisng handguns again will do nothing the reduce this.

However, legal handguns can (and will) be used to perform despicable acts of violence. The Dunblane massacre was comitted using legally owned firearms, and I seriously think that handguns made to kill will never be legalised while there are people who remember this.

Target pistols on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. How deadly are they?

[Moby-Dick]

Given that a small bore target pistol fires a .22 cartridge, its still potentially leathal , though only really so at close range. However due to the fact that they are a single shot pistol, non target use of them would be impractical.

Those that would buy a target pistol should be responsible enough to know how to use it safely.

It woudn't be easy to go on a shooting spree with something you have to keep reloading , but I guess it is still posisble.

[Flibb]

Dunblane was a terrible act and should never have happened. If the firearms licensing authority had done its job Hamiton would never have received a FAC, I believe that he had been refused one several times in the past. The Police failings led to the resignation of DCC McMurdo who had signed Hamiltons certificate. I was working for an organisation that was involved in the Cullen inquiry at the time and lots of storys were in circulation about Masonic links, Hamilton being a Police informer and links to prominent people. Unfortunately we wont know the truth for 100 years as the files about Hamilton have been locked for that period of time. See
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2742623.stm
The stated reason was it protects the identity of poeple that Hamilton abused, unfortunately other infomation including leters sent to the enquiry about Hamiltons connections were also locked, havent a clue why.

Flibb

Update
Yes a .22 is still deadly, both the Israeli army and the Russians use .22 rimfire sniper rifles, max range is 100m (ish).

[Punky]

the way i see it, we cannot blame or alter gun laws to stop the problems highlighted in the programs. education about guns, plus encouragement and reinforcement in the education system to make the young people involved realise and know there is chance for them in life, coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, that they can get a job and become succesful in life, and not have to resort to crime to live.
just my 2p.
peace (please)

[Russ]

sterotpying abit there mate, i live in heath town, which is famous for crime, but none of my mates own a gun and there as disadvangted as you can be.

[Punky]

i was basin that on wot i saw on the programs chap, i aint sayin all disadvantaged kids are gun-toting criminals. sorry if i insulted ya or nefink mate. peace.

[Russ]

hehe no offence taken, just sounded a bit biased.

[TiG]

Personally I don't think you'll find that any changes to the law will affect how guns are used for illegal actions within the UK.

However I think that there is something to be said for allowing some guns to be made legal, but with one small caveat, that they are fitted with a GPS device, so that they are trackable at all times.

Obviously you keep this quiet and monitor the guns position, the police then have the right to follow the movement of guns and fingers crossed - legal and illegal guns may well be found in the same areas.

Thoughts?
TiG

[Flibb]

i cant see any benefit to having a tracking device fitted to a gun as it would be so simple to disable it. Also registered firearms owners dont go around robbing banks and are unlikely to come im to contact with ilegal guns. Another point that peole miss is that its extremly easy to make your own gun and ammo, this is what the UDF did in Northern Ireland, I have personally seen a full auto machine pistol they made (fired standard ammo) and large calibre ammo can easily be made on a lathe, then all you need is primers and gunpowder. The bigest home made thing ive seen was a 2 inch diameter smooth bore cannon, this was legally held on a shotgun certificate as it wasnt used to fire solid slug, it was designed to fire shot. Most criminals dont bother with DIY unless is for a particular job, its so easy to get stuff from Europe on the black market.
Flibb

[SarG]

Small world ehh Russ, I live in Heath Town aswell

I dont think we should legalise hand guns in the UK but i do believe we should arm ordinary police officers that have been through proper training.

[DaBeeeenster]

I dont really see gun crime as a massive problem in the UK. Maybe in the inner cities it has grown more of a problem, and there are certainly more armed police in London, which I think is correct, but I think police forces in rural areas that have no problems with gun crime should not carry guns, as there is no need for them to do so.

I dont see how making guns legal is going to help the situation at all. So you sell someone a gun, and write down their address. How is that going to help you?

[nichomach]

As far as I'm concerned, the handgun ban should be repealed; it was a kneejerk reaction to an awful incident (anyone remember The Dangerous Dogs Act?) which was allowed to happen through the incompetence or wilful negligence of senior police officers, like McMurdo as noted above. The assessing officer reported that Hamilton was utterly unfit to hold a FAC and that it should be withdrawn immediately, but she was overruled by McMurdo who was allowed to quietly resign (keeping his pension rights) while the police made a lot of noise focussing on a ban to divert public attention from one of their own. As a consequence, thousands of law-abiding people were punished for the evil act of one man which would never have happened if the senior officers involved had done their jobs. I do not now own, nor have I ever owned, a firearm, but I object on principle to the removal of a right or liberty without justification, and for this ban there was none.

Has the ban stopped handgun crime? No; indeed as has been noted, firearms related incidents appear to be increasing. Why? Because legally held firearms were never the issue. Crime is overwhelmingly committed with illegally held firearms; they have never been legally held, so legislation made absolutely no difference whatsoever to their usage and availability.

I should note that I am in favour of tight regulation of privately held firearms of all classes (I believe it is still the case that unlike rifles, shotguns do not have to be individually registered under the owner's FAC, which I think is frankly daft), but I don't believe that a ban was right or justified, and I don't think that its repeal would be any sort of "step backwards".

I dont see how making guns legal is going to help the situation at all. So you sell someone a gun, and write down their address. How is that going to help you?

Simple; in the first place they would have to be assessed as someone suitable to hold a FAC, then provide evidence that firearms could be securely stored, used for lawful purposes and each firearm would be individually registered to them, so if it were used in a crime, unless it had been stolen (and reported as such; to not report the theft would be an offence) there would be strong presumption of the owner's involvement in the offence. It would also be useful to maintain a database of test rounds fired from each legally held firearm for ballistic comparison purposes, so even if the gun itself were not recovered from the crime scene it would still be possible to determine whether it was a legally held firearm, which one it was, and who the owner was.

[DaBeeeenster]

Personally I agree with you that the government were merely pandering to public opinion after Dunblane, but personally I have no problem whatsoever with a total gun ban. If people want to shoot guns for sport they can shoot target pistols and air guns. I am of the opinion that the world would be a better place if people did not have a birth right to own a firearm. There's too many idiots and too many accidents in the world IMHO.

Dont you think your second point is a little contradictory to the first? Gun criime is generally commited with illegal weapons, more than likely smuggled into the country from abroad. I dont think that having a registered database is really going to make any difference.

I think we need to look at the causes for the increase in gun crime, as opposed to the increase in gun usage itself. The ever more valuable drugs market (and associated neferious businesses) are what is causing most of the gun violence in London. We need to think of ways of solving these problems (drug legalisation? inner city regeneration projects?) as opposed to thinking about how to limit the number of guns in the country.

Having said that, guns should still be illegal, period.

[nichomach]

Dont you think your second point is a little contradictory to the first? Gun criime is generally commited with illegal weapons, more than likely smuggled into the country from abroad. I dont think that having a registered database is really going to make any difference.

Not really, since proper application of such regulations (which DID exist, but were not applied) would have prevented the tragedy at Dunblane, so it's worth doing, albeit that it would have no effect upon the general run of firearms related crime.

I agree with your comment that we should inquire into the root causes of firearms crime, and I would argue that the blanket ban didn't even treat the symptom, let alone the disease; so much so that I think it's arguable that gun control and gun crime are entirely separate issues.

I respectfully disagree with you on private firearms ownership.