britain is an island, england is country on that island, along with wales & scotland.
Britian: Firearms cheap, easy to get and on a street near you
- Thread starter Deaf Smith
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britain is an island, england is country on that island, along with wales & scotland.
Thank you!
Deaf Smith, England is only one country in Great Britain, there's also Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. England has a land border with Scotland so cannot be an island.
There's also different laws in these countries, for example in Scotland in a trail there are three possible verdicts, guilty, not guilty and not proven. You talk about British laws but we don't have 'British' laws. Also you mention English police but we also have Irish, Scottish and Welsh police.
Thank you so much for the lectures on my country, I love it when people try to put a picture of how we live together from 'facts' they get from newspapers. Who is Ben Best and what is maps of the world? The wikipedia article says it need citations to prove whats there btw.
Of course you don't have to believe Home Office figures, why would you when you have a point to prove. Try living and working here as a police officer and see for yourself.
As for the NDs of weapons you've the word of one tabloid newspaper and the blog of an unknown person? I think you need to come up with some better proof than that.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/crime-statistics/
http://www.sussex.police.uk/foi/policies/docview.asp?id=828/2006
http://www.gwent.police.uk/documents/f_o_i/policies/Firearms Policy.pdf
http://www.hampshire.police.uk/NR/rdonlyres/0F1F7AAC-B3FD-4DC3-A46E-726A1AE2A6FA/0/04100.pdf
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/gun-crime/
http://www.connected.gov.uk/
fill ya boots!
http://www.sussex.police.uk/foi/policies/docview.asp?id=828/2006
http://www.gwent.police.uk/documents/f_o_i/policies/Firearms Policy.pdf
http://www.hampshire.police.uk/NR/rdonlyres/0F1F7AAC-B3FD-4DC3-A46E-726A1AE2A6FA/0/04100.pdf
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/gun-crime/
http://www.connected.gov.uk/
fill ya boots!
Same could be said of anyone attempting to get a mental picture of another country when they haven't been there first hand. Kind of like the picture you have of the US in your head. Where did that picture form? Have you lived here or have you created a picture of it from reading newspapers, watching the tv and listening to tales of folks visiting your country from here? It would be very much like me attempting to lecture someone from Egypt on their country. I've never been there. Of course, comments like
would seem to be you lecturing someone from America when you haven't lived here as well.
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Yet, by using Washington DC, you end up proving the pro-gun argument, that lawful ownership of firearms has nothing to do with the crime rates.
You may want to pick a different city other than DC, if you wish to assert that guns cause crime, since DC has forbidden handgun ownership for the last few decades, along with severly restricting long gun ownership.
Bad people who want to get guns will find ways of getting guns, whether or not lawful firearms ownership is forbidden. All one has to do is look at the island country of Jamaica, to see one of the highest rates of violent crime, and see how gun-grabbing has failed to produce any meaningful results.
It's a cultural issue, not a gun issue.
OP
Deaf Smith
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As for gun control, that's the whole point. Banning weapons does not affect crime except to keep good people from defending themselves. The how young people are brought up has far more to do with it.
As for England, even Scotland and Ireland have stiff gun..., no weapon control, just as the British do and still the weapons come in (as does drugs.) And that was my whole point. Even an island with such strong gun control in all it's countries still have guns in the wrong hands.
Deaf
Aye, that is true, DS.
It has in fact always been true. Britain has historically been a very violent place; not just in recent times but for over a millenia. How else do you think we got the wherewithal to have a global empire whilst fighting everybody else for the priveledge? Letting the America's go cheap to the French because we thought the Caribbean was more profitable was a bit of a mistake but you get the concept.
In recent times, however, crime in Britain has been less because social inequality has been less. Gun, knife or bassoon based violent crime, the trend has been downwards as peoples legitimately obtained wealth increased (no matter that some of this has been gained by leaching the sweat of my brow
).
The media image of the same, fuelled as it is by the overweaning requirements of the establishment, would have it that things have never been worse and that the only solution is ever greater control of the individual members who make up society.
Sound familiar?
The illegal prevelence of arms over here is a direct result of government policy, shortsightedly implemented, as always, in myopic perception of a response that would garner votes. Well that and a dumb aping of modern Hollywood 'gangster' stereotypes, such that any thug now feels himself not a 'man' unless 'carrying'.
Why we constantly import the worst of American traits is beyond me. Is there nothing good we could learn? :raises hands to heavens:. Ah, no. Fundamentalism we could do without, ta. We have enough of that sort of thing from the BNP already.
It has in fact always been true. Britain has historically been a very violent place; not just in recent times but for over a millenia. How else do you think we got the wherewithal to have a global empire whilst fighting everybody else for the priveledge? Letting the America's go cheap to the French because we thought the Caribbean was more profitable was a bit of a mistake but you get the concept.
In recent times, however, crime in Britain has been less because social inequality has been less. Gun, knife or bassoon based violent crime, the trend has been downwards as peoples legitimately obtained wealth increased (no matter that some of this has been gained by leaching the sweat of my brow
).The media image of the same, fuelled as it is by the overweaning requirements of the establishment, would have it that things have never been worse and that the only solution is ever greater control of the individual members who make up society.
Sound familiar?
The illegal prevelence of arms over here is a direct result of government policy, shortsightedly implemented, as always, in myopic perception of a response that would garner votes. Well that and a dumb aping of modern Hollywood 'gangster' stereotypes, such that any thug now feels himself not a 'man' unless 'carrying'.
Why we constantly import the worst of American traits is beyond me. Is there nothing good we could learn? :raises hands to heavens:. Ah, no. Fundamentalism we could do without, ta. We have enough of that sort of thing from the BNP already.
america has plenty of fine traits, along with plenty of bad. i get frustrated with current american culture (very frustrated) but to imply that there is nothing good in america is insulting & ignorant. america did not invent fundamentalism, & though it is at it's zenith here at the moment, we are learning from it's errors & we will find a balance. however we may be acting now, the U.S. was not founded as a christian nation, & people are beginning to figure that out. things are a bit rough now, but we know, & we're working on it. thanks for your concern.
ta,
jf
Actually I'm not lectoring anyone I'm replying to posts made by Deaf Smith who made several statements about England that were factually incorrect not a matter of opinion, his insistance that englad is an island when it has two land borders with Scotland and Wales, his stating Engand had very little crime in the 1930's and 40s among others. i was merely pointing out that taking articles from newspapers and unkown sources to prove his point about a country he;s never been in was at best mistaken at worse a slur. I don't know why everyones so sensitive it seems commonplace on this forum to use briain to prove points in the arguments about guns and crime, this is the second thread about Britain in as many days.If you do a search you will find many more in the same vein, do you wonder I get exasparated by them? I don't make OPs about America and really you can't blame me if I answer when people do about my country and try to defend it.
If you want to know where I get some of the views I do, gentlemen, of your country I get it from people who post here. Americans have issues, as they say about guns, some are pro being armed some aren't and are trying to stop people being armed, it has nothing to do with us so why so many posts about gun control in the UK? I have no views about whether Americans should be armed or not, it's none of my business.
If you look at that article about Washington it states crime is going down.
If you want to know where I get some of the views I do, gentlemen, of your country I get it from people who post here. Americans have issues, as they say about guns, some are pro being armed some aren't and are trying to stop people being armed, it has nothing to do with us so why so many posts about gun control in the UK? I have no views about whether Americans should be armed or not, it's none of my business.
If you look at that article about Washington it states crime is going down.
Just in case this was directly aimed at me, I fear that either I did not express myself clearly enough or you misread me.
The point I was trying to make is that we over in here in Blighty seem to absorb only the bad things that the American media disseminates. Please don't think that I was attempting to infer that there is nothing good in America.
If I know Tez and Sukerkin like I think I know them then I am sure neither mean any offense to any Americans. (just like the Americans here also do not mean any offense to our British friends
) Great Britain and the United States will always be connected and in truth we have allot more in common than differences.
We are in the end each others strongest allies!
As to gun control and the UK well it is interesting because the measure of gun control put in place in the UK is relatively new. People are naturally going to be interested in what is happening there.
As to gun control and the UK well it is interesting because the measure of gun control put in place in the UK is relatively new. People are naturally going to be interested in what is happening there.
Neither Sukerkin nor myself were getting at Americans!! What is making me frustrated though and perhaps it's my fault for not explaining properly is that we've had what you call gun control since the 19th century, the culture of our country isn't one of guns and being armed, its the way we are and it's the way we want to be. However we are not a gunless country, you can have weapons if you want they just must be licensed.
We know guns are coming into the country as are drugs, we don't however rely on laws to stop that. Criminals have always had guns probably since they were first invented but the 'old fashioned' type of professional criminal knew when to use them and when not to, they ween't used against the ordinary punter but now we have American type gangs inspired by the media to deal with. I've being ringing around other forces trying to find statistics on armed robberies in peoples houses and I can find none. I assume there must be some somewhere but obviously too few to document, there are armed robberies in commercial premises, most in Glasgow Scotland and Liverpool but them I'll get to in a minute. There was a rather large one in London, they got £54 million pounds and that was a bit odd for me as one of the suspects is a well known MMA fighter. he's in Morocco and can't be extradited.
Now Glasgow, it's always been known as a very 'hard' city, hard drinking, hard fighting. Home of the Glasgow 'kiss' the headbutt, poverty has wracked the city and produced some of the toughest people in the world with maybe the best sense of humour in the world.
If you are familiar with Billy Connelly you will know what I'm talking about.
Crime and Glasgow are sort of the same thing! it's a port as it Liverpool which is sort of the English version of Glasgow, Manchester is much the same. London has parts of it that are hard. It's these places that the gun crime is focused, where the criminal gangs are. It's also where the criminal activity has always been, going back to the Industrial Revolution.
Manchester in particular suffered greatly during the American Civil War when the cotton mills the main source of employment for the city couldn't get the cotton from America and the workers were laid off. Poverty breeds crime, it's no different now in many of these places and they have a 'tradition' of crime which carries on through generations. Add drugs, immigrants, high unemployment, poor education and the glamourisation of gangs by the media and we're off and running!
The gun and knife crimes have been given a huge amount of publicity by the media. The crime figures aren't that high as it is but the public have been frightened by the spate of unfortunate shootings and stabbings of young male teenagers by other young male teenagers which are due to the gang culture. Every day one newspaper or another is making a story out of one of these tragic deaths, the stories of course are dramatic. One story went on about the tragic shooting of a 'perfect student' but it turned out he was a drug deler 'eliminated' by a rival gang! Others have been shot in mistake for someone else, a couple were in the way when shots were aimed at someone else.
The problem is very serious and something has to be done but the problem is not one of criminals being armed and threatening the general public, it's a very specific problem of youth and gangs. There is a very low likelihood that the average person in the UK will become the victim of a violent crime however ask them and they will say they feel unsafe due to the amount of media coverage of crime. it's the perception and the fear that we have to overcome.
I remember writing on another thread very similiar to this one on here about the gang culture that's sprung up here, there's been schemes that have helped to get people out of gangs but the government cut the funding nor are they willing to sort out the education system or bring new work into the inner cities where making money from dealing drugs is seen as a fast easy way to get what you want.
We know guns are coming into the country as are drugs, we don't however rely on laws to stop that. Criminals have always had guns probably since they were first invented but the 'old fashioned' type of professional criminal knew when to use them and when not to, they ween't used against the ordinary punter but now we have American type gangs inspired by the media to deal with. I've being ringing around other forces trying to find statistics on armed robberies in peoples houses and I can find none. I assume there must be some somewhere but obviously too few to document, there are armed robberies in commercial premises, most in Glasgow Scotland and Liverpool but them I'll get to in a minute. There was a rather large one in London, they got £54 million pounds and that was a bit odd for me as one of the suspects is a well known MMA fighter. he's in Morocco and can't be extradited.
Now Glasgow, it's always been known as a very 'hard' city, hard drinking, hard fighting. Home of the Glasgow 'kiss' the headbutt, poverty has wracked the city and produced some of the toughest people in the world with maybe the best sense of humour in the world.
If you are familiar with Billy Connelly you will know what I'm talking about.
Crime and Glasgow are sort of the same thing! it's a port as it Liverpool which is sort of the English version of Glasgow, Manchester is much the same. London has parts of it that are hard. It's these places that the gun crime is focused, where the criminal gangs are. It's also where the criminal activity has always been, going back to the Industrial Revolution.
Manchester in particular suffered greatly during the American Civil War when the cotton mills the main source of employment for the city couldn't get the cotton from America and the workers were laid off. Poverty breeds crime, it's no different now in many of these places and they have a 'tradition' of crime which carries on through generations. Add drugs, immigrants, high unemployment, poor education and the glamourisation of gangs by the media and we're off and running!
The gun and knife crimes have been given a huge amount of publicity by the media. The crime figures aren't that high as it is but the public have been frightened by the spate of unfortunate shootings and stabbings of young male teenagers by other young male teenagers which are due to the gang culture. Every day one newspaper or another is making a story out of one of these tragic deaths, the stories of course are dramatic. One story went on about the tragic shooting of a 'perfect student' but it turned out he was a drug deler 'eliminated' by a rival gang! Others have been shot in mistake for someone else, a couple were in the way when shots were aimed at someone else.
The problem is very serious and something has to be done but the problem is not one of criminals being armed and threatening the general public, it's a very specific problem of youth and gangs. There is a very low likelihood that the average person in the UK will become the victim of a violent crime however ask them and they will say they feel unsafe due to the amount of media coverage of crime. it's the perception and the fear that we have to overcome.
I remember writing on another thread very similiar to this one on here about the gang culture that's sprung up here, there's been schemes that have helped to get people out of gangs but the government cut the funding nor are they willing to sort out the education system or bring new work into the inner cities where making money from dealing drugs is seen as a fast easy way to get what you want.
chinto
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yep gun control like every attempt to control the possession of any weapon by the public since the stone age has failed!! its historical fact all it does is make sure the criminals have weapons and the law abiding type person does not.
KenpoTex
Senior Master
But only shotguns correct? And are you allowed to have pump-action or semi-auto shotguns, or only break-action (single or double barrel) shotguns? Also, what are the storage requirements, can you keep them in your home or do they have to be stored at a gun-club/range?
IMO, being allowed to own only a couple of types for hunting or sporting purposes (and being required to register them) doesn't really count for much...
Another question: What would the response from the police and government be like if someone were to use their legally owned weapon for defense...I'm guessing it wouldn't be good.
Burglars don't carry weapons and will enter a house when the householder is out. To use or threaten with a weapon is a higher charge, aggravated burglery with more prison time. Most thefts in this country are burglaries, nasty but the householder never sees the criminal. The very few and high profile cases of armed criminals entering your house are almost exclusively the 'celeb' robberies. These are the very rich who keep their valuables in safes etc which have to be opened hence taking a weapon and threatening the householder to open or reveal where their jewellery is. These robberies with violence are planned not random and executed by gangs of criminals, using a weapon to defend your self is unlikely to be an option.
Ok if you did use a weapon any weapon, any weapon to defend yourself/family/others and you can prove reasonable force nothing will happen to you. If someone is threatening you with a gun and you believe your life was in danger yes you can shoot him and you will have no charges against you. It's investigated of course otherwise we would have murders dressed up as self defence but you would not be penalised for it, I think that's misconception about our laws which also say you can strike first if you believe you are in danger ( you being yourself, family etc)
We had one case where someone killed an intruder and was imprisoned but that was complicated. He shot a boy in the back who was running away from the house down the path, there was no threat to life so it wasn't reasonable force, the householder had also threatened to kill his own brother, and also threatened the police with a weapon.
Weapons kept at home are kept in a gun cabinet securely locked. Other are kept at gun clubs where basically only the people who are interested in such weapons go, there's not a lot of interest in guns here tbh. Very few people want to be armed, it's not a case of the government keeping us down they'd change the law if enough people campaigned, it is actually a case of the government following the peoples wishes, I think that's often misunderstood too. I think from the outside looking in it seems as if controlling guns is a government plot to keep the people down but it's not at all. It never gets brought up at election times nor are there people demanding to be armed, we just don't seem bothered by not being able to carry guns all the time.
There are campaigns by the media to get some control over the gangs and the knives they carry sometimes guns too but the biggest issue with us and in the forefront of everyones minds is the housing market and the recession.. 'the credit crunch' it's being called. One of our banks invested heavily in the American housing market, lost millions and we had a run on the bank for the first time in a hundred years, the Bank of England had to bail it out at a cost of billions of pounds, our money! the value of houses has gone down,repossessions are going up, pay isn't and the price of fuel has pushed all other prices up making times increasingly hard. That's the issues here, guns and gun control aren't even on the radar.
Ok if you did use a weapon any weapon, any weapon to defend yourself/family/others and you can prove reasonable force nothing will happen to you. If someone is threatening you with a gun and you believe your life was in danger yes you can shoot him and you will have no charges against you. It's investigated of course otherwise we would have murders dressed up as self defence but you would not be penalised for it, I think that's misconception about our laws which also say you can strike first if you believe you are in danger ( you being yourself, family etc)
We had one case where someone killed an intruder and was imprisoned but that was complicated. He shot a boy in the back who was running away from the house down the path, there was no threat to life so it wasn't reasonable force, the householder had also threatened to kill his own brother, and also threatened the police with a weapon.
Weapons kept at home are kept in a gun cabinet securely locked. Other are kept at gun clubs where basically only the people who are interested in such weapons go, there's not a lot of interest in guns here tbh. Very few people want to be armed, it's not a case of the government keeping us down they'd change the law if enough people campaigned, it is actually a case of the government following the peoples wishes, I think that's often misunderstood too. I think from the outside looking in it seems as if controlling guns is a government plot to keep the people down but it's not at all. It never gets brought up at election times nor are there people demanding to be armed, we just don't seem bothered by not being able to carry guns all the time.
There are campaigns by the media to get some control over the gangs and the knives they carry sometimes guns too but the biggest issue with us and in the forefront of everyones minds is the housing market and the recession.. 'the credit crunch' it's being called. One of our banks invested heavily in the American housing market, lost millions and we had a run on the bank for the first time in a hundred years, the Bank of England had to bail it out at a cost of billions of pounds, our money! the value of houses has gone down,repossessions are going up, pay isn't and the price of fuel has pushed all other prices up making times increasingly hard. That's the issues here, guns and gun control aren't even on the radar.
KenpoTex
Senior Master
I personally find that to be a little scary...the idea that people have become so conditioned that they don't even want to have the means to protect themselves...that they are perfectly content to be subjects (and that they probably think it's their idea).
Despite your assertions, I personally have my doubts that even if "enough people campaigned" the government would restore broad firearms ownership rights. Governments don't have a very good track-record of relinquishing their power.
I know or know of a couple of people who specifically left England because the did not have the right to keep their firearms. One of them, a collector, lost a large and valuable collection in '98 (IIRC) when the big ban was passed (he is now a US citizen, has a CCW permit, and has replaced most of his collection). Another spent his career serving his country with the SBS. However, on the day he retired, he was no longer "trusted" to own the very same types of weapons he had used in the service of his country...I find that pretty sad.
Whilst I can understand your views given your own circumstances, Tex, it is important to remember that things are very different over here.
Even now, with the torrent of media flames being fanned ever higher, when you say "people have become so conditioned that they don't even want to have the means to protect themselves", my reaction is instinctively to reply "Against what?".
Despite my having said earlier about Britain having been a violent place for a long time, it has also, paradoxically been a largely law biding place too (an oddity given our very high population density).
Fights have ever been common around pub closing time but it has been my experience that if you didn't seek trouble then it didn't find you. It is my perception that that has changed but I do feel that that just could be my grumpy middle-aged "youth of today" bias comming out (tho' they really do need to get a handle on their self-destructive drinking habits).
Even the crooks, as Tez pointed out above, prefer not to use weapons and violence in their 'work'. Some of that is, however, changing as younger generations of criminals grow up with glamourous views of 'armed bloods', which is what we've referenced when we speak of the aping of American style 'street culture'.
The specifics of the law on the 'Pistol Ban' I don't know well enough to comment on but a professional like Tez probably is. I do recall it happening and saying at the time pretty much as has been said here repeatedly viz that banning something usually only ensures that the law abiding don't have it.
That is indeed what we have seen, with a rise in gun crime as people got rid of their handguns to the dodgy bloke down the pub rather than seeing them destroyed. I think that the real problem was that the 'cure' applied to rising gang violence worked to make it worse by boosting the availability of weapons at just the wrong time.
Even now, with the torrent of media flames being fanned ever higher, when you say "people have become so conditioned that they don't even want to have the means to protect themselves", my reaction is instinctively to reply "Against what?".
Despite my having said earlier about Britain having been a violent place for a long time, it has also, paradoxically been a largely law biding place too (an oddity given our very high population density).
Fights have ever been common around pub closing time but it has been my experience that if you didn't seek trouble then it didn't find you. It is my perception that that has changed but I do feel that that just could be my grumpy middle-aged "youth of today" bias comming out (tho' they really do need to get a handle on their self-destructive drinking habits).
Even the crooks, as Tez pointed out above, prefer not to use weapons and violence in their 'work'. Some of that is, however, changing as younger generations of criminals grow up with glamourous views of 'armed bloods', which is what we've referenced when we speak of the aping of American style 'street culture'.
The specifics of the law on the 'Pistol Ban' I don't know well enough to comment on but a professional like Tez probably is. I do recall it happening and saying at the time pretty much as has been said here repeatedly viz that banning something usually only ensures that the law abiding don't have it.
That is indeed what we have seen, with a rise in gun crime as people got rid of their handguns to the dodgy bloke down the pub rather than seeing them destroyed. I think that the real problem was that the 'cure' applied to rising gang violence worked to make it worse by boosting the availability of weapons at just the wrong time.
That's an insulting thing to say about the British people who have a long history of being non conformist and not being brainwashed by their governments. Still there's nothing I can say that will convince you if you think I've been brainwashed and you know better than I. If you don't understand this country and are influenced by what a couple of people say there's no discussion to be had.
Your friend btw will not have spent his career in the SBS, there is a time limit on how long anyone spends in that unit.
Which 1998 Act would that have been? there is a 1997 Act which bans hanguns from private use ( but could easily be kept in a designated place such as a gun club.) but allows specifically collections 'of interest', as I know plenty of weapons collectors who have never had their collections taken away or had to give them up. The 1997 Act came about after the Dunblane massacre when there was a big public outcry to ban handguns, rightly or wrongly whatever in your opinion thats what the people wanted and thats what they got.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/13/newsid_2543000/2543277.stm
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