Guns,guns, and more Guns

[Spectric]

Why is one of these a "scumbag", and not the other?

Because one will steal an old persons life savings and often put them in hospital in the process whilst the other will be stealing from big companies and organiisations. Yes there is those in the middle who will scam anyone but they can be avoided, things like equity release, buy a funeral and use later or life insurance policies that when they do pay out will not even buy you a tin of beans.

 

[artie]

Another one for you. “He’s got loads of Ackers” i.e money. My dad often used the term. I think it was war time RAF slang amongst those who had been in Egypt.

Yep.

Another one I hadn't heard.

Will there ever be enough words for money or reproductive organs?

 

[Designer1]

Completely unrelated to any above points but thought it was interesting, there's about 228 police officers per 100,000 people in the UK (https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00634/SN00634.pdf) and about 206 police per 100,000 in the US (Total police personnel per 100,000 residents in Canada and the U.S. 2003-2017 | Statista). Given that the US is also about 40 times bigger, police response times are affected. Not so much in cities but in rural areas definitely.

If you were living in a rural area, with a much slower police response time, wouldn't you want something to defend yourself? It could be at least 20 minutes before the police in rural US get to you, 20 minutes doesn't sound long but it would if you had someone circling your house with a weapon trying to rob you.


Also worth noting that during Trump's presidency there was another 50,000 police officers recruited, taking the total to the 700,000 mark, so before it was even less police officers per 100,000.

The UK has a reasonable balance IMO regarding gun laws, you can still own one with a reason (although some forces are more, shall we say difficult than others). I've always been an advocate of being able to legally defend yourself, if you get stabbed, you get taken to hospital. If you defend yourself and cause harm back, you get a prison sentence. Choose your outcome.

A lot of people are against this because then everyone would be carrying knives and weapons, people are usually afraid and paranoid of things they don't know. It's also only the law abiding citizens that follow the laws, never seen a criminal say "oi Dave, leave that switch knife, it's illegal now innit".

The situations a tricky one really, poor sod near me got stabbed and died, had he been carrying something to defend himself with, perhaps this might not have been the outcome. Whether it's legal or illegal to carry something, bad people will always carry anyway. Perhaps why every time anonymous gang members in London are asked why they carry a knife they say "because you need to defend yourself from getting robbed or you just keep losing everything", but then it's just a blood bath every weekend.

 

[sploo]

The problem with any law is that it is only respected by the law abiding, the criminal couldn't care less about it. I think the reason we do better here is simply because of you use a gun in the UK you have a much greater chance of being caught than in many countries, that is far more of a deterrent than it actually being against the law. The fact that our police and public generally are pretty hot on this means that it brings a lot of attention, the last thing your criminal is looking for. So the use of guns tends to be reserved for special occasions rather than routine. Mexico is a good example of a country with fairly strict gun laws but rampant gun crime, why ? Because anyone using a gun there knows there is next to no chance of being caught or prosecuted.

That is a good point. I was thinking about the differences in "culture" when it comes to firearm ownership in different countries. Even seeing a gun is a pretty rare occurrence in most areas of the UK; so it's something that would definitely get you lots of attention.

 

[sploo]

...
If you were living in a rural area, with a much slower police response time, wouldn't you want something to defend yourself? It could be at least 20 minutes before the police in rural US get to you, 20 minutes doesn't sound long but it would if you had someone circling your house with a weapon trying to rob you.
...

This is a very persuasive argument, but IMO also the root of a problem; you can either have a firearm easily to hand, or you can lock it away and keep it safe.

Lock it away and it's much less likely you could ever get to it in time in the event of an attack. Keep it to hand and you're massively more likely to end up with an accidental shooting (yourself or a member of your family) than you ever are to actually use it to defend yourself.

One other factor is even the likelihood of being capable of using the firearm in a "real" situation. A (relatively) untrained, inexperienced civilian (i.e. almost all of us) is unlikely to be able to operate appropriately in the event of an unexpected life threatening situation - regardless of how many people reckon they could handle it. It would also be interesting to know what odds experienced military or law enforcement personnel would give a civilian with a handgun vs an unexpected attack by a shooter with an AR-15 (or equivalent).

 

[Spectric]

This is a very persuasive argument, but IMO also the root of a problem; you can either have a firearm easily to hand, or you can lock it away and keep it safe.

For any tool to be useful it needs to be easily accessable, but kept safe. You would not keep a fire extinguisher in a systainer would you although many people do hide useful tools out of the way in them.

 

[voyager]

Guns and how or if they should be available to the public is a tough and emotive subject.
Here in the UK legislation and restrictions are tough.
for the record, i have an FAC and shoot for both sport and Hunting/pest control.
to get an FAC for certain calibres of firearms in the UK is a long and laborious process, mental health declarations, safe storage, alarms, restrictions on how and where they can be used, not to mention the types that can be owned and used.
Your local FAC officer does not just hand out certificates without some very intensive checks.
In the usa there is state dependant rules which range from picking up an AR from Tesco's to having a waiting period of 2 weeks from application. also some states allow concealed carry and some not, in the UK for the public there is no concealed carry and very stiff penalties for the slightest infringement of FAC regulations.
The criminal fraternity in the UK have easy access to firearms of pretty much any description so as a result the police have many more ARU's than they have ever had.
On balance the banning of handguns and certain types of rifle was probably a wise move, however those of us who live and work in rural communities have a mostly different view on rifles and shotguns than perhaps those living in cities.

 

[Designer1]

This is a very persuasive argument, but IMO also the root of a problem; you can either have a firearm easily to hand, or you can lock it away and keep it safe.

Lock it away and it's much less likely you could ever get to it in time in the event of an attack. Keep it to hand and you're massively more likely to end up with an accidental shooting (yourself or a member of your family) than you ever are to actually use it to defend yourself.

One other factor is even the likelihood of being capable of using the firearm in a "real" situation. A (relatively) untrained, inexperienced civilian (i.e. almost all of us) is unlikely to be able to operate appropriately in the event of an unexpected life threatening situation - regardless of how many people reckon they could handle it. It would also be interesting to know what odds experienced military or law enforcement personnel would give a civilian with a handgun vs an unexpected attack by a shooter with an AR-15 (or equivalent).

I think most people actually don't go to the range with it to be honest, which kind of defeats the point, anyone that's tried using a pistol (myself included) knows how much of a challenge it is, even more so than a rifle.

It's a completely different method even in a controlled range. Add that with fear and a situation like you say, and yeah accidents go through the roof.

As far as I'm aware they do carry out background checks, but that don't turn you into John Wayne unfortunately. Range time does though.

Ar-15's imo get too much bad press, there are various other semi-auto rifles out there that don't get the heat the ar-15 does. Semi auto shotguns never come under fire but they're arguably even more dangerous. It's more time to reload one but after a while you can definitely stick a solid 5 shells in less than 15 seconds. Compared to a reload of about 7 for a magazine fed rifle.

One of my favourites is when the news say "assault rifle 15". It's armalite rifle! Does my tree in.

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

Because one will steal an old persons life savings and often put them in hospital in the process whilst the other will be stealing from big companies and organiisations.

You can read that as "stealing from one person is bad, stealing from a lot of people is OK".

 

[shed9]

Completely unrelated to any above points but thought it was interesting, there's about 228 police officers per 100,000 people in the UK (https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00634/SN00634.pdf) and about 206 police per 100,000 in the US (Total police personnel per 100,000 residents in Canada and the U.S. 2003-2017 | Statista). Given that the US is also about 40 times bigger, police response times are affected. Not so much in cities but in rural areas definitely.

If you were living in a rural area, with a much slower police response time, wouldn't you want something to defend yourself? It could be at least 20 minutes before the police in rural US get to you, 20 minutes doesn't sound long but it would if you had someone circling your house with a weapon trying to rob you.


Also worth noting that during Trump's presidency there was another 50,000 police officers recruited, taking the total to the 700,000 mark, so before it was even less police officers per 100,000.

The UK has a reasonable balance IMO regarding gun laws, you can still own one with a reason (although some forces are more, shall we say difficult than others). I've always been an advocate of being able to legally defend yourself, if you get stabbed, you get taken to hospital. If you defend yourself and cause harm back, you get a prison sentence. Choose your outcome.

A lot of people are against this because then everyone would be carrying knives and weapons, people are usually afraid and paranoid of things they don't know. It's also only the law abiding citizens that follow the laws, never seen a criminal say "oi Dave, leave that switch knife, it's illegal now innit".

The situations a tricky one really, poor sod near me got stabbed and died, had he been carrying something to defend himself with, perhaps this might not have been the outcome. Whether it's legal or illegal to carry something, bad people will always carry anyway. Perhaps why every time anonymous gang members in London are asked why they carry a knife they say "because you need to defend yourself from getting robbed or you just keep losing everything", but then it's just a blood bath every weekend.

The language of this being a 'bad people' centric issue and the concept that it doesn't apply to the law abiding proportion of society is a huge misconception. Not all crime involving weapons, either bladed or firearm is because a bad person went out with that weapon and the victim didn't have a similar tool for defence. That's simplistically ignorant of reality.

Access to weapons (or rather convenient access) as opposed to carrying weapons is the issue and that access is generally a grey area to say the least. By way of example, the proportion of women killed by domestic violence in the UK by knives is the same as women killed by guns in the US. By that token, should we arm every women appropriately in each respective country or only arm those who are married to bad men who are not law abiding and how would that work?

Our prisons are not full of bad people, they are full of people who did bad things,.

 

[Designer1]

On balance the banning of handguns and certain types of rifle was probably a wise move, however those of us who live and work in rural communities have a mostly different view on rifles and shotguns than perhaps those living in cities.

I've definitely found this too, I'm in the sticks and noticed if you speak to someone near you, they'll gladly tell you about their outing the night before or whenever. Tell someone that lives in the city they'll debate if they should call the police

 

[Designer1]

Not all crime involving weapons, either bladed or firearm is because a bad person went out with that weapon and the victim didn't have a similar tool for defence.

If someone goes out with a weapon and causes harm, the consensus is, they're a bad person.

 

[Designer1]

By that token, should we arm every women appropriately in each respective country or only arm those who are married to bad men who are not law abiding and how would that work?

That would be upto the individual to choose if they need to defend themselves, if a woman wants to defend herself against domestic violence, go get something to use for defence. If another woman doesn't feel she needs one, she doesn't have to get one. It's not for us to allocate it's for them to decide.

Imo if you do a bad thing, you're a bad person. Just my opinion though. It doesn't make sense to me if someone was stood there saying "I'm just robbing this old lady, it's a bad thing but I'm a good person honestly". It doesn't click in my head they're a good person

 

[John Brown]

Because one will steal an old persons life savings and often put them in hospital in the process whilst the other will be stealing from big companies and organiisations. Yes there is those in the middle who will scam anyone but they can be avoided, things like equity release, buy a funeral and use later or life insurance policies that when they do pay out will not even buy you a tin of beans.

White collar criminals are just as likely to steal an old person's life savings.
But I said steal a TV, anyway. You made the leap to life savings and hospital.
Anatole France put it better than I can:
"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread."

 

[shed9]

That would be upto the individual to choose if they need to defend themselves, if a woman wants to defend herself against domestic violence, go get something to use for defence. If another woman doesn't feel she needs one, she doesn't have to get one. It's not for us to allocate it's for them to decide.

Imo if you do a bad thing, you're a bad person. Just my opinion though. It doesn't make sense to me if someone was stood there saying "I'm just robbing this old lady, it's a bad thing but I'm a good person honestly". It doesn't click in my head they're a good person

If your take away from all this is the definition of what constitutes a bad person then not sure you understand the problem.

 

[artie]

This is a very interesting and emotive subject and congratulations to everyone for keeping it civil.

But there's a few incorrect assumptions.

You can't swan into Walmart and put an AR15 in your trolley with the beans. At very least you will be subject to a background check and possibly a waiting period which varies by state, before you can pick it up

It's not ok to shoot someone stealing your TV, you will be in deep **** unless he threatens your life.

Some states have stand you ground laws which means they won't give you much trouble if you defend your self and property.

Others don't and you are expected to run if you can and only defend yourself if cornered.

To invite someone to your house and shoot them dead and pretend they threatened you would be folly. American homicide detectives see a lot of crime scenes and know how to read them.

 

[bansobaby]

WRONG


those 2 sentences do not contradict, I suggest you read them again.

You said:
“strict gun laws equals low gun crime
that holds for the vast majority of countries in the world.”

The first line is a definitive statement with no qualification.
The second line states that the definitive statement does not hold true in all instances.
Granted, the lack of any punctuation could create room for confusion, but does it not change the fact that there is contradiction.

 

[bansobaby]

The problem with any law is that it is only respected by the law abiding, the criminal couldn't care less about it. I think the reason we do better here is simply because of you use a gun in the UK you have a much greater chance of being caught than in many countries, that is far more of a deterrent than it actually being against the law. The fact that our police and public generally are pretty hot on this means that it brings a lot of attention, the last thing your criminal is looking for. So the use of guns tends to be reserved for special occasions rather than routine. Mexico is a good example of a country with fairly strict gun laws but rampant gun crime, why ? Because anyone using a gun there knows there is next to no chance of being caught or prosecuted.

Very true, and its also quite likely that some individuals know that their life expectancy is so low that the authorities are actually much less feared than the ‘opposition’.

 

[D_W]

Lock it away and it's much less likely you could ever get to it in time in the event of an attack. Keep it to hand and you're massively more likely to end up with an accidental shooting (yourself or a member of your family) than you ever are to actually use it to defend yourself.

This is a false statement. You're not unlikely to be involved in some kind of accident, but that claim relies on calling suicides "accidents". Guns are used defensively in the US a lot. The are, unfortunately, often used for suicides, too. If you are not suicidal, the chance that you will have a gun suicide is pretty low.

One of the reasons I ditched my guns ( along with the fact that where I live, they're not really functional - no crime to speak of, no ability to hunt ) was that down the road, what if I have a child suffering from depression?

If I were a divorce attorney or police investigator with lots of folks who didn't like me walking around in public, I may think differently. But, I'm not. That said, when you boil fatal accidents and homicides down to numbers that don't include Suicides and drug/inner city activity, the rates aren't very high. The defensive uses are a lot higher. I can't imagine that the defensive use that involves actually shooting and hitting someone is very high - deterring someone from confronting you in a bad area might be higher (like pull up the shirt or have someone knocking and telling them you are armed).

Living in the states in a very low crime area, I only have stories from a few acquaintances who live rural in areas where there are meth problems who talk about how it can be difficult to motivate some people who are stealing your stuff. Large dogs and firearms seem to get through to them no matter how high they are.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Gun ownership to discourage intruders will simply encourage intruders to go armed.

A "burglar - householder" arms race may have some limited impact on the incidence of theft - but it will certainly increase the number of shootings.

Unless proficient in weapons use, fit and trained in self defence, the best solution if threatened is either run or invite the intruder to help themselves. Possessions are more easily replaced than body parts.