For all you anti gun hoplophobes on here

Banning something from the majority just because of a tiny minority is anti-freedom, period.



this is possibly the stupidest thing I ever read.. who else is going to implement gun laws? The fairies?

Ultimately: what you are recommending is increasing the control that the government has over people by controlling guns. I, on the other hand, am proposing a relaxation of the government rules, to a less harsh, and less interfering stance. Hence, you are pro-government control. This is undeniable.

or go to self defence classes (they'll be substantially cheaper to be honest).

It says in the article that the culprits were 'aged between 14 and 17' so although by law they can hold a firearms certificate, I doubt that they would be able to show good reason for holding one, and 'self defence' certainly isn't a good reason.

no they're not! a can of pepper spray costs $10, dozens of martial arts classes on the other hand would be substantialy more and probably less effective

The right to public safety and freedom to walk the street without your head being blown off

In fact, the gun licensing act is currently under review and will probably become stricter.

Yeah, this is the difference between us Libertarians and you anti-freedom authoritarians following your Nazi-esque ideology. You have no trust in society. Any liberalisation of anything causes a knee jerk reaction. Slightly liberalise gun control laws? THE STREETS ARE CHAOS!!!

Go back to your Tory-voting, Mail-reading, immigration-tutting middle class lifestyle. I know your kind exactly, and as said before, I will always fight your kind for the liberty of the individual.

I am in no part anti-freedom, I'm just looking at the evidence. Knee jerk reaction against liberalism, im a blinking Liberal Democrat!

To be honest you clearly have no grip on the issue. Just relating every person who opposes your view to the Nazis is utterly idiotic, in fact its offensive.

Get a grip. A; I wouldn't vote Tory if my life depended on it. I'm a Liberal Democrat.
B: wouldn't wipe my behind with the mail if it was offered to me, I read The Independent (generally non-biased news)

C: Immigration has been beneficial to many parts of the UK, look back into our history far enough and you will find that all of us decend from outside the UK anyway.

My 'Kind' as you put it believe in looking at the evidence and forming a balanced and rational argument. Something you seem to be missunderstanding. The facts remain that the UK has one of the lowest mortality rates from firearms, and we have some of the strictest gun laws, coincidence?. UN data supports this. I'd like to see all your sourced, evidenced data and statistics on why you oppose this please!. Calling myself or anyone else who goes against you a Nazi is not an acceptable answer by the way

Then either you're voting for the wrong party, or the "Liberal" Democrats are misnamed. Because it's completely false for anyone to call themselves liberal but be authoritarian on one single issue. I didn't call you Nazi - I said you are following a Nazi-esque ideology. Read more here http://jpfo.org/

As Franklin said: They who can give up liberty to obtain a little safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.. I believe in trusting people, and not simply banning anything that could technically harm somebody else.. A shotgun gives me utility and can harm somebody else, same goes for a handgun.. one is outright banned, the other isn't..

I still need statistics though. You haven't provided me with any to support your view. And a quote, for me, isn't evidence.
The liberal democrats will never be completely liberal in your eyes, anyone in governments is bound to be authoritarian, thats the whole point in a government, to govern. In fact governments rarely govern in the west, it all tends to be to do with 'the markets', the media and the economy.
Wishing for public safety is not a nazi-esque ideal at all. It's a perfectly reasonable and rational wish. I respect that you have views different to mine, but if you are going to call my principles nazi-esque I want some bonefied evidence that your view is also valid. I provided you with my evidence.

Um, I fail to see which "evidence" or "statistics" you want me to provide.. the defence of liberty isn't really a mathematical one.

I do defend liberty, the right to vote, the right to free speech, the right to live, the right to work, the right to be safe.
However I don't believe anyone really needs the right to own a firearm. That's all, it goes against the fundemental rights to be safe and to live (although you could counteract it with self defence I suppose). We abolished the death penalty in the UK because it was flawed. Just handing the ability to decided someones right to life in the name of 'self defence' into the hands of everyone would also be morally and ethically flawed. Why should you be able to decide if someone should live or die at the end of your gun?. No one should be able to make that decision, no one. To believe you have the right to make that decision in the name of self-defence shows you put yourself morally above everyone else which is incorrect and wrong.

Well, if I got a handgun then I would store it carefully and gain utility from it, in whatever way that may be (shooting a target in my back garden, for example). Nobody else in society would be negatively affected by me owning that gun, the only net gain would be positive. However, I cannot, because someone, somewhere, might get a handgun and use it wrongly. Off the top of my head (these figures may be wrong but I hope they are broadly correct) the UK had 70,000 handgun owners in 1997, but because of 1 single person using it wrongly in a tragic event, the other 69,999 lost their liberty to own a handgun. I believe that taking away the liberty of the majority, just because of the actions of a tiny minority, is not good action. We do not ban Islam because a few Muslims are terrorists, we do not imprison all black people because a few are criminals, and so on, and yet, we ban all handguns because of the actions of a tiny, tiny minority.

I believe the root cause of hoplophobic opinion is held in the definition of the word itself - it's a phobia. There is an obvious link that people interested in guns want gun law liberalisation, whilst those with no interest want gun laws strengthened, and as the latter are in the majority, we are simply seeing classic tyranny of the majority - "I personally have no interest in it, and there's an absolutely tiny chance that it will affect me" - these 2 factors combine to cause hoplophobia.

I have no problem with the ownership of firearms for the purposes of sport, or countryside management.

So you support my right to buy a handgun and shoot a target for sport? Or is that an exception you take an authoritarian stance on?

Same old, same old...

cyprus, 1 in 3 people own a firearm http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/cyprus
its still a very safe country, i'm quarter greek cypriot by the way

It's a simple yes/no question which I see you've completely avoided, because you're starting to come to terms with your authoritarian stance on the issue. Pathetic

To finnish it off; If you are competent with a gun and well within the law to have one, well have one, but if you're unstable, incompetent and will put lives at risk you shouldn't be allowed near one. It's common sense to be honest. End of, night night.