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Legalise Firearms in the UK

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Reply 20
Avatar for nic-nac
nic-nac
15
Original post by FreedomCostsTax
No. To get a firearms licence, you need to fill out a firearms application that requires you to state a "good reason", for wishing to own one. Being a member of a shooting range for several years is just about the only "good reason" that they tend to accept.


What's your point ?
Original post by Quady
Cool, where can I get one?

PM me if you know someone.


Anyone connected to the criminal world could get you one tomorrow morning.
Original post by nic-nac
What's your point ?


The point is, firearms are illegal for the purposes of self defense, which is what my original post is all about.
The USA's murder rate is nearly 4 times the UK's - 4.7 as opposed to 1.2 per 100,000 population per year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_murder_rate). More crucially, the USA's firearm murder rate is several hundred times higher than the UK's.

Yes, the rape rate is supposedly higher in the UK (though I haven't found any source that accounts for differences in ways of collecting data, so there's the potential for that to be dodgy). I couldn't find any data on theft at all But in any case, what makes you think having a gun will protect you from rapists or thieves when fully legalising firearms will just make it easier for the criminals to get guns as well?

Also 90% of gun crime in the US is caused by black gangs. If you took those scum out of the equation, gun crime in the US would be at european levels (even when taking into account the very rare school shooting aberration).


But you can't take them out of the equation. It doesn't matter whether all the gun murders in the USA were done by one person - there are still far more than there would have been if criminals couldn't get hold of guns so easily!
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 24
Avatar for Quady
Quady
20
Original post by FreedomCostsTax
Anyone connected to the criminal world could get you one tomorrow morning.


Can you?
Original post by Quady
Can you?


No comment
Reply 26
Avatar for 0kaySadia_
0kaySadia_
Legalising guns wouldn't lower crime rate, it'd just introduce a new way to increase it. People are hardly going to walk around with guns in their handbags or pockets for the purpose of possibly needing it for self defence, but people with the intention to kill would easily have the opportunity to. Someone has commented that it's the fault of "black gangs" that gun crime is such a problem in America. In which school mass shooting were black gangs so heavily involved? I can't think of any, personally, and anyway, making guns readily available in the UK would enhance gang crime in this country as well.


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Original post by 0kaySadia_
Legalising guns wouldn't lower crime rate, it'd just introduce a new way to increase it. People are hardly going to walk around with guns in their handbags or pockets for the purpose of possibly needing it for self defence, but people with the intention to kill would easily have the opportunity to. Someone has commented that it's the fault of "black gangs" that gun crime is such a problem in America. In which school mass shooting were black gangs so heavily involved? I can't think of any, personally, and anyway, making guns readily available in the UK would enhance gang crime in this country as well.

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That person was right. Gun crimes in the US are mostly gang related.
Reply 28
Avatar for trrr
trrr
13
No, there is already too many people carrying knives.
Yes because that has worked so well in the US. Say what you want about our crime statistics, guns are not a massive problem in the UK. I don't think I've ever even seen a gun. My stepdad has a gun license, but he must keep it in a double locked case, with the ammunition in a separate double locked case, inside a locked cabinet. He doesn't even keep it in the house but in the Military base, and can only take it out of the house to go shooting at the range.
It is for these reasons that we don't have a huge problem - even people deemed fit to own guns must do so with extreme precautions. Not even the police carry guns, except in certain circumstances. The police in the US are trigger happy, and nearly every week theres a case about them shooting someone they shouldn't.
The only people who would gain are criminals. Sure, our stats might be higher for other crimes, but I'd sure as hell rather live in fear of getting robbed or beaten up than live in fear of guns or mass shootings.

In 2012 ALONE, there were 12 school shootings, including one where 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7 DIED That's just school shootings, look up other forms of gun fatalities. It's astronomical.

I do not want any of that fear coming to the UK. If they legalised guns like you are suggesting here, no question I would move. Straight away.
Original post by buchanan700
In 2012 ALONE, there were 12 school shootings, including one where 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7 DIED That's just school shootings, look up other forms of gun fatalities. It's astronomical.


Guns are already easily obtained in the UK. If someone is messed up enough to do something like that, then they will, regardless of the laws restrictions on firearms.
Reply 31
Avatar for lucaf
lucaf
13
Original post by FreedomCostsTax
Guns are already extremely easy to get a hold of. Legalising them wouldn't make them anymore prominent in the criminal world, seriously.


so it is just coincidence that our gun crime is lower than countries legalized firearms? :rolleyes:
Original post by lucaf
so it is just coincidence that our gun crime is lower than countries legalized firearms? :rolleyes:


The UK doesn't have any gang problems on the same scale as the US, nor is it a war-torn country.
Original post by FreedomCostsTax
Guns are already easily obtained in the UK. If someone is messed up enough to do something like that, then they will, regardless of the laws restrictions on firearms.


Not that easily obtained. Not just anyone can get one, and they are not easily accessible.
However you want to debate about hypotheticals, the facts are this. (Note I am only using school shootings as an example for clarity, but am more than happy to find facts about other gun killings and compare those.)
Number of school shootings in the US, since 1996 (Dunblane): 61
Number of school shootings in the UK, since 1996 (Dunblane included): 1

Well, would you look at that. You know why? Because after Dunblane, we tightened up our firearms laws so that they are among the tightest in the world. Sure, if someone really, really wants to go on a rampage with a gun, they'll do it, thus Cumbria. But at the moment it is very inconvenient and I think that's the main issue. People just don't bother going through the effort of trying to obtain and use a gun when they can use far less lethal things and get a 'job done'.

That's why homicides by gun, suicide by gun, unintentional death via gun is substantially lower than the US, and I believe it plays a part in a homicide rate thats 4.1 (US) vs 1.2 (UK), or a suicide rate that is closer, but also higher in the US (11.8 vs 12.0)
Reply 34
Avatar for alow
alow
19
Original post by FreedomCostsTax
No. To get a firearms licence, you need to fill out a firearms application that requires you to state a "good reason", for wishing to own one. Being a member of a shooting range for several years is just about the only "good reason" that they tend to accept.


Several years? Do you even have a Section 1 licence? It takes all of 3-6 months as a member of a club to get one.
Original post by buchanan700
Not that easily obtained. Not just anyone can get one, and they are not easily accessible.


They are very easily obtained, absolutely anyone willing to pay could get one.
Original post by alow
Several years? Do you even have a Section 1 licence? It takes all of 3-6 months as a member of a club to get one.


Yeah it was a typo, meant to say months. But even then you need to be an active member.
Reply 37
Avatar for alow
alow
19
Original post by FreedomCostsTax
Yeah it was a typo, meant to say months. But even then you need to be an active member.


Not that active though. Go 3-4 times within 6 months and you're sorted.
Original post by alow
Not that active though. Go 3-4 times within 6 months and you're sorted.


I doubt it, they'd probably just tell you to use the ranges guns if you hardly ever go.
Reply 39
Avatar for alow
alow
19
Original post by FreedomCostsTax
I doubt it, they'd probably just tell you to use the ranges guns if you hardly ever go.


I have a Section 1 and that's how I got it.

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