More kids and guns

[SueEllen]

That's because we also see being raped & mugged, or suffering burglaries while we're asleep at night (as opposed to when we're out of the house), as an 'acceptable casualty rate' too - i.e. you have to suffer it first and then call the police after.

You know you are legally allowed to use physical force against someone who is attacking you or burgling you it just has to be reasonable.

So if I as a woman hit someone with my high heel doing one of the above it would be reasonable force, however shooting someone in the back while they are escaping isn't. You hitting them with a hammer that is in your tool box as a builder is reasonable, but me walking around with oven cleaner/pepper spray in my handbag and then spraying someone isn't reasonable.

You also need to be intelligent in what you say to the police - so saying I was firing at the ceiling to scare them away and hit one of them by accident would have worked.

Most burglars/muggers/attackers are aware of this and if they are lone individuals will flee if disturbed let alone if there is any form of fight.* Rape is different as the majority of rapes are carried out by someone known to the victim.

The cases where men have been stabbed on front doorsteps by householders (who are normally male) in England, it is due to the man trying to enter being extremely drunk, refusing to listen to the householder telling him to go away as it's not their house and then being violent when they have been prevented from entering. The householders in those cases have not been charged.

I'm sure many women in the united states would be horrified to be told that they aren't allowed to carry protection while they walk the streets at night.

A concealed gun will not help you if someone can use their larger physical strength on you as attacks like that tend to happen by surprise. Plus if you can carry a weapon they will be carrying the same.

You actually safer if you firstly aware of your surroundings and then know how to physically deal with them. Lots of the mugging victims I know were either drunk or on their phones, and in all cases were taken by surprise so didn't have time to react.

It's all just, at this point, a normalcy bias. Probably many of the the Jews in America would be horrified to be told that they were to be disarmed just as they were disarmed by Hitler back in '38.

They live in America so will have American views on the issue. Like Jews in the UK will have a different view on gun control to the Jews in Canada to the Jews in South Africa to the Jews in Israel.

I know stats from different countries are measured differently, but the official stats show that the UK has a higher violent crime rate than the US does. Yet the US has all of those guns. On the big assumption that those stats are roughly compatible, then what seems horrifying to me is that we are prohibited from taking steps to defend ourselves from violent predators, even though we have measurably higher violent crime rates than countries which do allow it's citizens to defend themselves.

Most of the violence in the UK is claimed by the police and other services to be alcohol based. Also unless you are a guy under 25 you are extremely unlikely to be physically attacked in the UK.

*I've had an attempted burglary where the burglar was disturbed and then caught, and been around when mates have been attacked.

[xoggoth]

Comparisons with knives, vans and other stuff that can kill people do not make much sense. Of course people can be killed by all sorts of things, choking on a peanut for example, but few things have the capacity to kill so many people in a short space of time over a wide range as a gun.

As for criminals being able to get them anyway even if there were strict controls, that may be true of some with the right contacts but certainly not of all. When you look at some of the worst cases in the US, some appear to be disturbed and inadequate individuals rather than career criminals, would they have all be able to get guns if there had been stricter checks?

All in favour of self defence but surely there should be checks to ensure the owners are responsible individuals?

[darmstadt]

Who needs guns? Knife and axe attack in Devon village leaves one dead and two injured | UK news | The Guardian

[Paddy]

like they checked out the guy who committed the Hungarford massacre...

[tomtomagain]

Would you possibly find it less bizarre if you learned that in pretty much all of the mass shootings in the states, in recent history, he shooters all made significant efforts to seek out soft targets in the form of 'gun free' zones? E.g. the batman cinema shooter went to the sixth farthest away cinema to commit the crime - and that one happens to be one where guns are not allowed while the 5 closer ones all allowed guns?

That may be the case.

I am just saying I would find it very odd to live in a society where handguns are the norm.

I live in one where they aren't.

I am not afraid of guns. I just don't understand why I would be free'er if allowed to carry a handgun to buy a packet of Pringles.

Explain to me why I'd be safer if I were allowed to take a concealed hand-gun to the Co-op or buy an assault rifle in Tesco's.

[EternalOptimist]

When the designers sit down to design a van, they think about cost, load, efficiency, maintainability etc.
Designing a screwdriver ? materials, size, length of haft etc.
Designing a peanut ? how oily is it
Gravity ? hmm mass over the square of the distance apart

all these things can kill.

but a gun is designed to kill.

If Spontaneous order thinks there is a parallel between arming the public with vans and arming them with guns, then he needs to put his brain-care specialist on danger-money

[Stevie Wonder Boy]

Ban vans too then?

Nantes van attack: Dozens injured after man shouting 'Allahu Akbar' ploughs van into Christmas market - Mirror Online

Ban knives too?

A knife attack every 4 minutes; 130,000 per year - but ministers still insist crime rates are falling | Daily Mail Online

Because laws about carrying them only matter to people who don't intend to use them in the first place.

Personally two issues ...

1. Accidental deaths -> People killed in the US something north of 33,000 per annum. To me personally this is the big issue. In the UK you can own a gun, but the regulations and laws that surround them, plus the community of gun owners in the UK make sure that people don't in the main don't do stupid things. For a small list ...

a. Load your gun in the house.
b. Carry around a loaded gun -> Note: not concealed, just loaded. Even the idea that this stupid (yes stupid) woman was walking around with a loaded handgun in her purse with the saftey off, is just unbelievable.
c. Store the gun in a secure locked cabinet, non license holders, i.e. people that don't need to know like wives and children don't know were the keys are. (Police do pop in and check).
d. People in the main with documented mental health issues cannot buy guns or ammunition.
e. People who in the main exibit violent or criminal behaviour can't buy guns or ammunition.

I hold the view that if the US implemented some proper regulation around the ownership of guns, whereby walking around in a super market with a concealed loaded weapon would be viewed as not only stupid but illegal, this would help the situation in the US, not make it worse.


2. Criminality - Criminals don't respect the law and do what ever they want to do. Not worth talking about in the context of legal gun ownership. There was an FBI statistic I seem to recall in confrontations with criminals legal gun owners had a 91%, 1 in 10 chance of coming better off, most got seriously injured or killed. Knives, lorries, cars all dangerous yes, but not seen many two year olds running down someone with a car.

[Stevie Wonder Boy]

That may be the case.

I am just saying I would find it very odd to live in a society where handguns are the norm.

I live in one where they aren't.

I am not afraid of guns. I just don't understand why I would be free'er if allowed to carry a handgun to buy a packet of Pringles.

Explain to me why I'd be safer if I were allowed to take a concealed hand-gun to the Co-op or buy an assault rifle in Tesco's.

Just to be clear on my position, I've lived in both countries for long periods of time. I have a definite preference for the UK gun control model, knowing if I honk my horn at some tool in traffic he isn't going to jump out with a hand gun and start firing at me. Yes, I'm ex-military and yes I've carried a gun (loaded) as part of that job.

[Stevie Wonder Boy]

You're goddamn right!.

<ZG in Tony Martin mode>

More seriously, the civilian population has been totally disarmed.

Even attempting to fight back is likely to end up with you in court being sued by the scrote who was the original miscreant.

Justice, my arse.

An armed society is a polite society.

Tony Martin didn't help himself. When the police got him in for questioning they asked him why he pulled the trigger, his response was "He deserved it". Crazy meets criminal. So they slung him in Gaol. What else could they do?

[Stevie Wonder Boy]

'Tis of course slightly odd that there are now far more illegal handguns in the UK than there were before handguns were banned.

Seems perfectly logical to me?