Gun control in the UK

Discussion in 'Gun Control' started by aldal, Apr 11, 2017.

  1. aldal

    aldal New Member

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    Hello all, i'm new to this site
    I was wondering your opinions on UK gun control
    The UK banned all Semi-Auto rifles and pistols after two mass shootings. But this did not lead to the decrease in gun crime. Ever since theses laws were enacted gun crime and violent crime increased. There is an estimated 4 million illegal firearms in the UK and gun crime has increased from 9000 in 1980 (when firearms laws were less restrictive) to 11,000 in 2011/12. This shows that restring guns has led to increase in crime and targeted the law abiding citizens into giving up their sporting items. These weapons were primarily used for sport but also for different professions such as a vet who could carry a pistol (e..g putting down cows with mouth and foot disease). In my opinion gun laws in the UK need to less restrictive and need to more like Canada's laws where many types of firearms are legal but owners have to have psychology tests etc to own one. I'm interested to hear your thoughts and opinions on UK gun laws.
     
  2. AGWisFAKEsillyBABYKILLERS

    AGWisFAKEsillyBABYKILLERS Well-Known Member

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    The UK gun restriction laws are terrible but the UK also has some extremely terrible self defense lawn in general..
    And are slipping more and more PC with massive hits on freedom of speech as well..

    Are they beyond the point of no return or is their hope?
     
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  3. Vegas giants

    Vegas giants Banned

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    Canada's laws are more restrictive than the US. Also I see you have posted no evidence for the claims you have made
     
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  4. aldal

    aldal New Member

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    Last edited: Apr 11, 2017
  5. vman12

    vman12 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I feel bad for you guys, I really do.

    Defending your own life is a right no government should be able to punish anyone for.

    Your politicians are surrounded by guns.

    I notice they didn't charge the politicians bodyguard for shooting the knife wielding Muslim.

    It must be nice to have someone "bundle" you into a car to escape when your life is in danger.
     
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  6. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You’ve demonstrated a correlation, not a connection. You’ve provided no evidence, not even a hypothesis, that changes to UK gun laws actually caused the subsequent increase in gun crime or violent crime in general.

    It’s obviously possible but it could equally be that they would have gone up anyway due to other factors and that the gun law changes didn’t have an impact or even reduced the rate at which they increased. It’s also worth noting that the gun law changes created a whole set of new laws which would add to the statistics. Someone being stopped with just an imitation firearm, even just a toy with the red cap removed, could now be recorded as a “gun crime”.

    I believe there are exceptions and consideration for tools needed for specific jobs such as vets and there are some exemptions for sport shooting, though it is very restrictive and has unfortunately impacted at lot in that area, especially pistol shooting.

    I think the bottom line is that this issue is very low down on the list of priorities for most British people. We have simply never had the gun culture that the US or even places like Canada do and so the number of people who (legitimately) want guns is much smaller and the number of people who really don’t care (or know) is much higher. Given the current public perception of there being lots of violent crime and terrorism (albeit somewhat flawed), I don’t see any proposal for softening our gun laws getting very far, regardless of whether it would be a good thing or not.
     
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  7. Diablo

    Diablo Well-Known Member

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    The UK population has been growing since 1980 from around 55m to 65m in 2013 - rough numbers I got from a graph. That's around18%, not far short of your gun crime stat. Plus most of the immigration will be people at the poorer end of society, so that might be a factor too. There's no appetite for large-scale gun ownership in the UK.
     
  8. unbiased institute

    unbiased institute Member

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    I'm not quite sure as to where you got your statistics from as the number of murders and shootings has gone down not up. I think that the statistics you have may also include non-violent offences.
    As for the 4M estimate. I would love to know where you got that from.

    Also owning and using a firearm isn't quite as restrictive as many people think it is.
     
  9. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I fear our OP is a Mirror “reader”; http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/4-million-guns-uk-streets-7598164

    Obviously overlooking the fact that’s an estimate of all firearms, not just illegal ones and a somewhat sketchy one given the article states figures for 1.8 million legal and 500,000 illegal firearms yet the Professor quoted inexplicable ends up with the estimated 4 million total (though there is an implication the difference is account for by Northern Ireland).
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2017
  10. unbiased institute

    unbiased institute Member

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    I suspected that might be the case. Still makes for a good headline even though newspapers don't always provide the best source of information.
     
  11. Otern

    Otern Active Member

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    So, Britain's got an extremely low gun homicide rate. In this case, I guess the gun control works.

    But I still don't want their extremely strict gun laws in my country. In fact, the gun regulations are way too strict here too. Remove the mandatory gun safe thing here, and I would consider it tolerable.

    Hunting and sports shooting are perfectly reasonable hobbies. And I consider the right to self defense to be a human right.

    Of the European countries with the most sensible gun laws, the Czech republic seem pretty great. An even lower murder rate than Britain, pretty easy access to handguns and semi automatic rifles, and a sensible gun culture where they're not paranoid of any shadow in the dark.

    The only thing Norway has over the Czechs in gun rights, is our suppressors are unregulated, but their are not.

    But, as for the positive aspects of guns in Britain; the average police don't carry guns either. This way, there's really no difference between the right of the citizen's right to personal defense, and the police. Basically only the US, Britain, Norway and the Czechs do this thing right. The US and the Czechs in that there's the right of tooling up for individual self defense, both for the public, and the police. While Norway and Britain does it right by not extending the police's power and rights too far above the public.
     
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  12. Texan

    Texan Well-Known Member

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    Why is "gun homicide" any different from "homicide"? Are victims of "gun homicide" more dead? Britain is an island with a traditionally homogenous population. America is a melting pot with racial strife and a common border with a 3rd world, gun banning, cesspool. Of course our homicide rate will be higher. Good luck with self defense laws in Britain. I hope you aren't female or elderly there.
     
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  13. slackercruster

    slackercruster Banned

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    I was wondering your opinions on UK gun control?

    No opinion other than you can't have guns or even pepper spray...your ****ed. The criminals have more rights than law abiders in the U.K. As England get more Islamic you can kiss your heads goodbye!

    This is part of the freedom we have in the USA...we are entitled to self-defense.

    https://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/armed-citizen/
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2017
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  14. Rucker61

    Rucker61 Well-Known Member

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    Compare the homicide rates before and after the 1996 laws to see how well they worked, and normalize that delta against changes in similar countries that impose draconian laws, ie, if France and Germany saw a 10% drop in homicides since 1996, you'd have to account for that expected drop in the UK figures if they hadn't imposed their laws.
    Yeah, but they have CZ ;)
     
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  15. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We’ve always had relatively low gun crime rates and I’m not convinced the big changes that followed the Dumblane massacre actually made any significant difference either way. We’ve never had a big gun culture here so the vast majority of people never owned them and many of those can still legally keep their guns (albeit with more red tape).

    In general terms on this topic, I think there is too much focus on laws (for and against) and not enough on attitudes and practice.
     
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  16. Diablo

    Diablo Well-Known Member

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    Not really:

    The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimate that in 2014, 8.3 million people living in the UK were born abroad, around 13% of the total population of the UK. Of these, 3 million were from countries now in the European Union and 5.3 million were from non-EU countries.
     
  17. slackercruster

    slackercruster Banned

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    I concur, no hope unless radical change.

    Only hope is for England to ask to be adopted as the 51st state. Then we can whip them into shape....just like we did back in the Revolution.

    Once we clean out the garbage they will enjoy all the rights and freedoms we have in the US.

    If not, then they can keep sucking up to that shriveled up old ******bag in Buckingham Palace.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2017
  18. Rucker61

    Rucker61 Well-Known Member

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    Homogenous in racial makeup: 87% white.

    http://www.indexmundi.com/united_kingdom/demographics_profile.html
     
  19. Otern

    Otern Active Member

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    Yeah.

    It bothers me that most of the focus on gun control, tend to be on the attention grabbing huge massacres, which in total doesn't really kill a lot of people anywhere. When most of the gun violence, or gun deaths in general seem to be ignored.

    Suicides are still THE killer when it comes to guns, and I do believe an easy access to guns have an effect on the suicide rates. But this tend to be ignored, because suicides can't really be fixed with more gun control, only somewhat lessened. People will still hang themselves, even in a society with no guns, but a gun will be a really quick way, in a momentary crisis. Some people are saved by the time it takes to tie a knot, and find a beam strong enough, while loading a gun with one bullet takes really little time at all.

    Same with gang related violence. Easy access to guns, will make it easier for criminals to get them too, either through straw purchases, or simply stealing them from law abiding owners. But restricting guns further won't solve the underlying issues of gang crime.

    My major objection to restrictive gun control, is that it's a cheap measure to gain political points, while not addressing the underlying causes of the deaths. Gun control as a response to suicide will not be as effective as setting up proper mental health infrastructure for vulnerable people.
     
  20. Otern

    Otern Active Member

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    Thing is, Britain had very restrictive gun laws BEFORE the Dunblane massacre. I agree the measures they took after probably didn't have any effect on gun deaths overall. And if it did, it was probably too small to notice.

    And still the Czechs kill each other even less than the Brits, even though they have a much easier access to guns.

    Culture and society matters a lot more than the guns, or the gun laws in general. I bet that if Iceland just removed all of their gun laws, and every Icelander could buy a bazooka at their local hardware store, Iceland wouldn't suddenly experience a massive surge in violent crime. But their fishing practices would get rather interesting.
     
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  21. Diablo

    Diablo Well-Known Member

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  22. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    To be fair, arguments against gun control (existing or new) are often exactly the same. The whole thing seems to have become irrecoverably politicised in the US.
     
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  23. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You need to take a little care comparing crime statistics from different jurisdictions. They often use different definitions for crimes or collect the statistics differently.

    For example, in the UK, one person killing multiple people used to be recorded as a single homicide where as now it's recorded as one per victim. That kind of thing can obviously make a massive difference if you're just comparing two numbers.
     
  24. Otern

    Otern Active Member

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    This is true. Which is why I don't subscribe to the usual "but Britain's got a higher violent crime rate than the US"-argument pushed by a lot of pro gunners.

    But the intentional homicide rate is pretty hard to escape from. And the Czechs haven't turned violent, by having easy access to guns.

    Of course the Czechs generally don't USE that right they have either. They have a pretty low gun density, even though their legal system makes it simple to get hold of them. They have a healthy gun culture, and well functioning society overall.
     
  25. Greataxe

    Greataxe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The UK needs to be more wary of Sharia Law than gun laws.

    I support slamming all repeat violent felons hard. This works. Gun control does not.
     

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