Gun laws

[Balsiefen]

You can defend yourself against a knife. you cant against a gun, Even if you own a gun, by the time one is pointing one at you its too late to find your own.

I'm not saying that its impossible to get a gun in britain, but you'd have to be bloody determined. Gun restrictions prevent petty criminalsfrom using guns and force them to use things like knives, which are much less effective and deadly. To get a gun in Britain you have to go deep into the black market, which is somthing that most criminals and gangs are unable to do. While there will always be a couple of shootings a month in britain, the rate is no whare near as high as the us and the police are much more able to handle it.

[vtmarik]

However, if guns were ever outlawed, only outlaws would have guns!! That is not acceptable.

And if crimes were legal - there would be no criminals

Well, for there to be a crime you need A) criminals and B) Victims, or A) Victims and B) Criminals.

It occurs to me that if there were no victims, there would be no crimes, unless criminals began to prey on other criminals, ad infinitum, but I digress.

Making guns illegal simply increases the incentive to be violent while obtaining them. If guns were available everywhere, how could people get a market share selling illegal guns at extreme risk and high prices?

Now, while I personally don't like guns very much, I can see the link between illegality and their use. But think of it this way:

If a guy decides he's gonna rob a bank and take hostages, he's made the conscious decision to break the law. How is the fact that guns are illegal going to stop him from using them?

Perhaps a better way of looking at it is if you consider crimes of 'passion', or crimes by the mentally unstable... We have tight gun laws in the UK. You can't just walk into a shop and buy a gun, and ownership is subject to harsh checks, regulations and licenses. We don't have wide gun ownership whatsoever. Most people don't have a gun and wouldn't consider getting one because a) we don't have the culture where guns are 'required' and b) its really hard to get one in the first place. So if a schizophrenic kid at University decides to go on a rampage he doesn't just have a gun at hand to shoot his classmates. He might hang himself, or beat someone up, but he doesn't shoot fifty people. A husband who finds his wife cheating on him, in a fit of rage, simply cannot take his gun and put six bullets in his wife and her lover because he doesn't have that gun around. The option isn't there.

Of course criminals can get guns, but the vast vast majority don't have firearms and never will.

Then the vast majority doesn't have the ability to defend themselves from the minority who have guns.

In this country we have strict licensing and background checks as well, the only problem is that there's also a healthy underworld for guns and drugs and the like already in place in this country and tested by 250 years of graft. You aren't going to weaken the sale of unregistered/stolen guns by making them illegal or taking them away from citizens, you're only going to increase the street value of the guns already in existence.

[Stopper]

fore ever guns
never communism
always freedom

Yeeeee-haw! We gonna shoot us some Commies!

*Fires revolvers in the air*

[MeDeFe]

The commies, with the help of their allies (hippies, atheists, liberals, punks, illegal immigrants et alii), also invented a chemical that turns hard-working, patriotic, god-fearing Americans into vile zombies, they are distributing it by airplane over rural areas in order to undermine the American society and its values.

Luckily there is ZEMA, the Zombie Emergency Management Agency, they know how to deal with these situations and how to quickly wipe out the infections.

[Guiscard]

[quote="vtmarik"]In this country we have strict licensing and background checks as well/quote]

Really? Virginia Tech? A kid with a documented history of mental illness was able to walk into a shop and buy a handgun that day. Sounds strict to me...

[s.xkitten]

In this country we have strict licensing and background checks as well

Really? Virginia Tech? A kid with a documented history of mental illness was able to walk into a shop and buy a handgun that day. Sounds strict to me...

meh...privacy laws prevent the places from getting access to mental records...the stupidity of America shines through once again...

[b.k. barunt]

In Britain, maybe your justice system is not fooked up like ours, but to make guns illegal here would not restrict the black market, but heighten it. This is because our justice system would, as in the war on drugs, go after the users and small time dealers instead of the big time arms merchants, who pay off the judges and cops. So with a steady flow of guns from the big boys, there would always be those waiting in line to take the place of the dealers who were busted. Making guns illegal would simply, as glide said, disarm the victims.

[Jenos Ridan]

In Britain, maybe your justice system is not fooked up like ours, but to make guns illegal here would not restrict the black market, but heighten it. This is because our justice system would, as in the war on drugs, go after the users and small time dealers instead of the big time arms merchants, who pay off the judges and cops. So with a steady flow of guns from the big boys, there would always be those waiting in line to take the place of the dealers who were busted. Making guns illegal would simply, as glide said, disarm the victims.

The point about the black market is a real sticker for Gun Control. But paying off the judges? Well, popular fiction is rife with that happening........

[b.k. barunt]

Popular fiction? You really are an ignorant twat now, aren't you?