Gun Control politics on both sides of the pond

[Mark/Static]

Originally posted by JoseDominguez
1)So accidentaly shot kids is worth it?

And the 2500 more children that drown are worth having swimming pools? At least a gun can save your life.

Originally posted by JoseDominguez
and I don't think murdered people care either way mate.

Then ask the victims families.

Originally posted by JoseDominguez
2)If you haven't drawn yours (as you stated) then he will take it.

Didn't happen to me. They'll either split once they have the money, or kill you then split. The key word here is concealed carrying.

Originally posted by JoseDominguez
3)So, the authorities encourage the carrying of illegal fire-arms then? Kinda short circuits your argument.

No, they just don't discourage the application of self defense, or penalize you when you apply it.
Unlike Eric Butler defending himself after being beaten and strangled in a London subway car, then being charged with carrying an offensive weapon (a walking stick with a sword in it), or Tony Martin who defended himself against burglars in his Norfolk home and being sentenced to life + 10 years for murder, law-abiding Americans are not persecuted for our self-preserving instincts.

 

[Baca Loco]

Hey, Jo

Originally posted by JoseDominguez
All irrelevant, there are less fire-arms in this country due to the illegality of owning one. Our fire-arm death rate would be higher if you could own one legally. IT IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT. How can you argue?

It's easy to argue with that. Your own press and police statistics on gun crimes and violent crimes since the ban demonstrate you're wrong.
Let's see. Before the ban, death rate lower. After the ban, it's rising at alarming rates evey year as are violent gun-related crimes. Doh! Seems pretty simple to me.
As for the rest of your "factoids" . . .

As to Mark's and my fundamental point (he said speaking for Mark ) it's really nothing to do with "gun control" per se it's about your seemingly society-wide willingness to nod your heads politely and hand over your liberties.

(No doubt Hotpoint will jump in and yammer about the 'social contract' as he begins his second fruitless decade attempting to deal with bureaucrats on something as simple and minor as paintball. Or does it just seem like a second decade, Jon?)

 

[JoseDominguez]

Yes, and you can quote statistics to prove anything, the rise in gun-crime in the UK is a highly complex problem involving drugs, gang-activity etc.. etc.... but you can always use a random statistic to prove your point can't you.
It is different in the UK, burglars have NEVER had to worry about gun owning victims over here, there were not enough of them, and any that did exist had to be kept in a locked box, you keep responding to these posts from a purely American perspective, but it's not appropriate, before the ban we were not all armed, no burglar would stop to worry about it, so the fact that gun-crime increased is due to other complex issues.
Statistics are easily abused e.g. Since the ban on guns in the UK, ownership of terrapins(turtles) has dropped sharply in our country, so gun-ownership is linked to turtles is it? no, it was something else.
And yes, ban swimming pools, and cars and high things and anything pointy, you might as well stop taking antibiotics too, I'm sick of that argument, it's nothing to do with gun-control, the"you aren't banning cars, so why ban guns" it's just silly and exactly the same as"you haven't cured cancer so why innoculate against smallpox".

I'm not arguing anymore, as usual a thread about UK gun control and it's effects on paintball has switched over to "guns are great you are wrong" and people are starting to make personal comments with the normal air of superiority. So, that's me done, I've made my point, feel free to post some witty little insults, safe in the knowledge that I'm not watching you through a scope from the clock-tower.

 

[Baca Loco]

Originally posted by JoseDominguez
Yes, and you can quote statistics to prove anything, the rise in gun-crime in the UK is a highly complex problem involving drugs, gang-activity etc.. etc.... but you can always use a random statistic to prove your point can't you.

Statistics are easily abused e.g. Since the ban on guns in the UK, ownership of terrapins(turtles) has dropped sharply in our country, so gun-ownership is linked to turtles is it? no, it was something else.

I'm not arguing anymore, as usual a thread about UK gun control and it's effects on paintball has switched over to "guns are great you are wrong" and people are starting to make personal comments with the normal air of superiority.

Nothing random about these particular statisitics as they are right on the point but I can see you're happy with your views and offended that anyone should suggest you might reconsider, or enlarge the scope of how you look at such things.

Terrapins are turtles?! Wow. Who'da thunk it?

Where exactly did anyone say "guns are great"? Perhaps if you actually read the posts. . .

 

[Mark]

This thread has degenerated into the differences between the UK and America, Americans have the constitution with various amendments one being the right to bear arms (second?) we don't have such a system and because of that major difference, if anything however slightly related to "guns" happens within THIS country then a lot of fallout can happen. Statistics can be used to illustrate good and bad things. % averages are always higher than in reality ( always seemed strange to me when learning the way in which you added up and then divided between the results to get that % answer) and 10% of 100,000 is always going to be larger (even with the way %'s are worked out) than than 20% of 1000, Basic numbers arithmetic but the reason for this is whether or not the % number of gun related crimes is lower within the states than here doesn't stand up because there of the higher numbers of both leagally held and illegally held guns within that country so reread the bit about differences in %'s when the base number is higher to begin with. In this country if I go into an area where it could be desribed as "dodgy" and someone comes out of the shadows to attempted to mug me then the odds of them carrying a gun is pretty low...the same cannot be said of the states regardless of differing states laws on concealed carrying. Your police are armed and don't try and tell me that this is ALL due to the constitution amendment...they are armed 'cos they NEED to be to deal with the gun carrying prolitaria.


Edit (the use of percentages was being used in the way of the politician........Averages converted to % numbers)

 

[TJ 2]

Sup Jose?

You're normally a mellow guy but you're getting a lil toys-outta-pram here, if y'all don't mind me saying so.

Basic problem Jose is that your civil liberties are being eroded - but arguments about guns and drugs tend to get a lil heated and personal and obscure tha facts somewhat.

Y'see, us Americans mostly have a warm, gushy feeling towards handguns...in fact, if any of my countrymen didn't actually get wood by simply reading tha word 'handguns' (that was a second chance guys) then they are in fact breaking US law. And by Christ if anyone tries to take our handguns away (third time guys...) we'll scream heavens-to-betsy about civil liberties.

Yet strangely - and I exclude present thread company from this - many of my countrymen who profess to fight so hard for these liberties are only too eager to prevent others from having them. Yes, these self-same defenders of freedom feel it's their right to prevent other people putting certain substances in their own bodies...go figure.

Thing is, even when handguns and self-loading rifles were legal to own in tha UK very few people did cos you don't have a gun culture - lucky you. Be thankful. Unfortunately, we do.

But tha cow's right, since your legally held guns were removed gun crime has gone up in tha UK...now whether that would have happened anyway is moot, what remains true is that 60,000+ citizens who used to go to gun clubs and shoot at targets, then go home, clean their guns and lock em in a cabinet, have been denied the freedom to pursue their sport. Yet bizarrely, tha UK Govt, having criminalized gun owners, was only too ready to allow Target Shooting to be held in tha Commonwealth Games last year...damn that must have rankled some, watching foreigners welcomed into your own country to compete in a sport that you yourselves are banned from.

Forget guns and look at liberty dude.

 

[JoseDominguez]

Posted by Baca Loco
Nothing random about these particular statisitics as they are right on the point but I can see you're happy with your views and offended that anyone should suggest you might reconsider, or enlarge the scope of how you look at such things.

Terrapins are turtles?! Wow. Who'da thunk it?
_______________________________________________
No, actually they aren't, I just added that as I know that in the US that's what you call them (a bit of courtesy) as actual turtles never really existed as pets here, terrapins are a separate species entirely from a taxonomic point of view



So, as usual, the UK gun-control debate ends with "the US is right, you aren't" and some personal comments directed at me.

A true story:
Two years ago, myself and a friend were jumped in a subway (an underpass, not a train station or a sandwich............insert sarcastic comment here Baca), by a group of six idiots, my friend ran for a police car we'd spotted earlier and two of the gang followed him. I stayed to give him time to get to them (otherwise we'd have been caught on the stairwell), by the time the police got there serious damage had been done, fortunately, none of them pressed charges.
So, a gang of idiots went out looking for students to beat-up, they made a mistake and ended up being badly hurt when they couldn't handle their "victim", if guns were common in the UK, they'd have shot me as a gang like that would be armed, not career criminals, just status-seeking losers. The penalties for carrying a gun over here a steep enough to put them off.
My point?,If we had a gun-culture, I'd be dead.

 

[JoseDominguez]

Posted by Baca Loco
Nothing random about these particular statisitics as they are right on the point but I can see you're happy with your views and offended that anyone should suggest you might reconsider, or enlarge the scope of how you look at such things.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
No, I'm not offended, nor am I trying to tell anyone else how to run there country. If you see what I mean?
Also, I never said the statistics were random, just that the cause of the rise in gun crime is a lot more complicated and can't be arbritrarily attributed to a single factor, just to prove a point.
And anyway, as I've said before, isn't this thread about UK gun-control and how it effects paintball?

 

[Tom Tom]

Originally posted by Mark/Static
You are essentially correct, there are fewer firearms in the UK, but your laws ensure that the only ones who have them are criminals.

Just a quick side note. If the criminals want guns they will get them legal or otherwise. Thats why they are criminals.....

I have seen this argument before and am not going to put in more than 2p worth.

1) I am against guns, and while gun crime may be on the rise in the UK i still feel safer than if I know every one *might* be carrying a gun.

2) My question for this thread was after what happened recently in Birmingham how does the new gun law proposals affect me as a paintballer.

 

[Hotpoint]

Hey, Jo

Originally posted by Baca Loco
(No doubt Hotpoint will jump in and yammer about the 'social contract' as he begins his second fruitless decade attempting to deal with bureaucrats on something as simple and minor as paintball. Or does it just seem like a second decade, Jon?)

You should know by now that whilst I am more "statist" by inclination than yourself I am also a philosophical liberal and therefore opposed to banning anything if there is no apparent good reason for doing so

The Governments case for prohibiting the private ownership of handguns (especially .22 Target Pistols) was practically non-existant, all that was required was better checks before issuing a Firearms Certificate to limit the number of nutters getting hold of one

As for "handing over our liberties", whilst you oppose that on principle, sometimes it really is in the best interests of society as a whole. We've agreed to differ on this one before

BTW it's not even a third of a decade yet Baca and I actually enjoy arguing with bureaucrats (so the time passes swiftly)