Are gun laws U?

[Backwoodsgirl]

In light of recent attacks in NZ, the increase in knife and gun crime in the UK, shootings in the US and France. What do people think are reasonable options for weapons related laws?

It's clear that none on the current system around the world are perfect.

I am a Brit in the USA, and a gun owner, I also have a concealed carry permit. and I am interested to see what people see as reasonable.

And it also means that if you get into a row with someone it won't escalate ridiculously.

In the face of all the gun crime in the US compared to the U.K. it's hilarious you should think that. You sound like a Trump supporter - not particularly bright.

Tightening up laws isn't going to stop anyone who really wants a gun from getting their hands on one and shooting a bunch of innocent people.

And yet the country with the tight laws has a minute fraction of the gun crime compared to the country with easy access to guns. Hmmm, it's a puzzler isn't it?

Jim Jeffries sums it up for me.
www.vox.com/2016/6/13/11911948/australian-comedian-us-gun-laws

Bollocks if two people are arguing and a gun is at hand chances of a fatal shooting is infinitely greater than fatal fisticuffs....

Firearms also de escalate situations

Please tell me you are joking.

I think all weapons should be banned with the exception of the military and sports like clay pigeon shooting.

In the USA the NRA are far too powerful and no POTUS has yet had the balls to put them in their place. I assume money is the reason. I would love to know which Presidents received funding from high ranking NRA members. By refusing to change the gun laws they have the blood of children on their hands from school mass shootings.

I don't think gun owners are the brightest in society.

I think in fairness, other than the few places where you might stumble upon a Wild Boar and her humbugs piglets, hunting in the UK doesn't carry much of a risk of surprising bears, mountain lions or other creatures with lots of pointy things in the mouth and on each corner. So I can see the point of wanting a smaller backup weapon in case of problems.

However - having a gun under an open jacket whilst picking up bog roll and toothpaste is ridiculous. As are the numbers of people who die because there is a gun in the house/car and there is an argument, somebody develops a mental illness, a kid capitalises upon a parent's stupidity and has a play/decides to show off to their friends & enemies, an infant does what infants do or somebody takes umbrage at a random woman for not immediately offering him her body.

One of the attitudes towards the UK dislike of guns is the independence/you're colonialists thing - it puts me in mind of looking at a relative whom you don't actually bear any malice towards, seeing them stomping around with a big stick to poke others with and thinking 'this isn't going to end well', but when you've suggested that it's not actually a great idea to carry on poking people with it, you've been screamed at for trying to control them. You know that when you were ten, you tried doing similar and got a walloping, so you don't do it anymore, but learned from your experience it was a pretty shit idea.

So they've carried on and got roundly twatted on the nose - but not only are they screaming the odds about that, they're adamant that you saying 'perhaps it's a good time to stop poking people with a big stick?' is you trying to abuse them and the only way to prevent being twatted on the nose is to get an even bigger stick and poke more people every day.

@FiveGoMadInDorset

Different environment, UK does not have the predators that the US does.

In think woodland you don't always have the space to wield a rifle.

@titchy

No I am a Brit in the US and a libertarian.

I’m anti gun for private citizens unless they are farmers or hunters or in that type of industry.
I certainly don’t understand while the US allows semi automatic weapons, there is surely no use for them except to cause as much injury as quickly as possible.

Backwoodsgirl that made me chuckle

The British are the reason for the second amendment ....

No. A fear of centralised power, and in particularly military power, in the new federal government was the motivator - part of a push by the anti-Federalists to shore up the power of the individual states as what they saw as a counterbalance to the power of the US government. The driving force was the determination to maintain citizen-based state militias for everything except declared wars with foreign countries, and avoid a professional army able to operate domestically.

Firearms also de escalate situations

🤣🤣🤣

Maybe I’m alone in this, but I’ve never been in any situation/argument/confrontation where I thought a firearm would be a useful way to resolve things! I’m prepared to take my chances. FFS.

WarpedGalaxy
”Your post pretty much echoes the thinking in our household”

No. No it really fucking doesn’t, not if your thinking includes:

a) “it also means that if you get into a row with someone it won't escalate ridiculously”
and
b) ”Firearms also de escalate situations”

a) No it doesn’t mean that, it doesn’t mean that at all.
b) No they really fucking don’t.

As a pp noted, you don’t sound very bright.

The British are the reason for the second amendment ....

I agree with this statement. I regularly practice with my Longbow just in case the Normans try it on again.

I currently live in a US state with pretty sensible gun laws. I live in a city with a very high gun crime rate because the state next door seems to have no gun laws at all. My dc have to practice hiding in classrooms and throwing things at armed people, they are in primary school.
US gun laws are beyond stupid. Although to be fair I haven't met an American who would be against background checks so I think progress will eventually come.

@Sparklesocks

It seems the majority of firearms on sale are Semi automatic, 4 out of our 8 are.

Fully automatic weapons here require a federal license.

Yeah, I guess I just don’t understand why you need an AR15 unless you really into mass murder

I think the response in this country post Dunblane is one of the things we should be proud of. We let it happen once and then action was taken to cut the chances of it ever being able to happen again - and touch wood it has worked.

Having an environment where anyone feels they need to carry a weapon for “protection” is actually a part of the problem because they are trying to make it culturally and socially acceptable. No individual needs to carry a weapon in day to day life.

I think there's an interesting debate to be had around mass shootings, though. I believe that there are a number of countries where per capita gun ownership is higher than in the US, and there are quite a number of countries where I think that access to automatic and semi-automatic weapons is higher per capita than the US (Yemen, FATA in Pakistan, some African countries and possibly also Israel). Certainly in respect to the second criterion (access to automatic/semi automatic weapons) gun laws in general in these countries (apart from Israel) are much laxer than in the US, and much less enforced. So if this is a solely a gun-control issue, why do we not see mass shootings of even a fraction of the scale they exist in the US? Ditto for if it is an auto/sa issue. And ditto if it's an issue of penetration.

I wonder if the question is less about guns and gun control than why their is such a high prevalence (compared to the rest of the globe) of mass shooting incidents in the US?

I would struggle to believe in the uk's gun laws and have a concealed carry permit.

babysharkah I would struggle to believe in the uk's gun laws and have a concealed carry permit

Well, it’s a bit like the USA, no one really cares whether you believe in laws as long as you comply with them. And, assuming you are complying with UK law while there, your concealed carry permit would be irrelevant because you wouldn’t be carrying concealed or otherwise, so again, no one would really care whether you have one or not.

I would struggle to believe in the uk's gun laws and have a concealed carry permit.

They’re not the tooth fairy. They’ve existed for decades. So have those in Australia. The data on the impact - not just on mass shootings, but on gun deaths - is there for all to see.

The fact is, the white supremacist fucker who terrorised Christchurch would have found it much more difficult to get his hands on those weapons in Australia.

Considering just how large the United States is, I agree with their gun laws. In some places, even if it were possible to prevent any criminal from acquiring a firearm, they could be inside your home and harm you long before the police could ever hope to respond.

From a feminist standpoint, firearms are also great equalisers, it doesn't matter whether the person wielding them is a man at peak physical fitness or an elderly woman who struggles to rise from her rocking chair (broadly speaking, I acknowledge the difficulty the latter might have in terms of achieving quite the same accuracy or utilisation of cover), they are equally effective at stopping an immediate threat.

I've known someone who lives in a very rural part of the United States and, for the majority of her life, was very opposed to firearms in all forms. After suffering the indignity of a home invasion (no firearms involved at all) which, as a small mercy, had no sexual assault component to it, her attitude changed. She said that being put on an equal footing with someone who wants to harm her (or worse) in the name of taking her belongings has made her feel like she owns her home again.

We are in Canada. Here are the gun laws AFAIK:

You need a permit to carry a weapon.
No concealed carry permits.
Weapons must be transported unloaded.
Weapons must be stored unloaded.
Ammunition must be stored separately from the weapons.
Guns must be stored in a locked, fireproof gun safe.
Hand guns must be stored in a locked box inside said locked, fireproof gun safe.
No fully automatic weapons permitted. (I think they allow some semi-automatic weapons.)

My dad and brother hunt for meat and have a number of firearms. But they always observe the above regulations and we have never had an incident. Dad also practices reloading and makes his own bullets.

I would struggle to believe in the uk's gun laws

You don’t have to believe in them. You just have to obey them. Unless you like the taste of prison food.