Right to bear arms

[Another2356]

I lived in the USA for 8 yrs and all my neighbours had guns, as a Brit I totally disagreed with this…. However since returning to the UK over the last 10 years, I’ve started to think they have a point. If UK law changes and I can purchase guns to protect myself and my family, I will absolutely do this. I feel I have the right to protect myself as the police are not available.

I really can't think of any instance in a civilised society when it would be a good idea for private individuals to have semi-automatic firearms that they could then fire at will at other private individuals.

I don't see how ^that would be helpful in any way to any situation at all.

Why do you not feel safe? What’s happened to make you feel that way? How is owning a gun going to help you feel safer?

We have very tight gun control here because we don’t want another Dunblane. And it worked, there has never been another school shooting. Do you really want to risk that changing?

I feel that in that sort of situation the woman would be just as likely to be disarmed by her assailant and subsequently shot by them.

I see there's a mass shooting unfolding in a University as we speak.

Oh, to feel so safe.

I was going to say ‘what were the odds’ but on reflection the odds are actually quite high.

How absolutely horrific. Absolutely shameful that people would argue for more guns as any sort of solution to violence.

Luckily there’s no issues in America with gun violence, attacks on high schools etc….oh wait, never mind.

Yeah, this is the 70th school shooting of the year apparently, and there are ~180 school days in the year, so about 1 in 2.5 I guess.

So a little worse than a coin toss.

I have a firearm, it is not just as simple in the UK to carry one. There are so many checks that need to done, via your current GP, police force, intelligence based systems. I don’t understand your reasoning to having one but most people have them for humane pest control.

Yeah, I don't want to have to see a UK version of this....

My grandad had shotguns (for pest control), and yes you have so many checks, including an officer coming to your home to check how they are stored.

So you propose letting burglars, muggers, rapists and all manner of violent scum have easy access to guns? But you'll be OK because you'll be tooled up too?

How well does that work in USA OP??? What are their per capita deaths by Comparison with UK?

Is the USA a safer country to live in because they have guns?

Guns do not protect people. They put people at risk. Anyone living in a home containing a gun is significantly more likely to die than someone living in a gun free home. Unless you do a hell of a lot of practice at hand-to-hand combat, the most likely outcome if you point a gun at a criminal is that they knock the gun out of your hand and use it on you. In the USA the firearm death rate is approx 14 people per 100,000 population per year. In the UK with our current laws there are approx 0.4 firearm deaths per 100,000 population per year. There is absolutely no sense in which anyone is safer with a gun.

Absolutely.

And while not really the point of the thread, it's also sickening that the bereaved parents and various of the surviving children (who campaigned for better gun control) were subjected to some horrific abuse and harrassment.

You have to realise that muggers, burglars and anyone else with a criminal record is unlikely to pass the police checks to be permitted to hold a firearm. It is extreme stringent in the UK as I mentioned on my previous post. You don’t just waltz in and buy a gun. You’ve to pass the police checks for the vaunted you want and the the dealer supplies that o the basis of the police checks. It’s nothing like America.

Thankfully, the majority of people in the UK appear to have much more common sense than you do. There is no danger of the law changing in the UK any time soon, because most people realise that it would be monumentally stupid to do so.

You may not feel safe right now. Guns would make you a whole lot less safe.

But the person you're replying to is talking about the hypothetical introduction of the right to bear arms, not the current circumstances of very strict controls...

Laughable. If hundreds of thousands of people apply to have, and get, handguns to carry about their person for protection you don't think bad people will get hold of them??? 🙄

Yes I was replying to the poster that said that criminals would have access to firearms. It doesn’t work like that to be honest.

The people who are now also allowed guns in OP’s new world order.

Yes of course criminals will recognise that they aren't allowed to have them and will obey that restriction............they won't steal them from gun stores or homes, they won't get people without a criminal record to get a gun for them......

I repeat 🙄

Minutes after this thread was created, another mass shooting situation unfolded, this one at Brown University. Thank God British schools and universities are safe from this kind of thing... with the very rare exception.

I would not feel safe knowing people were carrying handguns. I am certain I am not alone in feeling that.
There is no reason for your everyday person to need to carry a handgun. Sorry, but "for defence" does not wash with me. You are carrying a weapon that can kill, and likely injure you too if you don't have proper training.

Which country do you live in, please, @YorkshireGoldDrinker ?

So we can know whether you have personal experience of this "polite society" or whether it's just in your imagination?
(edited for SPAG)

Well why do they not just do that now? What has this post got to do with what you’re saying? Firearms laws are what they are, criminals are too so it’s irrelevant what the laws are to be honest.