To think that no one in this country needs a firearm in their house

[MumNWLondon]

Title says it all really.

Killer in Cumbria had a gun licence.... why does anyone in this country need a licence to have a gun in their house?

AIBU to think that no one should have such a licence?

I grew up and still live in the country, and shooting (pheasant and clay pigeon) is a common sport among several people I know.

My father had a gun licence, kept a shotgun at home (locked away, obviously) and occasionally went shooting - usually as a business networking thing rather than for 'fun' - he never really enjoyed it actually. DH also had/has (do they expire?) a licence and used to keep a gun at home, again for clay pigeon shooting.

My dad used his gun to commit suicide one September afternoon. I have nothing against other people keeping shotguns in their homes, as long as they are properly licenced and locked up, however I will NEVER have a gun in my house again.

I never thought I would say this but I am glad in this instance that Dave and his mates are in power if it means that knee jerk laws will not be introduced for guns. Althougb the idea that everyone that shoots is posh is just daft.

My dad used to shoot handguns in competitions until Dunblane, then he had to hand in all his guns, along with all the other licenced handgun owners, since then he has done rifle competitions and some clay pigeon instead. It's a sport, that's all. Maybe Cumbria police are lax but Devon and Cornwall are always checking up.

Why not keep ammunition at gun clubs rather than the guns themselves? That would make it harder for people to go on kneejerk rampages.

Would it have made a difference checking up on Bird though as initial reports don't talk about mental health problems prior to this?

Why should gun laws be changed? See Port Arthur Massacre 1996 Tasmania for your answer.

Oh I agree that guns should be allowed for those with a need for a gun such a farmers but there should be changes to what gun you should own. Also no one should be able to own a handgun whatsoever. What use do they have? Sporting pistols are differnt as theya re not 'real' guns.

The ban on handguns after Dunblane was a kneejerk reaction triggered by the parents wanting to DO something, anything.

The only result was to deprive people of the guns they used for sport. And our gun sportsmen where anomg the best target shooters in the world.

The number of handguns held illegally has since rocketed, and I still find it hard to believe the number of shooting deaths in the big cities, which must outnumber the people killed at Dunblane, Hungerford, and now Cumbria.

I have tried my hand at clay pidgeon shooting, and found it fun. Perhaps my nickname may give you a clue, but I find all the sports where you try to acquire a skill in some form of target shooting, eg darts, archery, clay pidgeon shooting, etc, enjoyable.

It's simply the fun of trying to hit a small target, and acquiring the skill to do that, which does mean practice.

So I don't see why we should be banning all guns. It wasn't the gun that killed, it was the person holding that gun.

And for those who feel it's impossible to kill large numbers of people without guns, I spent one minute googling just now and found some interesting ways of creating petrol bombs that can be made up so very, very easily.

Or you can take your car and cause a motorway pile-up.

Sometimes I think that a society needs to make a statement. It may not actually have any preactical impact on the number of gun deaths (although I remain to be convinced that it wouldn't) but it would show that we, as a society, find guns abhorrent, and we want to do something.

Also, if gun ownership was banned, then any gun would automatically be an illegally held one and the police could act.

Clouddragon - This is a good example of a mass killing spree which happened without the use of gun.
Akihabara massacre

Japan's gun laws are slightly tighter than our own interestingly. So it doesn't chage the determination if someone is going to do it, just the modus operandi.

The police treat everyone the same if they are brandishing a firearm seeker so the argument that banning all guns would make them automatically illegal holds no weight

the police do not wonder if the madman shooting people owns a legally held weapon or illegally held

we cannot legislate against every eventuality
that is what the labour government tried to do and it hasn't made society appreciably any safer
it was a red herring to ban handguns after Dunblane...it didn't reduce the amount of gun crime or limit the possibilities of this sort of thing happening again

"like in the US where not only are there weekly random shootings, but weekly accidental shootings, often of children.
No, decriminalisation is not the way!"

But that is pretty unique to America if you look at Canada which has (or at least used to have) a greater amount of gun ownership per capita and has nothing like the problems with gun violence that the states has.

also, to be fair, many of us don't find guns abhorrent
however we do find gun crime abhorrent as we find any crime abhorrent

banning legally held firearms will not prevent this from happening again and therefore serves no purpose

nope riven they are actually designed for many different things
target shooting is one of them

also switzerland has a massive number of privately held firearms and no problems of an American scale

"tight gun laws, like Japan and the UK have meant less killing sprees"

Japan is an outlier though. They effectively "uninvented" the gun post WW2. The reluctance to bear arms doesn't have as much to do with laws as unique cultural factors. Even if you told everyone in Japan they could get a gun, very few would.

many things have a current incarnation and purpose that exceeds their original invention

there are many rifles and pistols made today with the sole use and purpose of target shooting
these are the weapons available to law abiding fac holders
not multi-shot inaccurate killing vehicles

we cannot legislate against every eventuality we simply cannot
we especially cannot legislate against madmen and to suggest that we can is simply nonsensical

The current law in the UK is already quite strict and restricting it further will restrict those that have legitimate reasons to use a gun.

And what legitimate reasons may they be? Nobody has yet presented a good reason for anyone to be in posession of a firearm unless you are a member of the armed police.

I think considering that shooting is both an Olympic and commonwealth sport probably counts toward a decent reason to have a fac.
Many people safely enjoy the use of firearms and their chosen sport

no, Ronaldinhio, we can't legislate against every madman but we CAN legislate to reduce the chances of a madman on the loose with a fireman. That's not "nonsensical", that's a fact.

The statistics back it up. The more guns you have in a society, the more gun crime you have.

Riven, sadly Canada is not a law-abiding country. But it does look that way when compared with their south-of-the-border neighbours!

I still cannot understand why it took 3.5 hours for police to stop this guy.

My DH's family live in Whitehaven and it looks so peaceful and beautiful.

Unfortunately we can't ban cars everytime some drunken or speeding driver kills someone.

Same as we can't ban legal drugs and needles because they are misused by druggies.

It's not the guns that are at fault.

Although it would be good to make them ahrder to obtain when someone has a brain snap.

Unfortunately in this high pressure environment of today we don't know when the next usually meek and mild person is going to snap.

nope toopragmatic the stats have nothing to do with legally held firearms in the UK
the stats on gun crime perpetrated by fac holders in this country are incredibly low

we cannot legislate against everything.
people lose the plot and kill
illegally held firearms and knives are behind 99.99% of that crime

removing the .01% of legally held firearms will realistically help no one and shift the focus away from what is important

certainly removing the how, where and why of illegal firearms should be high on the list of priorities for the government but this is far from their list of worries

Yes, the incidence of firearm crime is low in this country. This country also has one of the lowest rates of firearm ownership in the world. Coincidence? I think not.

If the UK reduces firearm ownership lower still, there is no doubt in my mind that gun crime levels will reduce.

Completely agree with you, however, that you will never totally get rid of the risk. An incident like Cumbria makes people want to get rid of the risk entirely, and that is unrealistic. I lived in Montreal in 1989 when a gunman killed 14 women (yes, only women) in the engineering faculty of a university. The public reaction was the same.

Banning all firearms would not stop gun crime. Most gun crime involves illegally held weapons so that knee jerk reaction to change laws on handguns following Dunblane has not really worked for us has it.

And Thomas Hamilton was refused a licence or two but had friends in high places (local council if I remember the reports correctly) who were able to help his application.

I grew up in a home with guns and in an urban area. All had the necessary documentation and they were stored securely. I went shooting with my dad when I was in my early teens. I didn't much like it but it would fun if you like doing activities that involve skill. Nothing odd about it at all.

Our laws are very strict. In other parts of europe it's common for shop owners to have a firearm in their shop for protection.