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?

'Personally I don't think enjoying stalking and killing animals is a legitimate reason '

Seeker, I was trying to make the point that some people find it thrilling and exciting. Therefore, as they are usually men and men make most of the laws etc in the western world, they are not going to ban it.

Miggsie, the small furry animals threaten my garden plants which is why I shoot them. Rats are small furry animals but I think you would kill them with poison if they invaded your space.

Don't forget that everyone in the military is required to have knowledge of weapons.

DH is in the RAF (flying a desk ) but has to go to a shooting range once a year to go through target practise. They work on the theory that they may be called upon to fight with guns, regardless of their day to day job, so have to have the requisite skills and prove them on a regular basis.

The military consists of tens of thousands of men and women with gun training and with access to weapons -every base has it's own armoury. As I've said before, what is to stop a traumatised soldier coming home from Afghan and snapping?

We can't legislate against every possible eventuality. Guns, like them or loath them, have a place in society until every nation in the world bans them and melts them all down for scrap.

Riven - "the gun he had sounded like some sort of rifle with a scope. Why would anyone need that?"

A rifle with a scope is a precision tool. You'd have to be very lucky to kill a fox cleanly with a shotgun, and it would be nigh on impossible to dispatch anything larger than that. If you are involved in vermin control and/or stalk deer then you will more than likely have a rifle with a scope and a hunting licence to go with it.

Not trying to be contentious (promise!), but one of the oft quoted arguments against hunting foxes with dogs is that, if they are a problem, you should shoot them instead. If you want to use shooting as a method of fox control then you need to have a rifle as you cannot do the job humanely with a shotgun.

I hate it when a shooting (rare) leads to peoples knee jerk reaction to guns and the law. My father has had guns for ever, he shoots for farmers for pest control, and he shoots as a hobby at a range. It is his hobby, he enjoys it, and one random nutter should not mean others suffer.

If someone runs someone over should we ban cars, if someone is stabbed do we ban kitchen knives...its just as riciulous to suggest that people should lose the right to have guns.

good lord some doctors kill people
lets ban them
ditto nurses
cars
knives
poisons
bombs
religion
crossbows
dogs

but actually it is nutters and negligent eejits that kill people and there is nothing to stop them
our gun laws are excellent and wide ranging but nothing will prevent a madman hell bent on killing people from actually doing just that

Very well said Ronaldinhio

Seeker - badger baiting isn't a great example given that where I live we currently have men (in some cases masked men dressed in black) being sent onto peoples' land by the Welsh Assembly to kill badgers - with guns.

I gather Caroline Spelman is in favour of extending this policy to England.

I think my point is that there is a difference between killing an animal for pleasure and killing one for necessity. I personally don't think culling badgers is the answer to bovine TB, but I know many do, so in their case they consider the killing to be a necessity.

It's guns for no practical purpose I would ban. And will, when I become Dictator.

Regardless of the whys and wherefores of who can own a gun or for whatever reason, the basic fact is that mass murderers pretty much always use guns to shoot people because they are ranged weapons and easy to use for a killing spree. Were guns not legal to own by people in non-military jobs (like a taxi driver) I think we can honestly say many people would still be alive today.

Is that not reason enough to ban them?

(For what its worth, I've grown up in rural England and rural Germany so I'm not some "city slicker who doesnt know what she's talking about")

Seeker how exactly would you enforce your laws? I have yet to hear of a dictator without a military force behind it.

As Riven rightly points out, there are more crimes carried out by illegal weapons, but legal weapons have a higher attrition rate. However, the unanswered question is whether, if guns were illegal, the people who currently hold legal weapons would just buy an illegal one. A good example is Thomas Hamilton- having pretty much bribed his way to a legal weapon, did he want one enough to buy an illegal one? Quite possibly.

Given that most of us could acquire a shooter within 24hrs if we really wanted to, this really is the crux of whether tighter gun control would have any benefit.

There are also very legitimate reasons (all pointed out on this thread) as to why people in certain (maninly rural) occupations need long range rifles.

Yeah but it's illegal to shoot them.....

Littlewhitewolf, "mass" murderers do not usually use guns at all. The recent murderer of sex workers for example. There have been very few mass shootings in our lifetime. There have been many many murders using other weapons/methods. People are dangerous, people will always kill others, that the sad reality. I worked in a lifers prison with 300 murderers some years ago - less than 1% used guns.

And most gun crime is committed using ILLEGAL guns. The illegal gun market increased dramatically when the gun laws were changed after Hungerford. You can buy a gun on the black market very cheaply (I work with offenders now). Knee jerk reactions to crime are not based on fact, or sensible decision making.

By the way, my family live near the Cumbrian tragedy. My auntie and a close friend were close to 2 of the scenes and it was a scary day. Not once did i think banning guns would have prevented it. Not once.

Hmm

I'm rurally raised and torn on this one I think

I think you should be able to demonstrate good reason annually, real, reasons not sport or related (sport guns should be kept at teh venue), pest control etc.

however as it seems criminals can even convert starting pistols into guns now 9relying onnThe Independent for that) there's a limited amount that can be done. Certainly people who flip will anyway; years ago my nan went out on an unusual day and missed being the victim of an axe murderer who killed people on either side of her house. His footsteps were in his garden (he was mentally ill, and let down himself by services so one could better suggest that a decent Psych service would be more useful than wider gun controls)

OTOH my friend has just escaped a marriage where her H had a gun, and threatened violence, and she was toos cared to shout (he ahs been imprisoned for otehr non gun related horrid things). His gun was legal on account of them being very rural and having a 'fox problem' (I am fairly certain it did not exist having visited there, but only knew full story afterwards)

Soooo.....

I am in support of tight, annual controls not dissimilar to what already exists, but aware that the worst of society will find a way to access weaponry whatever and that we should remember these awful events are isolated and not panic. Far better to expend our energy ensuring our community members are OK and not so likely to flip than panic about gun laws I suspect.

missmoopy, you are confusing mass murderers with serial killers, I think.

A serial killer is defined by someone who murders many people over much time, and no they dont often use guns,preferring more 'personal' methods of killing, such as strangling or stabbing where they can get up close for their victims death.

Mass murderers are killers who over a short space of time (say a few hours in a day) kill several people in one killing spree.

I, too, work in a prison, FWIW. I am not so stupid to believe that banning guns will stop deaths. However I stand by what I said that mass murderers most often use guns that they have acquired legally, in order to wipe out a collection of people in one sweep. I admit I am extending what I'm saying to the US as well as the UK, but I feel its a relevent point.

Personally nothing will ever convince me that anyone outside of the military needs to own a gun for any reason.

Littelwhite wolf, yes I am grouping all killers together as statistically most murders are committed using weapons other tha guns. I appreciate that mass murder usually involves guns, but how many mass murders have taken place in the UK in the last 10 years compared to serial killers or "normal" murders (I use normal for want of a better word! Sorry)

To group is the US isn't a fair assessment of the law as the US have totally different gun laws to us. It is easier to buy a gun that alcohol in the US!!!

You are of course entitled to your opinion, and I respect that totally. It is a debate that will rage on no doubt.

Guns are a necessity of rural life for farmers and people who have livestock. Don't forget vets often have guns too.

I was told a story by my boss about a friend of his who came across a badly injured deer by the side of the road. It's injuries were very serious and was obviously dying and in distress. The person called the police who said it was not their problem, she called a local vet who said no one would be available to come out for several hours (by which time the deer would have died a slow and painful death). Finally she called a farmer friend who she knew kept guns for pheasant shoots and use around his farm. He came out within 10 minutes and put the animal out of it's misery.

I agree that we need to be careful about people who take out gun licenses -insist on assements every 6 months, etc, but we need to be careful not to have a knee jerk reaction to this terrible incident.

So we could ban them outright and we'd stop mass murders using legal weapons with mass murders using illegal ones.

A fair number of people want to shoot rabbits to eat, which seems to me a very sustainable, low environmental impact way of eating meat.

I was wondering (in the car, as it happens) whether in fact a much more effective way to cut down deaths would be to ban private cars, and only allow people to travel by public transport with trained and responsible drivers?