Well for the first point if it ever comes to "Crunch time" as you put it then were pretty screwed regardless of how well armed we are, this is the 21st century, the government has tanks, drones, body armour, fully supported and most importantly highly trained infantry. The only things guns would do in a situation like that would cause more death for civilians who feel overconfident due to having a firearm. Though its next to impossible that anything like that would ever happen as our government is horribly bureaucratic, lazy and full of petty infighting, they can barely pass a minor law never mind oppress a country. So this point doesn't really seem to have much baring in the real world.Therumancer said:Lord George said:Ah right, though the wording was a bit strange, and I do actually believe in less government, however I put more faith in the government then in people in this case.
Though I still can't see what uses guns would have outside killing, and things like clay pigeon shooting don't seem like a good reason to own a gun. (Though I did find it quite fun when I tried it)
I guess that guns do seem to help in America, though I think its the culture and ingrained attitudes that effect this and in a country where everyone had guns I'd probably want one too to be safe. While introducing guns to a place like the UK would simply end in disaster.
In the UK they seem to cause more problems then they solve though (considering how little shooting there are) and this law could have avoided either or both of the recent psycho gun shootings (though they might have happened anyway).
So I think any restriction on them in the UK is a good move, though in places like America it seems that restrictions on guns would only help criminals and not law abiding citizens so I can understand why so many Americans oppose gun laws.
Let me put a differant perspective on it. To me, the purpose of having a gun is to kill people, no two ways about it. Sure, it can be used for other things, but the main reason for it's existance is to bring death.
As scary as it is, people having guns is a good thing. Above and beyond self defense, having a gun means that you can pretty much set about killing any other human being you want to with a fair chance of success. It also means that if someone, like say the goverment, wants to oppress you it has a problem, especially if you have a lot of people who happen to agree with you. If you show up with a bunch of people for a protest that means something when all those people could have instead been carrying guns and say raiding the governor's mansion or gunning down bureaucrats. If that possibility doesn't exist then it's easy for the goverment to ignore the protests, and just calmly send the armed authorities to disperse the rabble without a second thought. When powerless protesters go up against armed police and soldiers the results are typically not pretty. Dude with rock Vs. dude with machine gun tends to have a very predictable outcome.
The UK, and Europe in general have a long history of tyrants, and it really shocks me to hear how little respect for the idea of personal armament citizens of the UK happen to be, just because your currently going through a fairly good patch. Oh sure, the violent crime rate might be pretty low, but that's going to be irrelevent should it ever come down to "crunch time" with the authorities.
Look at the issue being discussed here from another perspective. People in the UK have very few guns, and little gun crime. On the other hand the goverment is looking to disarm the people even further, which is leading to what seems to be some rather popular protests, which are of course being ignored by the authorities since they are going to do whatever is in their best interests, irregardless of what you want. I mean in the end, why should the people in charge listen to you? Bureaucracy is self sustaining with it's own processes and logic (something Brits in paticular should understand given how often they made comedies about it) it's not like they have to worry about you shooting them or anything....
See, I'm very pro-police if you've followed a lot of my posts, but I also like the fact that the police have to keep their heads down and be very careful in doing their jobs. It means that the people making the rules and passing the laws have to carefully consider whether it's enforcable or not. Some cop isn't going to enforce some bureaucratic power trip at the potential expense of his own life when there is signifigant opposition. On the other hand if the police don't have anything to worry about, there is going to be no hestitation to do whatever the lawmakers say.
Again, I fear I may not be articulating myself well, but the point is that while perhaps counter to some human instincts, the big criticism of guns (killing people) is actually the biggest reason for them.
Besides which, I think the anti-gun lobby in the US presents some intentionally scewed data on things, oftentimes when presenting information on the numbers of lives lost to firearms it tries to present them all as being murders, self defense and the like don't enter into it.
The UK might have a "lower incident of violence" than the US, but at the same time it DOES have a ton of violence involving knives, blunt objects, and simple assault. It very much operates on a "might makes right" principle when it comes to what criminals can get away with. If some dude is bigger and stronger than you, and decides he really wants to mug or kill you in an alleyway, there isn't much your going to do about it. This is very much an issue with the so called "Chavs" from a lot of what I've been hearing over the years. Muggers, rapists, and the like are a lot more wary of going after targets when physical power might not be the only factor. I mean if that little old lady pulls a handgun, being bigger and stronger than she is isn't going to matter as much. Sort of like the old American saying "God created man, Sam Colt made us equal" (sadly Colt went out of the handgun business).
Rapes, muggings, and assaults have a nasty tendency to go unreported. To be honest the picture a lot of people from the UK present, especially when talking about the "Chav problem" is very differant. At least with the US I think what your seeing is what you get, I think the UK and it's peace and safety are exagerrated when it comes to things like this.
Truthfully I think the UK would actually benefit greatly from a greater degree of personal gun armament, however the goverment would do anything to prevent that from happening because it's not in the best interests of the goverment to put policies into effect that would ultimatly wind up limiting it's own power.
As for the second point, the police are insanely pc nowadays and any minor incident of police brutality is usually all over the papers in a few days and the police employee responsible is usually fired or quietly moved down due to the public disapproval. This is far more effective then any threat of guns could ever be (Possibly too efficient as the police feel like they can't do anything nowadays or else they'll get accused of something or sued).
And as I've previously said no stupid or oppressive laws are ever passed because of how badly run and organised the government is and that even the worst MP's are more keen to line there own pockets then pass insane laws, and even if they somehow did and got it past both the commons and lords then as soon as one of the tabloids got a hold of it there'd be huge public outcry and the government would remove it to save there own ass's. So again this is not something thats too likely to happen
As for your third point, its actually the opposite of what you believe in regards to the whole "chav" thing which is just stupid scaremongering from the papers, I've seen official figures of crime (too tired to drag them all up but feel free yourself http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nscl.asp?id=5004) and there hugely exaggerated, there are quite low numbers of assaults and very low incidents of deaths. The only real problem is with muggings and burglaries but I can't see how this would be any better if the criminals where armed with firearms.
I mean even if the old women on the street does carry a gun, she's still not equal to a mugger whos likely going to be a young man who's can draw his gun faster, can aim better and is going to have the element of surprise, now even if dear old granny does manage to grab her gun and fire it, then someones going to end up dead, and theres a higher chance of her being killed whereas if the mugger had a knife then she would have simply lost the cash she had on her, which would likely be covered by contents insurance and she would get back.
Thats not even accounting for the fact that the main victims of crime are young males, ie the least vulnerable group so both victim and mugger are more likely to be on equal footing. Example in point, a few years ago me and a friend where mugged in Bromley, now the guy had a penknife and thankfully my friend was able to wrestle it away from him and so we avoided both any damage to ourselves and our wallets. Now if that guy had a gun we'd have been powerless and even if we'd tried anything then chances are someone could have been horribly injured. So I believe that not having guns makes things in general much safer and allows a greater chance of no-one getting hurt.
I also don't like the fact that from the impression I get from Americans is that you're forced into buying a gun to feel safe, which is basically being forced into getting a gun out of fear of criminals and personally I don't like to be forced to do things out of fear, may not be a problem for overs but it bothers me and I'm happy to live in a country with low levels of violence and murders and feel much happier knowing that some wackjob on the street can't blow my head off if he ever gets the urge. I don't think either of us is going to change our minds about this issue so we'll have to assume we each know best
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