Author Topic: Time for ANTI-GUN people to put their money where their mouth is! (Read 3263 times)

beet1e · « **Reply #90 on:** November 01, 2002, 07:02:16 AM »

Lazs. I've just returned home from the gun shop. I had to pretend that I was looking into the possibilities for an American friend so that I could ask questions about the available guns.

On display, there were what appeared to be handguns, but these were in fact CO2 powered target pistols, designed for shooting at paper targets etc. Range not much more than 10 yards. I asked what kind of weapon I could buy for myself, and was told I could have any kind of air pistol whose power did not exceed 12 ft. lb. which, I was told, equates to a muzzle velocity of around 600ft/sec in layman's terms. I think he said that all the air pistols fire a .22 calibre round. Behind the counter where the assistant was standing was an array of shotguns. I was in a bit of difficulty because the guy kept asking me what I wanted the gun for, but I managed to find out a few things.

Yes, I can purchase a shotgun. There were various types - some with side by side barrels, some with one barrel above the other. I didn't notice any pump action jobs. I asked what range these weapons would have, and was told that for game shooting for example (pheasants, partridges etc) the effective range was about 40 yards. You might get a result at 50 yards. At 60 yards it was unlikely. Of course, different types of shot were available. To own a weapon of this type, I must get a Police security clearance. No problem there as I have no criminal record. In addition, I must install an approved gun cabinet at the location where the weapon is to be kept, pretty much as GTO was saying. The weapon must be kept locked inside. I didn't ask the assistant if I could kill a man with a weapon like that - he already took me for a wacko - but I am led to believe that a weapon such as the shotguns I saw, loaded with the appropriate ammunition, would spoil someone's day. Unfortunately, we don't have the right to kill intruders as you do, so I might get into hot water with the Police were I to do that. Besides, a shotgun would mess up my interior decorations. I would prefer to use a Taser.

I'm off like a herd of turtles to order that gun cabinet, and to submit my security clearance application.

Curval · « **Reply #91 on:** November 01, 2002, 07:09:47 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Fatty
Welp, I'm glad I was born early enough to shoot my pellet gun as a kid before the UK (and their territories) started advising us on gun laws.

and tax laws...don't forget the tax laws.

Fatty · « **Reply #92 on:** November 01, 2002, 08:41:01 AM »

Honestly I would take advice from Bermuda on tax laws despite the jabbing in the other thread. Most certainly not from the UK though.

I'd love to have a value based tax system, however anyone proposing such a thing would be run out of Washington instantly amid the screams being in the pockets of the financial elite.

Bradly was the closest we ever got to a real attempt to simplify our tax code, and the democrats voted him out in the primaries. Too bad, because he would have won in 2000 (and I'd have voted for him).

Fatty · « **Reply #93 on:** November 01, 2002, 08:42:19 AM »

Quote

I had to pretend that I was looking into the possibilities for an American friend so that I could ask questions about the available guns.

That quote is hilarious.

lazs2 · « **Reply #94 on:** November 01, 2002, 10:00:52 AM »

beetle thank you for bothering to help me. The news is dismal.. forget the pellet guns. Forget learning anything about shotguns except type and ammo... anyone in the states can tell you more than the guy behind the counter. You have what amounts to laws that would not allow me to do anything with firearms that I enjoy or anything that I feel comfortable with.

you have no handguns... no pump shotguns even... no semi auto rifles or carbines.. you can't have a loaded gun in your own home that is instantly accesable to you... you can't travel in your own country with a firearm and you can't buy, store or reload ammo... worse... you can't threaten (what threat is it if it is illeagal) or kill an intruder with one. I assume you can kill him with your bare hands or a knife if he is sufficiently crazed? try to get some costs involved. All of this info for U.S gun related stuff is simple and easy to get right off of thousands of web sites.

If you could simply give us a list of tyoes of handguns, semi-auto rifles and carbines and the types of ammo and reloading equipment we are allowed to have we can tell you what they are without your being humiliated as some kind of..... gun guy.

i don't think there is anyone here except a casual skeet shooter (and maybe not even him) that would find your laws less than prohibitive.
lazs

lazs2 · « **Reply #95 on:** November 01, 2002, 10:03:59 AM »

bounder... those stats seem about right except..... a 15 year old gang member is far from a "child". Take out gang members or... even drop the age of "child" to 10 and you will more than halve the U.S. stats.. even at that.... the UK has what? 1/2 a child less per hundred thousand "children" killed in gun related incidnents than the U.S.?
lazs

lazs2 · « **Reply #96 on:** November 01, 2002, 10:08:12 AM »

steely.... I am saying that you regestered your guns with the govenment and they used that regestration to confiscate firearms. In the U.S. the pro regestration people claim that regestration is not a prelude to confiscation.

As for deaths in aus... We never heard of any before the 24. So now you have 24 killed. You also have crime going up 40% by your panicy and knee jerk confiscation. How many lives have been lost so far because of your short sightedness?
lazs

beet1e · « **Reply #97 on:** November 01, 2002, 10:28:36 AM »

Lazs - far from finding the news dismal, I was rather encouraged - because it means that guns are not available to every Tom Dick and Harry, which is why you and I feel safe here in the first place. If semi-automatics and carbines were available here, then given some of the avacado-heads that live around here, I would not sleep at nights. Handguns were banned in 1997 because of some avacado that went on a killing spree in Scotland. By the way, can you not buy automatic weapons in the US?

My whole point is that while maybe 1% of American gun owners - guys like you, Ripsnort, GTO - enjoy target shooting, that leaves 99% who buy guns for self defence. With something in the order of 200 million guns in your country because of the erstwhile laissez faire gun policy, it is inevitable that many get into the wrong hands, and an unfortunate reality that some people who were once ordinary law abiding citizens lose their marbles and go on a killing spree. There was a time when the DC sniper was serving his country in the Gulf War. And look what happened. A once upright citizen (we would have thought back then) that becomes a criminal killer. And that happens a lot - marble loss followed by killing spree followed by suicide. OK the sniper didn't top himself but many do.

And that's the price that America pays for their right to bear arms. Sure, you can bear arms, but so can every other schmuck. Gun proponents would argue that their freedom to own guns is paramount, but I look at the murder stats and come away thinking that some prices are just too high to pay.

Fatty · « **Reply #98 on:** November 01, 2002, 10:41:47 AM »

Quote

My whole point is that while maybe 1% of American gun owners - guys like you, Ripsnort, GTO - enjoy target shooting, that leaves 99% who buy guns for self defence.

You understand that in most of areas of the United States you can still hunt for food? I'm not suprised that you do not, most who live here have no clue what lies in between metropolitan areas other than interstates and parks.

H. Godwineson · « **Reply #99 on:** November 01, 2002, 10:41:50 AM »

So, Beetle, you're saying that the Brits have managed to keep guns out of the wrong hands. Is that right?

Then why has gun violence escalated in recent years?

Whose hands are the wrong hands?

Regards, Shuckins

lazs2 · « **Reply #100 on:** November 01, 2002, 10:48:41 AM »

beetle... I don't know where you get your stats on why Americans own guns... I don't think any have been taken. I use mine in a variety of ways and have used em to defend myself and property with good results... Something that is repeated over a million times a year by other law abiding ciizens in the U.S.

The U.S. is different than the uk. We value independace and choice. I don't expect you to understand it so simply accept it. We could not live under your laws and that includes firearms. That point was proven several hundred years ago and our respective countries have continued to take seperate paths. some from your country still find haven in the U.S. despite the dangers. I suppose the revers is also true (to a lesser degree).

We have a border in common with a 3rd world country... we have ghettors full of drug addicted and hopless and non english speakers... We have crime and we have to live with that but taking away the guns of the law abiding is not the solution.

We have riots. I don't see anything that suggests that we won't have more. I drive a car and I drive it on public roads full of unintentional but nenetheless determined killers... My chances are good that one of these people will kill or maim me in my lifetime. I wear a seatbelt. I don't like wering one particularly... they are badly done and uncomfortable but a small price to pay. I enjoy guns but it can be inconvienient to have one around sometimes... small price to pay.

I have ended conflict with a firearm. I was armed and the perp wasn't in a couple of the cases. That seems to be how the vast majority of these things go. If the perp is armed... I will still feel better being armed.

either way.... civilization will prove one of us right. either we here will give up our guns because the human animal will fundamentally change or.... yur country will come to grief because you have an unarmed society without the checks and balances that I believe free gun ownership endows.
lazs

beet1e · « **Reply #101 on:** November 01, 2002, 01:27:06 PM »

Lazs -

Quote

We value independace and choice. I don't expect you to understand it so simply accept it.

I do understand it. You keep forgetting that I lived in the US for a few years myself, and worked there on two separate occasions separated by 15 years. I've probably been to more states than you have. When I came to leave in 1982, one of the things I looked forward to was escaping the violence, crime, and violent crime. Of course, we're not free of it here either, but it's not on the same scale as it is where you live, so I can understand your concerns and the perceived need for firearms. We have had riots here too, but not where I live. One of the things I looked forward to when I got home, Lazs, was driving down some narrow, winding country lanes! I missed that in the US.

By all means, keep your guns. I'm not trying to take them away from you and neither is your government. I still maintain that I feel no inclination to arm myself, even in a place like NYC - although I don't venture as far north as Harlem or Bronx. And I maintain that the reason for your country's high murder rate, particularly deaths caused by handguns, stems from the unabated proliferation of weapons of this kind. Many of the people who get killed in the numerous killing sprees that take place in your country are innocent bystanders, often children. You focus on the right to own guns, but what about the innocent victims' right to live? So many people have had their lives cut short, and the price they paid for your country's policy of arming everyone was far higher than the price you would have to pay if that policy were to be reversed.

Godwine - unfortunately, some hard core criminals have guns even in Britain. We have a particular problem in London with a Jamaican group known as The Yardies, and another group called the Triads who are Chinese. Both engage in territorial disputes over who controls supply of drugs. But like Lazs says, in a lot of cases it's criminals murdering other criminals. We don't have guns in every household as a matter of course, so when Mr. No. 12 has a row with Mrs. No. 12, the damage is limited to a broken pane of glass in the front door, and not a bullet flying through the window just as I'm walking past.

Fatty - Yes I am familiar with remote parts of the US, and wonderful they are too. Here's a pic of me hiking in Teton area, about 30 miles north of Jackson,WY. The lake in the background is Jenny Lake. I was unarmed but luckily I didn't run into any drug addicts, muggers, black bears, or people who couldn't speak English. The only people I did run into were three nice girls in their twenties. Of course they loved my accent and were dead impressed when I said they sounded like they were from North Carolina. Hehe, I'd seen their license plate when they drove past me earlier, and they didn't see me.

popeye · « **Reply #102 on:** November 01, 2002, 01:58:08 PM »

Well, I did a search on "more guns less crime" and found, unsurprisingly, that there is a rather hot debate on the issue among experts. Turns out that most of these guys are ivory tower PhD economists trying to find an equation that will predict crime rates with and without CCW. Fortunately, I don't know much about multivariate regressions, so I couldn't say who's equations and data made the most sense. The arguments of both sides are rather persuasive to me, but I am always suspicious of the claims of True Believers on either side of any question.

The best answer I could find was: "it depends".

Fatty · « **Reply #103 on:** November 01, 2002, 02:31:22 PM »

That's sort of my point Beetle. Most of rural US is not national parks where one may run into other weekend naturalists walking along the guided trails. It's no airports (perhaps a grass or small strip), no tourism commission, no bed and breakfasts, no park ranger. No police, sometimes a county sherrif or two. Maybe state police might pass through if an interstate or state highway runs closeby.

Wyoming is a decent place to start, I would suggest getting out of the Jackson Hole tourist areas though.

beet1e · « **Reply #104 on:** November 01, 2002, 04:57:50 PM »

Fatty - would a shot from an AZ desert state highway do? I don't want to post it here because it's beginning to take the thread way off topic. We're talking about gun crime, and in the remote areas of which you speak, there would be hardly any, if any at all. Gun crime is mainly an urban issue. Besides, I should give Lazs a chance to reply before saying any more.