we don't want your gun control...

[Toad]

I don't really know that much about CA, but given the actions in Parliament I can understand the concern. Sounds like the country folk do have a "beef".

Hunters must have a different connotation for you. Here, the word would never bring to mind the formal horse and hounds fox hunters. There's a little of that but it's almost non-existent.
Hunter here connotes somebody on foot with a gun in pursuit of legal game.

I've been to the UK and flown over it quite a bit. You have more open land than you apparently think. Perhaps one major difference is in the view towards ownership of game. Your history is that game belonged to the person that owned the land (the King, to start with). Our tradition is that the game belongs to the public.

Property rights ideas, fences for example, are much closer I think.

[lazs2]

tyro.. if you get 10,000 or so gun homicides a year... most of em being dead criminals and at the same time you prevent upwards to 3,000,000 crimes a year with firearms... well yuo do the math..  I say it is you who is focused on a microcosm.    

tyro is gunman 26 (or 42) after listening to barry manilow for 6 months straight.

toad.. missspellings make me furious..  someone should regulate em,..

dowding... population is the key... the more crowded the less freedom you have... our large population centers in America vote for less freedom every time.   Most of America is more rural and as such... your gun laws don't work here.

beetle... who is "we" in reference to the wild west?   Are you saying that if england allowed people to shoot burglars then it would be the wild west?   Much better that they simply hide in cages until the burglars finish cleaning out the house eh?   somehow... that doesn't strike me as "freedom".

In their landmark study, John R. Lott, Jr. and David B. Mustard found, "allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. If those states which did not have Right to Carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders; 4,177 rapes; and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided yearly....[T]he estimated annual gain from allowing concealed handguns is at least $6.214 billion....[W]hen state concealed handgun laws went into effect in a county, murders fell by 8.5 percent, and rapes and aggravated assaults fell by 5 and 7 percent." ("Crime, Deterrence, and Right To Carry Concealed Handguns," 1996.)

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"Concerns that permit holders would lose their tempers in traffic accidents have been unfounded. Worries about risks to police officers have also proved unfounded....National surveys of police show they support concealed handgun laws by a 3-1 margin....There is also not a single academic study that claims Right to Carry laws have increased state crime rates. The debate among academics has been over how large the benefits have been." ("Should Michigan keep new concealed weapon law? Don't believe gun foe scare tactics," Detroit News, 1/14/01.) "Whenever a state legislature first considers a concealed-carry bill, opponents typically warn of horrible consequences....But within a year of passage, the issue usually drops off the news media's radar screen, while gun-control advocates in the legislature conclude that the law wasn't so bad after all." (David Kopel, "The Untold Triumph of Concealed-Carry Permits," Policy Review, July-Aug. 1996, p. 9.)

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Violent crime has decreased every year since 1991, while 17 states adopted and 13 states improved RTC laws. RTC states have lower violent crime rates, on average: 22% lower total violent crime, 28% lower murder, 38% lower robbery, and 17% lower aggravated assault. The five states with the lowest violent crime rates are RTC states. (FBI)

[Dowding (Work)]

Ask any Brit what the The Hunt means, and they'll say the same thing - horses and hounds, red coats, upper class, shredded fox.

I should think most people are indifferent to any other form of hunting. To be honest, I should have thought there isn't much else. We don't have any wild game oustide of land-owner's property. And you pay a fortune to go shoot deer there, for instance. In America, you just need a hunting licence and can go bag yourself something for dinner in a publically owned forest?

Like I said before - there are many countryside issues. But the only act of parliament of any note that would affect them has been the fox hunting (or cruel sports) act. It's not like Parliament has targetted the countryside in sweeping legislature. The issues they have brought up address things like rising house prices caused by London and city dwellers buying up village property either for second homes or to commute from - this forces the children of local folk to leave the village because they can't afford to buy a house.

[Toad]

Originally posted by Dowding (Work)
I should think most people are indifferent to any other form of hunting. To be honest, I should have thought there isn't much else. We don't have any wild game oustide of land-owner's property. And you pay a fortune to go shoot deer there, for instance. In America, you just need a hunting licence and can go bag yourself something for dinner in a publically owned forest?
 

There's quite a bit of bird hunting in England, although most of it is "pay to shoot". It would probably qualify as an "industry", given the effort expended on the land, raising the birds, setting up the hunts, etc..

The US does indeed have much more in the way of public hunting. We don't have an Queen's forest stuff... the public land belongs to all of us.. and the game on it as well.

Still, it looks as if there's smoke in the anti-hunting part of Parliament. Probably a fire there somewhere too.

[beet1e]

Mr. Toad!  Dinner at your residence would seem to be a grand affair!  I should dress accordingly. You've been to the UK? Next time you should look me up! (Only 30 mins from LHR) I've got a friend whos's a captain with UA (747-100/200, but now 777) and we met at the hotel in Queensway at which the airline puts him up, and I helped him with the jetlag. Well, started to...

Dowding. I don't like the idea of foxes being hunted with hounds. They say that it's necessary to regulate the fox population. But that is total bollocks - there exist fox coverts at which foxes are bred in captivity to be released into the wild to be hunted.

Lazs!

In their landmark study, John R. Lott, Jr. and David B. Mustard found, "allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths.

Oh, well that clears up a mystery. I didn't know that David Mustard had participated in that study. Clearly John Lott was unable to locate a sharp object, and therefore could not cut the Mustard - LOL!

[Toad]

Originally posted by beet1e
Mr. Toad!  Dinner at your residence would seem to be a grand affair!  I should dress accordingly. You've been to the UK? Next time you should look me up! (Only 30 mins from LHR)

Yeah, we "dress" for dinner; it's pretty formal. My wife hates naked people at the table. So, we at least try for shoes, socks, clean blue jeans and flannel shirt. Flannel sleeves wipe the spilled whiskey up so well......

I've been to the UK many, many times. Starting in '75 and continuing off and on up until last year. My company is restricted to Gatwick, however and we stay in Brighton. Nice, but after a few years of that, London seems pretty attractive.

I'm coming over again in January to visit friends in the Devon area.

I bet they look at me funny if I say "toodle-pip" when I leave. What do you think?

[krazyhorse]

btw, fergot to mention those 1' and 5's added up to 22,000 us dollars.  also  i have 2 dogs  a basset and a chow mix, they do there job just fine. as far as shooting my pistols into the neighbors house, well  very unlikely the nearest neighbors house is about 1000 yards away, yes  i also have several shotguns, rifles as well . your statement about shooting in public is pretty much correct it had better be a life threatening situation or you are in deep chit.

[beet1e]

LOL Mr. Toad!  No shoes, no shirt, no service?

Gatwick/LGW   Sounds like you fly for either Cont. or USAirways - or Delta at a pinch.  

Not sure how Toodle-Pip would go down in Devon. I did once hear Alec Guinness say it - in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy...

BTW Lazs - you would like the 1949 movie, Kind Hearts and Coronets - in which Alec Guinness plays now fewer than EIGHT different parts!  THAT ought to make you feel safe, especially as the movie is in B&W. However, I must warn you that someone is killed with a gun towards the end of the movie.

[Blank]

Toad i grew up in south devon, and being a rural area 'toodle-pip' isn't really fitting.

what you should try for is:

replace the word them with they.

"can i have some of them"  should be
"can I ave sum oh they, me darlin/ bay (boy)" (me darlin/bay should be added to the end of all greatings"

ex "all right bay"  "all right me darlin"

other great stand outs, put a piece of grass in your mouth and walk round saying:

"ear, get orff may land youse buggers"

have fun in devon and visit my home town of Totnes (we have an old round castle and loads of hippies) and also my home surfing beach 'Bantham' also at Bantham/bigbury  is 'Burgh Island' where Agather Christie wrote many of her books.

Oh yes and many sheep

[Toad]

Originally posted by Blank
Oh yes and many sheep

Well, not being of the Rook or Knight persuasion, I have no real intellectual or emotional interest in sheep.

However, I have heard they raise some amazingly fine Labrador gun dogs around there. Now that interests me.

[StSanta]

Toad wrote:
Our tradition is that the game belongs to the public.

In Sweden, they have a thing called "allemansrätt" (directly translated it meas "the right of all men") which applies to ground owned by the government.

This means that you may travel on, put up a tent, collect berries etc. Hunting obviously isn't included, but fishing is in the five biggest lakes as well as the coastlines.

This is extremely good, I think. I do a good deal of cliff climbing in Sweden during the summer. Last year I went over with some Danish friends - they insisted on staying at an official camping ground and paid through their noses. I went up to the cliffs and found myself a place to put up a tent. Saved me toejameloads. To top it off, there was a lake five minutes away where I could bathe, clean myself and my clothes etc.

Do you have something similar in the US or is most ground privately owned?

I find the Swedish approach most agreeable - nature is not to be 'owned' exclusively by rich people, IMHO. Or controlled by the state.

[Toad]

Santa,

Our National Park system is open to all but usually not for hunting in the Parks.

We have millions and millions of acres of other public land, like Bureau of Land Mangement (BLM) land that is open to basically all recreation.

There's plenty of "elbow" room here to do whatever you like.