knife Laws ?

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by mkz9876

your going equipped to steal then though

A classic example of why we dont need, and should protest fuzzy laws - you chose to ignore the bits about going to a mates to do some DIY and the fact I would set it up that I WAS going there, doing something then going away from there - if I was stopped before I did something and I was on a plausable route home, then my alibi would hold up...

Your comment is back onto Thought Crime and the nonsense that all Crime can be prevented... it can't it can only be deterred by making the possible gain from the act be completely outweighed by the punishment.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by ophic

The problem is, if the laws allow you to keep a gun, they'll just assume you have one and shoot you on sight. In the current state of affairs, armed robberies tend to occur with no loss of life - someone points a gun at you, and you do as you're told. There are always exceptions - there are brutal killings etc going on, but not nearly as many as I believe would happen if things were changed in the way you suggest. As you say, some of them aren't thick. Or they'll break in when you're out, which many already do anyway. They might even nick your gun, and go use it to rob someone else...

No they won't, who'd face a murder charge for the sake of the £11.55 in someones wallet.

Them breaking in when you're out is better than when you're home. It saves Granny Smith down the road getting battered over the head for her pension book if the thieves think she might have a .22 stashed under her pillow!

Originally Posted by Dave20046

I still reckon it'd be a suicide mission for someone to try and burgle a property where they suspect the tenant to be armed. If they were legal I'd have a thoroughly alarmed house, without the element of surprise they're as good as dead. Anyway all that aside I'd find the real problem with the uk having guns legally would be the sheer availability. Gun crime & fatalities would go sky high.

I seem to remember a statistic which suggests there have been MORE shootings in UK since the handgun ban.

If they still allowed handguns for purposes of sport shooting, no way would I shoot someone with mine. If I had a .45 and wanted to kill someone, I'd do exactly the same thing as I would now, and go buy a completely different weapon for the act, then melt it down and throw the resulting slag in a deep lake.

It's not exactly hard to get hold of a firearm at the moment.



Red Herring, I like your example, but I'd rather have the choice of whether to carry or not, and you've still the choice of whether to draw and fire.
Even confronted with an armed assailant, and you well drilled and practiced, carrying a loaded firearm, it's going to be far more of a pain in the backside to explain to the police why there are 2 blokes brains all over a nice clean pavement than it is to ring up and cancel your bank cards

Still what it comes down to is you should have the right to do whatever the hell you like until it hurts someone else. Including soulkiss' example of carrying a sword down the street, or even having a GPMG under your bed.

[ophic]

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

No they won't, who'd face a murder charge for the sake of the £11.55 in someones wallet.

If I was in the business of burglary, i'd expect a little more than this per raid, or I'd get someone with more brain cells to survey the properties. Besides, you've gotta get caught, and dead men can't give evidence.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Still what it comes down to is you should have the right to do whatever the hell you like until it hurts someone else. Including soulkiss' example of carrying a sword down the street, or even having a GPMG under your bed.

This is great in theory, except that I don't really care what happens after I'm dead.

[Red Herring]

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Red Herring, I like your example, but I'd rather have the choice of whether to carry or not, and you've still the choice of whether to draw and fire.

Still what it comes down to is you should have the right to do whatever the hell you like until it hurts someone else. Including soulkiss' example of carrying a sword down the street, or even having a GPMG under your bed.

The problem is YC not everybody is as level headed as you, or sober when they make a decision. Guns are relatively easy to acquire if you make the effort, but still exceptionally rare for the police to come across because they are still a serious no no and not the sort of thing in general use. If they were allowed to become everyday accessories then their use would escalate, both accidentally and intentionally. At the moment two drunks might have a punch up, do we really want to see wild west style shoot outs in out town centres?

As for the questions about going equipped, offensive weapons (hammers and such like) and knife carrying I stop people on a daily basis who I could apply that to if I wanted to, however the majority of them are decent law abiding citizens with perfectly acceptable explanations for their possession of said article. If on the other hand they're a little **** with a string of convictions for breaking into motors and they have a spring loaded centre punch in their pocket they're going to get my full attention. Laws are not there to be enforced, they are there to be used sensibly to for what they were intended which is to make society a safer place to be in.

[yorkie_chris]

But looking at the recent pistol ban, all it did was strip law abiding target shooters and practical pistol fanatics of their weapons.

If you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns.

When guns were legal years ago it didn't suddenly turn into the wild west, in fact it's got worse since. Despite us never having a "wild west" here even with pistols being under practically no control since their invention, and a revolver being commonly carried by gentlemen as matter of course.

Hell, I know some old boys who got their first firearm licenses at the post office for a few shillings, and not all of them are mass murderers!

[Red Herring]

Personally I think the changes to the law after the Dunblane incident were a knee jerk reaction done for political purposes and i agree they had little or no impact on the carrying of illegal firearms. In fact many argue that they increased the number of weapons that were possessed illegally. I stop short however of agreeing with you that certain types of firearms should be made readily available to the population. I know that to a firearms fan there is a difference between a .22 target rifle and a .50 Desert Eagle but in much the same way as it makes sense to have laws that stop someone driving a jet car down the high street we need laws that limit the size and purpose of guns.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Red Herring

Personally I think the changes to the law after the Dunblane incident were a knee jerk reaction done for political purposes and i agree they had little or no impact on the carrying of illegal firearms. In fact many argue that they increased the number of weapons that were possessed illegally. I stop short however of agreeing with you that certain types of firearms should be made readily available to the population. I know that to a firearms fan there is a difference between a .22 target rifle and a .50 Desert Eagle but in much the same way as it makes sense to have laws that stop someone driving a jet car down the high street we need laws that limit the size and purpose of guns.

Readily available is a funny term to use, and I wouldn't argue that.

The pistol ban certainly increased the number of illegally held guns, because they criminalised the only people who had guns and no intent to misuse them.

But stick with the jet car analogy, there's nothing to stop you having a jet car to thrash down a runway off the public road though is there? (or even to take it a bit too far, towing a jet car through town on a trailer)

[Red Herring]

I knew I was going to regret that analogy! You can't exactly carry a jet car around with you discretely and then whip it out and set fire to the bloke who happens to have upset you by driving to close behind is there? (although I'm warming to the idea).

I guess I'm supporting the easy enforcement argument here which is not ground I'm normally found on. At the moment certain firearms are illegal and/or very rare, which makes any possession of them relatively simple to enforce. I guess I'm going to contradict my own argument used earlier around the possession of knives etc but I'm not sure I want to be in the position of having to deal with individuals who may or may not have a firearm illegally. I'm quite happy to confront someone with a knife, I'm confident I can deal with that, but firearms are another matter. In over 20 years operational experience I've probably only taken a firearm off someone who shouldn't have had it half a dozen times, and none of them were with any firearm support on my side. You can only be lucky so many times and I don't want to ever get into the situation where I may have to carry a gun.

[yorkie_chris]

Aye but what makes you think legal, licensed firearms will mean more illegal ones on the street.
As it is like with shotguns and FAC weapons you can hardly buy one and sell it to your mate as the weapon serial number is logged on your ticket.

How many legal, licensed shotguns were used to rob post offices this year?

And lets face it, there are probably 10-15 people on this forum alone who could make a sten gun, MAC-10, IMI uzi etc in their shed in a couple of afternoons.

[Red Herring]

I really don't know the answer YC. I don't like guns, I don't like what they tend to do to people (and I don't mean those on the receiving end, I mean those holding them), and I especially don't like the reasons people have for having one. I guess I've only ever seen them cause problems, not solve them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a pacifist and I do understand that sometimes they are necessary. I grew up around them and i still own one, but I don't like the fact that I do.