OT: Road Rage / UK firearms policy

When has it ever been 'fairly common' for a Brit to have a gun? WW2?

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i

On or around 10/10/03 7:32 am, Austin Shackles using , in article ID snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, scribbled:

Unless it had been done in a 4WD with bull bars....

Not under English law - innocent until *proven* guilty. They are not criminals at the time of the offence, though they may be proven so later.

It probably would be if you wanted to conceal it on the way to the scene of the crime. . . . .

I'm obsessed? You're the one with weblink campaigning for individuals to carry pistols! I'm just happy living in a country with very low levels of gun related deaths and where the majority do not feel the need for the macho, self-affirming action of carrying a handgun. I also like having a largely unarmed police force and want to keep it that way.

Not true. As the Cullen report into the massacre reveals, DS Paul Hughes the former head of Scotlands child protection unit wrote a report in 1991 recommending that his (Hamiltons) gun licences be revoked but they never were because Douglas McMurdo the deputy chief constable said he had not been convicted of any crimes, only suspicions existed.

Providing you are happy know a little more entirely from the point of view of people who want to be able to carry handguns. . . . . . .

And the civil war. . . . . . . . ;-)

Indeed, but that is not what it is designed for.

As I said in another post, I have a very fast car, am an advanced driver with a full motorsports licence and yet I still have to drive at the same speed limits as all the numpties in Micra's because laws often hinder the innocent minority to protect the majority. If you can find a way round that, I'll vote for it! :)

Good, but not pretentious enough I fear.

Post your address here and I'll mail it to you.

Really? Do you have source that disproves what I say?

Well that's a relief then!

This is alt.fan.landrover?

Damn, I thought I it was uk.politics.guns.

Steve. Suffolk. remove 'knujon' to e-mail

Yeah, I forgot it had to be pretentious. This one is just funny.

Cheers!

Not as far as the Inland Revenue are concerned. Then all bets are off, and their starting position tends to be that you are guilty of a crime until such time as you persuade them otherwise.

If you are familiar with IR35 or S660 you would be aware of what I'm referring to. If not, don't worry about it.

PoP

An interesting one... This is an AS90 and with an additional extension to the barrel, will place a 96lb shell 32Km with an accuracy of 50 foot.

It is illegal to modify the barrel of a firearm in the UK, so the MoD appear to have broken the law... Discuss ;-)

Martyn

I agree, but I'm much happier thinking of any politician sitting on the toilet suddenly discovering the loo roll has run out than I am thinking about them wielding the power we bestow upon them...

Not at all. By the time I can afford one they'll be antiques :-)

Martyn

A bit like jumping out of the fat into the fire wouldn't you say? That is if you are thinking of moving to "The Island".

Thanks - following up your source - but using different selective reporting. From 1995 to 2001 the proportion of homicides involving firearms decreased by a much more modest 17.8% to 16% - with figures above 17.8% in all years in between. 1996 and 1997 were abnormally high (31.7 & 23.4), and although the decrease from 1997 to 1998 may be attributed to the increased restrictions on firearms, there were no changes to firearms legislation in the 1995-96 period to explain the increase. Other figures, for example attempted murder, are similar, suggesting that any change due to restricting legal firearms is very temporary. Actually the number of homicides is sufficiently low that the variations in numbers caused by a few events (such as the Port Arthur massacre that prompted the change in gun laws) probably account for the variation. If I wanted to be selective, I would note that the use of firearms in kidnapping/abduction in the period from 1995 to 2001 increased from 2.8% to

9.1% , hardly an advertisement for gun control. In reality, these crimes are so rare, and the use of guns in them so unusual that the figures are probably meaningless. An interesting graph also shows rate for use of a firearm in assault as virtually flat at about 1% from 1995 to 2001. I am afraid that the figures do not appear support the value of firearms control in reducing gun related crime, at any rate in the long term. On a related subject, this state, NSW, has the most restrictive laws in the country on knives (the weapon of choice for homicide in Australia), but still has a an above average homicide rate (5.1 to 4.9 / 100,000) and especially compared to the most comparable state, Vic at 3.7. Not a good advertisement for restrictive laws on weapons. ( The state with the highest murder rate is NT at 13.0 - which probably most informatively correlates with its status with the highest alchohol consumption in the world rather than the availability of weapons!) What they do not do, is explain the very wide difference in homicide rates between countries. As I commented before, the rate in the U.S. is extremely high compared to comparable countries such as Canada, U.K., Australia, whereas it is even lower in e.g. Switzerland (where military firearms are held in most homes) and Japan. JD

Guns are not designed solely for killing people - or used for this. Most farmers in this country have owned guns for at least the last century, and very few of them have ever used them for killing people, or even considered them as designed for this - they are simply a tool of trade, perhaps a little more dangerous than some others, but probably have killed fewer people than other tools of trade such as tractors and chainsaws, not to mention motor vehicles. JD

Good god no!

'Near', but not really 'that' near. The WW2 site is pretty well off the beaten track too, and with CCTV on the arterial entrance road, I reckon a fair amount safer than one would normally expect.

Martyn