Who Needs A Gun?

[Caswall 7]

17 minutes ago, Carbuncle said:

Because they are far too dangerous for all but incredibly restricted usage even if safely handled 99.9% of time.

Their use is already extremely restricted, and on the whole is extremely safe.  The occurrences of murder using a firearm in the UK are statistically tiny compared to deaths by other means, and not really relevant to the population's overall death rates, except for the headline-grabbing melodrama of the very involvement of a firearm (and the appeal of such to placard-wavers).

 

Do we (you) therefore advocate the 'one death is too many' approach to the very low number of firearms deaths?   If so, you must also demand the banning of cars, knives, golf clubs, all edged and blunt instruments, and a wide range of sports and pastimes which regularly result in death.

[cuttsie 1,091]

56 minutes ago, Caswall said:

Would you like anything else that you don't like or understand to be banned, or just guns?

 

Them black tights that lasses wear that show every nook and cranny as well as fat blokes in football shirts who don't even play .

[Caswall 7]

4 hours ago, cuttsie said:

Them black tights that lasses wear that show every nook and cranny as well as fat blokes in football shirts who don't even play .

I find myself agreeing with you unreservedly on those two issues. 

 

Back to the matter of firearms.  When they are already subject to extremely restrictive controls, and the UK's firearms death toll annually is profoundly low, why do you think  that there "was (is) no justification to need or own a gun"?

[cuttsie 1,091]

Some people own and collect guns as a hobby , as  with all hobbies those people can get obsessed with the situation , reading all things connected with guns, inc military , random shootings , and any other related material. 

 

Some of em use the guns illegally .(you see them in our local woods for instance ) there is no reason for them to be out with a gun in that situation , 

Some owners are mentally unstable and go on rampages as we have seen World wide , who knows who will be next to do this , mental disorder can happen in hours to any one .

[ab6262 202]

On 17/08/2021 at 08:34, Mossway said:

What's a '32' ?

a 32 inch barrel, prefer a 28 for game myself

 

[Caswall 7]

2 hours ago, cuttsie said:

Some people own and collect guns as a hobby , as  with all hobbies those people can get obsessed with the situation , reading all things connected with guns, inc military , random shootings , and any other related material. 

 

Some of em use the guns illegally .(you see them in our local woods for instance ) there is no reason for them to be out with a gun in that situation , 

Some owners are mentally unstable and go on rampages as we have seen World wide , who knows who will be next to do this , mental disorder can happen in hours to any one .

So one of your arguments against gun ownership is that people can get obsessed with hobbies?  And it's of concern that they might read into gun-related topics?   That's just so ridiculous that it's not worth answering, but I shall address your sensible points.

 

 

Yes, some people use guns illegally - and nobody objects to that, or wishes to see it robustly Policed, more than law-abiding members of the shooting community.  I don't know where your local woods are, or what shooting activity you see there, but I would guess that what you have there is youngsters with unlicensed airguns shooting illegally - if that's the case, they need to be dealt with by the law (which requires you and other locals to report them when you see them).   

 

If, however, your local woods are on farmland and you see shooting in the woods from a public footpath, it is quite possible that people could be shooting legally and with permission of the landowner.  If the latter, then you are wrong stating "there is no reason for them to be out with a gun", as in fact there is good reason for legitimate pest control shooting to take place on most land.

 

 

The mental instability is a valid point, though comparing the UK (with its very strict gun controls and medical screening of certificate holders) with other parts of the world (with little or no control) is hardly reasonable.  By contrast, in Switzerland a quarter of all households have guns – but they have almost zero criminal shootings.  The numbers of people murdered by firearms in the UK is profoundly small, and the number of those killed by people using legitimately owned firearms smaller still (after all, no legislation will affect illegal weapons in the hands of criminal gangs). 

 

Do we apply the 'one is too many' approach?  As mentioned earlier to Carbuncle, if we want to ban guns because of the handful of killings which result, we must apply the same mindset to the much higher numbers of deaths related to cars, knives, all edged and blunt instruments, professions which have high death rates and a wide range of sports and pastimes which regularly result in death. 

 

If gun ownership should be banned on the grounds that mental disorders can spring from nowhere, that 'logic' must surely prevent anybody from have a driving license?  Or from being a doctor or nurse?  After all, we can both name a doctor and a nurse who have between them killed more people than all of the licensed firearms holders in the UK over the last 50 years.   

 

 

To people with no knowledge or understanding of firearms, or whose understanding is based on what they see on television, gun can bring about highly emotive and often irrational objection.  The truth is that while extremely rare instances of violent crime can and do happen, the numbers are tiny and irrelevant among a population of nearly 70 million.  

 

One has to ask the people who object to firearms ownership, for the sake of a handful of murders per year (many of which would happen anyway by some other method), do they apply equal vigour to their objections against 150 domestic abuse killings each year?  Almost 300 killings by knife?  1850 deaths on the roads?  5000 deaths from illegal drug abuse?  33,000 alcohol-related deaths, or 78,000 smoking-related deaths?  Or are those acceptable, irrespective of the huge numbers, because firearms aren’t involved?

Statistics don’t lie, and they show that firearms owners are much safer and less violent individuals than the average member of the population.  They are background checked, CRB checked, medically screened, and regularly reviewed to demonstrate that they have good cause to keep and use the firearms they have.  The laws we have in place, now and for the last several decades, are sufficient.

Where the law has failed, both recently in Plymouth and even more dreadfully in Dunblane (and other cases), was failure by Police services to competently apply the legislation.  It doesn’t matter how strict or appropriate laws are if they are not applied – and that, very sadly, has led to preventable deaths.

 

 

[crookesey 635]

18 hours ago, cuttsie said:

Them black tights that lasses wear that show every nook and cranny as well as fat blokes in football shirts who don't even play .

You need to spend less time on The Moor.

[The Joker 10]

18 minutes ago, crookesey said:

You need to spend less time on The Moor.

I'd love to but I can't; Castle Square and Fargate are dying, and Meadowhall's too stuck up for its own good.

[Carbuncle 0]

The intended purpose of guns applied for their most legitimate uses (military, policing, animal control, hunting for food) is to kill and maim with the associated uses of scaring, threatening and deterring. Whereas other objects come with side-effects that make them dangerous, guns are dangerous by design. So far as is practicable, we tend to favour designs that make our objects safer but to make guns safer by designing away their dangerousness is to deprive them of their intended purpose. The way to make guns safer is to have less of them and to control them very, very carefully.

 

The less, in my view, legitimate but still legal uses of guns involve killing animals as part of taking pleasure and shooting targets. Whilst I recognise the enjoyment people derive from these activities, I personally would choose to ban the use of lethal-by-design weapons by hobbyists.

 

A few other points. 'Illegal guns' almost invariably began their lives as 'legal guns' so fewer legal guns will tend to reduce illegal gun use.

56 minutes ago, Caswall said:

One has to ask the people who object to firearms ownership, for the sake of a handful of murders per year ...

It is not a handful, around 30 of the 600 murders each year in the UK involve guns. These figure amongst around 10 000 gun related crimes each year ( https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/offencesinvolvingtheuseoffirearms/yearendingmarch2019 ). Guns are also involved in accidental shootings. The existence of illegal guns changes the nature of some policing, including increasing legal killings and brutality by police officers because the necessity of precaution and control increases as the probability of gun presence increases.

[cuttsie 1,091]

1 hour ago, Caswall said:

So one of your arguments against gun ownership is that people can get obsessed with hobbies?  And it's of concern that they might read into gun-related topics?   That's just so ridiculous that it's not worth answering, but I shall address your sensible points.

 

 

Yes, some people use guns illegally - and nobody objects to that, or wishes to see it robustly Policed, more than law-abiding members of the shooting community.  I don't know where your local woods are, or what shooting activity you see there, but I would guess that what you have there is youngsters with unlicensed airguns shooting illegally - if that's the case, they need to be dealt with by the law (which requires you and other locals to report them when you see them).   

 

If, however, your local woods are on farmland and you see shooting in the woods from a public footpath, it is quite possible that people could be shooting legally and with permission of the landowner.  If the latter, then you are wrong stating "there is no reason for them to be out with a gun", as in fact there is good reason for legitimate pest control shooting to take place on most land.

 

 

The mental instability is a valid point, though comparing the UK (with its very strict gun controls and medical screening of certificate holders) with other parts of the world (with little or no control) is hardly reasonable.  By contrast, in Switzerland a quarter of all households have guns – but they have almost zero criminal shootings.  The numbers of people murdered by firearms in the UK is profoundly small, and the number of those killed by people using legitimately owned firearms smaller still (after all, no legislation will affect illegal weapons in the hands of criminal gangs). 

 

Do we apply the 'one is too many' approach?  As mentioned earlier to Carbuncle, if we want to ban guns because of the handful of killings which result, we must apply the same mindset to the much higher numbers of deaths related to cars, knives, all edged and blunt instruments, professions which have high death rates and a wide range of sports and pastimes which regularly result in death. 

 

If gun ownership should be banned on the grounds that mental disorders can spring from nowhere, that 'logic' must surely prevent anybody from have a driving license?  Or from being a doctor or nurse?  After all, we can both name a doctor and a nurse who have between them killed more people than all of the licensed firearms holders in the UK over the last 50 years.   

 

 

To people with no knowledge or understanding of firearms, or whose understanding is based on what they see on television, gun can bring about highly emotive and often irrational objection.  The truth is that while extremely rare instances of violent crime can and do happen, the numbers are tiny and irrelevant among a population of nearly 70 million.  

 

One has to ask the people who object to firearms ownership, for the sake of a handful of murders per year (many of which would happen anyway by some other method), do they apply equal vigour to their objections against 150 domestic abuse killings each year?  Almost 300 killings by knife?  1850 deaths on the roads?  5000 deaths from illegal drug abuse?  33,000 alcohol-related deaths, or 78,000 smoking-related deaths?  Or are those acceptable, irrespective of the huge numbers, because firearms aren’t involved?

Statistics don’t lie, and they show that firearms owners are much safer and less violent individuals than the average member of the population.  They are background checked, CRB checked, medically screened, and regularly reviewed to demonstrate that they have good cause to keep and use the firearms they have.  The laws we have in place, now and for the last several decades, are sufficient.

Where the law has failed, both recently in Plymouth and even more dreadfully in Dunblane (and other cases), was failure by Police services to competently apply the legislation.  It doesn’t matter how strict or appropriate laws are if they are not applied – and that, very sadly, has led to preventable deaths.

 

 

The people in our woods are not kids ,apart from that , me thinks thow protest to much .

1 hour ago, crookesey said:

You need to spend less time on The Moor.

I stick to Castle Gate , As Albert Quixall said , Imagination can take you any where .

[Baron99 801]

On 20/08/2021 at 19:15, cuttsie said:

Them black tights that lasses wear that show every nook and cranny as well as fat blokes in football shirts who don't even play .

Now then!  You leave the Blades' Ollie Burke & Sander Berge out of this. 

They're the best we've got at the moment. 

 

Back to the thread... 

[Caswall 7]

23 hours ago, Carbuncle said:

The intended purpose of guns applied for their most legitimate uses (military, policing, animal control, hunting for food) is to kill and maim with the associated uses of scaring, threatening and deterring. Whereas other objects come with side-effects that make them dangerous, guns are dangerous by design. So far as is practicable, we tend to favour designs that make our objects safer but to make guns safer by designing away their dangerousness is to deprive them of their intended purpose. The way to make guns safer is to have less of them and to control them very, very carefully.

 

The less, in my view, legitimate but still legal uses of guns involve killing animals as part of taking pleasure and shooting targets. Whilst I recognise the enjoyment people derive from these activities, I personally would choose to ban the use of lethal-by-design weapons by hobbyists.

 

A few other points. 'Illegal guns' almost invariably began their lives as 'legal guns' so fewer legal guns will tend to reduce illegal gun use.

It is not a handful, around 30 of the 600 murders each year in the UK involve guns. These figure amongst around 10 000 gun related crimes each year ( https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/offencesinvolvingtheuseoffirearms/yearendingmarch2019 ). Guns are also involved in accidental shootings. The existence of illegal guns changes the nature of some policing, including increasing legal killings and brutality by police officers because the necessity of precaution and control increases as the probability of gun presence increases.

So what bothers you is the emotive issue around guns being dangerous 'by design', rather than them being statistically relevant compared, for example to cars and knives.  

 

Yes, some 'illegal guns' start life as legal guns, but a very high proportion of illegal guns enter this country through the tunnel - and no level of punitive legislation against law-abiding firearms owners will affect that.

 

30 is a handful.  It's a tiny number out of a population of over 60 million, and in my view (which i'm sure differs from yours) is small enough to be irrelevant.   Of those 30 or so a year, in most years most if not all are killed by unlicensed guns that have been brought into the country solely for criminal use - and would not in any way be controlled by legislation.

I'd rather see people get upset about the thousands of deaths from illegal drug use, and seek harsher punishment and sentencing of drug users and sellers, or greater efforts to address the 78000 smoking related deaths we have each year - but hey, they don't involve nasty scary emotive guns, so let's focus on those 30 firearms deaths and take away guns from legitimate law-abiding pest controllers and sportsmen because you don't like guns.