Thread: Playing With Guns Is Good For Boys

yea yea yea ,

point is obvious

lot more than one doing the killin there .................

Originally Posted by chinthee

Gun control doesn't work, it penalizes the law abiding people.

You could always get your own illegal gun, if it's important to you and makes you feel safer, but that's what it should be: illegal.

Guns are offensive weapons.

Originally Posted by stroller

Guns are offensive weapons.

How so?
Any more offensive than a sword or knife?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Any more offensive than a sword or knife?

Sure, they've got a much wider attack range, and they don't have any other purpose, can't slice cheese, cut bamboo or chop mince with 'em.

Originally Posted by chinthee

Gun control doesn't work, it penalizes the law abiding people.

In the US where people can and do keep guns in their homes the per capita murder rate is ten times that of the UK where people don't keep guns in their homes.

The point about a gun is that it is easy to kill someone at considerable distance without them being able to defend themselves. With a kitchen knife you have the chance to run away or fend off the attacker but with an assault rifle or a Magnum you don't have that option. The simple fact is that in the USA it is much easier to kill someone and so ten times as many people die needlessly. Those people aren't coming back.

If I want to use a gun, even in Thailand, I can go to a shooting range and do so, as I could in the UK. I don't know anyone here or in the UK who owns a gun or who has been harmed by one. Why would I need to keep a gun in my home? As for control of knives that has been introduced in the UK and there is some limit (don't ask me what) to the type of knife that may be sold. Personally I think this is a tad over the top but I have never been prevented from buying a knife so I figure the restrictions must apply to some pretty unusual stuff. I personally don't feel at all upset that I may not be able to use a Samurai sword or a Machetti to slice my cheese.

The gov't called for a gun amnesty and recall in my home province a few years back. 5555 I think not one farmer/rancher/mountain man gave theirs up. I could see reasoning with a grizzly or trying to fend him off with my Swiss army knife. Usually, you just have to fire a gun in the air to scare them off. Unless it's charging you coz you came between mom and her cub(s). Then you be SOL without a gun. I have never aimed a gun at a person. That's the first fekin rule when you are taught how to shoot.
And, is it right that almost every Swiss home with a man has a gun? And in Israel, too. Maybe the US and Canada should bring back conscription. So, erm, how do people kill each other in the UK?

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

how do people kill each other in the UK?

Shootings are quite rare. Most people are beaten to death or stabbed.

It has been known for some people to use a spoon

The only people who are shot are gangbangers who are up to their neck in that sort of monkey business.

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

So, erm, how do people kill each other in the UK?

People still shoot each other, just less frequently. Stabbings, poisoning, strangulation, the usual stuff.

There was a gun amnesty in the UK many years ago where the government offered cash for any weapons handed in. So naturally there was quite an industry importing useless old firearms for several months. A good many old wartime souvenirs were handed in though so there won't be so many people being killed by No1 Lee Enfields.

Originally Posted by Mid

^

for me , it would appear that the trust in the populace re firearms is misplaced

To wit - Australia where they had some whacko murder several folks and the knee-jerk response was to ban private ownership/sale of guns. Don't have the figures at hand but since only the 'criminals' have guns in OZ now, murder rate with knives, spoons etc has skyrocketed.

That's what happened in the Uk when that maniac went mental in a school in Hungerford.

He killed something like sixteen kids & the response was to ban handguns.

Now only villans have them.

Originally Posted by blackgang

If you are somewhat mentally deficient then you might see firearms as designed to kill different things, most folks just see then as firearms and made to shoot.

Then I must be mentally deficient because I wouldn't kill rabbits with an assault rifle, and I wouldn't hunt deer with a pellet gun, and I wouldn't go on a mall rampage with a single shot 22 rifle.

Originally Posted by Deus Ex

That's what happened in the Uk when that maniac went mental in a school in Hungerford.

He killed something like sixteen kids & the response was to ban handguns.

Now only villans have them.

This is the amnesty I was referring to. Basically it achieved next to nothing. It was illegal to own guns before Hungerford anyway and the idea of the amnesty was to give people with illegal guns the chance to dispose of them. Hungerford changed nothing in the UK.

In the UK the minority of criminals are armed, and even most house burglars do not carry arms. It is not uncommon for home owners to confront burglars and live to tell the tale. In the US if you confront a burglar you die. In fact if you have an argument with a neighbour about his pet cat pissing on your lawn you could die. You just have to be really careful that you don't upset someone's delicate sensibilities.

It is a simple fact that in the USA you are ten times more likely to be shot for some trivial reason that in the UK. If you are prepared to risk being shot over a domestic argument then that's fine.

Another factor in all of this, however, is capital punishment. The more a criminal has to lose then the more he is prepared to risk in order to escape conviction. All you achieve by having a death sentence is to ensure that people who have killed have nothing to lose and will kill again in the hope of avoiding the death sentence. Similarly if the sentence for, say, rape, is ten years imprisonment then a high proportion of victims live. If the sentence is death then rape victims die. The combination of widespread gun ownership coupled with capital punishment is the reason why so many people die in the USA.

Originally Posted by Thormaturge

In the US where people can and do keep guns in their homes the per capita murder rate is ten times that of the UK where people don't keep guns in their homes.

Where are you coming up with your numbers?

Gun Control Means Using Both Hands: Comparing the US and the UK murder rates


Comparing the US and the UK murder rates
For years, anti-gun activists have pointed to the UK as an example of what gun control laws can do. They are being proven right every day; the gun laws do seem to be producing a notable change in the rate of crime, but not in the way the anti-gunners intended.
For years, Britain has had a very low rate of murder. For just as many years, the US has had a much higher rate of murder. Indeed, even now, if you look at the murder rate for the US as a whole (5.5 per 100,000) and the rate for the UK as a whole (1.4 per 100,000), you can see that the UK's rate is much lower as a whole. However, the total murder rate is far from being the final word.
In the US and in the UK, crime rates (and murder rates) vary wildly from place to place. In the US, the murder rate in Washington, DC is about 80 per 100,000 population; in Arlington, Virginia, just across the half-mile wide Potomac river, it's 1.6 per 100,000. Does the overall US murder rate of 5.5 per 100,000 tell you anything about whether you would be safe in Arlington, VA or Washington, DC?
The same disparity can be seen in the UK. While the country as a whole has a low rate of murder, there are areas where the murder rate is high. In Glasgow, Scotland, the murder rate is 5.9 per 100,000 (cite). In London, by contrast, it's 2.1 per 100,000 (cite). In the Manchester metro area, it's 10 per 100,000. And in the Manchester neighborhoods of Moss Side and Longsight, and in the Manchester suburb of Hulme, the murder rate is a monstrous 140 per 100,000 (cite)-- which is considerably worse than Washington, DC, America's most murderous city.
If you're thinking that the claims that America's murder rate is a function of its liberal gun laws are beginning to look fishy, you're right.

Originally Posted by Thormaturge

In the UK the minority of criminals are armed, and even most house burglars do not carry arms.

This is because penalties are very severe for committing a crime with a firearm and are actually enforced in Britain.
If existing gun laws in the US were properly enforced criminals wouldn't be acting with such impunity. But the US legal system seems more concerned about the civil rights of criminals.

. The combination of widespread gun ownership coupled with capital punishment is the reason why so many people die in the USA.

This statement doesn't make any sense. Care to explain?

Originally Posted by Plan B

Then I must be mentally deficient because I wouldn't kill rabbits with an assault rifle, and I wouldn't hunt deer with a pellet gun, and I wouldn't go on a mall rampage with a single shot 22 rifle.

As has been said, Yes you are and you also know very little about guns.

An M-14 is considered an assault rifle, It is a select/auto fire weapon of 308 cal and a velocity of around 2800 FPS and is used often for shooting varmits [rabbits] at ranges up to 1000 yards and is used in most long range match shoots.

Napoleon had a standing order that any man found with a pellet gun was to be put to death. You see there was and is today built air powered projectile rifles that have a velocity of over 3000 FPS with sizes of up to .040 cal.

From cover on a rampage a .22 single shot in a number of center fire chamberings would be a very fine killing weapon, There are very few rifles with accuracy and light recoil that would out do a .22 cal single shot.
But you keep making yourself look silly when talking with so little actual knowledge on the subject.

No, quite right. I've only fired pellet guns and don't know anything. Apart from the Steyr assault rifles, and C9 support fire weapons and grenade launchers and anti-tank rockets I fired as a rifleman in the army.

From cover on a rampage

a rampage from cover? Niiice!

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Originally Posted by Thormaturge

In the UK the minority of criminals are armed, and even most house burglars do not carry arms.

This is because penalties are very severe for committing a crime with a firearm and are actually enforced in Britain.
If existing gun laws in the US were properly enforced criminals wouldn't be acting with such impunity. But the US legal system seems more concerned about the civil rights of criminals.

. The combination of widespread gun ownership coupled with capital punishment is the reason why so many people die in the USA.

This statement doesn't make any sense. Care to explain?

Perhaps you should study the subject.

For a first offence of burglary in the UK an offender is likely to get community service. Painting park fences or mowing grass. Frankly it is absurd but with so little to lose, and since neither the home owner nor the police will be armed then few burglars bother packing weapons.

If, on the other hand, all homeowners and cops are armed as in the States, then burglars will go armed because they may need to shoot their way out of being caught.

I do agree that guns, on their own, do not kill. It is the combination of people with guns that is a threat to life. There are weirdos in all societies however. People who will not accept other people are entitled to different opinions on, say, religeon or politics. Give them a gun and sometimes they can take an argument too far.

Originally Posted by Plan B

rampage from cover? Niiice!

Yes, I would say like the dude in the tower at a univ. I trhink it was in Texas a few years ago, anyone on the ground within 700 yards was dead meat and a .22 chambered in a 22/250, 220 swift, 22 Hornet, 223 would have been a killer of a gun.

Must have been the limey army, didn't know they let you use real live ammo, but it sounds like they didn't let you use to much tho..

But once you become familliar with anything, such as firearms then you will lose your fear of them and begin to learn of their usefulness.
Seems that Jet Gordon has done it..

Playing With Guns Is...31-12-2007 09:48 AMThormaturgeUseful for what? Guns have one use. Killing.


Useful for killing if thats the only use you can see for them, but that means that your mind in not a very useful thing if thats all you can find to do with them.
I have spent hours on the loading table and also on the shooting bench and fired hundreds of rounds and never killed anything but TIME., very enjoyably too I might say.

I spent my youth deer hunting in the rocky mountains every year with my dad, brothers and uncles. It was a family tradition, and we enjoyed great venison and made deer jerky. I learned how to handle large caliber rifles at a young age.

As a youth, we also engaged in killing prairie dogs and other stupid entertainment with .22s and other things.

As I got older, I quit killing animals and I restricted my shooting to the ranges and open country practice and trap shooting. I've owned everything from 12 gauge shotguns, 30.06 rifles, Remingtons, Winchesters, you name it. As far as hand guns, I've owned many semi-autos, and revolvers of all types.

I never had the thought of pointing any gun at a person. But, guns have been very enjoyable for me. I really miss them in Thailand.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by Mid

^

for me , it would appear that the trust in the populace re firearms is misplaced

To wit - Australia where they had some whacko murder several folks and the knee-jerk response was to ban private ownership/sale of guns. Don't have the figures at hand but since only the 'criminals' have guns in OZ now, murder rate with knives, spoons etc has skyrocketed.

open question to all who are pro-gun ,

where's the figures ? reports of armed private citizens PREVENTING crimes ?

^^^

Would you like me to post your previous red square with the personal remark?

If you read my posts you will see that I have no objection to people using guns recreationally. We do in the UK. It is the ready availability of lethal weapons in the home that causes so many deaths. It is just too easy to settle an argument with a bullet. If all you wanted was target practice then you would be happy with an air rifle, or do you feel the need to be able to kill someone when the mood takes you?

I do find it tragic that we have this one country on Earth where the population is comparatively well educated and which could reduce its murder rate by 90%, but thanks to commercial interests a significant element still want to have, and their neighbours to have, guns in their homes.

The original point and click interface
was a Smith & Wesson.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Well, since the world is full of bad people whom you need to defend yourself from

Well, maybe so in the US, I've always found it good enough to rely on authorities and the rule of law to deal with 'bad people'.
When was the last time you had to shoot a 'bad guy' attacking you?