Thread: Gun Rights; the test of a free country.

In the United Kingdom, we have been more or less quietly stripped of our right to own a gun. The police have absoloute power over those who can have one and who can't and there is no written charter giving the applicant a garuntee of fair treatment, and the 'filth' don't need real a reason for turning you down.

The 'safety standards' expected are impossible for working-class Britons to comply with (including double glazed windows & alarms) and the whole process is off putting and expensive.

Anybody with a 'recordable arrest' with regards to the Race Acts, ...even if found innocent, have no chance.
Even Airguns with over 12 lbs/SqInch of power (barely enough to kill a rat) are now cassed as 'firearms' and ornamental deactivated weapons/replicas dated post 1870 are now de-marketed, unless they are made of see-through plastic!.

I have liscence for a shotgun but I'm one of the lucky ones.
The existing pro-gun groups in this country are useless, & only appear intersted in the Oylimpic pistol team, and just because the residents of b***k, inner-city disticts have a prediliction for shooting eachother (with occasional innocent casualties) I don't see why the rest of us should suffer.

Under the law, home defense is not a reason to claim a gun (why?), but I believe if a known burglar or herion addict(proven by a test on the corpse) is shot and the body is peported, there should be no arrests ...BY LAW!

Please discuss...

Peter Hitchens speaks about this issue in great detail in his book A Brief History of Crime. You should get hold a copy if you haven't already read it.

Lancashire Hillbilly: I wouldn't want one of those 'innocent casualties' to be one of my family.

Originally Posted by Lancashire HillBilly

The 'safety standards' expected are impossible for working-class Britons to comply with (including double glazed windows & alarms) and the whole process is off putting and expensive.

I don't understand this bit. Maybe it is different in Lancashire, as I am sure that you are aware, each police force is different. I am temporarily working in London, and all I have to show is that my gun cabinet is out of view. I am not sure that they insist on alarms and I know that there is no mention of double glazing, but I have both anyway.

As for criminal records, I think that some of these are a little silly. I cannot see what drink driving has to do with owning a gun. Just because someone is irresponsible in their car does not mean that they are with their gun. You can even lose your licence if you have your driving licence taken away for speeding.

I would not agree that the pro-gun groups are only interested in Olympic sports. Groups such as BASC are not particullarly interest in the Olympics but are for other users. Also I think that the Countryside Alliance have a department looking at these things.

One thing that I would ban immediately are these ridiculous replica guns. Some can be turned into proper working ones, but I really cannot see any other use for them that is ligitemate.

Originally Posted by marjem

Lancashire Hillbilly: I wouldn't want one of those 'innocent casualties' to be one of my family.

Marjem - most gun crime is done by illegally held firearms. I can't recall the figure but think that it is something like 98%

How can you say that when so many have been killed recently by guns and knives? How can you be sure that those guns owned legally will not get into the wrong hands? A child of someone I worked with took out a legally owned gun and 'accidently' shot a friend of his, luckily he was not seriously injured.

Guns and knives should be banned from our streets.

The per capita gun murder rate in the United States is 36 times that of the United Kingdom. And this does not take into account manslaughter and accidental killings by firearms, or killings by armed police forces. Something like 11,000 Americans are killed each year by guns.

Do we want that in the UK (or countries like Australia and NZ)? Ownership of a deadly weapon has nothing to do with rights or freedoms. The real freedoms (from want, from racial prejudice, from illness,) we enjoy in the UK and Commonwealth countries (by means of laws, real social services, and universal health care) are much more significant than the 'freedoms' Americans imagine they have.