The fact is that Dunblane DID happen. What guarantee can you give that a legal licensed gun owner won’t do it again? You can’t give one can you? You may feel that it is highly unlikely (as i do - after all, as has been pointed out it was hardly a common occurance before) but it is still possible. Too possible.
I agree that hard core criminals couldn’t care less about bans as they weren’t legal owners in the first place, and most of them are facing long sentences if convicted for their activities so aren’t deterred by the current penalties.
In England you don’t NEED a gun for anything. (Apart from shooting people who have more than eight items in the eight items or less queue who then try to pay by cheque - that’s acceptable, they deserve kneecapping)
I’m not gonna judge your attitude, but I am gonna judge your knowledge of the facts—it’s poor, piss poor. There simply aren’t gangs of kids running around the U.S. with submachine guns, let alone “heavier artillery.” (Whatever that means; I hope you’ll explain.) There are too few of them, they’re too expensive, they’re too heavily regulated, the penalties for using one in a crime are too prohibitive, they’re too inaccurate in the hands of an inexperienced user, they’re not easily concealed . . . all these things make them poor choices for use in crime.
Are you sure you even know what a submachine guns is? I don’t think you do. A submachine gun is a lightweight automatic rifle. Same thing as a machine gun except that a sub machine gun fires bullets of a smaller, generally pistol caliber, rather than a rifle caliber. Automatic means that the gun continues to fire bullets as long as the trigger is depressed.
Here are the current barriers to legal ownership of fully-automatic weapons in the U.S.: All automatic guns in the U.S. are very strictly regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and have been since adoption of the National Firearms Act in 1934. Prospective purchasers of firearms of this type must pay a $200 transfer fee, and submit to an FBI security screening, including fingerprints and photographs, which is quite similar to the check performed for a “Secret Level” security clearance. The applicant is investigated for past crimes, tendencies towards violence, and must have a sworn statement from the chief law enforcement officer having jurisdiction over of his city of residence, that the proposed transfer is of “reasonable necessity,” and that sale to and possession of the weapon by the applicant “would be consistent with public safety.” The FBI investigation generally takes about 3 months. In addition, since 1986, manufacture, importation, or conversion of semi-auto guns to full-auto, by private citizens has been prohibited. Any gun that goes through the transfer process above must have been manufactured prior to 1986. All machine guns are recorded in a permanent federal registry, including those owned by government agencies which are, however, exempt from the 1986 law. And the sad fact is, that the federal agencies owning these weapons “loose track” of them far, far more frequently than they are stolen from private citizens. The FBI says they “cannot find” about 2 dozen of theirs. This makes the government itself most responsible for any of these things that end up in the hands of criminals, not private citizens.
In 1995 there was around 240,000 of these guns registered with the ATF. Of these, about half are owned by the police and other government agencies. Since 1934, there has been exactly one crime committed with one of these registered weapons. On September 15th, 1988, Roger Waller used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant. Roger Waller was a police officer. He and his accomplice got 18 years in jail.
In Gary Kleck’s book, Targeting Guns, he notes the following about *illegally owned fully-automatic weapons:
[ul]
[li] Only four police officers were killed in the line of duty by machine guns from 1983 to 1992. (713 law enforcement officers were killed during that period, 651 with guns.)[/li][li] In 1980, when Miami’s homicide rate was at an all-time high, less than 1% of all homicides involved machine guns. (Miami was supposedly a “machine gun Mecca” and drug trafficking capital of the U.S.) Although there are no national figures to compare to, machine gun deaths were probably lower elsewhere.[/li][li] Of 2,200 guns recovered by Minneapolis police (1987-1989), not one was fully automatic. [/li][li] A total of 420 weapons, including 375 guns, were seized during drug warrant executions and arrests by the Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad (Will and Grundie counties in the Chicago metropolitan area, 1980-1989). None of the guns was a machine gun.[/li][li] 16 of 2,359 (0.7%) of the guns seized in the Detroit area (1991-1992) in connection with “the investigation of narcotics trafficking operations” were machine guns.[/li][/ul]
These cities, in the years shown, were widely believed to be some of the most violent and gang-ridden cities in America. Thus, the use of them to illustrate that crime with automatic weapons is nowhere near as prevalent as certain people and groups would have you believe.
Which is totally irrelevant, and a misrepresentation of my argument. In all the decades of us being allowed to own guns, we had two shootings. In seven years we haven’t had one, yet you’re now counting this as evidence as something. It’s a crap argument.
The ban’s been in force for only seven years. You’re implying that school shootings were a common occurrence in the UK before the ban - they weren’t.
There’s been similar events in Germany and France, which have strict gun laws too, withint he past few years. What’s your point? Anyone deranged enoguh to go into a school and start shooting randomly isn’t goign to be phased by not being able to buy a gun from a licensed retailer.
I’m not even arguing for the legalisation of assault weapons. Where on Earth did you get that idea from?
Obviously, we know that now … but, prior to Dunblane, Thomas Hamilton was a free citizen, not a known violent criminal, not diagnosed as mentally ill … if free citizens had a right to own handguns, then Hamilton had that right.
If you’re seriously suggesting that “the gun owning community” should decide for itself who should and shouldn’t have a gun … uh, I’d rather have the government do it, thanks. I can vote on who’s in the government.
Look Owlstretchingtime (great name BTW and fine Club we both support ) by profession, now at least, I am a risk manager and tend to judge things logically rather than emotionally.
I believe the handgun ban was a distraction, and from a risk management point of view was not a good investment for the time, expense and political and legal commitment made. But it looked good in the tabloids, just like the “Dangerous Dogs Act”. :rolleyes:
I offer no guarantees, and would no ask for one. There is no guarantee after the ban. Slaughtered schoolchildren are no less dead whether the weapon used is legal or not - it is whether the risk is changed which should be the determining factor. But I realise that if a legal weapon was used in such an incident again then the politicians are going to expect to take a beating from the media. They do not get elected to avoid taking beatings from the media, that is a side issue.
Need for a gun is again not the issue IMHO. The need is to demonstrate that my right to own one, frankly my right to do anything that does not harm the common good, should be impaired. I do not think Dunblain or the UK government successful made that case - on the basis of either logic or sound risk management principles.
As for Angola, SenientMeat, I can see my current location could be seen as a free gift if you are tempted by a cheapshot but do you actually know anything about the country? I only claim to know something about Luanda but despite the level of gun ownership I feel as safe here as on the streets of (legal handgun free) London.
Whether that is a reflection of Luanda or London I cannot say. I understand it situation may indeed be different in the provinces where the MPLA armed the population as militia against UNITA during the last stages of the Civil War as there is indeed a problem moving those areas back into control of the civil authorities and out of the militia. That is nothing to do with gun ownership per se but rather the steps taken to provide some element of civil defence in a Civil War. Hadly comparible to the UK - or anywhere else much either.
No you are wrong. We knew that then - at least one gun club shopped him prior to the incident as not a “fit and proper person” in their view to own a gun (let along a handgun) - they were worried by him as where in a position to know.
I am not suggesting the gun owning community should decide - I am suggesting that the police should have taken their warnings more seriously, have at least listened to, if not trusted, the gun owning community to have a vested interest in their activities continuing. Instead the police treat gun owners in the UK as cranks as then make not attempt to understand them, and are viewed with contempt in return - now at least. My brother now tapes all interviews he has with the police at the time of his gun license annual review.
No you are wrong. We knew that then - at least one gun club shopped him prior to the incident as not a “fit and proper person” in their view to own a gun (let along a handgun) - they were worried by him and were in a position to know. The police thought they knew better.
I am not suggesting the gun owning community should decide - I am suggesting that the police should have taken their warnings more seriously, have at least listened to, if not trusted, the gun owning community to have a vested interest in their activities continuing. Instead the police treat gun owners in the UK as cranks as then make not attempt to understand them, and are viewed with contempt in return - now at least.
My brother now tapes all interviews he has with the police at the time of his gun license annual review. They are enraged but can do nothing about it as inteviewing him in his own home. do not blame him, seeing the way the police treat legal gun owners.
The government never do the gun control in the UK - the police do and you do not vote for them, or for anyone that directly influences them.
Today is the anniversary of the Columbine massacre so this is all quite timely.
A question for Uncle Beer: Maybe kids aren’t running around with Bren guns in the US, but they are running around with some pretty lethal ordnance. What was used at Columbine? (I really don’t know)
And for Mr karpov: They dangerous dogs analogy is a fair one. However now that the ban is in place would you reverse it?
Compare Dunblane with the sword attack in Wolverhampton that some nutter committed. In one - massive loss of life, in the other no one killed. Both were equally murderous.
That is the problem with reversing legislation which removes freedoms - they are hard to justify reversal. My beef is that the authorities should be required to continue to justify retention rather than me justify removal - all contraints on my freedom should be subject to review. All sources of authority should be subject to challenge and have to justify their retaining authority - to allow otherwise permits the gradual inperceptable removal of our democratic freedoms and increases the power of the faceless state.
I would put all legislation basis on such reactive removal of my freedom into a catagory that requires regular renewal to be retain, or otherwise lapse.
We should at least be debating reversal of the hand gun ban rather than have to resist further encroachment on our freedoms - like the pressure by the police immediately following that farmer killing with his shotgun the robbers who had entered his property. I am NOT defending his actions (they had left and were fleeing the property when I hit the kid in the back) but I am pissed off with the police using the incident to push for more restrictiive shotgun licensing…
It seems to me, then, that you are suggesting that a group of gun owners saying “hey, me and my mates here think this bloke’s a bit iffy” constitutes reasonable grounds in law for denying someone what was, at the time, a legal right. (Look - I’m not saying they weren’t right about Hamilton - I’m just saying it’s no way to run a licensing process.)
No. (I mean, this thread’s about the effects of gun control legislation enacted by Parliament - not the police.) The police may be granted discretionary powers by Parliament, but it’s Parliament that sets the law, and police powers can be revoked or modified, by law, at any time. And the police are also subject to local authority oversight - another area where I, as a voter, have direct input. (Not much input, granted, since I’m only one vote amongst millions … but the police are not the arbitrary and unaccountable force you seem to suggest. All they do is enforce the laws Parliament sets. Which is all they should do, of course.)
It’s also the anniversary of Hitler’s birth. So what?
Four guns were used by Klebold and Harris - none of which is “terribly lethal”:
[ul]
[li] TEC-DC9 semi-automatic pistol - illegal for persons under 21 to possess in Colorado - Klebold was 17, Harris had just turned 18.[/li][li] Two “sawed-off” shotguns - although minors can own possess shotguns in Colorado, it is a violation of the National Firearms Act passed in 1934 to cut down the barrel of a shotgun to the length which Klebold and Harris did - less than 18". Although Klebold and Harris could legally possess the shotguns (before their modifications rendered then illegal), they were purchased by someone else and given to the boys, thus circumventing the normal NICS background check they would have undergone. This called a “straw purchase” and is a federal violation of the Gun Control Act of 1968.[/li][li] A rifle described as a “carbine.” A carbine is nothing more than a lightweight, short-barreled rifle. I dunno what caliber, model, or make it was. This gun would have been legal for the boys to possess, except that it also was give to them after a “straw purchase” by the same person above - an 18 year old classmate, Robyn Anderson, who was never charged with her crimes.[/li][/ul]
And that’s the guns. All of them were illegal for Klebold and Harris to possess for a variety of reasons. It has been said that the boys probably broke more than 15 separate federal felony laws by possessing and using these weapons.
But the guns aren’t the full story. It’s the explosives they had that are more concerning.
The boys also had a pretty good supply of homemade explosives (30-50), carbon dioxide bombs and propane canisters. Some of these exploded, some did not. Most were pretty crude, but a few of those that actually exploded had timing mechanisms attached. There are as many as a dozen explosions in Jefferson County, Colorado that might be the work of Klebold and Harris as they learned to make and use these explosives.
The largest bombs built were found in the cafeteria. The two bombs were each made of a pipe bomb and several smaller fuel cylinders containing propane. When the bombs failed to go off in the attacks, the boys shot at it, yet the bomb still didn’t blow up. It has been estimated that up to three hundred students may have perished if the bomb went off.
Um… Unc, maybe I’m not understanding you, but I think you just said shotguns, a rifle, and a machine pistol aren’t “terribly lethal”. Short of an M4 or even a howitzer, what would you call terribly lethal?
Well, it was inferred that Klebold and Harris were carrying weapons of “unusual lethality.”
To me that means something of an extraordinarily large caliber, or magazine capacity. They were not (well, except for the bombs which were fashioned from readily available materials); the guns they had were all pretty ordinary things. There was nothing really exceptional about them. Hence my remark.
*Maybe kids aren’t running around with Bren guns in the US, but they are running around with some pretty lethal ordnance. What was used at Columbine? *
To me that means something of an extraordinarily large caliber, or magazine capacity
No way does it mean that. It means that maybe they’re not running around with something like a Bren gun but they are running around with stuff that can be pretty lethal. The guns in Columbine managed to do their jobs quite well so to my mind they would easily fit into the “pretty lethal” category.
Oh fer Christ’s sake. I already went through this once. Please go back and read my previous post about automatic and semi-automatic firearms. Klebold & Harris were not carrying a “machine pistol.” That would be a fully-automatic gun, and yeah, if that had been the case, I’d consider it quite lethal.
I wish you people who wanna further restrict my rights, and possbily even take away some of my guns, would educate yourselves on the terminology and the law before you make stupid statements like this. It’s inexcusable that you believe your opinions should carry any weight with anyone when they’re expressed containing such faulty information.
If what I am suggesting “seems that way to you” then I am sorry I am not making myself clear (there is another alternative but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt). I will try again - the police should of course run the licensing process but they should work with those being licensed and not in constant conflict as I see is the case in the UK from family experience. Several fellow gun owners saying a bloke “is a bit iffy” should be grounds for checking the guys out at bit further- that is all. Dunblain is a clear case of the Police screwing up - and then pinning the blame on somebody else. The fact it has only happened once probably says something about the culture of violence (or lack thereof) amongst weapon owners in the UK. It may as well or instead suggest that the police get it right 99.9% of the time. Either case gives NO grounds for banning handguns or indeed increasing gun controls at all - only improving police processes at worst.
I know how Parliament and the police interact thank you very much. But if you beleive the police do not have a big discretionary power in how they act within that framework then clearly do have not had much interaction with the police in the UK. From my personal experience the Police **are ** largely:
Useless - as when my flat in London was broken into. No follow up, no help, no news after one immediate visit.
Dishonest - two cases of perjery personally related to friends of mine - out of two.
Unaccountable and arbitary - numerous cases of them exceeding their powers and/or harrassment of my brother or his fellow legal gun owners. This may or may not be related to his activities as an official of the Shooters Rights Association (a UK action ground opposed to stricter gun control) - it seems too much a coincidence to be otherwise to me.
If that is your position, and you think shotguns and nine millimeter semi-auto handguns and short-barreled rifles are too lethal to permit private citizens to own, then you have passed from the group who wishes merely to reduce gun violence through legislation to the group who wishes to see all, or nearly all guns banned and confiscated from the hands of private law-abiding citizens. The guns you are calling “pretty lethal” are in no way unusual; they’re pretty typical. And in fact, the nine millimeter cartridge is being phased out across the U.S. by police forces and was long ago abandoned by the military as not being lethal enough. It’s a dinky little handgun cartridge (relatively speaking) that’s effective for little more than target shooting.
You guys are trying to make my words out to be absolutes, when they’re nothing more than a statement of relativity. Again, it was implied that what those guys had was unusually lethal. That is not true. What they had was actually pretty typical, and even on the low end of the power range of handgun cartridges. The guns used at Columbine were not unusually lethal, or indeed unusual in any respect. To claim that they are still too lethal for private ownership places you in the group of those advocation outright and near total gun bans.
) by profession, now at least, I am a risk manager and tend to judge things logically rather than emotionally.