There isn’t some objective right and wrong handed down by Moses from the mountain that lasts down the centuries. What was right in the 17th c. [slavery] is now wrong. What was wrong then [gay sex] is viewed as right now. Constitutions merely freeze a particular viewpoint in time.
In many things I would agree with you. Most Americans believe that owning a gun is their right and that being told they can’t would be tyranny. It doesn’t seem that people in the UK feel that way.
Clearly, you and I are just going to disagree on this. Since I have no particular ill-will for you, I sincerely hope that you manage to live out the rest of your life without the majority deciding that **you **are wrong about something.
I’m sure they think I am wrong about some things. Such as the pistols that I owned (and still own in another country).
We seem to have reached the point where the only way to controvert each other’s arguments is by averring that it is not so.
Majority Rule is one of the most basic properties of a democracy. You seem to be arguing a very non-democratic point of view. Frankly I - and most Brits - are quite happy with democracy and would rather have it than any of the alternatives.
See my remarks above regarding the tyranny of the majority. Like the founding fathers of this country, I distrust democracy.
To which I’d say that you’ll never get a grasp as to why the UK banned handguns if you can’t get a grasp of why people in the UK prefer their system of government. The ins and outs of how and why the handgun ban was put in place was a very democratic way of doing things. The population were quite clear in what they wanted and their representatives in government responded to it.
It wasn’t born out of fear but I would say out of believing that they have no place in what we consider a civilised society. Your view may differ on that, but your view isn’t any more right and wrong than ours. That’s why I don’t preach to Americans about how their ideas of gun usage is wrong; they are clearly happy with it and that is fine with me. You do what you want over there and we’ll do what we want on our little island.
The problem I have is that it is often put forward - and has been in this thread - that the UK is somehow wrong. We don’t understand. That argument has now been reformatted to us having a “fear” of handguns, presumably born out of our ignorance and apparent belief that they randomly shoot people without anyone pulling the trigger. This is every bit as insulting as the argument that was put forward earlier in the discussion as is it more or less the same argument but with a little bit of political spin to try and make it look like something different.
Thank you for boiling the discussion down to a simple, accurate paragraph. I don’t know why this has gone 5 pages when this has been the consensus almost from the beginning.
Apparently, Doors, you didn’t actually read the thread. Several people, including me, already said that several times over the five pages. We decided to discuss it anyway, if that’s all right with you.
Oh, but I did read the thread. I also read the 50 threads just like it as they were happening and I find it amusing that it is being rehashed yet again with exactly the same result.
…and the content you added to it was so well thought out, eloquent, and substantive that no more threads on the topic ever need to be opened again.
I think there is a major failure of communication here that the American gun enthusiasts weighing in are not grasping.
Pre-1996 Gun ownership was extremely rare.
Your thinking of your situation, guns (allegedly) outnumbering your population. Multiple gun ownership being routine.
This did not apply in Britain
Outside farmers who needed firearms as a working tool, Sports enthusiasts who liked .22 shooting etc, gun ownership was very rare.
I grew up in inner city London during the 80’s. Never knew anyone who owned a gun
The reason the 1996 rules weren’t widely protested is because they hardly affected anyone.
I grasp it just fine. The American gun enthusiast is concerned that such things might happen here eventually. These discussions should show that at the very least, there is a sizable and vocal contingent located here not content to just roll over. It is also obvious that this was not the case in Australia and the UK.
Y’see, here we go with the loaded language again. It’s not “just rolling over” to want a disarmed society. It’s just the way UK citizens prefer things. And Americans prefer their things differently. It seems as if, at one point or another, every single participant in this thread has acknowledged this. So why do we have to thrash out who gets to feel smugly superior to whom? As a British/American dual citizen, I’m finding it very confusing indeed.
How about a joint statement? Can we agree that on the one hand there’s no Limey Pacifist Coward disease that’s about to cross the Atlantic, and that on the other hand, Americans aren’t likely to come over here and distribute MAC-10s in our inner cities any time soon?
If we can’t agree on that, I think it’s only fair that we suspend this debate until the economic crisis is resolved.
Page 5 recap for those of you joining us at half time:
Pro-gun US side : “USA ! USA !”
Anti-gun UK side: “Meh …”
But surely the vast amount of weaponry already there makes it impossible. Not in a from my cold dead hands active resistance way but out of sheer practicality.
As i just pointed out the oft said anecdote is that there are more guns in America than people. Now this may not be exactly true but its certainly seems to be of the same order of magnitude.
Would anyone then actually try to ban guns in America. What would be the point? With so many guns in circulation and with non-cooperation certain it’d take a hundred years before it’d make much of a difference.
And this is before even considering the practical politics of actually trying to get such legislation through your political system. Snowballs in Hell aren’t in it, utterly impossible short of some inconceivablly sweeping change through your system.
So what are you worried about? It’ll never happen.
As I see it, the only way to maintain these rights is to maintain interest in shooting. It used to be that nearly every man either hunted, was a military veteran and had at least a little experience with shooting, or both. Now, as people rapidly suburbanize, as the “citizen-soldier” days come to an end and the military is now a volunteer organization comprising a small minority of the population, people and guns are growing distant, little by little. If that gap gets too wide, and it gets to the point where guns are totally unfamiliar (and thus scary) to most people (and Hollywood with its constant spew of action movies where the only people to use guns are either superhuman heroes or craven criminals, is certainly helping things to that end) then nobody will raise an outcry when gun rights are eroded.
The only way to keep them alive is to keep shooting and/or hunting alive as a hobby. To teach future generations to shoot, and to do so safely, and to respect the rifle, and know its very important place in our country’s history. But if nobody does this - if nobody cares enough to do it - then we WILL get to the point where the nation will collectively go “meh” when some politician finally outlaws guns for good.
I am not sure i understand Argent T.
Would a point at some time in the future - perhaps many generations from now, when no-one wants or needs guns, not be a good thing ?
I mean, i know its part of your history, but to be frank - so what ?
Then the only people with the guns will be the criminals, and people won’t be able to defend themselves or won’t know how to? (Criminals are one segment of society that will never grow distant from guns - out of necessity.) The preservation of hunting is also important because it gives people a reason to appreciate the environment and care for it. (I guess the same thing can be said of other outdoor hobbies like hiking, but you can’t get a month’s worth of free food from hiking, unless you go around collecting edible plants in a sack, but those are lousy on the grill.) The non-scientific answer - it’s part of our culture, one of those unique things that sets our culture apart from other cultures and makes it special. In this country, the right to arm yourself is in our founding document. I think that’s special and should be preserved. On a psychological level, civilian marksmanship is also an empowering pastime because it breaks down the wall between “the guys with the guns” and “everyone else.” In America, the people are the guys with the guns, as opposed to in North Korea, where the people are completely at the mercy of the guys with the guns. This kind of psychological empowerment is good for people. It helps them think for themselves and engenders a very good balance of individualism and also being part of something. This is why so many younger people - smart, young people who are computer programmers or engineering students and what have you - are turning to the hobby of firearms in droves.
Also, if zombies attack, we’ve got to be prepared.
This highlights the difference between the UK and US. People in the UK do not defend themselves with guns and have not for a long time - well before the handgun ban. “Self Defence” has not been a permissible reason to get a firearms certificate for over 60 years. And very few criminals have guns either. And we like it that way.