I’m prepared to be convinced by data to the contrary but i’m not sure.
High Urbanization has been a fact of american life for over a century now. Would the working man in say the 30’s or the 50’s with living standards lower than today be more or less likely to go hunting than today. Less i say, the financial wherewithal to go hunting in both equipment and time being harder to come by. Not to mention did the private gun clubs that are popuiar today exist back then?
A Military veteran? Well obviously WW2 skews this tremendously, but before then. Didn’t America traditionally have a tiny army. It’s only the cold war that made large standing army’s in peacetime acceptable. Vetereancy before then (again with a surge for WW1) would have been much rarer.
You sure your nou just pining for a golden age that never existed?
You really show yourself to have no idea at all about the UK so you simply have no basis on which to spin your fancies.
There is no hunting in the UK in the American sense. What wilderness we have is ‘tame’ wilderness. We don’t have large mammals to hunt.
What huntable animals there are (mainly deer) live on private land or national park land and are subject to controlled culling.
And if there were more guns in private hands there would be more guns in criminal hands. Guns are hard for criminals to come across which is why there is a black market in converted replica’s. The big demand for guns is among inner city gang bangers to plug each other and the occasional passer-by.
A Soviet era starting pistol, converted, is the most prevalent weapon and costs a few thousand quid.
We are safer from guns precisely because unlike the USA the horse has not bolted. We can and have slammed the stable door in time. The rapist is vastly unlikely to have a gun and if the victim did, through easy access, then they would too.
Knives are the issue at the moment, becoming the weapon of choice for urban youth but it’s vastly more difficult to get high casualty massacres with a sword.
And even our geeks are generally satisfied with their dick sizes and don’t need guns to compensate. We don’t like guns and we don’t want them. We recognise that people with guns kill people very efficiently.
If we follow this line of argument, Britain=North Korea. I like what you did there, very clever. Aren’t the people of North Korea completely at the mercy of an entire totalitarian system ruled through fear, or have I missed something?
Hah hah, I’d been ignoring this thread for a while, thanks for the summary
tagos I was trying to explain why I think that the “gun culture” should be preserved in America. NOT saying that the situation is the same as it is in the UK. You should do things your way, and I haven’t argued otherwise. Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough.
I wasn’t trying to equate Britain with N. Korea. Not my intention at all. Of course it’s a very different situation.
I do not appreciate the “dick size compensation” argument that gets hauled out time and time again by anti-gun people. Unless you have some kind of actual statistical data that shows that gun owners have smaller than average penises, or something, you’re resorting to a stupid, snide, dirty and uncalled for accusation.
There is no hunting in the UK in the American sense. What wilderness we have is ‘tame’ wilderness. We don’t have large mammals to hunt.
What huntable animals there are (mainly deer) live on private land or national park land and are subject to controlled culling.
QUOTE]
This point can’t be overemphasised. If first you gave evreyone in Britain hunting rifles. Then if that weekend a identical proportion of Brits went out hunting as would be typical for America. There would be nothing left alive to shoot for the following weekend.
I realize that, again, I was talking about America and American traditions of hunting and shooting, not telling the British that they should make their country the same way.
Isn’t there a lot of wilderness in the Scottish Highlands? Or is it all controlled by private organizations or wealthy aristocrats?
Actually, more likely. Hunting is declining rapidly, at least as measured by the number of hunting permits issued. The number has declined by half over the last generation, while the population has grown. Hence the proportion of Americans that hunt has fallen even more dramatically.
Maybe not naturally, but statistically speaking at least some of youse must have shot the ends off by now.
(I kid, I kid!)
Private land or national parks, yeah. Scotland’s not that big; if it were a US state, it’d be 40th by area, and 20th by population (or the 18th most densely populated, if you like).
All the land in the UK is owned, either privately, publicly or by the crown (which really is just a special kind of public ownership).
You can shoot on any land for which the landowner grants you permission.
My brother’s father-in-law is resolutely middle-class, but regularly shoot small mammals and woodpigeon on the Sandringham Estate, which is actually privately owned by the Queen (it isn’t a Crown Property). He has permission to do so, and he pays nothing to do it.
I’m not obsessed with aristocrats (although I wouldn’t mind being one.) I’ve just read a lot about British aristocrats and the spectacular estates and castles that they own. (I’m talking about the present day, not like 200 years ago.) I take it that there is still an aristocracy in the UK with a lot of guys who are descended from nobles and still part of an official royal bloodline, who spend a lot of their time racing cars and playing polo and stuff, right? Surely these guys can hunt whenever they feel like it. I’ve read that some of them even set up gigantic “grouse moors” where the vegetation is set on fire and burned away in this specific pattern that attracts the wild fowl.
But you’re not that Jeffersonian ideal of yeoman farmers quitting the plow and springing to arms, Cincinnatus-like, any more (and arguably, you never were).
All land in the UK is under somebody’s ownership, yes. The largest landowners are government or public organisations and aristocrats. It’s certainly possible to spend your time shooting deer, but with a landowner’s permission, which will generally mean within wider government regulation both of wildlife welfare and also land management. So, for most people, this would be as a comparitively expensive organised holiday, such as here.
Additionally, the land in question is a long way from most people. The Highland area has a very low population density (on preview: if a US state it’d be the 8th emptiest), in part a consequence of the Highland Clearances. Even for half the population of Scotland, it would take up much of a day just to drive there and back.
Also on preview: yes, there’s managed grouse moors in various parts of the country, not just Scotland, but you pay big money to be allowed to shoot on them.
If they own the land or have permission of the landowner. My brother’s father-in-law can hunt on the Sandringham Estate whenever he feels like it, and he’s not aristocracy.
Well, it’s not so much that they “quit the plow” as they were drafted into the military. I don’t come from a rural background, at all. I am the way I am because I was transplanted to Southern Indiana when I was one year old and I grew up with the culture here. But all the rest of my family are on the East Coast. My grandfathers and all their brothers all fought in either WWII or Korea, but they never grew up with any kind of shooting tradition in their families. But some of them even took up hunting when they got back from the war. And these are guys from Brooklyn!
as the link indicates, over-population of deer is a serious problem in the Highlands. There aren’t enough people who want to hunt them (at least, on the terms that the landowners are prepared to permit it; most of it is ‘guided’, in US terms) and those that do want trophy heads, not the does that keep on knocking out more fawns.
You do know that quite a few Americans don’t give a squat for “gun culture”? Even here in Texas. No, I don’t want the government to grab your guns. But maintaining interest in Gun Culture is your job, not mine.
Yes, people do keep whipping out that argument about anatomical inadequacy. Perhaps because some gun lovers seem unnaturally attached to their pieces. I know guys who hunt and/or collect guns, but they seem to have full lives & many interests.
If a cull is needed the Deer Commission will organise it or compel the large landowners to do it themselves. None of this requires the (overwhelmingly urban) public to tool up and start blasting. I’d rather see wolves reintroduced.
