This is a good point to bring up.
Your royal family are all protected by armed guards.
Here in America, we believe that you and I should also have that same protection, if we so desire - that it shouldn’t be the privilege of the rich and powerful.
It is impossible to equate the US and the UK(Europe in general really) when it comes to gun control.
Culturally and historically the countries have completely different experiences.
You see this sort of thing breaking out on the dope every now and then. Americans talking about UK/Euro attitudes but trying to wedge the American experience into the argument and visa versa.
The differences on every level are so vast that any comparison is pointless IMO.
Actually, the gun crime problems that exist here are of a very similar nature - concentrated on certain impoverished inner-city areas, tangled up with drugs and gangs, and involving illegally-owned weapons. In the case of either country, gun control laws have little relevance.
The self-defense argument, while it is valid, really isn’t the heart of the matter for a good many gun owners, including me.
I’m one of those cranks who believes that, as long as I’m not hurting anybody else, what I own or use is my business. Further, I don’t believe I should be restricted because of what somebody else did or what somebody else might do.
As you might imagine, there are many laws here with which I vehemently disagree as a result.
The guns I own are a lot of fun to shoot. They are useful for hunting. I’ve even used a couple in self-defense, without having to actually shoot anyone I’m happy to say. The real, core reason I keep them around, though, is because of the people out there who want to take them away from me. I enjoy resisting their efforts to manage my life for me.
Where do these criminals in Britain get their guns? The black market? Do they deal with Russian or other Eastern European arms dealers?
This is a eprfect example of the kind of thing I’m talking about.
You phrase this from your American POV as if the Brits are being somewhat oppressed. From a American POV this is a valid argument. The vast majority of Brits/Irish/French etc. just don’t see it that way. They don’t feel the need to own guns for protection and aren’t calling for it. There is no movement of any meaningful size to put guns in the public’s hand. Nobody wants it and no politician is calling for it. If enough people wanted guns there would be political pressure to revisit the issue. There isn’t.
They get them from the kind of sources you talk about but there’s also a big business in altering de-commissioned guns and starter pistols etc. to fire live rounds.
I’m with you Scumpup, really I just like my guns because I like them. They’re badass. I would never want to shoot somebody - the thought of it sickens me, and though I realize that I might have to do it if my life were in danger, I pray that it never comes to that point. I really am not concerned for my life. I live in a small town with next to no crime, and I’m not anticipating a war against the government. I like having guns because they’re cool.
But those other arguments, you sometimes have to drag out when people say “why should the world revolve around YOOOOUUUUU?”
Well - I realize that this comment might offend people but maybe it’s because those European countries have been ruled by a class-elite system for hundreds and hundreds of years, and there’s a mentality firmly embedded into the population that certain people of a higher class - leaders, aristocrats, and the like - are just naturally entitled to protect themselves and keep weapons, to the point where you don’t even question it or think about it all because it’s so accepted. Meanwhile the average person never questions the fact that he exists on a plane far below them, and is content to live his life without enjoying those freedoms because he never desires them in the first place.
ETA - for the same reason that in England, I take it, hunting is a pastime for the nobility. Peasants poaching on the lord’s land were executed back in Medieval times. In Britain, hunting is a privilege of the elite. Here in America everyone can hunt if he wants to. There are wide open lands available to anyone, and hunting is enjoyed by all social classes, not just the high-ups.
There’s a couple of problems with this, however. First off that in the case of the Queen et al., her armed guards are generally members of the armed forces of one of the Commonwealth. Me with a rifle doesn’t give me the same protection as would a trained army officer with one, or so I would hope, anyway. And two, the Queen et al. generally have more reason to suspect an attack or assassination than I do. If she wandered around with no guards and no gun, she’d be offed by the first person that wanted to be famous, as I suspect would your President. We nobodys aren’t in that particular position.
Every time I’ve gone shooting (clay pigeon with shotgun in Ireland and handgun and hunting rifle in the States) I really enjoyed it. It was great fun and a very exciting and invigorating experience. I can see the attraction from a passtime POV.
It just isn’t that important. I also am quite happy with the situaion in Ireland which basically mirrors the UK and feel that the nation as a whole is better with less guns. The US is a tottally different animal. You already have the guns and they are going nowhere.
Smuggled items, plus ones from guys like this.
The Queen’s bodyguards are army? How interesting. Here, our glorious leaders draw their bodyguards from law enforcement. At the federal level, those who have bodyguards get protected by Secret Service agents. At the state level, governors et. al. are protected by officers (called “state troopers” in many states) from their state police agency. Mayors and such from the large cities typically are protected by selected members of their municipal PD.
No that’s not it. It may be one fo the reasons why guns never really took hold here but then again it’s been a very long time since we had a frontier and the spirit that goes along with it.
When we(Irish) needed guns to fight against the british to gain our freedom, we used them adn then stored them away or put them in the hands of the army and Police. Well after a little matter of a Civil War first 
You really are thinkig too much about this. We just have different POV’s nationally. It has nothing to do with freedom or rights over here. It’s disinterest.
I believe it’s a mix of both over here. But as far as i’m aware, all if not the vast majority of armed guards are armed forces.
True enough, but in America anyway, compare the number of politicians who are killed every year to the number of average nobodies who are killed, and you’ll get some idea of what I mean. Barack Obama and John McCain aren’t going to be walking through some dangerous inner-city neighborhood in L.A. at 2 AM to buy a pack of cigarettes or a telephone card to call their family in India or whatever. Hillary Clinton isn’t behind the counter of a liquor store that’s been robbed six times.
Either are people living in the UK. And the people who work in the shops what were robbed where only very very rarely robbed at gun point and even when this happens nobody calls for more guns in the hands of the public they call for better law enforcement and ways to get the criminals off the streets.
Yeah, that would make pretty good TV.
“Guns don’t have that fetishistic charge they seem to have **for some people **in the US.”
“We…find the obsession **some people in the US **have with them somewhat disturbing”
Fixed those for you.
You’re right, that was pretty patronising again :). The reason being, you seem to be proceeding from the assumption that no-one thinking clearly would not want guns, and are trying to fit explanations to this false premise. You don’t need to invent rationalisations for why other right-thinking people might reach different conclusions to you. It’s not that we subconsciously think we don’t deserve armed protection; it’s that we don’t perceive a grave enough threat to warrant it.
If you want to look at it from a freedom perspective, I could easily say that the general British attitude is that we want our government to provide us with freedom from guns, to the best of its ability. To a large extent, it does. By and large, we are happy with this. Why? Because we’re used to a disarmed society, just as you’re used to your armed one. I don’t see that it needs further investigation, to be honest with you.
