And as I currently live in Greece, I’ll add some more anecdote from another corner of Europe (I’ve no idea of the actual gun laws here). I live in a rural community and quite a lot of my Greek neighbours own a shotgun or hunting rifle. Hunting rabbit, hare and wild birds is a common pastime for all classes of local people. Owning a handgun, and viewing gun ownership as a measure of self defence, would be regarded as odd. In the cities no one owns guns. Crimes involving guns are national news. The (perceived) US attitude to guns is thought of as weird.
The restrictions on hunting in various parts of the US are actually more strenuous than Australia’s gun laws; sure, you can (depending on state) own a semi-auto AK-47 knockoff with a night-vision sight, bayonet, and (if you pay the appropriate fees), a silencer- but you can’t take it hunting with you, meaning the only places you can shoot it are… at a shooting range. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that)
Similarly, you have a very limited “season”- often a week or so, I’m told in some places- in which to shoot certain animals, AND you have to have a permit from the local Parks & Wildlife department to do it.
Want to go duck hunting? Only three rounds in the magazine, buddy. And the magazine needs to be plugged up just in case you can’t count.
You want to go hunting at night? Absolutely not! Using a spotlight and/or hunting from a 4WD vehicle? You’ve got to be joking.
I have a very good friend who lives in Arizona and repeatedly bemoans the fact he can’t legally hunt Deer because he never gets drawn for a Deer Tag, yet “Hunting Guides” are able to purchase a large number of draws in the lottery to ensure they get enough for their clients- meaning people like my friend miss out because there are fewer tags to go around for the average hunter.
Of course, each state in the US is different, but it’s simply not true that anyone in the US can hunt whatever they like, whenever they like, wherever they like (within reason).
In Britain, the vast majority of armed robberies take place with nobody getting injured. If somebody does get shot, it’s the lead story on the evening news, just because it’s so rare. There has to be something deeply entrenched in our attitudes towards guns, on both sides of weapon, that causes this to be so different, rather than there being a single overriding characteristic of ‘robbery’ or ‘criminal’.
The shopkeeper having a gun is hardly likely to make a difference in that scenario, since he’ll be too dead to use it.
Guns in general aren’t very good for self defense, because the bad guy tends to shoot first, being a bad guy. And unlike in Westerns, in the real world the guy who shoots first almost always wins.
Oh, but you are forgetting - it’s the deterrent value that counts; because no armed criminal would dare to enter premises where the occupier may have a weapon too!
That is not the impression I get from seeing shop videos of armed robbers in the US, including gun shops - I mean, who would be stupid enough to try hold up a gun shop?
We have plenty of idiots in the UK, last thing I want to see is ready availability of guns. If you don’t make it easy to possess a gun, then you don’t have to concern yourself too much about the deterrant - but once the armed genie is out of the bottle, there is no putting it away again.
It may be a deterrent in some cases, but stacked up against these are the ones where the bad guy goes in with the intention of shooting first, just in case. Not the typical behaviour in a country where guns for self defence are non-existent.
There are established seasons and restrictions upon daily bag limits across the boards, but they in no way limit one’s ability to hunt, just rules to live by. In the beginning of this nation, there were no such laws and the abundant wildlife came very close to being decimated. Animals like the bison and timber wolf were >< this close to becoming extinct at the hands of the early pioneers. It was the game laws that saved them.
Were it not for a proactive set of rules for hunting, my state of Iowa would not be a haven for deer, turkey, or ringneck pheasants. We’d have a few sparrows or maybe mouse or two but that would be it. Taking the nation as a whole, I doubt there are many easier places to hunt rather than just shoot at animals than the US.
The reason it is tough to draw a deer tag in AZ is because they have a very limited season on a very limited number of deer wanted to be hunted by a lot of people. Here in Iowa, literally, some counties give away tags just to keep the local deer population in check.
So Sinical Brit gets to compare Martini Enfield’s knowledge of firearms to kitten punching, but when I point out his obvious paranoia (I mean, it’s right there, post #22), I’m insulting anti-gun people?
I certainly apologize for insinuating that all Brits are like him, but it really is the impression I get from internet message boards. I’m enough of a realist to know that message boards aren’t a very good sample of the British people in general, but Sinical Brit certainly isn’t portraying British anti-gun views in a good light.
Chill, it was a (bad) joke. And I don’t think “insinuating” means what you think it does. Here’s what you said:
Kind of reads as over-the-top. But if it was another poor attempt at humour then I apologise.
The British, as a rule, are not particularly anti-gun. We’re just glad we’re not likely to have to encounter them in way that is not voluntary. Sorry that you guys do.
See, it’s this kind of unctuous condescension that makes it difficult to maintain a civil tone in this thread. Americans aren’t “likely” to be the victim of gun crime; see the sction on homicides and pay attention to the accompanying graph in this article. Library Boy isn’t the only one who detects an underlying scornfulness to much of what is posted about Americans in this thread. Much of that scorn is coming from people who were simultaneously being rather touchy about how Argent Towers phrased his posts.
If you have this image of us in the US as gun-crazy and the US as a violent place, you’re just plain wrong. The US has crime rates that are about the same as what you will see in any developed nation. Any conclusions you want to reach about guns should take that into account.
In that duel you propose, I would almost certainly kill you. Read a bit on the Tueller drillto begin to learn why. You would get one shot at a moving target from a gun that uses a cartridge notably low in stopping power and letality. Even if you hit me, unless you manage to put that one shot into my brain, I am going to be on you beating your brains out much more quickly than you think possible.
It’s difficult to discuss the purpose of guns with people who begin with the position “guns are for killing” and then do little more than stick their fingers in their ears and sing la-la-la. Yes, some guns_notably the kind Martini Enfield likes to collect_were designed as military weapons. Others, like my free pistol were not. Using it to shoot a person is exactly the same thing as using a croquet mallet to bludgeon someone.
I thought it was a fairly mild response to “civil tone” of the post I quoted. I do enjoy being “unctuous” however, I get the chance so rarely.
The graphs you ask me to look at seem to suggest the US has similar gun crime levels to Zimbabwe and Mexico, so I guess you win that argument.
I generalised in my last post, so let me be more specific. I am not particularly anti-gun. I’ve hunted rabbit with shotguns, and fired various guns whilst in the cadets (including Lee Enfields - which were the standard for cadets in the 80s!). I enjoyed both. But having lived in countries where guns are prevalent (various places in southern Africa spring to mind), I prefer to live somewhere where they are not.
And to clarify I’m probably mostly talking about handguns. I’ve not got a big problem with hunting weapons in a rural environment (when used responsibly obviously).
Here in rootin’, tootin’ Texas we’ve got hunting regulationsout the wazoo. And hunting costs money, even after your licenses are in order. You don’t just drive out to the country & start shooting.
I know hunters & gun collectors. But quite a few Texans have no desire to ever own a gun.
Please ignore anyone claiming to speak for all Americans.
I can hunt with an AK, in Iowa anyway. I am unaware of any states where hunting banned with them. You are correct about silencers though. (In Iowa anyway)
Typically those are special seasons, bow, muzzle loader, etc. They are used to keep the muzzle loaders and bow hunters out of the field when the shotgun and rife guys are out blasting deer.
There is also a special “early or youth season” for deer, turkeys, waterfowl and pheasants around here.
Once again, this is due to early hunters and commercial hunters almost destroyed the waterfowl population early in the 20th century. The limits keep people from “sky busting” or shooting indiscriminately at anything with webbed feet.
I can hunt raccoons, coyotes and a host of other varmints at night with spotlights, radios and 4wds.
Fair point. Personally, you’d be better off never having had them, like us, but that’s just an opinion and no doubt a very biased one. If guns are what the American people generally want, and are prepared to live with, then yeah, that seems fine. Not really any of my business anyway.
It’s the notion that the UK somehow needs guns injected into it that I dislike. Adding guns to Britain will not make it like the US. Taking guns away from the US will not make it like Britain - if either of those things were a good idea anyway.