I, too, have a CWP and had the checkout as described above. I am trained and proficient in the use of a firearm. I have ahd firearms at my ready reach for more than 30 years and , as of today, have not shot, drawn down on, or even branished one. That is not to say that there have not been occasions in my life where I have put a weapon in my hand anticipating a problem. Happily, none have devolved to the point of my using a weapon. Many who know me casually IRL are unaware of this aspect as I do not make it commonly known.
I do not offer this as support for the debate as, to me, there is no debate. I do not need or seek anyone’s approval nor feel the need to justify my ownership.
My purpose in adding to this discussion is to say something of the laws and effects in the UK. I read above of the contention that the people of the UK were not disarmed, that the laws were simply made stricter. I recall watching a program (sorry, no cite) documenting the implication of this stricter policy. The police were going house-to-house collecting antiques and family heirlooms as well as hunting weapons that were very expensive pieces that were nothing less than art work. Compensation for this confiscation was not offered.
What started as “restrictions” became “stricter” till house-to-house collection of veterans war trophies were taken.
My question then is, how’s the whole pointy knife laws going. Have they come to take your pointy scissors and issue the kind given to kindergarten children? Sharp sticks?
I do not make this as an attempt at a highjack, only to support those here who are defending what is a legal right to own and , in some cases, carry a firearm and to attempt to show why many gun-owners are leery of so-called “restrictions” being progressively increased.
EXACTLY!
It SHOULD, however, be harder to become an illegal gun owner. How can we make that happen? (Suggestions requested)
Before an American Citizen can LEGALLY possess, not to mention purchase a firearm …
No felonies
No convictions for anything with more than a year in prison as a POSSIBLE sentence.
Not dishonerably discharged from military service
Legal, permanent US Resident
No Restraining orders
No Pending Criminal Charges.
No involuntary mental commitment.
No History of Alcohilism or other drug addiction.
Only under very limited circumstances may you buy a firearm for someone else.
No automatic weapons (machine guns/full auto) without a special license and strict transfer provisions.
Individual states can and do add some of their own conditions.
Obtaining, posessing, or attempting to posess a firearm in violation of any of the above is a separate Federal crime.
At the point of purchase, a system is in place to verify eligibility prior to transfer.
Is the system 100%? – NO! But then again, what system is?
All legal firearm purchases are recorded by the dealer and records must be retained and made available to the BATF upon specific request. (IOW, if a gun is found t be used in a crime, ther is an easy audit trail back to the original purchaser. If the dealer goes out of buisiness, there records gfo to the gov’t.
Illegal firearm purchases are usually made from the back of a van or trunk of a car. These transactions are already illegal and no amount of additional laws and restrictions on legal transactions will make them so. If anyone can suggest workable methods to fix this I’m open.
Regardless of the ‘spirit’ of your reply (boo indeed) - thanx for taking the time to examine (albiet suspect -wink- ) each point.
(methinks we both need a life) ← subtle sacrcasm and wry oblivination wasted on the clueless, none of whom is us)
We already have over 20,000 ‘gun laws’
Will 20,001 make a difference?
Best to all, and to all a good night!
Egg
The problem I have with the OP is that Eggman seems to be defining himself by a single possession. I’ve never seen anyone say “God, cars, and guts made America great” or “Support the right to own big screen TVs” or “I have a washing machine and I vote”.
In other words, gun control works. If I’m in Houston and I get into a violent confrontation, it’ll be my gun vs. the criminal’s gun. If I’m in DC and I get into a violent confrontation, it’ll be my knife vs. the criminal’s knife. In either case, I am equally likely to lose the engagement. However, in the case with the guns involved, the consequences of losing are much more dire.
For those talking about “situational awareness”: If you have a sufficient level of situational awareness that you’d be able to draw before the criminal, then you also have a sufficient level of situational awareness that your gun is not necessary in the first place. You might want to re-read that part of the OP about avoiding the situation being the highest priority.
The thing is, I have no fear at all of responsible, trained gun owners. I do, however, have a fear of an armed criminal element, and I would very much like to see them disarmed. How do you make it harder for criminals to get guns? By making it harder for everyone. As it is, most of the guns in the hands of criminals were manufactured for the use of law-abiding citizens. Yes, the criminals, by and large, obtained them illegally. But why were there any guns available to be obtained in the first place?
Actually, they may not be, at least not entirely, but the original assertion in this thread is that crime (including gun crime) in the UK has increased as a direct result of the British populace being ‘disarmed’ - I’ve yet to see anything other than dishonest bluster in support of this assertion.
Then why do only 58% of you feel safe from burglaries, compared to 78% of Americans? And why do only 70% of you feel safe walking in the dark, compared to 82% of Americans?
I am uneased through your introduction and post. You seem like a scared person, and everyone knows that scared people are the most unpredictible and worthy of fear. Beyond that you seem of uneven logic and constitution. I feel like you are ready to kill and the state licenses that. You have a questionable attitude towards the sacredness of life and would kill unhesitantly, that worries me.
I assume you are making a point about the way that statistics are viewed. But if not then I assume you will acknowledge that there is a difference in the views expressed by a largely spread out population and a largely compact population?
From here;
- United Kingdom 244.69 people per sqkm
- United States 29.77 people per sqkm
It also depends on where the people who were interviewed for those statistics you cite come from. If, to take an extreme example, you interviewed people from the US who lived in a quiet little village and people from the UK who lived in a major city you will obviously have skewed results.
I suspect with the population density difference that even taking an average of the population from both countries would result in more people in the US from small suburban areas and more in the UK from large urban areas. But that is just my suspicion, I’m not certain of the sampling methods used in the study.
grey_ideas
Just to add that I realise that this statistic (population density) is skewed by the fact that there are more uninhabitable areas in the US than in the UK, but even taking that into account I suspect (no cite) that there are more suburban areas in the US than the UK.
grey_ideas
Even if that has significance whatsoever regarding firearms (which I doubt), I’d still prefer to be burgled or mugged than murdered with a firearm.
You could walk around with a handgun in your pocket before the law criminalising sports shooters came in?
Please :rolleyes:
It’ll be your knife against his gun. A criminal doesn’t give a crap about gun control.
Generally speaking, no; in fact, generally speaking it was also very hard to keep a gun about the home for the purposes of personal defence; Guns were not used by the public to prevent crime, making the claim of increased crime as a result of ‘disarming’ at best nonsensical and at worst, dishonest.
Then what would you have been charged under if you were caught?
What if you ran into the same guy that Roderick Valentine found?
Or the same criminal that found Kiysha Hunter and Kenneth Green?
Or the criminal that found James McCallum?
Or the guy that decided to use his gun instead of his knife on Daniel C. Thompson?
How many more links would you like of gun-toting criminals in DC? Where did you possibly get the idea that criminals in DC would be limited to knives, like you, the law-abiding citizen, would be?
Carrying a firearm in a public place, or something like that; when the ban came in, simple possession of certain types of firearm were additionally made illegal, but as I said, nobody was really able to use guns for the purposes of personal defence before the ban.
Just to identify an important difference between the UK and a US state with strong gun laws: It is extremely risky to attempt to bring a gun into the UK (whereas a Washington DC resident need only drive for a few hours). As an island state you might well be caught at customs and imprisoned for a long stretch (5 years is not uncommon, even for a first offence). Even to have one around in your house is a large risk given these enormous sentences, and I believe the price of ammunition is prohibitively great on the UK criminal market since that is even more difficult to import undetected. Yes, the UK still has illegal gun crime, but it is nowhere near as easy for a London criminal to acquire one than for a DC criminal to do so.
In addition, it’s not exactly as necessary for a criminal to acquire a firearm, when it’s not so likely to be challenged by equal force.
I think I may have the latter comment put on a tee shirt.
If the two of you intended to show that Chronos’s comment is wrong if taken literally, congrats on proving the obvious. 
Just as the plural of anecdote isn’t data, the plural of “news story” isn’t “statistics.” Are you saying that gun control is a problem because some criminals will still get guns, or what? Is there any message beyond “that generalization is not correct?”
By the way, TheEggman, I asked for some cites and replies earlier and am still waiting.
As a matter of fact, Eggman, although I do not fear you, you make me nervous. I would feel safer in a crowd of people, say at a ballgame, if I could know that none of them were packing heat. I feel less safe seeing the results of your cognitive processes in your analysis of UK crime statistics, knowing that the same capacity might be called into play if we find ourselves in the same area and you find yourself making snap judgments on whether you should fire your gun. The fewer people that carry concealed weapons, the less I have to worry about the mental capacities and temperment of those that carry them.
What I really fear from gun owners is the way that many of them are single-issue voters, making it possible for men of dishonor to be elected merely because they prostrate themselves before the Second Half of the Second Amendment.
Yes. Some criminals will still get guns, and use them in areas where the law disarms everyone who follows it. There is no justification for the claim that in areas of strong gun control, you won’t face a criminal with a gun.
That’s the message.