Mon Sep 17, 2012, 02:21 PM

UK - Call for ban on sale of gun magazines to children gets massive public support

An overwhelming majority of people want gun magazines that show animals being killed for sport consigned to newsagents' top shelves alongside pornography, according to a new public opinion poll. An even higher proportion want the sale of such publications restricted to people over the age of 18.

Eight-four per cent of respondents to the NOP poll, which was commissioned by Animal Aid, favour a ban on the sale of gun magazines to children. Seventy-four per cent want them banished to top shelves.

The results come in the wake of the publication of a new Animal Aid report, called Gunning For Children: How the gun lobby recruits young blood. It describes the considerable resources Britain's gun lobby - composed of well-connected groups such as the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Countryside Alliance - devotes towards encouraging children to take up guns at a young age. Gun magazines, the report argues, serve as front-line propagandists for this recruitment effort.

Across the country, in high street newsagents such as WHSmith and on supermarket shelves, children have easy access to publications such as Shooting Times, Sporting Gun, Shooting Sports and Sporting Rifle - magazines that encourage and even celebrate the killing of animals for ‘sport'. Shooters are featured posing boastfully alongside animals they have just slaughtered. Grinning young children are shown holding up or standing over shot pheasants, rabbits, foxes and pigeons.

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/73341/call-for-ban-on-sale-of-gun-magazines-to-children-gets-massive-public-support

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14 replies	Author	Time	Post
UK - Call for ban on sale of gun magazines to children gets massive public support (Original post)	SecularMotion	Sep 2012	OP
Good grief	former-republican	Sep 2012	#1
Maybe they have a gun porn law	discntnt_irny_srcsm	Sep 2012	#2
why would the UK even have firearm publications?	ileus	Sep 2012	#3
for the same reason we do...	discntnt_irny_srcsm	Sep 2012	#4
In fact ...	holdencaufield	Sep 2012	#8
They would really freak out if they saw some of our magazine racks.	GreenStormCloud	Sep 2012	#5
So ...	holdencaufield	Sep 2012	#6
Are there really that many	sylvi	Sep 2012	#7
they have no right to own weapons & now they have no right to read about weapons. See how it works?	trouble.smith	Sep 2012	#9
Fanatics often are not content to merely ban some activity/object they dislike	4th law of robotics	Sep 2012	#11
Just one more law. That's all they need and finally they will all be safe forever	4th law of robotics	Sep 2012	#10
Hey, why not get rid of free speech, too? n/t	Atypical Liberal	Sep 2012	#12
This reminds me of a half-joking remark I once read on Fark.com:	friendly_iconoclast	Sep 2012	#13
Considering the source of typical violence, they are going after the wrong publications.	ErikO	Sep 2012	#14

Response to SecularMotion (Original post)

Mon Sep 17, 2012, 08:20 PM

former-republican (2,163 posts)

1. Good grief

UK wins the prize again

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Response to former-republican (Reply #1)

Mon Sep 17, 2012, 08:24 PM

discntnt_irny_srcsm (5,685 posts)

2. Maybe they have a gun porn law

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Response to SecularMotion (Original post)

Mon Sep 17, 2012, 08:27 PM

ileus (9,217 posts)

3. why would the UK even have firearm publications?

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Response to ileus (Reply #3)

Mon Sep 17, 2012, 08:52 PM

discntnt_irny_srcsm (5,685 posts)

4. for the same reason we do...

...they like them

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Response to ileus (Reply #3)

Tue Sep 18, 2012, 03:11 AM

holdencaufield (2,927 posts)

8. In fact ...

... there are a great number of shooters in the UK. Pretty much anyone can get a gun, they just have to provide proof of the need. Hunting and target shooting are the most acceptable needs, self-defence is specifically listed as NOT a valid reason to own a firearm. To prove need, you have to join and pay dues to a shooting association and local gun club.

Firearms in the UK are put into categories -- shotguns and BB guns are more simple to obtain than centre-fire rifles. Since 1997 Semi-automatics of any caliber and handguns being nearly impossible to obtain a permit. Olympic pistol-shooters are prohibited from training for their sport anywhere in the UK. Cowboy action shooting is increasingly popular in the UK because it gives citizens a valid reason to own handguns (cap and ball, single-action revolvers ONLY).

There are strict laws on how the weapons must be secured in the home (gun safe, physically attached to the building structure), ammunition in a separately locked container. Guns carried on the person (only to and from hunting or the range) must be locked, ammunition secured separately (in some cases, bolt removed and padlock through the breech). Police have lists of all firearms owned by citizens and can (and do) make unannounced spot-checks to verify that all firearms are secured.

Despite these draconian laws and restrictions - firearm crimes in the UK have been steadily on the increase (more than 11,000 in 2011)
The British Journal of Criminology report from 2011 show no reduction in gun-related deaths or crimes since the introduction of harsher gun laws in 1997.

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Response to SecularMotion (Original post)

Mon Sep 17, 2012, 10:56 PM

GreenStormCloud (10,180 posts)

5. They would really freak out if they saw some of our magazine racks.

We have titles like "Combat Handguns Magazine", "SWAT Magazine"

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Response to SecularMotion (Original post)

Mon Sep 17, 2012, 11:54 PM

holdencaufield (2,927 posts)

6. So ...

... to be clear

-- Kate Hudson's boobies on the front-page of the Daily Sun .... GOOD

... a picture of a Glock that a child might see .... BAD

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Response to SecularMotion (Original post)

Mon Sep 17, 2012, 11:55 PM

sylvi (813 posts)

7. Are there really that many

Last edited Mon Sep 17, 2012, 11:56 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)

Are there really that many UK children sneaking around the shops, furtively perusing Field & Stream (or whatever the Brits' version of that is) while they nervously glance back and forth down the aisle to check if Mum's coming? Are there secret troves of them hidden under pubescent boys' mattresses, their sticky pages ogled by torchlight after the folks have retired for the evening? My God, can the youth survive this onslaught of heathen, devilish firearm porn?

It starts out just magazines, sure. Next thing you know they've graduated to Duck Hunt at the local arcade. Before you know it they're standing on a street corner, trading their bodies for Airsoft pellets. Another tragic tale of societal decay.

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Response to SecularMotion (Original post)

Tue Sep 18, 2012, 03:41 AM

trouble.smith (374 posts)