UK Gun Control.......Once more for the deaf people at the back.

[Pert_UK]

1. Let me say that I am not "anti gun". I subscribe wholeheartedly to the philosophy that a gun is an inanimate object - guns don't kill people, Americ....sorry, people kill people. Of course people find it easier to kill people if a gun is handy, but that's neither here nor there - it's not the gun's fault.

2. Pro-RKBA people on this board keep repeating the following mantra, or similar: "Gun crime is on the increase on the UK. They've banned guns entirely. Therefore their gun ban hasn't worked." This is either ignorance, dishonesty or bafflingly bad logic. The ban on guns was brought in solely to prevent perfectly law-abiding citizens from having access to guns. I appreciate that this might sound odd, but after 2 significant massacres by gun-owners with legally held weapons, the government (with massive public and media backing) decided that the risks of just one gun owner going berserk with a gun outweighed the rights of the UK public to participate in shooting as a sport or the collection of working firearms as a hobby. The law was in no way intended to address the use of firearms by criminals, who would, in any case, be obtaining illegal weapons illegally on the black market. It was only aimed at preventing tragedies like Hungerford and Dunblane, which between them claimed 33 lives, many of them children.

3. A key tenet of 2, IMHO is that people can be a) unpredictable b) emotional and c) lazy. No matter how well you know someone you just can't be 100% sure that they won't do something crazy one day. Add into this b), our emotions. Many people will, occasionally, fly into a virtually uncontrollable rage about one thing or another. Fists fly and vases are thrown along with anything else that comes to hand. With large numbers of guns available, sooner or later a gun is going to come into the hand of someone who is having a really, really bad day, hence workplace shootings, domestic shootings and so forth. Yes, the violence MAY still happen if a gun isn't present, but guns make for a uniquely effective way of intimidating, injuring and killing people. Which brings me to c). Of course people can make fertiliser bombs, or improvise gastank flamethrowers or whatever. The thing is, though, that mercifully only a tiny minority could ever be bothered to do so. A revolver provides a quick, accurate, effortless, portable means of killing 6 people. If someone can reach for one in a moment of madness then they may regret that moment for the rest of their lives. Ask them to spend an hour constructing an alternative and equally effective method of wreaking death and I reckon they won't be bothered...it's not fact, but come on, intuitively it sounds right, doesn't it? In a moment of anger you reach for a weapon, you don't go out and play Scrapyard Wars until you've built an RPG.

4. You'll notice that I'm not really proposing any solutions, which makes me about as much use as a chocolate teapot. Well tough. I make no apologies. What I've aimed to do is clarify the UK gun law position so that it's not misused in pro-RKBA arguments any more. I've also clarified my own position - personally, I actually really like guns and would love to be able to shoot pistols at a club in the UK. However, I am FAR happier to sacrifice this privilege in the knowledge that my country has actively legislated against a culture of casual gun use, and that my screwy neighbour isn't legally entitled to buy a Glock just because he doesn't happen to have any convictions. Guns, clearly, are not the problem. The unpredictability of people is not, inherently, a problem. The problems arise when you have a society of unpredictable people with access to guns. People go mad in the UK, and when they do they may attack people with knives or swords, or they may punch the boss when they're fired. They do not, however, shoot people because they don't have guns.

Some quotes and stats to back me up a bit (although you won't like the source):

"Although we have always had some of the tightest gun laws in the world, it is worth noting that pistol shooting was the fastest-growing sport in the country at the time of Dunblane and that there was evidence of a particular growth in gun clubs offering ‘practical shooting’ or ‘combat shooting’ activities. We could legitimately point to the spectre of the American style gun culture in which over 30,000 people are killed by gunfire every year and say to the public that we must make sure we do not go down the American road.

The reform of our domestic gun laws is significant not only because it has meant that around 200,000 handguns were handed in and destroyed but because it sends a clear message about what kind of civil society we want to live in. A statement has been made, a position taken, that guns, particularly handguns, are dangerous and unnecessary and we will all be safer if there are fewer of them.

This statement seems to most people self-evidently true, but the war of statistics rages around this simple proposition. Shooters in America will draw on figures which purport to prove that you are safer if you have a gun than if you don’t...

The following (UK) facts should help to put the record straight.

1. The overall rise in crimes of violence in 2000 was 16% and the rise in robbery 26% so it is true that we seem to be becoming a more violent society generally...

2. Guns were used relatively rarely in violent crime ie in only 4.7% of robberies in 1999 and 8% of homicides, so the problem is to a very large extent one of non-firearms crime.

3. Handgun homicide figures are very low and since 1980 have fluctuated from 7 in 1988, through to 35 in 1993 and a previous high of 39 in1997. So 42 gun murders in 1999 does not represent a statistically significant increase."

http://www.gun-control-network.org/GRIP.htm