US Handgun ban

quote:

Originally posted by Exiled Highlander:
As for handguns, living in the Chicago western suburbs I also see the daily deaths of many as a result of gun misuse and I hate to think how many kids have been killed this year alone, particularly on the southside.

Well, welcome home. Since you've been gone there have been some changes. We have daily murders from stabbings and I'm not so sure that the two environments are going to be that different to you.

Indeed, hence my assertion that it is that attitude to guns and indeed knives etc. rather than legal gun ownership that is a problem. I live in a rural area with relatively high gun ownership, yet we have not had a gun murder since records began! We have only had three murders in the last hundred years. It is a culture that promotes the use of violence to resolve a situation that is to blame IMHO.

I do think that we are going about the knife crime problem in Britain the wrong way though, much as our reaction to the Dunblane massacre was more to do with the government being seen to do something and had at best no effect on gun crime, and to my mind actually encouraged the use of firearms by criminals. The only visible effect of our handgun ban was that harmless old men like my grandfather had to hand in their service pistols, and our Olympic handgun team went from being one of the best in the world to consummately useless. You are far more likely to come across a gun toting nutter on a city street in Britain today than you were before the ban came into effect.

If you want a model for sensible gun laws look to France!

djftw,
Your argument about high gun ownership in your rural community fails to convince me. I would have expected that most gun murders are committed using handguns, while gun ownership in country areas would tend towards rifles and shotguns.
And why on earth would your harmless old grandfather need to keep a service pistol, a weapon which was specifically designed for killing people?
Ken

quote:

Originally posted by KenM:

Fred,
I agree wholeheartedly. It's a pity though that your preferred candidate for the Presidency now seems to be supporting the Court's decision (along with a raft of other leaps to the political right).

Yes, now that Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee we get to see exactly how the sausage is made, and it ain't pretty.

Unfortunate but necessary if he is actually to be elected, which is obviously the point.

Fred

My beef with the NRA and other proponents of guns is that they may talk safety, but they don't walk safety.

People can buy guns without getting any training in the use (and storage) of them. And, of course, if a gun is stored properly, it's not going to be easy to use it in self-defense.

The proponents alos ignore the emotional issues of gun ownership and use - the fact that one doesn't think well in life/death situations unless one is trained to handle them.

The Joe Horn report I read said that the robbers were shot in their backs. Horn might be just an asshole, but it's also possible that his amygdala took over and he lost his ability to use reason.

Then there was the guy - a lobbyist - who complained that the DC law prohibited residents from owning a shotgun. He said basically that he'd want to use his shotgun if he walked in and founc someone attacking his wife and child(ren). Absolutely brilliant.

Scalia is a hunter - every so often we can read about the hunter, dressed in orange, shot by another hunter - by mistake, of course. Escept it's so much fun to drink (alcohol) and shoot.

Regards.

Phil

I think that Joe Horn wanted to shoot someone and saw an opportunity under the outlandish texas law. It is hard to believe that the jury heard the 911 tape and came back with that verdict?!!

Scalia, that corrupt piece of crap, went on a shooting weekend with Dick Cheney while the supreme court was hearing a case involving Cheney's secret meetings (topics and participants) dealing with energy. Suprisingly Scalia declined to recuse himself from the case ang predictably ruled in favor of Cheney's position. Cheney later shotgunned some geezer in the face while "hunting" docile, pen raised quail In...Texas. It is interesting to to note that the proper leagal authorities were not called for hours. My guess is that it took that long to either sober Cheney up, get him to stop giggling,or brace the victim into keeping his pie-hole shut. Maybe all three.

A bit off track I suppose but as a responsable gun owner jerk-offs like this running around with weapons tick me off.

DCT

quote:

And why on earth would your harmless old grandfather need to keep a service pistol, a weapon which was specifically designed for killing people?

More to the point as he is harmless, why should he not be allowed to keep an item that had been in his possession since the 1930s? Considering the circumstances under which he had come to own it and had used it, including at least one incident where his having it saved his life it must have had significant emotional value.

A friend of mine had/has a longsword, and various working replica longbows. Both are instrument that were specifically designed for killing people. However, I am fairly certain that her ownership of them stems from historical and technical interest rather than any intention to kill anything!

Before the ban there was significant legal handgun ownership in rural areas, I don't buy the argument that a handgun is intrinsically more likely to be used to carry out a murder. A sawn off shotgun is just as easy to conceal and in the hands of anyone but a expert shot far more likely to cause a fatality or serious injury.

djftw,
If your grandfather has owned his service pistol since the 1930's, then he is probably at least 90 years of age. Any nonagenarian with a pistol would strike me as potentially lethal, no matter what his background. If it became known that he has this gun, many criminals might relish the thought of taking it from him.
I accept to a degree your point about the old weapons but the main reason why criminals carry short guns is that they are concealable. Try hiding a crossbow in your waistband.
A sawn-off shotgun is a long gun which has been illegally modified - shortened. It is a home-made handgun. You assert that handguns had significant ownwership in rural areas before the ban. I wonder why. Have you ever tried to shoot a rabbit or pigeon with a pistol? It's damn near impossible. Of course, like Joe you may enjoy firing a pistol at the local vermin (or wildlife, depending on your point of view) but mostly, you will just fill the countryside with little lumps of lead, a toxic heavy metal. Joe reckons that this is more environmentally-friendly than poisoning vermin. Hmm....
Ken

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
USA does not have great record on car mortality either. The same twisted logic says it's against my constitutional rights to be forced to wear a seat belt.
Cleaver lot those founding fathers,thought of everything!

perhaps you mean ride a motorcycle without a helmet. where i live, seat belts are mandatory, but motorcycle helmets optional. i think most, if not all, states require seat belts these days.

the laws are anything but logical and consistent.

Almost 90 years of age, I didn't say early thirties, and I would say that your assumptions are extremely ageist, I am far happier around him with anything dangerous than I am most people. I also wouldn't fancy the odds of a criminal breaking into his house, he gets tired quite quickly now, but he still does DIY, works his allotment and beats me in an arm wrestle. Not to mention that the likelihood of a criminal finding out he had it seems unlikely, I only found out he had had it when we went to the Royal Armouries in Leeds and he mentioned that he had donated it to them rather than have it deactivated.

I can understand entirely why the emphasis on short guns, but I don't honestly see it as especially relevant, sawing the barrel off a shotgun is hardly a difficult task. Legally owned guns are almost never used in crimes in this country, smuggled semi-automatics go for £200 on the black market and are much more difficult to trace, with modern forensics you would have to be incredibly stupid to use your own gun to commit a crime.

djftw,
My assumptions are ageist, agreed. I am ageist, in that I appreciate from personal experience (I am in my seventies) the effects of advanced age on physical and mental capabilities. Sometimes though, it is hard to admit that we deteriorate.
My maths is still OK; if your grandfather had his pistol in the 30's, the probability was that he would now be past 90.
On the desirability or otherwise of a handgun ban in the USA which is the thread topic, we seem to have wandered. Personally, I favour a handgun ban. I can see some potential benefits of handgun ownership but these seem to me vastly outweighed by the damage they do.
Ken

I would agree that some sort of proficiency test in old age to be allowed to to continue to hold a firearms certificate would be desirable, much as is done with drivers licences. I can see where you're coming from with the age thing, but from what I see peoples capabilities and physical/mental health seem to vary enormously in old age, it would seem unfair to have a cut off age!

I would say that our gun laws in this country prior to Dunblane were actually fairly robust. They of course would have been improved substantially by modern information systems making background checks more efficient and accurate (one would hope), but a lot of what happened post-Dunblane was a typical case of the sort of ill thought out rushed through reactionary legislation that invariably doesn't have the desired effect and inconveniences a lot of law abiding people.

To my mind types of weapons etc. are largely irrelevant, look at the owner instead, a resourceful person who wants to kill someone will find a way. I know it is politically incorrect to come out with this sort of thing nowadays, but I notice a distinct tendency for gun crimes, and indeed most violent crimes to be committed by unmarried men under 30 from deprived urban areas, and often broken homes. I wouldn't have any issue with a system of profiling which referred questionable applicants for psychiatric assessment etc...

quote:

Originally posted by rgame666:
How come Switzerland has mandatory gun ownership (I think), but manage not to be a complete bunch of twats with them?

Check out their suicide rates...

quote:

Originally posted by KenM:
rgame666,
IIRC, Switzerland used to require that Army reservists (effectively, all National Servicemen) kept their rifles. These were long guns, not handguns. Most gun crimes seem to be committed using handguns.

Right. And the days of this regulation are counted, some provinces are already going their own way and ban all firearms from home, even army rifles.

Well, such a revolution is far easier to achieve in a small country which has not been built with the help of firearms, like the US. By the way, this change was mostly brought about by the female members of our Parliament, a further proof that a few woman won't do any harm to political processes.

quote:

ban all firearms from home

That must be a real bugger for gamekeepers...

...but I've spoken to several herds of deer who're actually quite pleased!

Cheese,
Thanks for the update. My knowledge of Switzerland more or less came to a stop in 1992 when my Swiss employer sold out to a US company. At that time, many of my colleagues were reservists.
Ken