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Bob Singleton wrote:

> Robches wrote:
>
>
> > When Israel blockades Gaza we call it collective
> > punishment, but in Britain law abiding gun owners get fucked
> > over all the time for things they haven't done.
>
>
> When the Israeli government goes mad, hundreds of innocent
> people get killed.
> When a "law abiding" gun owner goes mad, dozens of innocent
> people get killed.
>
> What exactly was your point?

My point is that punishing some people for the crimes of others is not a good or sensible way for a government to behave.

I do feel for the people of Whitehaven as the news channels crawl all over the area filming everything and interviewing everyone. There has never been enough news to justify 24 hour coverage so they have to enlarge on every detail to fill up their endless broadcasts. So today, and in the coming days, expect interviews with every neighbour that each of the victims of Derrick Bird had, and all of his former neighbours too, interviews with everyone he and all his victims ever spoke to in a pub, all the pub landlords within a 10 miles radius, interviews with every local shopkeeper who ever served him or any of them, and so on. I think it would be better for the relatives of the victims, and for the community at large, to be allowed to grieve in peace.

Robches wrote:


>
> My point is that punishing some people for the crimes of others
> is not a good or sensible way for a government to behave.
>


In what way is prohibiting people who do not need a weapon at home for their work from having a weapon at home "punishment"?

If the person belongs to a gun club, then that weapon should be securely stored at the gun club... they don't need it in their home. Other than farmers (and even then I'm not altogether convinced they need to keep guns either), I can think of no-one who needs to have a gun at home.

Please explain how having to store a gun and ammunition in a responsible manner and away from the home is in any way "punishing" people who wish to use guns for sport or hunting? I'm not stopping people going to a firing range and shooting. I'm not stopping people who want to hunt grouse or pheasant etc from doing so.

Until he went on his rampage, and in spite of toughening the laws on gun ownership after Hungerford and Dunblane, Derrick Bird would have been part of that "law abiding" community of gun owners you don't want to see "punished" for the actions of others!

Would you care to defend your comments on gun ownership to the families and friends of the victims, indeed to the general community of west Cumbria that has been so traumatised by what happened on Wednesday?

max_tranmere wrote:

> I do feel for the people of Whitehaven as the news channels
> crawl all over the area filming everything and interviewing
> everyone. There has never been enough news to justify 24 hour
> coverage so they have to enlarge on every detail to fill up
> their endless broadcasts. So today, and in the coming days,
> expect interviews with every neighbour that each of the victims
> of Derrick Bird had, and all of his former neighbours too,
> interviews with everyone he and all his victims ever spoke to
> in a pub, all the pub landlords within a 10 miles radius,
> interviews with every local shopkeeper who ever served him or
> any of them, and so on. I think it would be better for the
> relatives of the victims, and for the community at large, to be
> allowed to grieve in peace.

Hear, hear!!

Bob Singleton wrote:

> Robches wrote:
>
>
> >
> > My point is that punishing some people for the crimes of
> others
> > is not a good or sensible way for a government to behave.
> >
>
>
> In what way is prohibiting people who do not need a weapon at
> home for their work from having a weapon at home "punishment"?
>
> If the person belongs to a gun club, then that weapon should be
> securely stored at the gun club... they don't need it in their
> home. Other than farmers (and even then I'm not altogether
> convinced they need to keep guns either), I can think of no-one
> who needs to have a gun at home.
>
> Please explain how having to store a gun and ammunition in a
> responsible manner and away from the home is in any way
> "punishing" people who wish to use guns for sport or hunting?
> I'm not stopping people going to a firing range and shooting.
> I'm not stopping people who want to hunt grouse or pheasant etc
> from doing so.




The clubs you talk about do not exist! Do you know what a clay pigeon shooting club is? It's people who have the use of a field. Do you know what a shooting syndicate is? It's people who have land where they can rear game birds. There is no club house, no gun safes, you don't know what you are talking about, and that is the problem whenever gun law is discussed, suddenly everybody is an expert.


> Would you care to defend your comments on gun ownership to the
> families and friends of the victims, indeed to the general
> community of west Cumbria that has been so traumatised by what
> happened on Wednesday?

If you want to indulge in such tasteless shroud waving, do it with someone else!

Robches
Interesting. You demand some facts for the view that there is a correlation between gun ownership and the murder rate. I give you those facts. You discount them because the people giving the evidence are "gun prohibitionists". It is not supposed to include every country in the world in the graph but it does show a large number of countries including Canada!

I guess if a professor believed the evidence shows that there is a correlation, you would inevitable be against gun ownership wouldnt you?

In other words, it appears you will never be convinced by any facts other than those facts which support your differing view. You seem to believe that the facts have simply been massaged to support a gun prohibitionist view.

Then you come out with a fact of your own
"But if you look at Britain, the last 15 years have seen a drop of about a third in legal gun ownership. Has the homicide rate dropped at all?"

Err yes it has. Clearly! Read the following to improve your understanding. The murder rate is at its lowest in 20 years in the UK.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 48627.html



"You said
> Ever heard of cost benefit analysis? Money spent on more form
> filling is money which can't be spent on more useful things.
>
I said
> Robches, I will leave you to explain cost benefit analysis to
> the families of the dead in Cumbria.

You said
That's a cheap shot. My point is valid. Rushing in with knee jerk solutions which cost money but do not address a problem is no way to behave. Money wasted which could be better spent is no sort of solution is it?"

Robches, nowhere have I stated I am in favour of knee jerk solutions. What I am in favour of is a considered view of whether further tightening of the gun laws is required.

You say
"The current legislation would stop anyone with such a mental history getting a legal gun. Bird had no mental health history at all. By the way, what have you got against taxi drivers and bin men? Do you think working class people should not be allowed to own guns? If a bin man is sane and law abiding he's got as much right to go duck shooting as a peer of the realm."

The point I am attempting to make is that estimates suggest that up to 1 in 5 people have mental disorders of some type during their lives. Obviously picking up on people who already have schizophrenia is reatlively easy. What about the people who's mental illness has either not been diagnosed or not shown yet? Secondly you ignore my poiint about Bird having a criminal conviction.

Clearly I have nothing against taxi drivers and bin men. Any changes in the law would affect everyone. What I would like to see is a considered inquiry into topics such as whether so many people need to keep guns at home which they only use for sport rather than for their job and whether anyone with a criminal conviction for theft should be allowed to have a gun licence.

CHeers
D

Robches wrote:

>
> The clubs you talk about do not exist! Do you know what a clay
> pigeon shooting club is? It's people who have the use of a
> field. Do you know what a shooting syndicate is? It's people
> who have land where they can rear game birds. There is no club
> house, no gun safes, you don't know what you are talking about,
> and that is the problem whenever gun law is discussed, suddenly
> everybody is an expert.
>
>


According to my information there are many hundreds of clubs in the UK where one can take up shooting. Which of the clubs listed in this link don't exist? http://www.nsc-bisley.co.uk/common/asp/ ... =NSC&cat=4 What sort of clubs (that don't exist) did you think I was talking about?

Shooting for sport (as in the various types of disciplines you see in the Olympics) continues in a safe and proper manner this country. However, I'm glad that you acknowledge how poorly secured many guns are, by admitting there are no gun safes!

You haven't answered my question... what reason does anyone have for keeping a gun in their home?


> If you want to indulge in such tasteless shroud waving, do it with
> someone else!


Tasteless shroud waving?? As someone with family in west Cumbria, I was probably more concerned about what was happening on Wednesday than you, and having since spoken to cousins and aunts and uncles I have there, they all knew at least one person killed by a man who, prior to him going on a killing spree, you wouldn't have wanted to see "punished" because of the actions of others. Two of my cousins are members of Whitehaven RLFC... would you like to explain to them how it's perfectly OK for a taxi driver to have guns at home so that, when he flips his lid, he can go and shoot one of their friends and opponents in the face?

A very sad state of affairs. I agree with max about the news. They should back off and let these small communities grieve for the ones that were killed.

Unfortunately everytime something like this happens (which is very rare over here) we have two opposing groups come out of the woodwork. The ones that support a total ban on all guns (or stricter controls) and the loons that think if we all had guns to defend ourselves these things wouldn't happen.

I'm pretty sure our gun controls are some of the strictest in the world, and tightening even more wouldn't make much difference. On the other side, I don't think giving people access to more guns solves gun crime.

Maybe some sort of psychological testing (say every time a licence is up for renewal?) might be a more sensible approach? After all, we don't let pilots fly around, or people swan around in cars without thorough physical and mental training/testing first. There should be more hoops to jump through than having a safe and a clean criminal record. If you want/need a gun so much then you wouldn't mind being analysed by a professional and go on a short course which teaches you the handling and keeping of a gun. It just seems wrong that a farmer has to jump through more hoops to drive his tractor to the local market than he does to get access to a couple of shotguns.

Sam Slater wrote:

[SNIP]

>
> Maybe some sort of psychological testing (say every time a
> licence is up for renewal?) might be a more sensible approach?

Police officers who carry guns probably undergo the most stringent of psychological tests, yet that didn't stop a senior officer from killing members of his family before shooting himself in Snowdonia a year or so back.

As I keep asking Robches (without any satisfactory reply as yet)... what reason is there for ANYONE to have a gun at home?

This is not a knee jerk reaction, by the way. Had you asked me on Tuesday I would have made the same arguments as I make today.

For those that never saw the comedy series Thin Blue Line with Rowan Atkinson and written by Ben Elton, Atkinson's character, Inspector Fowler, is asked to approve an application for a fire arms licence which he rejects on the grounds that anyone wanting a firearm shouldn't be granted one! Hear hear to that!

[quote]Police officers who carry guns probably undergo the most stringent of psychological tests, yet that didn't stop a senior officer from killing members of his family before shooting himself in Snowdonia a year or so back.[/quote]

True, but drivers who've had plenty of lessons and pass tests still crash their cars and drive like maniacs. Despite this I think we both would still support testing drivers before unleashing them on our roads. Nothing is fool-proof (and that includes a total ban). All I'm saying is that I think it's silly that people don't have to jump as many hoops to acquire a shotgun compared to a 250cc motorbike.

I'm with you on there being no good reason why someone feels the need to have a gun at home, though. Owning a gun and keeping it at a gun club is a sensible option.