[Jiggly]

Everyone knows about the conflicting views about gun laws in the US. People in the UK generally view guns as bad, because they see the shootings frequently on the news. This thread is about comparing views and considering why American's arm themselves. I get a lot of people warning me not to go to Texas because there was a shooting there in the last year... Texas is 3 times the size of England, I'm not that worried.

The UK has more crime than the US (although fewer homicides) and that may be due to people's inability to act before police arriving. Recently, someone was stabbed and killed at the end of my road. This made me start looking for ways to legally protect myself. Guess what? There aren't any in the UK. Even pepper spray is illegal.

After reading up about a supposed terror attack by a knife wielding maniac in London, I came across this in the comments:

And the laws against owning knives didn't stop him? And the laws against murder didn't stop him? And CCTV didn't stop him? No S#!T Sherlock.
The gov't have stopped all ways for people to defend themselves and then are so upset when people are trying to defend themselves because they have made it virtually impossible to do so legally. THIS is why people in the rest of the world arm themselves. Do you really think immigrants care about what our laws said? They have declared war on us. It's time the sweet little liberals wake the #$%$ up and see that it will be a slaughter because no one in a generation has faced such a fight that we face now. The extermination of England comes not with a bang, but a whimper.

Do you think people of the UK should be more like America, or vise versa? I've shared my views, what are yours?

[insidious]

Yeah, i've never been against gun laws. My family does not own a gun apart from airsoft-replicas (lol) though we've all shot one before.

Although I have friends with guns, parents friends with guns, etc etc. They're quite pervasive around where I live, which is surprising because my state has stricter gun laws than most. I remember a family even moved from where I live to a state with looser gun laws just to own the guns they liked more.

Though, it's still scary when you find out a student on campus you know keeps a gun locked away in his car, or see a handgun in a snapchat story. So, I think some gun regulation isn't a bad thing. Personally don't think there's much of a reason for people to own an assault rifle/automatic weapon.

In light of this, I think it's a good idea for a country to allow guns with some regulation, along with other ways to protect oneself. IE why the hell is pepper spray illegal?


Is pocket sand also illegal? :O

[meow]

Yeah, this is why UK is shit. You have absolutely no way to defend yourself whatsoever unless you force yourself to take some defense classes.

In the constitution, the original purpose behind the right to bear arms is because the general population needs to be able to defend itself against a tyrannical government. That's not the only reason why it's important though - there are currently 45 states (as far as I know) that allow open gun carry, as long as you're licensed of course. Because of this, the crime rate has dropped massively. I hate people like Piers Morgan (he's from your country) who go to the US and think having less gun-related crimes is better than having less crimes in general. He also advocates banning assault rifles because of mass shootings within recent years, yet wants to keep handguns even though handguns are the guns used in over 90% of gun-related crimes in the US. You're more likely to be murdered with a hammer in the US than you are with an assault rifle.

Obviously there needs to be more regulations regarding guns though, if you'd like me to elaborate on that then say so.

With the above being said, the UK should be more like the US. There's no doubt or dispute about it.

[Customer]

Yeah, i've never been against gun laws. My family does not own a gun apart from airsoft-replicas (lol) though we've all shot one before.

Although I have friends with guns, parents friends with guns, etc etc. They're quite pervasive around where I live, which is surprising because my state has stricter gun laws than most. I remember a family even moved from where I live to a state with looser gun laws just to own the guns they liked more.

Though, it's still scary when you find out a student on campus you know keeps a gun locked away in his car, or see a handgun in a snapchat story. So, I think some gun regulation isn't a bad thing. Personally don't think there's much of a reason for people to own an assault rifle/automatic weapon.

In light of this, I think it's a good idea for a country to allow guns with some regulation, along with other ways to protect oneself. IE why the hell is pepper spray illegal?


Is pocket sand also illegal? :O

It should be.

[Jiggly]

Yeah, i've never been against gun laws. My family does not own a gun apart from airsoft-replicas (lol) though we've all shot one before.

Although I have friends with guns, parents friends with guns, etc etc. They're quite pervasive around where I live, which is surprising because my state has stricter gun laws than most. I remember a family even moved from where I live to a state with looser gun laws just to own the guns they liked more.

Though, it's still scary when you find out a student on campus you know keeps a gun locked away in his car, or see a handgun in a snapchat story. So, I think some gun regulation isn't a bad thing. Personally don't think there's much of a reason for people to own an assault rifle/automatic weapon.
In light of this, I think it's a good idea for a country to allow guns with some regulation, along with other ways to protect oneself. IE why the hell is pepper spray illegal?
Is pocket sand also illegal? :O

I feel like guns should be allowed but kids should be thoroughly educated about them from a young age and there should be a better attitude towards them. I'm sure a majority of the population who carries guns has a good sense of the appropriate places to have one and that it should be a last resort as self-defence.

I will say though, thanks to the laws in our country, we do have fewer homicides and police are more strategically equipped to deal with things in a more peaceful way. Criminals aren't shot very often. We do have armed response teams and you will see police carrying guns at the airport. It's just an as of when needed type thing.

---

Pepper spray is illegal because it can be used as an offensive weapon. If you carry it, you are deemed as expecting to use it to harm someone.

The most effective "weapon" I can legally have are my keys. During my martial arts lessons, we had a section about weapons and self-defense where they taught us to us keys.

---

The hell is pocket sand?

[Panther_]

If you're not able to aptly defend your self against the state you cant really be free. They are quite happy to scare us in to new laws restricting freedom and privacy and then do not allow us the tools to defend our self's should these lies actualize them self's. Go back about 100 years and we had much more lax gun laws than America does now. It was a far more peaceful time.

But the thing that gets me the most about it is the sheer contempt people have about others owning guns. They seem to think that every one is so stupid they cannot handle such a thing, an instant assumption that the only reason you want a gun is for criminal intent, and it must only be reserved for the bad guys. Gun laws only hinder law abiding people.

[Jiggly]

If you're not able to aptly defend your self against the state you cant really be free. They are quite happy to scare us in to new laws restricting freedom and privacy and then do not allow us the tools to defend our self's should these lies actualize them self's. Go back about 100 years and we had much more lax gun laws than America does now. It was a far more peaceful time.

But the thing that gets me the most about it is the sheer contempt people have about others owning guns. They seem to think that every one is so stupid they cannot handle such a thing, an instant assumption that the only reason you want a gun is for criminal intent, and it must only be reserved for the bad guys. Gun laws only hinder law abiding people.

We have very strict laws in the UK about knives. You can't carry a blade more than 3 inches long... Doesn't stop people in the slightest. Stabbings are more common than gun crime.

I think there shouldn't be restrictions, but monitoring. I mean this in regards to people with criminal history or mental illness. I know there is a system in place already, but from what I've researched it's not updated enough. There's also an issue with people passing guns to dangerous people either through family or friends. Someone I used to live with hung out with gang members who carried guns (keep in mind that is totally illegal here) and the laws haven't stopped them.

[Rick]

Why did you use a "Violent crime" statistic when the definitions in each country are vastly different.

“Violent crime contains a wide range of offences, from minor assaults such as pushing and shoving that result in no physical harm through to serious incidents of wounding and murder. Around a half of violent incidents identified by both BCS and police statistics involve no injury to the victim.” - (THOSB – CEW, page 17, paragraph 1)

“In the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force.” (FBI – CUS – Violent Crime)

In 2010 there were 210 knife attacks per 100000 people in the UK. And rather unsurprisingly that was a lot lower in the US, with just 110 per 100k.

But I think you can guess why it was so low, I'm personally choose to attack somebody with a gun over a knife any day, and apparently so would the yanks because in the same year there were 62 gun offences per 100k compared with the 18.

You might then say that because the total is still larger for the UK we're still worse, but personally I'd like to live in the UK and be at a 30% greater risk of being involved in a weapon offence than in the US where I'm 410% more likely to be straight up killed.

But the U.S more than makes up for their shortcoming

[Jiggly]

Why did you use a "Violent crime" statistic when the definitions in each country are vastly different.



In 2010 there were 210 knife attacks per 100000 people in the UK. And rather unsurprisingly that was a lot lower in the US, with just 110 per 100k.

But I think you can guess why it was so low, I'm personally choose to attack somebody with a gun over a knife any day, and apparently so would the yanks because in the same year there were 62 gun offences per 100k compared with the 18.

You might then say that because the total is still larger for the UK we're still worse, but personally I'd like to live in the UK and be at a 30% greater risk of being involved in a weapon offence than in the US where I'm 410% more likely to be straight up killed.

But the U.S more than makes up for their shortcoming

This is totally true and one of the points I was getting at. Where do you find the balance so you can keep BOTH down: Homicides and General crime?

[insidious]

I feel like guns should be allowed but kids should be thoroughly educated about them from a young age and there should be a better attitude towards them. I'm sure a majority of the population who carries guns has a good sense the appropriate places to have one and that it should be a last resort as self-defence.

I agree with this. Although controversial, my father actually had a class at school back in the 70's where they would actually fire guns and learn how to use them. Because of this he developed a mature sentiment about owning and using guns, from a young age. Not suggesting this should be brought into the curriculum, but some gun education in the curriculum wouldn't hurt.