potfish

I've heard the same about Canada but only from a Michael Moore film and I certainly don't believe everything he has to say.

In Switzerland every adult male between certain ages is legally required to have and maintain a gun, making gun ownership per capita of the same order as the US (3m guns/7m population vs. 200m guns/300m population), yet there is comparatively little gun crime. It's fairly clear then that the gun ownership per se is not the problem and something else is fundamentally wrong with the society.

Unfortunately I think British society is probably more closely aligned with the American than the Swiss...

Chris Type R

I wonder how much the Hollywood glamorisation of guns & killing has to do with things in the US.

Dan Hale

Nail, hammer, contact


Some of the reasons for having them are strange though.


Scenario one - you are in you car, you have a gun, someone tries to carjack you who also has a gun. You grab you gun they shoot you / you shoot them / random bullets all over the place kills passers by too.

Scenario two - you are in you car, you don't have a gun, someone tries to carjack you who has a gun. You get out of the car and let them take it (they can't drive very well and kill themselves) and you claim off you insurance and replace it.

The first option is best yeah - because I have the "right" to have a gun

soulcrew

amercans own 2000,000,000 guns.

and 35% of all households have guns in them.

someone owns a lot of guns.the minority it seems.

Ste_Nova

but i can do almost as much damage with my two licenced shotguns, ok they may not have the accuracy, range, concealability or capacity of a handgun but they are still a deadly weapon in the wrong hands

ukphil78

Agreed........but an axe is also a deadly weapon in the wrong hands.

The line has to be drawn somewhere. Shotguns are used for many legitimate purposes by farmers etc, handguns are not. Also, people are far less likely to wander about with a shotgun concealed on their person. Or tucked into the string pouch in their S.

I don't know where the line is, but for me assault rifles, flame throwers and handguns are all the other side of it!

C7BLE

You are likely to get arrested wandering around your high street on a friday night carrying an axe.

Otherwise more people would do it, (I would if I ever had to go to blackpool again)

Ste_Nova

i keep an axe and bolt cutters in my car at all times

Paper Lawyer

That's why I carry only a legit knife around and about from time to time (not on a night out though, that could be misinterpreted). Designed for the UK market (penknife = blade less than 3", non-locking).

http://www.cones-stuff.co.uk/Spyderc...20Penknife.htm




EDIT: That was a response to C7ble's referencer to the ease at which you can be arrested for carrying offensive weapons.

lower

i keep one of these under my bed



but i'd never carry it in public.

To be fair the only reason i have it under my bed is because i was given it as a leaving present when i left wilkinson sword.

But if someone broke into my house while i was there, i'd certainly be carrying it when i confronted them. Would i actually use it, i've no idea.

Shotguns are completely different from hand guns. Legal ones are much harder to conceal and an effective range of 40 yards makes them very different.

Secondly, people don't drive round in the uk with a concealed shotgun in their car or in the bedside table for self defence.