»

[GraemeC]

A few years ago there was an incident where a fucking nutter killed people with legally owned and some illegal firearms...the reaction by HM government was to ban the ownership of handguns. Now I know a lot of people didn't understand why private citizens needed to own handguns but the fact was that little or no crimes were ever committed with legal weapons but they were banned anyway, this of course was the easy option as it cost nothing to ban them and it kept the general public happy....
So here we are several years down the line and guess what...gun crime is 100 times worse, so what is the governments next big idea to reduce gun crime? banning replica guns!!! what in the name of fuck will that do? getting tough on street gangs!!! what the fuck will that do?
Whats needed is a huge investment in manpower and technology so customs can stop the guns (and drugs) coming into the country in the first place. In fact if they just stopped the drugs there would be no money to buy guns and little point in owning them...

Thats my opinion...whats yours?

G...

[soundian]

Originally Posted by GraemeC

A few years ago there was an incident where a fucking nutter killed people with legally owned and some illegal firearms...the reaction by HM government was to ban the ownership of handguns. Now I know a lot of people didn't understand why private citizens needed to own handguns but the fact was that little or no crimes were ever committed with legal weapons but they were banned anyway, this of course was the easy option as it cost nothing to ban them and it kept the general public happy....
So here we are several years down the line and guess what...gun crime is 100 times worse, so what is the governments next big idea to reduce gun crime? banning replica guns!!! what in the name of fuck will that do? getting tough on street gangs!!! what the fuck will that do?
Whats needed is a huge investment in manpower and technology so customs can stop the guns (and drugs) coming into the country in the first place. In fact if they just stopped the drugs there would be no money to buy guns and little point in owning them...

Thats my opinion...whats yours?

G...

If gun crime has got so bad, then some people will have cottoned onto the fact that threatening someone with a replica gun has the same desired effect but doesn't carry the same penalties.
I see no need for guns other than self-defence (and I see even less need for replica guns), but I don't think I'd like a country where only the military and police had them either.

[GraemeC]

Switzerland has the greatest percentage of privately owned firearms (mostly full auto assault weapons) and the lowest level of violent crime in the world...what does that tell you?

[GraemeC]

Originally Posted by soundian

If gun crime has got so bad, then some people will have cottoned onto the fact that threatening someone with a replica gun has the same desired effect but doesn't carry the same penalties.

the penalty I believe is just the same...but the police should just shoot armed criminals, real guns or not.

but I don't think I'd like a country where only the military and police had them either.

Well you are in one.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by GraemeC

Switzerland has the greatest percentage of privately owned firearms (mostly full auto assault weapons) and the lowest level of violent crime in the world...what does that tell you?

Nothing, other than your average Swiss is not as disenfranchised and hedonistic as your average Yank or "Great" Brit and is better educated and much more rational.

The sad fact is that for all our advances in technologies, medicine and all our arts and the wonderful things we do right - humans are basically savage and destructive.

Whether it's a plummy-voiced, Oxbridge-educated toff engineering a hostile takeover of some company or driving the price of vital commodities up...

...or two kids in Mosside shooting the shite out of each other, the effect is the same -man's complete disregard for his brother.

[Cloud]

Originally Posted by GraemeC

Whats needed is a huge investment in manpower and technology so customs can stop the guns (and drugs) coming into the country in the first place. In fact if they just stopped the drugs there would be no money to buy guns and little point in owning them...

Thats my opinion...whats yours?

G...

Problem is, HMRC's attitude needs to change regarding imports before anything else can happen. There's plenty of websites out there outlining some of the abuses done by Customs in this country, particularly at channel ports. There's supposed to be no formal customs control between EU countries, yet the blue lane in airports is often manned by someone (even though the blue lane is supposed to be a bypass through customs, not just a lane for people arriving from within the EU). Even two weeks ago, I got briefly questioned by customs about where I'd been on a daytrip when arriving in Dover - so really, their whole attitude is wrong.

For anything to change, they'd have to stop picking on easy targets.

[Tronaliser]

I cannot believe that people would argue that having guns is a good thing. Why legalise something that can do harm on someone else? Why not legalise drugs? Isn't a question of human rights and the fact that we should be able to control what goes in our bodies? People are always going to get a hold of drugs if they want them, that much is true, we see it every day. But if you were to legalise drugs you would eliminate a black market and take the money out of it anyway and the government would have a quality control to help reduce the number of drug related deaths. And even if they don't have a quality control, its that persons choice to be putting the substance into their bodies in the first place. They know and are willing to run the risk so i say let them. They are going to do it anyway are they not?

Ciaran
x

[daveofficer]

doesn't the term replica guns include guns which can be reactivated to fire live ammo? which is where a large portion of the illegal firearms are coming from. seems fairly sensible to me. what justification is there for someone owning a 'replica' ak47?

as for the general ban on handguns. brilliant idea, no problem with it whatsoever. it's a shame it penalised those who had a genuine interest in the sport side of shooting but i think overall it's for the best.

"Switzerland has the greatest percentage of privately owned firearms (mostly full auto assault weapons) and the lowest level of violent crime in the world...what does that tell you?"

[Tronaliser]

Originally Posted by daveofficer

doesn't the term replica guns include guns which can be reactivated to fire live ammo? which is where a large portion of the illegal firearms are coming from. seems fairly sensible to me. what justification is there for someone owning a 'replica' ak47?

as for the general ban on handguns. brilliant idea, no problem with it whatsoever. it's a shame it penalised those who had a genuine interest in the sport side of shooting but i think overall it's for the best.

How are guns a sport? I've never understood that. You don't exactly need to be fit to do it. If shooting is classed as a sport then I'm the world champion of sitting on my ass doing fuck all and I'm thinking of entering next years eating and sleeping national play-offs. The Competition is pretty fierce though...

Not having a go, understand what your saying, just something i never really understood, same with F1, is that a sport?