Virginia Shootings

[simgre]

Ok I thought this would spark intelligent debate......I'm out

 

Really? You offered nothing intelligent to spark the debate. How could you, in a few short posts you demonstrated that you had neither the experience, exposure or balanced temperament to partake in such a debate....

 

Yes, step out of it before you truly embarrass yourself.

[Breacher]

It seems to me that there are two types of person who abuse firearms by murdering with them -

 

1 - Criminals. Legislation will have no effect on them. They will abuse firearms regardless. They dont abide by legislation.

 

2 - Mentally unbalanced / homicadal individuals. Again, legislation wont stop them because they will still wake up that morning wanting to murder. They will just do it a different way.

 

As to need / want / reason - if we prohibit everything we dont need - life would be boring.

 

Stacka never managed to mention which particular firearms he "needs" when nobody else "needs" semi autos or pistols. I would be interested to know.

[mikeroz]

I too am one of those people that think our laws are about right. Of course it is true that deluded folk can kill with carving knives and the like, but it is a different type of tool (weapon) than a gun. The gun can kill from a distance, through material that a knife would struggle with. It is highly likely that a mad man with a knife could be over powered, less likely with a gun.

 

With regards the current UK gun laws, what does interest me is how thoroughly the likes of BASC investigate a case before they defend the rights of someone who's either had his FAC revoked or application refused. If the likes of Hamilton had been a member and shot the occasional bunny, if he had had his right to hold an FAC questioned & he'd turned to them for help, what checks would they have made & would they have defended him. I know that this is hypothetical & I'm I have no swaying one way or the other to suggest that they would have, but like I say it does interest me.

Very controversially I'd support better vetting & subsequent monitoring of mental stability of gun owners on the proviso that it was done properly (but I recognise that therein lies the problem).

I've no doubt I'll get some stick for making that statement, but I'm mentally stable and strong enough to deal with it.

[mikeroz]

 

2 - Mentally unbalanced / homicadal individuals. Again, legislation wont stop them because they will still wake up that morning wanting to murder. They will just do it a different way.

 

.

The issue with a gun is that it is a very efficient killing machine. In the wrong hands it can accurately & quickly place multiple bullets from a distance sufficient to offer protection from revenge enabling the perpetrator should they wish to, to inflict injury on numerous people. The only other thing I could think of that could inflict as much harm is a vehicle.

[dylan5588]

An interesting perspective on "gun control"

[Breacher]

I too am one of those people that think our laws are about right. Of course it is true that deluded folk can kill with carving knives and the like, but it is a different type of tool (weapon) than a gun. The gun can kill from a distance, through material that a knife would struggle with. It is highly likely that a mad man with a knife could be over powered, less likely with a gun.

 

With regards the current UK gun laws, what does interest me is how thoroughly the likes of BASC investigate a case before they defend the rights of someone who's either had his FAC revoked or application refused. If the likes of Hamilton had been a member and shot the occasional bunny, if he had had his right to hold an FAC questioned & he'd turned to them for help, what checks would they have made & would they have defended him. I know that this is hypothetical & I'm I have no swaying one way or the other to suggest that they would have, but like I say it does interest me.

Very controversially I'd support better vetting & subsequent monitoring of mental stability of gun owners on the proviso that it was done properly (but I recognise that therein lies the problem).

I've no doubt I'll get some stick for making that statement, but I'm mentally stable and strong enough to deal with it.

 

In theory, background checking and monitoring of mental stability sounds good but all too often when an individual goes on the rampage, you hear from friends, family and neighbours that he/she was a nice person / kept themselves to themselves / totally out of character etc etc

 

But in principle, its a good idea even if it only weeds out the obviously unstable.

[MrCetrizine]

Very controversially I'd support better vetting & subsequent monitoring of mental stability of gun owners on the proviso that it was done properly (but I recognise that therein lies the problem).

I've no doubt I'll get some stick for making that statement, but I'm mentally stable and strong enough to deal with it.

I'd welcome that too except for the fact that it's impossible.

 

I have a bit of non professional, non personal experience with mental illness and what I know from professionals is that it has countless variants, none of which are fully understood and few are detectable or measurable.

 

Monitoring someone's mental state to a useful degree would have to be 24 hour supervision by a doctor while the subject lives in a FMRI scanner. Anything less would be about as much use as the current system of peer monitoring.

[dylan5588]

Proof you do not need a firearm to inflict terrible damage. one man with a knife against 4 police with guns,

[mikeroz]

Proof you do not need a firearm to inflict terrible damage. one man with a knife against 4 police with guns,

2 scenarios;

 

1. Man walks into a park with a knife in broad daylight, he stabs someone, other run away screaming. Unless he's Mo Fara or a trained knife thrower, if they are relatively fit they stand a chance of escaping injury.

2. Man walks into a park with an AK47 or semi auto pistol ( we're talking somewhere other than UK okay). The fit are now in a much disadvantaged situation.

 

I rest my case.

[John MH]

What about a Nut with a car?

[Breacher]

2 scenarios;

 

1. Man walks into a park with a knife in broad daylight, he stabs someone, other run away screaming. Unless he's Mo Fara or a trained knife thrower, if they are relatively fit they stand a chance of escaping injury.

2. Man walks into a park with an AK47 or semi auto pistol ( we're talking somewhere other than UK okay). The fit are now in a much disadvantaged situation.

 

I rest my case.

That works in an open space.

 

Would be different in a busy city street, bus or railway / tube carriage.

[John MH]

Sick people don't kill people with guns because it's easy, they kill people because they are sick people and if it's a little harder without a gun they'll unfortunately still kill people.

[mikeroz]

Man who is homicidal and wants to commit multiple murders with a knife / sword / machete would pick a more crowed place or one with less chance of escape such as train carriage or bus or whatever.

Fair enough, but if I was to find myself in either situation I rather be in the train with the knife man than the gunman. About 15 years ago I had 2 308 rounds fly over my head, stalker zeroing a rifle down a track as I emerged over the brow of a hill. I can speak from experience when I say bullets flying around are scary that which promotes growth and vigour!

 

John,

As for your comment about the nut in a car, I agree, as I said earlier that's the only thing I could think of that's similarly as capable........

[Breacher]

Fair enough, but if I was to find myself in either situation I rather be in the train with the knife man than the gunman. About 15 years ago I had 2 308 rounds fly over my head, stalker zeroing a rifle down a track as I emerged over the brow of a hill. I can speak from experience when I say bullets flying around are scary that which promotes growth and vigour!

 

John,

As for your comment about the nut in a car, I agree, as I said earlier that's the only thing I could think of that's similarly as capable........

 

True - however, use of a firearm requires some degree of skill. The guy on the Amsterdam to Paris train - he had a pistol and an AK - both apparently malfunctioned and he was unable to clear them.

 

Knives dont malfunction and dont need so much skill. The same guy on the train - had he ran down the carriage aisle with a machete, he would have killed or maimed dozens.

[dylan5588]

2 scenarios;

 

1. Man walks into a park with a knife in broad daylight, he stabs someone, other run away screaming. Unless he's Mo Fara or a trained knife thrower, if they are relatively fit they stand a chance of escaping injury.

2. Man walks into a park with an AK47 or semi auto pistol ( we're talking somewhere other than UK okay). The fit are now in a much disadvantaged situation.

 

I rest my case.

I am not saying that guns do less harm than other weapons, simply that if guns are not available people will still find a way to inflict the harm they intend. for eg if Derek Bird had not had his shotgun and .22 rimfire rifle, he would probably have used his Taxi as a weapon, 1.5 tons of metal can inflict a lot of damage. Also home made bombs are quite effecive killers of humans, as any of the military boys on here will hold testament to!

[buddy.223]

You cannot turn the clock back, but we can make reasoned arguments to keep what we currently have.

[/q that's exactly what weve done here in northern Ireland, with rifle and pistol clubs flourishing - I walked into a rfd the other day with one hand gun and left with another paperwork completed on the premises

[JDBenelliM1]

 

Yardley, is that you?

Lol

[baldie]

 

You cannot turn the clock back, but we can make reasoned arguments to keep what we currently have.

[/q that's exactly what weve done here in northern Ireland, with rifle and pistol clubs flourishing - I walked into a rfd the other day with one hand gun and left with another paperwork completed on the premises

 

 

I believe around 75% of FAC,s for pistols in NI are/were issued for self defence ?

[maximus otter]

Actually the amount of firearms on UK streets is at a all time low. They simply don't have the means to get hold of.

 

Do you read newspapers?

 

Just a couple of recent headlines:

 

"A serving prisoner has been sentenced to life for orchestrating the importation of a terrifying arsenal of [8 Skorpion] submachine guns from his cell."

 

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/judge-calls-for-inquiry-at-wandsworth-prison-after-inmate-imported-eight-skorpion-submachine-guns-10074307.html

 

"...astonishing haul of weapons recovered in the biggest ever gun seizure on mainland Britain.

The 22 automatic [VZ58] assault rifles and nine Skorpion machine pistols were smuggled into the country on a motor cruiser.

Police believe the guns, found with 1,000 rounds of ammunition and two silencers, were purchased in Eastern Europe."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3198933/Chilling-gun-haul-boat-Kent.html

Shortly before I retired from the police my force's TFU did a hard stop on an Eastern European HGV in my (rural) county . They recovered what was described as "a sports bag full" of Glocks.

Firearms are flooding into the UK.

maximus otter

[brown dog]

To me, there's an awful lot of extremely naive silliness in the 'but they'd just use something else' argument.

 

To have people argue that a kitchen knife is as dangerous as a gun is simply ludicrous, and undermines any level of rational defence of firearm ownership.

 

The playground logic is ' a knife can kill, a gun can kill, therefore they're the same' well, a bottle of aspirin can kill, so can a plastic bag, or a patio step if you trip badly and bang your head.

 

That doesn't make them the same.

 

It's about ease of access and role 'optimisation' - firearms were developed and optimised for one purpose.

 

And it ain't kiss chase.

 

The utter naive silliness of trying to equate someone kicking off with knife compared to someone kicking off with an automatic weapon....I shake my head in disbelief at the unwordly naivety.

 

Someone mentioned the 'training burden' of operating an AK compared to a knife as another example of how much more dangerous a knife is in the hands of the unbalanced. Really? Really?!!!! Do they really believe that?

 

Our laws are about right. It's about controlling ease of access. We don't want n'er do wells, scrotes and schizos buying them with ease in walmart in the name of 'freedom' - yes Yardies, drug gangs, whoever will find ways of getting them; but that's no reason to argue that we may as well give up trying to control ease of access to the wider great unwashed and mad.

 

There really is a big 'dry your eyes' piece to all this; people have a greater right to life than you do your hobby -and its possible unintended consequences.

Screaming 'But it's my hobby' and throwing toys out of the pram, does not trump public safety.

 

Hobby.

 

Hobby. It's just a hobby. Don't lose sight of that. A hobby.

 

It might be a hobby you're passionate about, but it's just a hobby.

 

 

Again, I think our laws have the balance of access and restriction about right.

 

I'm with this:

I too am one of those people that think our laws are about right. Of course it is true that deluded folk can kill with carving knives and the like, but it is a different type of tool (weapon) than a gun. The gun can kill from a distance, through material that a knife would struggle with. It is highly likely that a mad man with a knife could be over powered, less likely with a gun.

With regards the current UK gun laws, what does interest me is how thoroughly the likes of BASC investigate a case before they defend the rights of someone who's either had his FAC revoked or application refused. If the likes of Hamilton had been a member and shot the occasional bunny, if he had had his right to hold an FAC questioned & he'd turned to them for help, what checks would they have made & would they have defended him. I know that this is hypothetical & I'm I have no swaying one way or the other to suggest that they would have, but like I say it does interest me.
Very controversially I'd support better vetting & subsequent monitoring of mental stability of gun owners on the proviso that it was done properly (but I recognise that therein lies the problem).
I've no doubt I'll get some stick for making that statement, but I'm mentally stable and strong enough to deal with it.

[mikeroz]

BD,

You managed to say far more elequently what I was thinking. I couldn't agree more.

 

There's often far too much emotion in topics of this nature.

[brown dog]

Thanks Mike.

 

I think we'd all recognise that this thread is going to go in circles

 

One 'closing summary' parting shot to anyone who wants one, and then probably best that we close the thread - let's say, early this afternoon

[Offroad Gary]

I'll stick my head above the parapet..

 

Access to firearms in the uk is too easy. There are too many people, with too many guns that they dont have real need for. look around on the forums at how many people without need or even land to use them on have multiple cf rifles just because they want them. The government need to reel it back in imho.

[bradders]

Ok here's my closing summary, this was just an ordinary murder by a deranged man.

The same as the one being investigated after the Surrey Police cock up, where they gave the guns back to the deranged Sqn Ldr (or whatever he was, and the same as the one in Durham where Michael Atherton shot and killed 3 women.

Like Virginia these were also carried out with legally acquired firearms, and I imagine the victims were as equally terrified as the female reporter and interviewee.

As I said earlier, I suspect all murders with firearms look similar, the difference is that this guy decided to film it and do it live on TV.

 

There were most likely other murders on the same day, but those victims don't have acquaintances in the media!

 

It is what it is, and that's the last I have to say about it

 

Bradders out

[John MH]

Should firearms be openly available to anyone with a similar ease to the USA and sold in Tesco as they are in Walmart - No

 

Should the current access to firearms in the UK by the law abiding be further restricted - No

 

Should the amendments made post 1987 and 1996 to the 1968 Firearms Act be repealed - IMHO yes but in reality its never going to happen.

 

Is another mass shooting with a licensed firearm in the UK likely - probably yes.

 

Therefore should we all for the good of public safety surrender our firearms now?

 

Ah, wait I'm alright but the other guy should because ...................