imlach

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4322109.stm

No need for them in general public use. Seem to cause more harm than good, so don't see why they shouldn't be banned.

To be able to buy & use a firearm without a licence seems wrong.

ajm

Knee-jerk utter stupidity, as always.

Iwan

Shows how short sighted and shallow minded some people are. How about instead of muppets clamouring for a ban, they start campaigning to get the CPS/government to actually start enforcing laws which are already in place to deal with this sort of thing. And have a suitably robust punishment in place as a deterrant to stop idiots shooting at firemen/kids/buses/phone boxes in the first place.

Banning airguns isn't going to help, these d1ckheads are the same sort of scum who throw darts at football matches, or put shopping trolleys on railway tracks, just for a laugh.

Mind you, banning handguns after Dunblane clearly reduced gun crime didn't it, so maybe we should ban air weapons after all.

PG

I agree with ajm on this one.

DanTheMan

ajm is spot on with his comment.

The bloke was breaking the law, so banning them would not have any effect, just like the current handgun ban only effects the law abiding while the criminals go about their business shooting each other and members of public.

Perhaps we should ban high powered cars - they serve no purpose and if I don't want one then I don't see why anyone else should be able to enjoy one, and they kill lots of people. -same stupid thought really !

moses

i hope they ban it now im a airgun fanatic, and people should have to have a firearm for it, if they dont, they should be imprisoned , the lil boy who got killed really put me off this silly law about available to anyone scumbag

Jiggerypokery

ajm is right as usual.

Seem to cause more harm than good? moses, you only ever see the harm, so you're not really qualified to comment on the good side of it.

No need for them? It's not a question of need for most people. It's about enjoyment of a sport. If we banned everything we didn't *need* we would have very little left.

PG

Jiggery,
I commend you for your opinion on this and also being able to understand what the **** Moses is saying. As usual it just came across as a load of ****e to me

PG

Although I dont agree with

as usual
First time for everything more like

john_s

iTrader: (1)

Lots of people are killed every year by cars... wonder how long it will be before some bright spark puts 2 and 2 together and *they* get banned?

Can see it only being a matter of time.

John.

Simon C

Like criminals using firearms care if they are illegal or not. Another typical knee jerk reaction. Has there been any improvement since the last ban., errrr no.

DanTheMan

I did see on another forum that perhaps a "certificate of competency" should be introduced. I know its a huge undertaking as shooting is one of the largest participation sports in the UK, however if you needed to earn this certificate before purchasing an air rifle/pistol then it may reduce the number of thugs who buy them.

Obviously it's a very in depth issue, and the fact remains that the bloke that shot the boy was breaking the law anyway means that any legislation would not have made any difference. Also there were instances of hooligans in blocks of flats dropping petrol bombs onto the fire brigade but I don't see calls for petrol to be banned.

ajm

Absolutely!

There are perfectly good laws in place already to stop us hurting one another. If people are still breaking those laws then:

1) The punishments being handed out are not severe enough to be a deterrent
2) The detection rates are inadequate, i.e. the likelihood of getting caught
3) The people in question are mentally or behaviourally impaired in some way

Unfortunately, until they invent a good behaviour chip to implant in people's brains, there is not much they can do about option 3) above.


Banning things does not make people less prone to hurt each other.

P1Fanatic

As an avid airgunner (and shooter in general) it does annoy me when we see these knee jerk reactions. Ive just been down my local air rifle club in basingstoke where Ive spent about 3hrs practicing and socialising with many people ranging from 12 to 60+ and had a really good time. All have a common interest and all are you average hard working person. Just because people dont shoot doesnt give them the right to ban it.

So when a kid gets killed by some idiot with an airrifle and everyone starts shouting for bans etc it really is just nonsense. That same guy who killed the kid could quite easily have bottled someone down a pub - should we start banning glass bottles?

I do agree that getting an airgun is a little too easy. You can buy them mail order/over the net as long as you have a credit card. And there is a stigma of oh its just an air rifle - that maybe but they are still lethal in the wrong hands as the recent death highlights.

I think one of the problems is that the air rifle is part of british heritage/history. Who (at least the lads) hasnt ever had their dad/friend/relative let them shoot an air rifle as a nipper?

I keep my air rifle locked up in a gun safe at home and I only live with my girlfriend. I am under no legal obligation to do this but do it anyway. And no its not FAC before anyone asks.

Simon.

hedgehog

Well, the nutters have crawled out of the towns and banned hunting. The same vermin have made it quite clear that shooting and fishing are next on the list and what better to have as a stick to beat people with than a dead baby. As others have said an air gun is quite often the first introduction most people get to shooting and so it is a valuable learning tool that the do-gooders would like removed, for this very reason.

What they want to ban is thugs killing people, but of course they are not thugs and it isn't their fault that they have been socially disadvantaged by the toffs on horses/using guns/fishing/watching TV/walking their dog etc. So legit users of air guns get a kicking while the bloke who fired the fatal shot will probably get a flock of social workers and trips to Florida to help him come to terms with his rejection by society.

The fact is that the do-gooders in this society will ban anything they can get their hands on as long as it fits in with their war against the rural population or those who enjoy sport in the countryside or are active in the preservation of the countryside. It is important for anyone who values their freedom to fight this all the way as once there is a ban in Scotland the green nutters in England will soon be harping on that Scotland has a ban so why can't they have one.

popeye

I've listened to this argument from the gun lobby and I've honestly never understood it. How exactly does relaxing the gun laws make this sort of thing less likely to happen? It seems to me that gun crime is on the increase because of drugs and gang culture - f*ck all to do with the hand-gun ban, which *has* helped prevent individual lunatics with a grudge committing Hungerford/Dunblane style massacres. What needs to to happen is to crack down even further on illegally imported and illegally held firearms, but once again we have a minority of mongs with no life bleating about their "rights" being eroded, and whose hobby counts above everything else. If air-guns were not freely available to your average chav then that kid would still be alive. End of. This "Guns don’t kill people - people kill people" thing cracks me up. People kill people with guns - it's the easiest way, that's what they were designed for.


As for Dunblane, I think this piece from the Gun Control Network sums it up.


British gun enthusiasts believe that the handgun ban denied them a basic right. They continue to ask questions about Hamilton in the hope that by finding answers in procedural lapses they’ll be able to deflect attention entirely away from his guns. As I’ve already argued, both the easy availability of guns and Central Scotland Police’s firearms licensing procedures contributed to Hamilton’s ability to prepare for a massacre. I’ve never shifted from the view that without his legal guns Hamilton would never have planned, let alone committed his outrage. He probably went through a series of fantasy preparations, imagining what he might do, then what he could do, until one day, weighed down by financial problems, a sense of isolation and a grievance against society he turned fantasy into the reality of what he would do. His murder tools were readily available, and he turned the guns he kept at home on his innocent victims. He also needed his guns to ensure his own death. It would be heartening to think that all of the parliamentary questions and other probing by the gun lobby reflect a quest for the whole truth. It appears to be part of a campaign to restore handgun shooting as a legal activity.

ajm

First of all, bravo popeye! Well done for finding yourself another "cause" so quickly that takes you into direct opposition with myself!


No one is suggesting relaxing them, they are suggesting that they do not become any more draconian!


Utter supposition. I guess we will have to wait until the next massacre to see what method they use.

Well done. I agree whole heartedly.


Whoops, there you've gone and spoilt it. What on earth do legitimate shooters have to do with illegally held weapons and gang warfare???


Complete supposition again. Maybe the kid would have a brick in his head instead? Maybe he would have bought an illegal gun and shot them all? Or do you think the scum might have had a better upbringing if air rifles weren't available?


People kill people with anything they can get their hands on. Banning things does not reduce their propensity to kill, merely makes them choose an alternative method, and at the same time it destroys innocent people's civil liberties.


Now, any more of my hobbies you object to?

Leslie

No good banniing the "tools". They will still get them just as easily anyway. Certainly a useless knee jerk reaction which will do nothing to help.

Hit the perpetrators for six instead. Make the penalty for improper use so draconian that they just can't justify the risk.

If they are allowed to get away with it like this then it will as ever just get progressively worse until all control is lost. Really significant punishment which actually happens is the only way.

Les

moses

sh1te is what u just spoke


maybe u dont understand english without comas and stuff

i said, they should be banned, and if someone needs them, they should have a firearm licence for them, shouldnt be available to public at all to buy , by just going into a shop, it should be restriced to clubs and to have a full firearm licence for it.

their is no need for airguns, its the neds who buy them

i hope u understand that part

DanTheMan

Machineguns have been banned in the UK since 1936, and clearly you can see this ban failed to save the lifes of the two girls ouside the club in Birmingham ?

Statistics published in 2002 by the Executive revealed that crimes involving handguns have jumped by 40 per cent despite the post-Dunblane ban on their possession. - full article here

Clearly sweeping gun bans do not stop gun crimes. They only disarm law-abiding citizens, whilst the criminal element retain their firearms, and with fewer law abiding gun owners to deter them they are all the more likely to use them.

popeye

Well, you must be special. My bull-o-meter and twaddle-gauge both register "DANGER" when I read some of your posts.


Not following the logic here - when people post things like "yeah the hand-gun ban worked *really* well hasn't it boo-hoo it's not fair", then what point are they trying to make? And I'd love to know how this "the ban hasn't worked" claim ties in with these figures:


http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF07.htm

Whenever this issue crops up I see gun "enthusiasts" bleating about how the hand-gun ban was a bad idea. It seems fairly straight forward to me that the harder it is to get hold of a gun, then the harder it is for your average flak-jacket clad nutter in the street to go on a killing spree. If gun enthusiasts support the ban then I'm happy. So we're all in agreement then? Good. Let's have a group hug and hope no-one accidentally gets shot.

No need - there was the machete-weilding nut who went on the rampage at that school a few years ago. He wasn't carrying a gun though, so fortunately, no-one was killed.

I'm talking about gun ownership in general, and how the gun lobby like to try and shift responsibility by blaming "not enough deterrent/no chance of getting caught" and other such nonsense. Everytime someone gets shot, the gun-cranks starting shouting the odds about how banning guns is not the answer. That's what we hear everytime. No alternatives offered, no explanations, just "gun crime's gone up so the hand-gun ban must be wrong." Less guns = less chance of gun murders. Simple maths really. Crime involving the use of guns has gone up but *not* because of the hand-gun ban. As the stats above show, actual gun murders are down. There are too many illegal firearems getting in to the UK and that's what needs to be addressed.
Gun loons don't care about this - they have one agenda which is to own guns again so they can carry on pretending to be Dirty Harry or whatever, and then we can all sit back and wait for the next next Thomas Hamilton/Michael Ryan to come along.


"Maybe the kid would have a brick in his head instead?"
*Maybe*, but frankly, *unlikely*. How many people/animals are shot at and injured with an air rifle every day compared to having a brick chucked at them? How can he have bought a gun if they're (as they should be) "illegal"?
If air rifles weren't available then scum wouldn't be firing them at kids.

Total and utter rubbish. Re-read the article I posted above about why Hamilton shot those kids at the school. If you honestly believe he would have done the same thing and killed 16 kids and 1 teacher without guns then you're in cloud-cuckoo land. This whole idea that somebody who would commit a massacre with a gun would still have a go and achieve the same result with a knife or whatever is just utterly laughable.
This is just Prince Philip's ludicrous "cricket bats" argument - "you could kill someone with a cricket bat so why not ban them?"
Absolute garbage. And it's a "civil liberty" to own a killing machine is it?
By that argument, presumably it should be legal for the public to buy bombs, rocket launchers and Sherman tanks. "Oooh, my civil liberties have been eroded because I can't go out and buy an Apache gunship at B&Q".

I'm annoyed that I just wasted three seconds reading those two sentences. What drivel.

Dunno. Do you play golf?

Neil Smalley

More people are killed while playing Golf than by air rifles. Therefore ban golf

jasey

More people (and I mean A LOT MORE People) are killed by MRSA when they go into Hospital - So we should ban hospitals too - Would save thousands of lives !

lightning101

Maybe we should ban brains. It is after all the only thing that kills you.

And would certainly not detract from the quality of posting on SNET

ajm

And yet you read them anyway? Come on, who are you kidding, you make a beeline for threads I'm in, its been proved over and over again.

Just look at the source for those figures! A site set up by people like you who have nothing better to do than b!tch and gripe about other people's activities. If deaths are falling it is more likely to do with advances in medicine, especially considering gun crime is going UP!

Look what is happening in the REAL world:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/m...er/4292809.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4212757.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2640817.stm

This is all caused by illegally held guns. It has got worse since the ban. I am not saying BECAUSE of the ban, I am saying that the ban has had NO EFFECT on the level of gun crime, and hence we have had our hobbies banned for absolutely nothing! How do you think that feels?


We are not in agreement though, are we. Because is HASN'T made it any harder to get a gun. The easiest way is to buy an illegal weapon. Nothing has changed in that respect.

You are speculating on his motives. If his aim was just to kill as many people as possible he would have made a bomb. Maybe he had a "thing" about machetes? I'm sure you can think up a derogatory name for people who own machetes...

This rant is typical of the foamy mouthed, spiteful anti-gun activists. We protest against our hobby being banned because it is being banned for nothing. You mention the Hamiltons/Ryans of this world: if their aim was to kill as many people as possible, and if they really did have a "dirty harry" fixation, i.e. if they HAD to use a gun to do it, then they could have bought illegal guns easier than they could have bought legal guns.

The fact that they had firearms certificates is a travesty, no one is arguing about that, just that the outcome would not necessarily have been any different had they not had firearms certificates.

But that's not what it is about for you is it? You just want to come on here and slag off a group of people and stir up some trouble.


What WOULD he have been doing then? Looking after the elderly? If he hadn't had an air rifle who knows what he would have been doing instead. I don't know, you don't know. Hardly the basis for taking away people's civil liberties.

Here is a question for you: if every single firearm/air rifle/blank firer/kids cap gun vanished from Britain overnight do you think people's urge to kill each other would vanish with it? Or do you think they would come up with ever more inventive ways of doing it?

You might say "oh but it will have got harder to do it".... no not really. Not until you have banned everything that could be considered a weapon will you get anywhere near it being significantly harder to kill people.


If we thought you actually really cared about any of the issues you "contribute" to maybe your unpleasant rants would be more tolerable. As it is, it is fairly obvious your comments are designed to be as imflammatory as possible.

If its any consolation I resent having to spend time answering off your outbursts, yet I do so to prevent you spreading your poison further into the minds of "ban culture" Britain.

You are definately a piece of work popeye, I'll give you that.

popeye

No, you laid into me on this thread. Have you forgotten? You did the same on the last thread I posted on as a well. So I'm not allowed to contribute to any thread that you take part in?



The following data were provided in Parliamentary Answers during 2004

This means the government ajm.


Try reading the site introduction.


The Gun Control Network was established as a small non-profit making organisation in July 1996 in the aftermath of the Dunblane tragedy. The founders included lawyers, academics and the parents of victims killed in Dunblane and Hungerford. It was the first gun control organisation in the UK.



What, between 1996 and 2003 there's been such radical advances in medical science that death by gunshot wounds have gone from 254 to 163? Answers on a postcard to idontthinkso.com. Post some evidence of this please, not pure conjecture.


Has there been any large-scale massacres since the hand-gun ban? Yes or no?







Oh FFS. So you have proof that he was an explosives expert now? He would have been less inclined to act on his fantasies if carrying his massacre through wasn't as easy as it is with a gun. If you honestly can't see this then,I don't know what to say.


Oh no, I think they're well balanced members of society and taking away their machetes would be an infringment of their civil rights.


No, I'm offering an alternative point of view. I realise you think this is the "agree with ajm" forum, but that's too bad, and why is anybody who's concerned about the number of people murdered by guns "spiteful"? I'm arguing against gun ownership full stop. Stir up trouble? What, disagreeing with you is "stirring up trouble"?

Has there been any large-scale massacres since the hand-gun ban? Yes or no?



Difficult to say, as I'm one of these people that actually care enough to want to do something about it, instead of saying "oh well, that's another gun massacre then. Best not to do anything in case it interferes with anybody's civil liberties".

You dont *have* to spend time replying to me at all. You laid into me on this thread. You're just another Daily-Mail reading, gun-hugging saddo who doesn't care about anything other than his own self.

scoobynutta555

Good work popeye and AJM, a lively read.

Feel you are edging the flame side of things Pops, and the Gif is great

ajm

Yeah I guess it's just coincidental that all of your posts on this site are of a controversial nature and in direct opposition to a small number of users then?

But feel free to shrug your shoulders and deny it anyway! A simple search of your posts proves me right.

"Working Towards a Gun Free Environment" is what it says on the splash page. In other words indiscriminate banning of all guns regardless of legitimate use or indeed any evidence to suggest it will reduce gun crime.

You chose, unsurprisingly, to cite the figures that would suggest a positive impact has occured since the ban on handguns, where as we all know that gun crime is RISING so the figures are spurious. YOU post some evidence showing that the reason MORE gun crimes have become less lethal is due to a ban on hanguns, no conjecture please.

Check out your own site:

http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF05.htm

Handgun crimes are rising!!!

Also, the figures relating to deaths clearly show there was a reducing trend BEFORE the ban, so whatever is causing the decline it is not the ban!

And you tell me not to use supposition? A random event hasn't occured, therefore it must be due to the handgun ban? hmmm.....


Are you denying that he could have just as easily obtained an illegal weapon to fullfil his fantasies?


You couldn't give a toss about people being murdered with guns, you are too obsessed with the fact that people can actually get safe enjoyment out of shooting as a sport without being a homicidal maniac.

In fact your behaviour on here tends to suggest you yourself have maniacal tendancies.

Exactly, best not to, especially when the evidence shows the ban was useless!

Actually I feel I need to reply because it is people like you who are helping the current government turn the country into an overbearing police state. You have no vested interest in the subject other than to stir up trouble. I am, once again, protecting my sport from you. We, as shooters, have been persecuted and it is plain to see that it was all for nothing.

The government are more interested in arresting people who have toy guns under their beds, and clamouring for bans of air rifles when it is plain to see the cause of the tragedy above was the man who pulled the trigger, not the tool he chose to use.

There we go, you have "something" against me enjoying a safe sport. I don't know what it is, and I don't particularly care, but the fact you are willing to undermine your credibility by making crass assumptions about me and my motivations just goes to show that the real reason you are here is to take a pop at me, not to save the world from deaths caused by guns.

Take as many pops at me as you like, but I am not going to let anyone be convinced that your motives are anything more than spiteful.

the moose

So the average ****** with a £150 illegal gun from the Czech Republic is more likely to use it now because they now assess the chances of me having a .44 in the house are diminished?

Come on, that's the sort of thing the Americans come up with to justify their love of guns. And we're all aware of just how few gun-related deaths there are in the USA, where there are zillions of legally-held weapons, easily enough to deter criminals, you'd have thought.

DanTheMan

Moose you have read it wrong mate.

When you have circles of clubs and private owners of these items, everyone knows someone who shoots and they can pass information about laws and shooting responsibly to others and how dangerous these things are, plus they are able to pass on info to the police about illegally held weapons etc.

Now if they are all banned and there are no clubs and no information then it may spiral downwards as people would not give a **** anymore and do even more stupid things with them.

Hows about we educate people about these things instead of burying heads, that way we may be able to bring up children to respect and treat these with care instead of shooting cats/dogs/people ?