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http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3644/britain_wants_its_guns_back

Last Friday the Daily Telegraph, Britain's most widely read broadsheet newspaper, issued an online poll asking members of the public which proposal they would like to see introduced as a Private Members' Bill in the UK's Parliament.

Private Members' Bills are introduced by Members of Parliament or Peers who are not government ministers.

The choices include term limits for Prime Ministers, a flat tax, a law to encourage the 'greening' of public spaces and the repealing of Britain's hand gun ban. Following the Dunblane massacre in 1996, in which 16 schoolchildren were killed, Parliament passed The Firearms Act of 1997, which essentially banned handguns for the atrocity.

But Britons seem unconvinced by the law. The proposer, known as "Colliemum" asked, "...why should only criminals be 'allowed' to possess guns and shoot unarmed, defenceless citizens and police officers?"

While the poll continues, so far over 80 percent of the 11,000+ respondents have told the Telegraph that they want to see the handgun ban repealed. The news comes as America contemplates its own new laws on gun ownership, with British talk show host Piers Morgan claiming to back a UK-style ban for the United States.

*strokes goatee* Interesting very interesting.

, "...why should only criminals be 'allowed' to possess guns and shoot unarmed, defenceless citizens and police officers?"

Is this actually happening more often than pre ban?

Seems the point is that it is still happening despite the ban, so if the law doesn`t in fact do anything, it is probably a bad law

Not entirely sure if I agree with that.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Seems the point is that it is still happening despite the ban, so if the law doesn`t in fact do anything, it is probably a bad law

It really isn't, the number of people shot at or injured by firearms in the UK is minuscule.

Lifting the ban, or widening gun ownership in the UK is absolutely the worst thing that could happen to that country's victims of crime.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Seems the point is that it is still happening despite the ban, so if the law doesn`t in fact do anything, it is probably a bad law

It really isn't, the number of people shot at or injured by firearms in the UK is minuscule.

Lifting the ban, or widening gun ownership in the UK is absolutely the worst thing that could happen to that country's victims of crime.

As I understand it, it was even more miniscule before the ban. 40% climb in violence since the ban was enacted are the latest numbers I saw, though those may be old now.

So despite a climb in the amount of violence, it sounds like your ok with it, as long as it doesn't cross a certain number. What would that number be?

40% climb in violence

Gun related violence? And link?

Last year there were 42 gun related deaths.
In a country of 62 million that represents something around 0.0006 of the country.
How does that mean the gun laws are not working?

 motyak wrote:
40% climb in violence

Gun related violence? And link?

http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/gun-crime
Says 40%


http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/11/gun-crime-soars-in-england-where-guns-are-banned-n1464528
Says 35%

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223193/Culture-violence-Gun-crime-goes-89-decade.html
Says 89%, but was published in 2009, and there has been a drop in the rate since then.

There is no shortage of links if you search for them. I just types "Gun crimes in Britain since ban" into google.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 purplefood wrote:
Last year there were 42 gun related deaths.
In a country of 62 million that represents something around 0.0006 of the country.
How does that mean the gun laws are not working?

And from 2000 through 2010 gun injury rates grew from 2.47 per 100,000 to 3.4 per 100,000.

 purplefood wrote:
Last year there were 42 gun related deaths.
In a country of 62 million that represents something around 0.0006 of the country.
How does that mean the gun laws are not working?

Those numbers don't suck.

Linky

New York, with a population of more than eight million, had 237 people killed by guns in 2012, for a rate of 2.9 gun homicides per 100,000 people.

StatisticsFirearm Crime StatisticsProvisional figures show that 6,285 firearm offences were recorded by the police in the year to September 2011, accounting for 0.2% of all recorded crime. There was a 19% fall in firearm offences in the year to September 2011, compared to the previous year.In England and Wales firearms were reportedly used in 11,227 offences, 0.3% of all recorded crimes.There were 7,024 offences in England and Wales in which firearms, excluding air weapons, were reportedly used, a 13% decrease on the previous year, continuing the general decline since 2005/06.There were 4,203 recorded crimes in which air weapons were reportedly used during 2010/11, a fall of 15% compared with the previous year and 70% below the peak recorded in 2002/03.In Scotland the police recorded 643 offences which involved the alleged use of a firearm, a 24% decrease on 2009/10. The number of offences has fallen in each of the last four years.A non-air weapon was alleged to have been used in 410 offences, marginally lower than in 2009/10, while there were 233 alleged air-weapon offences, 45% lower than the previous year.

From your link djones. Doesn't sound like a 40% increase unless im actually so tired right now that im completely misreading it. I should sleep

 motyak wrote:
StatisticsFirearm Crime StatisticsProvisional figures show that 6,285 firearm offences were recorded by the police in the year to September 2011, accounting for 0.2% of all recorded crime. There was a 19% fall in firearm offences in the year to September 2011, compared to the previous year.In England and Wales firearms were reportedly used in 11,227 offences, 0.3% of all recorded crimes.There were 7,024 offences in England and Wales in which firearms, excluding air weapons, were reportedly used, a 13% decrease on the previous year, continuing the general decline since 2005/06.There were 4,203 recorded crimes in which air weapons were reportedly used during 2010/11, a fall of 15% compared with the previous year and 70% below the peak recorded in 2002/03.In Scotland the police recorded 643 offences which involved the alleged use of a firearm, a 24% decrease on 2009/10. The number of offences has fallen in each of the last four years.A non-air weapon was alleged to have been used in 410 offences, marginally lower than in 2009/10, while there were 233 alleged air-weapon offences, 45% lower than the previous year.

From your link djones. Doesn't sound like a 40% increase unless im actually so tired right now that im completely misreading it. I should sleep

It says 40% in the first paragraph on the controversies section.

With no further stats. The further stats provided seem to directly contradict the initial statement

There seem to be quite large swings between years, 40%, 20%, etc. I think this is due to the over numbers of gun crime, they are low in absolute terms so a surge of a few hundred has a huge impact upon the percentage change. Also, IIRC, we include lots of things in gun crime including threatening or use of replace weapons or air pistols. The number of people actually shot with bullets is very low, and it's probably gang related occurring in the street. Enabling public ownership of handguns will solve very little, make them much easier to acquire by those indenting to misuse them, and probably not make the public safer at all. It really serves no purpose, and whatever this poll claims, the bulk of the public are against legalisation of gun ownership and don't want to see it.

I would like to see handguns reintroduced, to a limited extent. Although I am kinda biased, a friend of my Dad runs a shooting range (apparently the largest indoor range in the country, but not 100% on that claim); they used to be an almost exclusively pistol shooting club, but, obviously that had to stop when the ban was introduced, so it's all rifles now really. It's a shame; I've been down to the range quite a lot, the people that go there are some really nice people, and they used to love pistol shooting. You'd be hard pressed to find a bunch of people more knowledgable about firearms laws and firearm safety. So if they were introduced along with relevant licensing and background checks I don't see what the issue is.

What is a "gun crime incident"?

Owning a gun without a permit? Selling a gun? Or is it limited to using a gun in a robbery, assault, or murder?

plenty of good reasons for the citizens to want their guns back,
banning citizens from owning guns simply bans citizens from owning guns,
their affect on criminals and crime is negligible, if present at all, where as its affect on the lawful is very detrimental/totalitarian/ect

 easysauce wrote:
plenty of good reasons for the citizens to want their guns back,
banning citizens from owning guns simply bans citizens from owning guns,
their affect of criminals and crime is negligible, if present at all, where as its affect on the lawful is very detrimental/totalitarian/ect

Statistical support for the no effect in Britain?

 motyak wrote:
With no further stats. The further stats provided seem to directly contradict the initial statement

In the year the ban was passed, there were 4,903 fire arm offences recorded by police. In 2011 there were 6,285. In some years since the ban, there has been more then 10,000 offences.

I've gotta get to work, so can't keep digging for now, but the facts are the rates have climbed since the ban was passed. Whether it's 40%, 89%, or 10%, there is more gun violence in Britain now, then before the ban.

 motyak wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
plenty of good reasons for the citizens to want their guns back,
banning citizens from owning guns simply bans citizens from owning guns,
their affect of criminals and crime is negligible, if present at all, where as its affect on the lawful is very detrimental/totalitarian/ect

Statistical support for the no effect in Britain?

you will ignore every stat that doesn't agree with your preconceived notion that banning guns causes less gun crime, you will assert that It is a proven causation that having lawful gun owners= more gun crime , no matter what stats are linked.


after all, thats what all the talking heads on TV tell you, that guns are bad, they should be banned, the only thing worse then a gun is a gun owner.

the stats have been linked by other people already, and ignored/called lies/ect

relinked for your pleasure.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1440764.stm BBC

the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned.

http://rense.com/politics6/britgun.htm

overall, armed crime rose 10% in 1998" -- the year after national handgun prohibition began.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=15315

The problem with Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban -- as anyone who can look up the crime numbers will see -- is that D.C.'s murder and violent crime rates went up, not down, after the ban. Prior to the ban DC's murder rate was falling. After the ban, DC's murder rate rose, and only once fell below what it was in 1976, says John Lott, Senior Research Scientist at the University of Maryland.

Further:

The District's ban specifically points to Great Britain's handgun ban in January 1997; but the number of deaths and injuries from gun crime in England and Wales increased 340 percent in the seven years from 1998 to 2005.

 djones520 wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Seems the point is that it is still happening despite the ban, so if the law doesn`t in fact do anything, it is probably a bad law

It really isn't, the number of people shot at or injured by firearms in the UK is minuscule.

Lifting the ban, or widening gun ownership in the UK is absolutely the worst thing that could happen to that country's victims of crime.

As I understand it, it was even more minuscule before the ban. 40% climb in violence since the ban was enacted are the latest numbers I saw, though those may be old now.

So despite a climb in the amount of violence, it sounds like your ok with it, as long as it doesn't cross a certain number. What would that number be?

I enjoy an interesting view of the differences in American and British cultures, as a Brit married to an American, as someone who commuted across the Atlantic for about 3 years prior to my marriage and move to the US from the UK.

The British have no interest in owning guns, not as a people. I hear lots of rhetoric about taking away freedoms over here and it's meaningless to me coming from a nation where I felt as free as anyone might in a democratic nation with veto, freedom to express my views and freedom to walk where I might and associate with whom I wished.

The British response to an escalation of gun crime is to focus on cracking down on it via police, increasing the number of armed police response units and focus on breaking illegal arms importing.

A 30-40% increase in a minuscule number is still a minuscule number. We have many more pressing issue than gun crime in the UK. When a bank or post office is held up by someone with a sawn off shotgun, they take the money and leave, it's unlikely either side will have exchanged shots as one side usually isn't armed, this decreases the likelihood of a firefight and death.


Here is a more interesting figure, it's the rate of gun homicide in the UK*.

Chart In the United Kingdom, annual firearm homicides total

2010: 27
2009: 18
2008: 32
2007: 22
2006: 51
2005: 41
2004: 52
2003: 41
2002: 31
2001: 41
1999: 45
1998: 33

Compare Rate of Gun Homicide per 100,000 People
Chart In the United Kingdom, the annual rate of firearm homicide per 100,000 population is

2010: 0.04
2009: 0.03
2008: 0.05
2007: 0.04
2006: 0.08
2005: 0.07
2004: 0.09
2003: 0.07
2002: 0.05
2001: 0.07
1999: 0.08
1998: 0.06

* WHO. 2012. ‘Inter-country Comparison of Mortality for Selected Cause of Death – Gun Homicide in the United Kingdom.’ European Detailed Mortality Database (DMDB).

40% seems an impressive number, until you see that the numbers are so small that any minor variance is a significant shift in the percentile.

The gun laws in this country work.

It amuses me how the quote from the proposer asks "why should only criminals be 'allowed' to possess guns?" Why the inverted commas? They're not "allowed" to have guns, that's kind of the point. If they have them, they're breaking the law.

Fortunately I think I can say with certainty that nothing will come of this. I've frankly got to wonder how the mind of the person who came up with this proposal works. They see that despite guns being tightly controlled, a small amount of gun crime still exists. Their solution is to introduce more guns and make them easier to acquire. Yay, logic!

 djones520 wrote:

 motyak wrote:
With no further stats. The further stats provided seem to directly contradict the initial statement

In the year the ban was passed, there were 4,903 fire arm offences recorded by police. In 2011 there were 6,285. In some years since the ban, there has been more then 10,000 offences.

I've gotta get to work, so can't keep digging for now, but the facts are the rates have climbed since the ban was passed. Whether it's 40%, 89%, or 10%, there is more gun violence in Britain now, then before the ban.

Since the ban hasn't there been an increase in black market available guns in Europe generally? The ban was to stop "joe public" having access to legal weapons and then going on a bender. The increase in illegal weapons would of happened anyway.As we've never had the same relaxed gun laws as the US, a vicious arms race cycle has never started. We don't fear that someone will pull a gun on us if we are mugged or burgled. We are concerned that someone may pull a knife, but the self defense laws have been relaxed so that you can belt the bugger with a baseball bat

And repealing the ban would help that, how? It's not worth it in the UK, gun crime is very low, we don't need them. Almost no one dies from guns, which is a lot more than can be said of the US.

And you have to wary of how gun crime is recorded, these numbers do not represent crimes with real loaded weapons. Try looking at the numbers of people actually murdered with guns in the UK, it's negligible. Someone above said that there were only 42 gun deaths in the UK last year but they've been ignored.

 Wolfstan wrote:

Since the ban hasn't there been an increase in black market available guns in Europe generally? The ban was to stop "joe public" having access to legal weapons and then going on a bender. The increase in illegal weapons would of happened anyway.As we've never had the same relaxed gun laws as the US, a vicious arms race cycle has never started. We don't fear that someone will pull a gun on us if we are mugged or burgled. We are concerned that someone may pull a knife, but the self defense laws have been relaxed so that you can belt the bugger with a baseball bat

Yeah, but some American folks, panicked about the non-existent risk of the government taking away all the guns, are wanting to point to Britain and say that we are a less safe society since the gun legislation, ignoring the woefully low actual gun ownership prior to the legislation and to the actual records on gun homocide, injury and the definition of 'gun crime', which includes replicas, air guns, paintball guns and the waving about of them in an agitated manner.

In a nation like the US, where guns saturate every aspect of life and every rancid little petty thief has the capacity to blow your brains out all over the pavement, sure, arm yourself if you want to defend your home and up the stakes, but in the UK it's a ridiculously small figure and the reality of gun homicide in the uk, what little there is, is usually serious criminals regulating their own numbers...

Wow, an online poll.

Those are always 100% reliable when gauging public sentiment.

It does seem that it's some American posters getting a hard on about the thought of the UK 'needing' guns. The only British poster who seems keen has a father running a sporting shooting range. Rather telling.

Given the ease that people can get hold of guns in the US, does this actually put criminals off robbing you? Would a burglar think twice before breaking into your house, or would they think "no worries I've got a gun, bring it on"?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I enjoy an interesting view of the differences in American and British cultures, as a Brit married to an American, as someone who commuted across the Atlantic for about 3 years prior to my marriage and move to the US from the UK.

The British have no interest in owning guns, not as a people. I hear lots of rhetoric about taking away freedoms over here and it's meaningless to me coming from a nation where I felt as free as anyone might in a democratic nation with veto, freedom to express my views and freedom to walk where I might and associate with whom I wished.

The British response to an escalation of gun crime is to focus on cracking down on it via police, increasing the number of armed police response units and focus on breaking illegal arms importing.

A 30-40% increase in a minuscule number is still a minuscule number. We have many more pressing issue than gun crime in the UK. When a bank or post office is held up by someone with a sawn off shotgun, they take the money and leave, it's unlikely either side will have exchanged shots as one side usually isn't armed, this decreases the likelihood of a firefight and death.

40% seems an impressive number, until you see that the numbers are so small that any minor variance is a significant shift in the percentile.

I edited that so your typo wouldn't be censored anymore.

And I agree that the differances in culture are a big thing in play here. American's want there guns, Brits don't. I'm not arguing that Brit's should have guns. Just pointing out that since the ban there has been a climb in numbers. You seemed to argue that the rates don't matter because the numbers are small. I'm just curious, at what point does it matter for you? What number would you have to see for it to be "significant"?

Ah, the Telegraph, a right-wing paper. And they've made a poll which is mostly going to recieve votes from Telegraph readers. Clearly there are no issues of bias here.