| talkingcats |
| (member) |
| 24/10/2008 11:34 |
Re: UK Second Amendment
|
Quote:
Getting back to your point about the gun laws, the ban was never intended to erradicate "general" criminal behaviour with guns, because -- of course -- they ignore laws in the first place
C3PO - I am sorry, but that is untrue. When in 1998 Alun Michael presented the 1997 Firearms (Amendment) Act to Parliament he said 'by these means we take guns off the streets'. At the time, the measure was sold to the public as a general anti-gun-crime measure.
Quote:
In fact, the only certainty you can give is that there has NOT been another atrocity -- such as Dunblane -- since the introduction of the handgun ban
This is true but not terribly significant. Between 1920 and 1987, there were no cases of atrocities committed with legally held firearms. As both Hungerford and Dunblane were down to imporper administration of the *existing* laws, there is no reason to believe that after 1996 there would have been any further instances.
Quote:
What the ban has possibly done is prevent some nutter running amok with a legally held weapon. And that's the point
Again this is true but not very significant for public safety. The absolute risk of being shot by a nutter on a rampage has scarcely changed. All that has changed is that the gun won't be legally held handgun. I don't think that will make much difference to the victims. The reality is that such events are extremely rare and talking about risks of them happening is pretty pointless.