water cannon

[MD_Titus]

Originally Posted by baronWastelan

I dunno -- the former Naval Power which now has a total of one aircraft carrier in service, and not a single fixed wing aircraft squadron to launch from it? Downgraded, from a Navy to a Coast Guard?

touche, but that just means we can't bomb people from the sea. plenty enough cruise missiles and the like left.

sternjaeger - i'd leave this to ruggbutt tbh, as he is doing a far better job of arguing the point, and without resorting to such demeaning terms as you favour. quite what political correctness has to do with guns is utterly beyond me. perhaps it's some kind of leakage from the daily mail, where everything is "PC gone mad", such as this case. rather than an ethos that has pervaded uk law enforcement since... well, pretty much it's inception really.

[ATAG_Doc]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

touche, but that just means we can't bomb people from the sea. plenty enough cruise missiles and the like left.

sternjaeger - i'd leave this to ruggbutt tbh, as he is doing a far better job of arguing the point, and without resorting to such demeaning terms as you favour. quite what political correctness has to do with guns is utterly beyond me. perhaps it's some kind of leakage from the daily mail, where everything is "PC gone mad", such as this case. rather than an ethos that has pervaded uk law enforcement since... well, pretty much it's inception really.

Not being nit picky but it's spelled favor. Hello???

[BadAim]

Originally Posted by timej31

Not being nit picky but it's spelled favor. Hello???

Not in England, mate. They not only talk funny, they spell funny too.

[ATAG_Doc]

Originally Posted by BadAim

Not in England, mate. They not only talk funny, they spell funny too.

I knew that. I was just being silly.

[BadAim]

Originally Posted by timej31

I knew that. I was just being silly.

me too.

[BadAim]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

sternjaeger - i'd leave this to ruggbutt tbh, as he is doing a far better job of arguing the point, and without resorting to such demeaning terms as you favour. quite what political correctness has to do with guns is utterly beyond me. perhaps it's some kind of leakage from the daily mail, where everything is "PC gone mad", such as this case. rather than an ethos that has pervaded uk law enforcement since... well, pretty much it's inception really.

Ahh, you've reinforced ruggbutt's assertion that "an armed society is a polite society". Sternjaeger just can't be polite because he's been forcibly disarmed, whereas ruggbutt has no such problem.

As far as "political correctness" goes, Titus; here in the states it's source is the same as that which would disarm us, thus the correlation in our minds of the two. I assume Sternjaeger thinks similarly.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by BadAim

Ahh, you've reinforced ruggbutt's assertion that "an armed society is a polite society". Sternjaeger just can't be polite because he's been forcibly disarmed, whereas ruggbutt has no such problem.

As far as "political correctness" goes, Titus; here in the states it's source is the same as that which would disarm us, thus the correlation in our minds of the two. I assume Sternjaeger thinks similarly.

Yep, my perspective in this thread is the one of the guy that was raised in a country where, albeit not as much as in the States, there's the possibility of owning firearms (carrying them around on your person is not that simple though), moving to a country where the laws and the stupidity of politicians did a lot of damage to the culture and rights of citizen.

Let me give you an example: a couple of years ago I went to a militaria fair in Bedford, there were LOADS of deactivated weapons, the cherry on top was a Mauser Gewehr 98 in mint conditions, coming straight from the Mauser museum in Germany and de-activated so it could be sold. Now what sort of moron who likes collecting firearms would have them deactivated?! It's something so ridiculous it boggles my mind! It's like buying a Ferrari with NO engine inside, what's the bloody point besides masturbation??

It's the bottomline hypocrisy lingering here that drives me nuts: if you go to Beltring you will be in ACRES of militaria stalls, hundreds of people walking around in full uniforms and blank firing guns, tanks and cannons, heck they even re-enact battles! But talk about working firearms and they all look the other way.. it's INSANE, how can you be so much into that, wearing a Nazi uniform, firing blanks against other figurants and then calling people who use working firearms crazies?!

There were a couple of lads with bandaged thumbs, victims of the "Garand bite", which could have avoided it if they knew how to handle a rifle, even if deactivated.


Truth is that the crime rate in this country is very low, and it's mostly petty stuff that could be avoided if Police did actually behave like a police force, not your patronising friends. Go down to London East at night, or in the rough areas of Manchester and Liverpool, and see how safe it feels. And no, I wouldn't feel much safer with a gun at my side, I would feel safer is police here wasn't a gross joke.

My long term plan is to bring here all the firearms that are deemed as legal, I have some 12+ carabines from WW1 and WW2 that I like to use, keep clean and look at, because they REALLY represent what it meant to go to war, more than prancing about like a tit dressed up in an uniform. I have taken several UK friends to the shooting range and they all defined it a changing experience, some of them even started going regularly.

As for those worried of crazy people with guns: a crazy person will be crazy with or without a gun, if he wants to kill you he'll do it with any possible mean, I'd rather have the chance to put him down at a distance with one round that come to physical contact, which could get very ugly, but then again, if you never found yourself in a fight for your life situation I doubt you could understand.

Once again, as long as the law allows me to own firearms, I will. And to the American friends here, you should hear the horror stories of the thousands of people handing in their guns when the ban got stricter: thousands of semiauto rifles and pistols handed in and destroyed.. utter insanity..

[von Pilsner]

Overall homicide rate per 100,000 pop.

England & Wales 1.45
United States 8.55

After researching one statistic on one page of wikipedia for about 35 seconds it would seem we either have a higher percentage of homicidal folks in the USA, gun availability does matter, random internet statistics don't tell the whole story, some other variables (standard of living, industrialization, political climate) change things dramatically, or our societies are a lot different than I thought.

Maybe if it were 5.9 times more likely you would be murdered you'd want to own a gun too.... (I own 2 ) conversely if I lived in a society where guns and homicide were less common I probably would not care if I owned guns or not (ok, shooting targets is pretty fun).

[raaaid]

haha a good friends in the states told me he would move to europe
according to him the homicide rate was bigger than born rate(probably not ture)

[winny]

Number of Police officers killed in the UK since 1900 = Around 160.

Number of Police officers killed in the USA last year = Around 150.
(150 seems to be the average per year, the 70's averaged around the 190/200 mark)

I don't want guns completely legalised in my country just because someone wants to collect them. Or gets off on shooting stuff..

If someone wanted to attack me with a knife I'd at least be close enough to defend myself.

I've had a gun pulled on me twice in my life, I still don't feel the need to own one.