I'm sure you know that gun ownership laws in the UK are far more restrictive than in the USA. I'm sure you know the UK population doesn't have the same attitude to owning guns, either. We don't have the same enthusiasm for using rifles to hunt livestock, nor do we have the enthusiasm for chasing foxes on horseback and ripping them to shreds with dogs that we used to. Fox hunting and grouse shooting is an anachronism to nearly all of us and the pursuit of a small but privileged and wealthy minority - and, for now, proper fox hunting is illegal (but I wouldn't be surprised to find out it still takes place...) Farmers and their ilk may have licences to own shotguns (but not with a magazine, just breech-loaded) or rifles (single shot, maybe a small magazine) for the purposes of controlling livestock pests. It is almost impossible to get a licence for a handgun to carry in public. Target shooting enthusiasts are subject to limitations on where they can keep their weapons and for transport in public they must (I believe) be unloaded. Even back in the '70s, when I was in the cadets, we used to transport rifles to the range without their bolts (someone else carried them using a different route) and ammunition was stored at the range, not with the weapons. The carrying of loaded weapons in public is not something we're used to or comfortable with. That's why we Brits just don't get it when we talk gun control to our American friends. We can see the death rate but don't appreciate the symbolism or relevance to Americans of being able to own a gun. We know Americans think it's important to them, but just don't understand why the death rate isn't seen as being more important and therefore the right to gun ownership being something to give up to see that reduced.
Following from my previous post: In 1994, the Federal Assault Weapon Ban was enacted into law. This only covered some semi-automatic weapons, and only covered weapons manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment. It expired in 2004, and despite efforts, it has never been re-enacted, meaning that semi-automatic weapons are legal. Of the fifty states, only seven have enacted state laws to ban such weapons: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. Of these, Hawaii only bans semi automatic pistols, but rifles are legal. Each state has different legislation and definitions, the full details can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapons_legislation_in_the_United_States A little research goes a long way...
Even in the states that ban them it's easy enough to get into your car and pop over to the next state and buy one. (Maybe not Hawaii ! )
Surely that should prove, even to the most ardent gun-freak, that they are an out-of-control menace and more stringent, better enforced controls are badly needed as soon as possible.
For two reasons: 1. There's not the political will to go against their major fund sources (also why single-payer healthcare is a must but won't happen) 2. Americans are intrinsically a very self-centred race, caring far more about their 'rights' as an individual than the rights of their society. There's no other way I can explain why the deaths of so many people are not taken as seriously as "...but it's my gun..." Both of those need to change to become far more in like with the rest of the world before there will be any major change, but that doesn't mean people should stop lobbying for change.
“Americans are intrinsically a very self centred race”. Wrong on so many levels it’s not worth explaining, especially if you actually believe that ****. 32,488 knife crimes in England and Wales in 2016, and 19,000 moped crimes in the year to September 2017. But I suppose we are an intrinsically stabby and mopedy ‘race’.
Some people just can't help hating Americans. It's always baffled me. The knife crime and carrying of knives in this Country, especially London and other major cities is a huge concern.
By the way I just saw this on the Beeb. Gun crime was up 27% in England and Wales in the past year. In London, it has increased by 42%.
Quiet please, we much prefer telling foreigners how wrong everything they do is. Particularly Americans. So it looks like we are an ‘intrinsically’ stabby, mopedy, Acid throwing, gun toting ‘race’. A least the yanks have a constitutional argument about their guns.
Oh come on. You can't compare the problems we have with knife crime to the problems with gun crime in the US. For one thing, we actually KNOW we have a problem. Fro another, we have legislated and are trying to deal with it. Americans dont see, and dont want to see, that there's any problem. They think its acceptable that thousands of people, including many hundreds of kids, are shot and killed every year, just so long as they can still own their own firearms. That's an obscene stance to take. If the political and social will to stand up to the gun lobbyists and owners were there, people wouldn't see America as such a violent and selfcentred society. But the whole ethos there revolves around people demanding the right to do whatever they want and to hell with everyone else. I dont think that describing them as intrinsically self centred is going too far.
You may not like it, but I dont see any facts coming back from you. Until you have a counte argument, dont bother to disagree.
I am for free speech within some guidelines. I have no problem with what you wrote and wouldn't want it censored. You are free to voice your own opinions on what you think the americans are like. Whilst i don't envisage our fellow americans as the most caring of citizens i'm not sure your example of their being gun crime is a direct correlation to them being self centred.
Based on my personal experience of the US and Americans, I can only say that, as individuals, I've never met a more generous, open-minded people. True, I've mainly met professional people living on the East and West coast or the Mid West and almost no-one from the South - but that's my anecdotal experience. I don't profess to understand the way their love for guns means they can accept the high loss of life that results from having those guns in circulation, but it's not my country. We've got enough problems of our own. They can find their own solutions or live with what they have.
