Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is.

This argument is simply laughable on a number of levels.

In the past decade gun crime in the UK has reduced. Despite the onset of Police stop and search powers, prevalence of airguns and imitations and strict enforcement.

The UK’s gun homicide rate remains one of the lowest in the world at .07 per 100,000, while America’s is 40 times that. This huge discrepancy is not reflected in other crime rates, thus it is clearly not down to societal differences.

Put it this way … armaments reduction, disapproval for violent punishment of children and availability and use of contraception occur because people think they will help.

The answer to the problem is less guns, it is blindingly simple.

bb, well it sounds logical, but in this case it doesn’t work.

Is the answer to World Peace the getting rid of all armaments?
Is the answer to ending child abuse the banning of smacking?
Is the answer to ending abortion the greater availability and use of contraception?

The answer to all the above cases is no. It doesn’t take into account human nature.
Sure it’d be great to get rid of all the weapons in the world, but I don’t think it can be done now and I’m not sure the difference it would make. After a handgun ban in Britain in the 80s, handgun related crime had doubled in a decade.

After Hungerford, the British government banned semiautomatic rifles and brought shotguns—the last type of firearm that could be purchased with a simple show of fitness—under controls similar to those in place for pistols and rifles. Magazines were limited to two shells with a third in the chamber.

Dunblane had a more dramatic impact. Hamilton had a firearm certificate, although according to the rules he should not have been granted one. A media frenzy coupled with an emotional campaign by parents of Dunblane resulted in the Firearms Act of 1998, which instituted a nearly complete ban on handguns. Owners of pistols were required to turn them in. The penalty for illegal possession of a pistol is up to 10 years in prison.

The results have not been what proponents of the act wanted. Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time. Moreover, another massacre occurred in June 2010. Derrick Bird, a taxi driver in Cumbria, shot his brother and a colleague then drove off through rural villages killing 12 people and injuring 11 more before killing himself.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323777204578195470446855466.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Pseudo science

What is the root cause of all this erroneous of ballistic misunderstanding? The author of the articles justifiably lays it at the door of pseudo science. He points out that “to be meaningful and scientifically sound (correct and true), a formula or theory must be founded on carefully collected test data, not “gut feelings”, prevailing perceptions, and anecdotal evidence (which is little better than hearsay).

All hunters should have to read that article, before getting their gun licence. Of course that will kill the conversation around the campfire at night !

they are going to choose locations where the only constraint on their rampage is the time it takes for the police to arrive.

Rubbish, they target almost universally the perceived target of their hatred. Columbine, Virginia Tech etc. The same applies to all the mass work place shootings. Columbine even had armed police stationed there.

And you obviously have little to no experience with handguns if you think that a CCW weapon holder with a minimum of training would be an effective counter to a highly motivated offender with an assault rifle or a deterrent whatsoever. The only thing they would create is possibly more casualties, a hazard for law enforcement and add to the general confusion and chaos.

Very briefly, the deciding factor is the size of the permanent wound cavity, (when comparing various rounds). Things like “hydraulic shock” and pressure waves are not big factors.

The size of a wound cavity is decided by the amount of available energy. The shape of that cavity varies greatly. If you compare two projectiles with the same energy, with one being heavy and slow, and the other light and fast, the wound cavity will be the same volume, but a different shape. The fast bullet will make a more shallow and wider cavity, the slow one a deeper longer one. But the volume will be the same. (if the bullet stays inside the target).

There are many other factors, but I really don’t want to get into a big technical debate on KB over terminal ballistics.

Because a .22 LR bullet is less powerful than larger cartridges, its danger to humans is often underestimated. In fact, a .22 LR bullet is capable of inflicting very serious injuries (e.g. the four people wounded during the Reagan assassination attempt) or death e.g. the Kauhajoki school shooting (11 killed and 1 wounded), the Jokela school shooting (9 killed and 12 wounded), or victims of Brenda Ann Spencer (2 killed and 9 wounded) as well as the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.22_Long_Rifle
Interesting post on caliber/ knockdown calculations
http://africanxmag.com/debunking_ballastic_myths.htm

PG you will find that most conspiracy discussed or posted on KB is the result of conservative right wing thinking exemplified by the policy’s of the tea baggers in the states.

Griff, you appear oblivious to the left wing conspiracy theories, involving, big business, big oil, the big carbon industry, big banks, the big USA, and so on.

You do not see right wing people holding public protests about a fictitious 1% and various other fabrications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoOb_KD50jY

Your worried about the “tea baggers” ?

Allowing EXISTING CCW permit holders who might also be teachers, school administrators, caretakers or security guards to carry their EXISTING weapons into a school would go a long way to averting mass school shootings without adding a single NEW gun to the US’s collective arsenal (please refer the extensive links of mass murders averted as published by local media in the NZ found here http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2012/12/mass-killings-stopped-by-armed-citizens.html)

Name one school that allowed staff with a CCW to carry at school where a mass shooting has taken place. There isn’t one because all the schools where students have been mass murdered either had a gun free policy or were within juristictions forbidding CCW. People planning mass murder may be mad but they are not stupid – they are going to choose locations where the only constraint on their rampage is the time it takes for the police to arrive.

I would note that the calibre of the rifle used in the Sandy Hook shootings was .223, which is not that far removed from the very common .22 calibre rifles.

A .22 is for rabbits (or Bains !) at less than 50 meters. A .223 is for deer at up to 300 meters.
Around 4 times the bang from a .223

No one doubts that there are interests that would like to express themselves through influence on and through the US government. But there is no singular “they”, more like rival “they’s”.

And yes the idea that “they” can have a President removed, and get away with it, is disturbing. Whether “they” have, has not been answered.

The highlights a problem with conspiracy theorists, who seemed to get fixated on a conspiracy and see everything (and often nothing) that ‘proves’ they are right…

…the problem with identifying the macro (conspiracy theory) is that then one is constantly seeing current events as micro signs signs of its advance to some end game gambit. It can get like the religious person seeing signs in world events of the coming of the end of the world.

There’s no doubt that crap happens, and some crap happens that we don’t get to know about, and some crap happens and we never find out for sure who was responsible.

But there is not just one master crapper, there are many crap shooters with different agendas, often competing.

We live in a very complex and convoluted world. Some people try to simplify things by understanding everything crappy as being caused by one conspiracy god.

Are most conspiracy theorists religious? Do they have an innate drive to find a single ‘they’ or god responsible for a myriad of intermingled machinations?

Is the answer to obesity more food?
Is the answer to lung cancer more cigarettes?
Is the answer to diabetes more sugar?

The answer to the problem is less guns, it is blindingly simple.

I don’t have any issue with what you said as it is their country not ours but the way i have been viewing this is they are going to have a new church take over from the old one, the new Bishops and priests and vicors of the new age. The Psychologist, Assessors, Counselors and their bible the script pad.

I’ve worked in mental health and just about everyone knows someone that suffers from some form of mental condition, there is no fast track training in spotting these conditions until after the first spiral of the poor person.

We have a pretty good system here where a police officer will interview an applicants family or flatmates.

http://sphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/227606_409367935817138_57610190_n.jpg

Or elsewhere
http://sphotos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/385274_474448085925692_350210606_n.jpg

There is good and bad in that – government is not to reign after all. But it converges with southern secession heritage and fear of their government being part of a global (UN) conspiracy against their liberty. Nation state rights as the new states rights movement. There is good and bad in this as well. Defence of national sovereignty is OK, so long as it is not based on xenophobia.

As for the “mental health” of the gunowner applicant – there is need for greater background checks on who can legally own and possess weapons. You are right this could be abused, but … .

Maybe those with guns should be required to secure their weapons from access by others (the recent case involved a suicidal youth with access to his mothers guns who wanted to be noticed by the rest of the world when he went – a violent form of tagging for attention/notoriety)?

The french seem be to the only ones actively trying to do something in Africa but will it work? No one seems to give a crap about whether the Africans are exterminating each other?