WI Britain had the same gun laws as the US?

[Thande]

Read the article. "He might be dangerous if someone broke into his farm..."

Darn it, then people obviously ought not to burgle this man's house!

Some of the right-wing papers did take a pro-Martin view, and IIRC some opportunistic Tories supported him, but only the BNP have actually used it to justify a change in gun policy. Martin himself has mostly been forgotten by now.

IIRC the judge sent him down because he felt that he felt no remorse for the act.

 

[Nekromans]

Overcast Day

Merry, that obviously violates the burglar's human rights! I mean, come on, how dumb do you Americans need to be to not understand our impeccable logic?

 

[Thande]

Overcast Day

*groan*

 

[Nekromans]

*groan*

What can I say? I like it.

 

[MrP]

Some of the right-wing papers did take a pro-Martin view, and IIRC some opportunistic Tories supported him, but only the BNP have actually used it to justify a change in gun policy. Martin himself has mostly been forgotten by now.

IIRC the judge sent him down because he felt that he felt no remorse for the act.

Not to mention his deliberate lying, IIRC. The repeated claim that he ran across the burglars by chance failed to mesh with the evidence that he'd actually lain in wait for them. While I can appreciate Martin's frustration at the repeated robberies, it's abundantly clear that the man really isn't all there.

 

[Fellatio Nelson]

1. Ah. Didn't make the connection between "non-upper-class" and "cost." Especially since Flocc commented about how non-upper-class people would own guns if they needed them (that indicated it was at least an option).


5. But what if they need the pistol for personal defense--say, against a psychotic ex? There've been cases in the US where, owing to the waiting period, women have been killed. And before you say "they should rely on the police to protect them," what if the police aren't around when Psycho shows up?

1) Those who worked on the land had guns, obviously, but in many cases these people were estate managers, gamekeepers, groundsmen, etc. etc. But gun-ownership among the lower classes was hardly widespread. I would suggest this was due largely to cost and availability.

5) I'd rather no-one had a gun, especially someone who is in that state of mind, especially for that purpose. Edgy people should not be near guns.

It could be that the surfeit of guns in the US makes it imperative that such a person should get a gun asap, as doubtless their deranged other-half would be armed with (a legally held) weapon: in the UK, this is very rarely the case.

No, the police can't guarantee to be there to prevent every crime. Still no reason for everyone to have access to weapons.

And I don't think Psycho would be pleased to be associated with being a deranged nut-job wife-killer.

 

[Fellatio Nelson]

Not to mention his deliberate lying, IIRC. The repeated claim that he ran across the burglars by chance failed to mesh with the evidence that he'd actually lain in wait for them. While I can appreciate Martin's frustration at the repeated robberies, it's abundantly clear that the man really isn't all there.

And the good thing was that he still had a gun.

 

[MerryPrankster]

1) Those who worked on the land had guns, obviously, but in many cases these people were estate managers, gamekeepers, groundsmen, etc. etc. But gun-ownership among the lower classes was hardly widespread. I would suggest this was due largely to cost and availability.

5) I'd rather no-one had a gun, especially someone who is in that state of mind, especially for that purpose. Edgy people should not be near guns.

It could be that the surfeit of guns in the US makes it imperative that such a person should get a gun asap, as doubtless their deranged other-half would be armed with (a legally held) weapon: in the UK, this is very rarely the case.

No, the police can't guarantee to be there to prevent every crime. Still no reason for everyone to have access to weapons.

And I don't think Psycho would be pleased to be associated with being a deranged nut-job wife-killer.

In an ideal world, nobody would need guns. We don't live in an ideal world.

Good point about the capitalization of Psycho, especially since this is primarily how I refer to Psychomeltdown (I bet he gets sick of being referred to as Psycho constantly).

 

[Derek Jackson]

The Tony Martin case was not that accurately reported. The following key facts should be noted


1) A Jury found him guilty of murder. (Most jurors will of course identify with a victim of a break in rather than a burglar)

2) Martin shot two unarmed people in the back

3) Maring lied about it.


A victim of a burglary is only going to be proscuted (let alone convicted) if they do something grossly exessive.)

 

[Torqumada]

Well obviously there would be running gun battles and general chaos all across the UK, just like we have here in the United States.

Torqumada

 

[iopgod]

Im not convinced of the argument for guns in the UK being a historically upper class preserve. Certainly in rural communities shotguns would have been fairly common (as they are today, in fact) while after the world wars guns (especially hand guns) were, I suspect, fairly readily available (as a possibly usefull data point see the film "Let him have it" (based on the Derek Bentley case - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Bentley ), which portrays guns as being reasonably available to school boys in London in the early 1950s).
There is, I agree, a cultural belief in (what I like to believe is!) mainstream UK society which is pretty anti-gun (at least in the sense of "carrying one around on the off chance one might get mugged") and pro-control, which I would guess has grown since Hungerford and Dunblane.
Also of note is that the Bill of Rights written during the Glorious Revolution and still, in a certain but very real sense, an important constitutional document for the UK does enshrine the right of (protestant!) englishmen to carry arms "as allowed for by law" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689 and its actual text at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/england.htm ). Of course, as with all the UK constitution, these things can be ignored when they are no longer wanted!

 

[Spike Torch]

Nearly every protestant in the six counties owns a legal firearm.

www.nra.org.uk

 

[Dave Howery]

it's always interesting to see the differences between the UK and USA on gun matters. The sense I get from the Brits here is that they view guns with some distaste and want most of them tightly controllled, if not banned outright. Opinions in the US seem to vary a lot. The vast majority don't want outright bans, but there does to be a lot of consensus for tighter controls. Just what these controls are seems to be the sticking point....

 

[Melvin Loh]

yeah I agree with the assessment that Britain's cultural and social sitn was far different to the American colonies, such that OTL there was no need to have a 2nd Amendment-style guarantee for all citizens to bear arms due to the frontier legacy and the ARW- on top of that, Britain actually doesn't have a written constitution, unlike the US and other settled colonial countries. Well, maybe a significant POD could be if a substantial enough threat had cont'd being posed by the likes of France or Spain well after 1588 to compel the authorities to allow all ablebodied men to legally bear arms in defence of the land ? Maybe if the medieval ordinance stipulating that all Englishmen practise archery, had also later extended to firearms ?

 

[Thande]

Maybe if the medieval ordinance stipulating that all Englishmen practise archery, had also later extended to firearms ?

It doesn't work like that. The injunction to practice archery related to the longbow, a far superior weapon to the crossbow but one that you had to spend your whole life training with to use properly - which more English and Welshmen did than any continentals, hence the Hundred Years' War.

Whereas crossbows, and firearms, can be used by someone with only minimal training, comparatively speaking.

Indeed, some people have said that a really well-trained English longbowman from the 1300s was probably more dangerous than a soldier with a firearm right up to Napoleonic times - it was just so difficult to get hold of trained longbowmen and maintain a standing army of them.

 

[Flocculencio]

It doesn't work like that. The injunction to practice archery related to the longbow, a far superior weapon to the crossbow but one that you had to spend your whole life training with to use properly - which more English and Welshmen did than any continentals, hence the Hundred Years' War.

Whereas crossbows, and firearms, can be used by someone with only minimal training, comparatively speaking.

Indeed, some people have said that a really well-trained English longbowman from the 1300s was probably more dangerous than a soldier with a firearm right up to Napoleonic times - it was just so difficult to get hold of trained longbowmen and maintain a standing army of them.

Definitely. As you say, the problem is, to train a longbowman you have to take a 10 year old kid and start him on progressively larger bows for a decade. To train a musketman you need a peasant who can be beaten into following a drill and three weeks of training.

 

[Peter Cowan]

Right now in the UK it seems that most guns are held illegally. Our Olympic/Commonwealth Games shooting teams have to practice overseas. Legal gun owners are subject to strict requirements (and I have no problem with this). The real problem is with the increase in illegal weapons - a guy being shot becaue he "dissed" someone in a MacDonalds queue suggests that things might be getting a bit out of hand. To be fair, Operation Trident (dealing with shooting within the Afro-Caribbean community in London) is, with community support, showing positive results and gun crime in london has fallen.

As for Hungerford / Dunblane scenarios, I doubt any legislation would prevent these. The UK's already tight, by US standards. gun laws did not prevent these and, I doubt, ever would have as neither perpertrator had given cause for suspicion.

 

[Spike Torch]

There is acres of paperwork out there to suggest that Thomas Hamilton the Dunblane nut should have been under suspicion by the authorities and was under suspicion by locals.

If the controls on firearms had been in place the lack of official suspicion wouldnt have mattered so much...

I grew up in a 'British' city where a huge section of the adult populace have firearms either legally or illegally, where for the majority there was no official police force, merely a police force acting as an army of occupation, and still the crime rate and the murder rate were much lower than the average for the isles after you take politics out of the equation.

 

[Landshark]

All well and good, but - and grossly generalising here - I'd rather that the sort of person who ends up as a security guard at a shopping mall or factory, or delivering money to banks, were not armed at all.

It is a gross and rather insulting generalisation. I'm considered resorting to the "their sort shouldn't be allowed" arguement beneath you Fell considering the numbers of people ready to use it against "your sort" on matters ranging from serving in the military to teaching in schools.

 

[Spike Torch]

It is a gross and rather insulting generalisation. I'm considered resorting to the "their sort shouldn't be allowed" arguement beneath you Fell considering the numbers of people ready to use it against "your sort" on matters ranging from serving in the military to teaching in schools.

It's not uncommon for the middle classes to fear the idea of working class people with guns, that's why gun control was introduced to the UK in the first place