I am starting to wonder if its me that isn't wired right....

And a far more relaxed attitude to what is reasonable force too. As a consequence violent robbery is far more likely over there than here. I think America, and South Africa for that matter, are good examples of what happens when the right to bear arms in public is the norm.

It is - you give them what they want. But knives don't get fired by accident by a nervous mugger, guns do.

It does cancel itself out.
But consider this also. You're getting mugged by someone with a gun. That very fact means that he already has his gun out. You go for your gun, but before you've even reached the grip he will have fired. What good was your gun to you in reality?

Here I do agree. Simply outlaw flick and quick release knives.

 

Since Dunblane that has been the law, prior to that you could keep a hand gun at home (with suitable license etc.)

There's the issue of accidental discharge of a gun too. So a child finds a (self protection) knife under your pillow ... maybe he cuts his finger, but he's unlikely to decide to stab you with it!

Lots of shoot-first (accidentally, or assuming the worse and thus also assuming self-defence is required) and ask questions later.

Not everyone in the USA owns a gun, but the number of guns in circulation equals one-per-person over there. So even allowing for Rural etc. there are way more guns than necessary, and way more compared to here.

USA has a staggeringly higher gun-death rate (per unit of population) than the whole of the rest of the developed world. Its this statistic that surprises me the most - doesn't this cause people over there to say "why"? Its also why I think we should have tight gun control here and not relax it. I have a rifle, but I think I am border-line and probably should not be allowed one - a high powered air rifle would do for me to despatch the few vermin that get into my garden each year ...


By my calculation that gives you a 1-in-446 chance of being killed by a gun in a 70 year lifetime, in USA compared with 1-in-14,285 chance in the UK

 

Why borderline? Far easier/kinder to off a bunny with a .22 surely?
I used mine far more while Grampy was alive than after when it was legally mine and I had a license.
And when I used it last someone reported it to the police - they had to investigate and at the time I was peed off which was the main reason for me getting rid and not bothering to renew the license when it expired. But now I rather like the fact that it was considered an issue.

Interesting figures (how come your table copied correctly yet mine didn't? I could not get the spaces to reproduce). I wonder what the figures are for legal gun ownership per head of population are?

Thanks. I knew that Dunblane had changed it but not how.

About five years ago I got jumped walking back from the pub. I was grabbed by four youths and slammed against a wall. My first thought was "I hope no-one has a knife", not a gun.

 

Mine was a picture?

No idea about accuracy, or date (looks like 2011(, but found this:

"The estimated rate of private gun ownership (both licit and illicit) in the United Kingdom is 6.71 firearms per 100 people
The rate of registered guns per 100 people in the United Kingdom is 3.43
The rate of licensed firearm owners per 100 people in the United Kingdom is 1.34"
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-kingdom

Their figures for USA are:
"The estimated rate of private gun ownership (both licit and illicit) in the United States is 101.05 firearms per 100 people"
No figured for "registered" of course
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

 

Here it is................

 

I read somewhere that unless they recover the weapon the attack is treated as a Firearm, and thus it is likely that some/many of the Non-air weapons are in fact Air rifles or replicas.

Still seems a lot of offences to me ... I know divided by 63 million people its not many, but it would be nice if it was zero ...

 

That would make sense.
Fact is that if you're the one staring down the wrong end of a starting pistol what you will see is more than likely a gun.

 

The fact is, when I was younger and could see properly, on the odd occasion I did try shooting at targets etc. I was pretty good.

The rigmarole involved plus the cost stopped me ever getting involved.

Would have liked to try clay pidgeon shooting at one stage, but blasting something with a mass of pellets always seemed a bit,point and shoot,and hope for the best to me.

So would have like to have tried proper target shooting, but due to our laws and the way things are I never got involved.

Which is why I feel as I do about our gun laws and how restrictive they are, lets face it a gun has never killed anyone, its the person that pulls the trigger.

So lets just ban people, there are far too many anyway.

 

Common sense really, but not PC friendly!
If people would just stop breeding there would be no food, land, water or energy crisis either. Sadly the large corporations that bankroll governments would never allow it.

 

If you did arm yourself, with any weapon, would you be confident that you would be sufficiently skilled in the use of that weapon that the attacker wouldn't simply take it from you and use it against you?

 

No one can be 100% sure on that.
Under our laws you would probably have to wait until he had stabbed you before being allowed to retaliate.
Even the police here say they dont want to be armed, but in this day and age they cant actually do the job of protecting the public without at least having a chance against an armed criminal.

The days of hiding behind a wall and throwing milk bottles until the armed response team show up is a bit dated.

On the otherhand, I can understand their fears, because should they actually shoot someone the ensuing investigation could last months, as it usually does.

 

Most likely the coppers don't want to be armed because they've seen enough fighting, both for real and in training, to know just how easy it is to disarm someone and then turn their weapon against them.

If you want to arm yourself, carry a walking stick. Here we go. The intro is a bit dull, so if you're impatient, fast forward to about 2 minutes.