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So what's the problem with law abiding citizens ("not criminals") owning a gun? - Jim Did you read the rest of this thread? The purpose of the banning of handguns was to prevent the "going postal" scenario where a legally held gun was used by someone without a criminal record killed a bunch of people. Also you can still own a gun in England, handguns are banned as well as semi-automatics, but you can for instance own a shotgun (not the pump variety) so hunting with guns is still done. You can go and shoot pheasant, duck, pidgeons and other fowl over here. You can also own a rifle, so you could hunt big game if there was any left, I shot rabbits with a .22 when I was little, you can still do that. I do not think hunting has been prevented in any way by the gun bans in the UK, assuming you can find something you can legally kill.

Are you really naive enough to believe that just because you passed a law banning handguns, that criminals can no longer acquire them? Have drug laws prevented people from using illegal drugs? Did Prohibition prevent people from drinking illegal alcohol? Re-read my post with care, I said most people not most criminals. Most people are not criminals.

Those who already legally owned guns were punished by having their property confiscated and their sport eliminated. Your punishment is having your right to purchase a gun denied, should you ever in the future desire to own one - it is no longer an option for you, or anyone else. You haven't done anything that will prevent such shootings in the future. Any criminal that still wants to get a gun, can. Actually the law would have prevented both such cases. These were cases where normal law abiding people with no history of crime with legally (now banned) weapons went postal. Most people would not know how to obtain a handgun illegally, therfore they are prevented from being able to do this kind of thing by the law.

How is that a better analogy? You have olympic class shooters in your country that have to train elsewhere. The ban is the equilivent of banning guys with 5000 jumps from flying a Pilot 210. Owning a gun isn't dangerous for those with the right intentions and training. Same would apply to HP canopies. Race Car drivers cant practice on public roads, they have to go somewhere special to train, now it is the same for the handgun sports people, they have to take a 30 min flight to France or somewhere else out of the country to practice.

Yep, you punished everyone for the actions of two. I lived in England when the handgun ban was introduced, I did not get punished. The law is intended to protect not punish, you should go and read it. There are many laws that are enacted for the greater good of the people. Take speed limits for instance or weapon controls on aeroplanes. If a few individuals loose their right to own a handgun and the result is that we prevent mass murders using legally held weapons like Hungerford and Dunblane then I can live with that. Why can't you? This is a poor analogy, a better one would be, several people kill/injure themselves jumping high performance canopies without low experience so you impose a wing load restriction based on jump numbers. No-one is being punished, just being prevented from doing something that is known to be dangerous.

Ok, here is a bunch of data points that I found on kqed, these prove beyond any shadow of doubt that the attitude towards guns in the US is responsible for a gun culture that has killed over a million American in the last 32 or so years, to cover up this national disaster, right wing gun advocates divert attention by bashing other nations approach to gun control, crazy when you consider that the number of deaths in the UK in the whole of last year is less than the number of americans that will die by gunshot this weekend. It just does to show that the right wing gun slingers are so selfish about their "right" to bear arms that they are prepared to allow this massacre to continue by blaming others. The point of this post is to prove that if you look on the internet you can find info to support your point of view and write an immotive diatribe to accompany it, you can then bury your head in the sand and ignore all rational argument.

Your personal feelings do not count...no offense. I know PLENTY of people that have guns...And not one of them has ever killed anyone, much less gone postal as you like to say. The affect is simple; if a criminal knows that there is no chance of a guy having a gun he will be more agressive. These are not personal opinions, there was no concealed carry allowed before the ban, the ban did not change this. The only thing that changed is that handguns and automatics are no longer locked away in a few homes in the UK. People are no less likely to have a gun for self defense than before the ban. The only people carrying guns are criminals, both before and after the ban. You have presented no evidence that criminals think that people are less likely to be armed or any eveidence that people are less likely to be armed. The evidence in this case came for the UN and was in an English paper. The UN is not very friendly to the US, and the article was in an English paper, not the NRA magazine. As I already pointed out the article said the study was suspect, you are choosing to ignore this piece of information and only use the part that supports your perspective, this makes your arguement very weak. #1. You never answered the question if the gun ban might have had other negative side affects. #2. This relates to this article since some think that by denying the law abiding citizens the ability to have a weapon that violent criminals have become more agressive. And the stats *from the UN* show that. Remember the UN is not in the NRA's pocket. #1 The only negative side affect I see is gun club and other gun businesses suffering. I do not believe there are any others. #2 I was refering to your comment (which you deleted from your response). The article and this discussion have nothing to do with this, this is not the topic of the original post, you are once again trying to change the subject and use it to support your arguement. Numbers in this study and in others have shown the same thing. I don't expect you to see that either since you think you are correct and refuse to look at any opinons other than your own. Just because you think it worked does not mean it did...And just becasue I think it did not does not mean it did not. But the biggie is that even if it did work in jolly ol' England, it does not mean it would work here, or anywhere else in the world....And that's if it did work. The only opionion I have expressed is a disagreement with the original post by John, I have not used this as a soapbox to suggest banning guns in the USA (which in fact I do not support). Just how many instances of someone going postal have been recorded in the UK since the ban? I have not suggested that this ban would work in the USA.

OK but do you consider that it might have also had the affect of making violent crime rise since criminals now know that people are not armed? See it can do both. In general people were not armed before the ban, I lived there for over 30 years and never knew anyone that kept a loaded gun by their bed, I hardly knew anyone with a gun period, if they did it was kept in a secure location unloaded, after the gun ban they are still not armed I fail to see how this could affect the criminals attitude to attacking someone. So you don't think that it might have caused other problems? Thats just not possible? It is possible, but there the only evidence is twisted statistics from anti-UK gun ban americans so I don't believe there has been any side affect. What about how people from England who don't understand America seem to think the "Solution" they used will work here....do they have the right to make those statments, but we don't have the right to show where the gun ban might not be perfect? What about them, it has nothing to do with this discussion, you are trying to change the subject and then use it to justify your position. According to the numbers you are more likely to be a victum of violent crime in England than the US. Your rate of murder may be less, but your rate of crime, and violence is higher. These numbers are suspect, even the article quoted says this, however I don't expect that to have any influence on you using them to justify your opinion as you seem to believe it as gospel, as a result this part of the discussion is futile.

Yes in a way I do, John is ignoring the real reason behind the ban in order to bash it. The ban was introduced in two stages, one after Hungerford that banned automatics, two, after Dumblane to ban handguns. The reason was to stop a nutcase from using a legally held gun from mass killings. The ban was not intended to prevent other gun crimes. Since these laws were introduced there have been no mass killings, so in that respect it worked. This thread is just another attempt to use suspect statistics to "prove" that the UK gun ban is not working. It is one of many such threads by John and I expect there will be many more. It is an obsession with some people on this web site to continually bash this law even though they do not live in the UK and don't understand what the whole thing was about. While the US maintains gun laws that allow individuals to buy legal guns and "go postal" the UK does not, get over it and stop trying to twist it into something it is not. I moved to the US from the UK and once or twice a month there is a news report of some killing at a company where some worker or other individual goes postal, it is so common that it hardly makes the news any more, this does not happen in the UK.

Crime is the justification given for gun confiscation. Confiscating guns has no effect upon crime. Got it? How many more Hungerford or Dumblane mass killings have there been since the ban in the UK, zero, I guess it has worked, you have to look at what drove the ban and not invent some other reason and then use that to blame the ban for not working.

Copyright laws allow only limited quotes for purposes of discussion - whole articles cannot legally be re-posted. Thus, I provide the web link to the article, so everyone can see it in its entirety for themselves, if they so wish. Furthermore, all I did was quote the news story which uses the UN as a source. Therefore, since I provided the link to the whole story, and provided direct quotes, it can hardly be said that I was trying to hide or "twist" information. LMAO That is so lame it is hysterical

and the end of the article you sited states Criminologists believe that a note of caution needs to be introduced into analysis of the data, because of the different ways in which UN member countries record crimes. However I'm not surprised you omitted this given and the lengths you apear go to to twist any statistic to support your your attitude towards the UK gun laws.

Don't think it is hype. The A380 can be configured to hold 840 people if you take out 1st and business class, thats more than double the 747, the wing span is almost 25% wider and it has a range of 15,000km against the 13,450km of the 747. It will give a new meaning to being cattle in the sky, I can see the budget airlines using them to transport huge numbers of people from coast to coast in discomfort.

What a load of Bollocks. Don't you remember there was that election last November, I think Bush's victory was a sign that the people do support the administration, at least 52% of them anyway. I don't know which way you personally voted, and if you are in the 48% that lost you have my commiserations, however as a whole the "citizens" of the USA are responsible for the people elected to power.

Check out http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/, the government does feed hungry americans at home. Given that we invaded Iraq and destroyed their civil infrastructure etc. I think we have a duty to help them recover, or maybe we should just build a big wall around the oil fields and let some dictator like Sadam rule them again. I also hope that your views of helping the needy never become popular, to suggest letting children go hungry (and the resulting deaths this would cause) just because they are not americans is evil.

Just to put your mind at rest I'm not even an american, at least not for another 2 years and then at that point I'll have the same amount of influence on the government as you, one vote. So they have a law saying you have to have a gun, but if you don't want to you don't really have to, well that really makes a lot of sense. I have no idea, and as I said earlier I don't care about this particular law, I don't live there and I don't own a gun why should I bother to read the details. I'm sure you could do an on-line search and find out if you are really interested. Quote

Law-abiding people shouldn't be forced to move just because some city politicians are bigoted against guns. Wrong, it is going to a vote, you know where all the people, not the politicians, in the city get the chance to go and put an X in a box. It is called democracy. I remember that one town somewhere in the USA voted that every house had to have a gun, that is fine too, the people voted for it, it was their choice, and I don't have a problem with that either. I think you have a problem with people sho don't agree with your position rather than just accepting that not all folks think like you. It you take a look at anti-discimination laws the only protocted minorities are: race, color, national origin, sex (gender), marital status, sexual orientation, age, pregnancy, disability, religion, or veteran status. Notice how gun owners are missing. If every minority group had protection nothing would be illegal, I'm in a minority group of BMW owners, why shouldn't I drive my car at 140mph, my car is safe at that speed, I'm in a minority group called skydiving, why should I have to get a waver to jump over a stadium, I mean it discriminatory to think I might be a terrorist. If you are a smoker in CA and many other places you cant smoke in many public places, even bars, should smokers be granted minority status, should they have the right to smoke where they please? Explain to me why should gun owners be granted protected minority status, what is so special about them? It is absurd comparing the right to own a gun with racial discrimination. It could happen if HH decided it for some reason and then I would change my picture and I wouldn't bitch about it, many things are banned from dz.com, personal attacks for instance, should we start a campain to protect those who are banned bacause they commited a personal attack?

I don't think city wide bans do squat for gun crime, but not being or planning to be a gun owner I don't really give a hot steamy turd about such a law being passed. I just don't get how some people get so bent out of shape about a city voting for a ban, I mean it is their freakin city, and if you don't like it move somewhere else, there are enough cities in the US to suit every purpose, some people seem to need to shove gun ownership down the throat of everyone, give it a break, it is a gun not a religion.

Personally I think we should dig a big pit and drop these vermin in it. Just a hole with a grate over the top, cheap and easy to guard, you could drop food in until their appeals ran out and then let nature take its course.

This looks unlikely, Kansas just lost its death penalty. http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/12/17/kansas.death.penalty/index.html

The constitution serves this purpose. Restrictive gun laws in cities have not been ruled as unconstitutional as far as I know. Proper is in the eye of the beholder, legal/illegeal is all that really counts and it can be BS at times. If the constitution were changed then this could be made legal, I personally would excercise my right to leave the US if this happened however. You don't have a right to own a red car or a car of any color, maybe we should add a new ammendment to protect the rights of minority red car owners . Seriously though it would be legal, but the majority is not likely to vote for something as dumb as this, although you never know in America, stranger things have happened, take the last presidential election for example

The supreme court interprets the constitution and applies it. All of the laws it upholds are by definition constitutional, it is very simple really. Whether we like the decisions they make or not does not change the fact that they are always right.

There's this little thing called the bill of rights. It's purpose is to insure certain inalienable (look it up) rights are not infringed, no matter what the will of the people is. Included in that bill of rights is the right to bear arms. Interesting idea, but if this right were so inalienable other cities would not have been able to enact legislation e.g. DC. The courts have upheld the law so far, guess we will have to wait and see what happens on appeal.

Although I don't agree with this proposal, if this become law it will because the people choose to, there is no they as you claim, that is what living in a democracy means. Would you rather impose your opinions against the majority despite that?

Just incase all this anti-euro BS puts anyone off visiting the US... As a euro-brit who has been living in the USA for a few years I feel I should let any european that might be put off visiting the USA know that the anti-euro anti-german and anyti-french views expressed here are the views of a minority of (right-wing and puffed up with their own self-righteousness) americans, based on my experience with real folks here you will be welcomed with open arms and not have the "you should all be grateful for us saving the world" attitude pushed in your face. However I do live in california where the white man is less than 50% of the population and not such an arrogant arsehole.