THE Gun Thread

[Pat Mustard]

Actually not all guns are illegal in the UK, just certain categories of them.  The difference though between theUS and UK and other sane countries is that in sane countries to own a gun you need to go through a process to show that you are a suitable person to responsibly own a gun, know the necessary safety precautions, taken the necessary safety precautions for storage and safekeeping and have a valid reason to own a gun.

A sane country treats gun ownership like car driving, you have to prove that you can safely do it before being given the necessary permissions and if you engage in behaviours contrary to proper safe usage you lose the privilege of use.

I can't understan why this is so hard to grasp among US gun nuts.

(Bold mine)

‘I’m not a gun nut! I’m a firearms enthusiast!’ - Gun nuts everywhere.

NZ manages to combine reasonably strict gun regulations with a fairly high level of gun ownership and an enviably low level of gun violence.

Boru

So does Ireland. We have c. 250,000 firearms in circulation in the country (it is not certain how many people own guns, we're bad at maintaining proper statistical records in AGS) and yet outside of active war settings we've had no mass murders and we've never had a school shooting.