Shootings and gangs: black community leaders speak up

[X-ray]

"...Here is a thought. Assume your gun was stolen in a robbery and then used to kill someone in a subsequent crime. Can you honestly say you played no part in making that weapon available to the killer (even in this opportunistic example)?"
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If the weapon was stolen because I failed to take due precautions to store it in a secure manner then I would definitely be at fault and would have to accept responsibility for the negligent loss of a firearm.

"...Where do the illegally owned firearms in the hands of criminals come from originally?..."
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Multiple sources:

1) Locally stolen legally-held firearms (not applicable to the subject at hand in the London scenario, because the weapons cannot be legally held as they are banned.)

2) Illegally modified Brocock air pistols. A Brocock air-pistol is made purely for sport and target shooting, so that is excluded from your manufacturer's contribution to evil. These are no longer available here in the UK, anyway.

3) Home made. You can make a shotgun with two pieces of plumber's pipe, a 50p coin and a bit of epoxy adhesive. Who said knowledge isn't dangerous? Maybe we should lock up all the budding engineers and burn all the books.

4) Guns that were legally manufactured overseas and were smuggled into the UK. This is what I call a universal donor. These guns are always going to be available as long as countries have a need and means to defend themselves. Almost every country in the world manufactures small arms.

If we could press a magic button and make them all turn into dust, that would be great. But then we as a nation would become subservient to the first group of chavs who armed themselves with a bunch of £4 axes bought legally from B&Q.

[X-ray]

"...Would you use your handgun to shoot a chav with an axe that broke into your house?..."
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You mean if I actually had a handgun and was allowed to keep it at home here in the UK?

Well let's see now, a chav with an axe broke into my home. What would I do?

I would tell him: "I say, sir, that is a simply marvellous axe. You wield it with such skill and with such vigour that I instantly warm to your derring-do and I feel a surge of bravado and machismo overtaking me, to the point that I feel compelled to challenge you fairly and squarely just as in the chivalrous duels of old.
However, I must say at this point that it is hardly a fair match: notwithstanding the fact that you have a substantial melee weapon and could probably fell me with one swift blow to the upper cervical region, I have here in my hand a firearm that can readily and more efficiently dispatch you by virtue of the fact that it can expel lead projectiles at more than 1000 feet per second. I therefore propose that you come into my kitchen and avail yourself of a cup of tea and a freshly-made scone while I pawn this firearm with all haste and purchase for myself an axe of equal character to yours, so that we may more equally discuss the future ownership of my possessions and the quality of my physical constitution."

[X-ray]

"...One thing you fail to address in your argument is that the easier a weapon makes it to kill someone the cheaper life gets..."
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Maybe for you it does, but not for me.
Perhaps you were the type of citizen they were thinking of when they banned handguns here in the UK.

[X-ray]

Mel I think you have serious misconceptions about the use of guns in crime, and guns vs knives vs axes etc from a tactical point of view. There isn't much I can do to help you see the reality of the situation because you obviously have no experience in this regard.
You've made up your mind that guns are evil, but you can't back it up with a reasoned debate.
Oh well, who says we all have to agree, eh?

Now where did I put my evil gun(tm) ?

[X-ray]

"...Shall we hand every terrorist on the face of the Earth a neutron bomb, on account of the fact that it's inanimate and morally neutral?..."
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I wouldn't hand a terrorist a pair of pliers, never mind a neutron bomb.

"...Gun laws are there for people, not guns..."
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That's the point, old bean. The suitability of the person to own the firearm is the ultimate question, not the question of whether a firearm will render a person a danger to society. In all cases here in the UK, you have to satisfy the authorities that you have a legitimate need for that firearm.
If someone has issues about how that suitability is assessed and verified, that is a legitimate concern. But that goes to the quality of the individual, not the gun.

[X-ray]

@ Karlos

"...Unless your guns are easy for you to get hold of and load in an extremely short space of time I fail to see how option "a" could be enacted except in the case the guys are stood there making a massive disturbance for however long before getting in. Let's face it, that's not exactly what happens in the majority of cases.
Of course, if your guns are easy to get hold of quickly, they are that much easier to steal too.
You realistically can't have it both ways. You can have them properly secured or you can have them ready to use in a genuine emergency...."
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Not so, my good man. You wouldn't be aware of it (most UK people probably don't need to be aware of it), but various safes exist that are secure and very fast to open. These are mainly of use in SA or the US where you can have a gun in a safe at home, the gun being in a loaded condition.
In the majority of burglaries that I am aware of, some time and effort has been expended by forcibly gaining entry to the premises. Of course if you leave your doors unlocked and windows open then you may have no warning that someone is breaking in (this assumes you are at home when it happens).
Hypothetically speaking, a farmer who heard a door or window being broken could indeed get to his safe (which in most instances is in his bedroom, before the intruder could get to him. This would be more likely to happen if he locked the bedroom door behind him  ;-)

Having said that, the situation in countries where firearms are a legitimate weapon for self defense is usually like this: the guy will have the gun accessible but concealed in the house while he is at home. If he leaves the house, he either takes it with him or he locks it up.
However, even in SA and certain states in the US, it is not an automatic signal to come out with guns blazing because you hear somebody breaking in. The advice in a case like that is as follows:

1) Take yourself and your loved ones to your designated safe room and lock yourselves in.
2) Call the police and tell them you are being burgled, how many innocents there are and which room you are in. Advise them that you are armed and are waiting in the room.
3) You wait for the police and let them deal with the burglars/home invaders. You only fire on the burglars if they bust into the room that you are in. The advice is to let them steal what they want and let the police try to apprehend them.

There is a misconception that a firearms owner is a blood-thirsty psychopath just looking for an excuse to kill somebody. I know gun owners in countries all over the world and the majority of them are not interested in escalating a situation to the point that shots are fired. This is logical, because a law-abiding citizen doesn't want to lose his firearms or his freedom because he acted illegally in the use of deadly force, with his firearm. The majority of these people (and certainly ALL the people I shoot with) value life and don't want trouble.

I have been shooting various firearms since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I have fired a total of ONE shot in a situation that was related to defense. In that case I prevented a man from stabbing a woman to death in Johannesburg in 1995. I also used the same gun to arrest that man.
So I guess the score is X-ray 1, Goblins 0

(Comment for Mel: I took the pistol that was involved in the above incident to a psychiatrist. This was to check whether the pistol had a bloodlust or had developed a bad attitude because of firing that shot. This was a good thing for me to do, because although my pistols are quite well behaved, one can never underestimate their capacity to corrupt or render their owner a wicked person. You'll be glad to know that under very detailed questioning, the pistol promised to never countermand any of my orders, and to never exude a miasma of evil or malice as long as it is registered to me.  :-P )

[X-ray]

@ Karlos

"...Where do you get your ammunition from? Seems odd that a gun store would take precedence over basic amenities like food etc...."
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I don't hunt, but I also don't turn down meat that was harvested from a hunt. I've enjoyed quite a few game meat dishes and I discuss these with members of several firearm forums. I prefer it if the meat is made into biltong.
A lot of these guys live way out in the middle of nowhere and they tend to have a stockpile of ammunition so that they can hunt all season. That's the nice thing about ammo: it doesn't spoil.
For those who still hunt even though they have access to grocery stores around the corner, they are saving money by eating these wild animals. Of course they have to pay for hunting permits, but there is quite a lot of meat that can be had from a deer and the cost of buying that same amount of beef would be more.
It may also surprise you (it surprised me) that there are some people who go on squirrel hunts and bag about twenty squirrels at a time. They cook those and eat them. There is even a company that buys the tails for about 20 cents. The parts of the animal that aren't eaten go to the scavenging animals.
I guess worms and buzzards have to eat too.

[X-ray]

@ T-Bone

Unfortunately I had to buy cheap. I have two pistols and neither one is a thing of beauty:

1) A Baby Browning with a serial number in the 60,000s. It was manufactured sometime in the 1920s or 1930s. Bought second-hand from a little old lady.

2) A Vektor CP1.

However, I have something in the pipeline here in the UK. Not a pistol, of course, but a rifle. When I get it (if I get it) I will be sure to make a thread on it, mainly for Mel's benefit  :lol:

[X-ray]

"...Well I hope it keeps you warm at night..."
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Night shooting isn't my thing, toots, but I suppose 500 rounds through it during the day will warm the hands   :-P