Interesting bit on breakfast this morning.
Apparently Farage has said handguns should be decriminalised, as only criminals carry them. Or something like that.
I think that sends very mixed messages, might have to go out and buy a paper to get the skinny, but anyone have the paper it was in?
UKIP saying handguns should be decriminalised?
UKIP saying handguns should be decriminalised?
Entirely certain that nothing is certain
Location: Areas 8 & 10
Location: Areas 8 & 10
Re: UKIP saying handguns should be decriminalised?
The Mail and the Telegraph have both cover the story, have a look on t'internet maybe?
As far as a I can tell, UKIP are just headline grabbing. They have all sorts of rubbish in their manifesto, lots of which would seem to involve people dressing more smartly.
The ban on handguns is unlikely to ever be reversed, the legislation was knee jerk IMHO and for no other reason than fixing the problem was (and still is) too complicated for any one government's term. Simply put, if a government won't get a popularity "return" that helps them get re-elected then they tend not to bother at all.
Thats not just my view on gun control, it applies to lots of long term problems that need long term solutions.
As the law stands at the moment, if you have a hand gun (or anything that is designed to resemble one) then you are either an officer of the government or you are a criminal. If the latter then you can expect to be met with lethal force if you do not comply instantly with any demands made by the former. This simplifies things greatly for the law. Obviously I have over-simplified it because there are a few exceptions.
As far as a I can tell, UKIP are just headline grabbing. They have all sorts of rubbish in their manifesto, lots of which would seem to involve people dressing more smartly.
The ban on handguns is unlikely to ever be reversed, the legislation was knee jerk IMHO and for no other reason than fixing the problem was (and still is) too complicated for any one government's term. Simply put, if a government won't get a popularity "return" that helps them get re-elected then they tend not to bother at all.
Thats not just my view on gun control, it applies to lots of long term problems that need long term solutions.
As the law stands at the moment, if you have a hand gun (or anything that is designed to resemble one) then you are either an officer of the government or you are a criminal. If the latter then you can expect to be met with lethal force if you do not comply instantly with any demands made by the former. This simplifies things greatly for the law. Obviously I have over-simplified it because there are a few exceptions.
Re: UKIP saying handguns should be decriminalised?
Some data from 2012 to aid the debate...
First column is fatal shootings per 100,000 population
Second column is percentage of population who own a gun
New Zealand 0.2 22.6
Ireland 0.5 8.6
Italy 0.7 11.9
Albania 1.8 8.6
Barbados 2.9 7.8
South Africa 17.0 12.7
The figures often quoted by the pro-gun lobby are France and the UK, both countries have an incident rate of just over 0.05 per 100,000 yet France has a gun ownership figure of 31.2% versus England's 6.2.
Iceland and Bahrain both have high numbers of guns per capita, both have zero deaths from firearms.
The United States has gun ownership of over 88%, their gun deaths are less than 3 per 100,000.
Clearly any death is a bad thing, the point of all these figures is not to ignore the tragedy of any one loss of life. But rather to try and understand if the number of guns in a society relates to the number of times one is used by someone with murderous intent.
Personally I suspect the tendency that someone has to use a gun to kill will have more to do with standards of living, suicide* rates and other social factors. It is, I believe, far more complicated than whether it is possible to own one legally or not.
* By suicide I do not mean people killing themselves with a gun, I mean that once people have made a firm decision to take their own life it tends to follow that they will also take another's.
First column is fatal shootings per 100,000 population
Second column is percentage of population who own a gun
New Zealand 0.2 22.6
Ireland 0.5 8.6
Italy 0.7 11.9
Albania 1.8 8.6
Barbados 2.9 7.8
South Africa 17.0 12.7
The figures often quoted by the pro-gun lobby are France and the UK, both countries have an incident rate of just over 0.05 per 100,000 yet France has a gun ownership figure of 31.2% versus England's 6.2.
Iceland and Bahrain both have high numbers of guns per capita, both have zero deaths from firearms.
The United States has gun ownership of over 88%, their gun deaths are less than 3 per 100,000.
Clearly any death is a bad thing, the point of all these figures is not to ignore the tragedy of any one loss of life. But rather to try and understand if the number of guns in a society relates to the number of times one is used by someone with murderous intent.
Personally I suspect the tendency that someone has to use a gun to kill will have more to do with standards of living, suicide* rates and other social factors. It is, I believe, far more complicated than whether it is possible to own one legally or not.
* By suicide I do not mean people killing themselves with a gun, I mean that once people have made a firm decision to take their own life it tends to follow that they will also take another's.
Re: UKIP saying handguns should be decriminalised?
Typical headline grabbing... As if there is nothing else going on in the world! Another example of selective news... i suspect we'll see a lot of this & discrediting as we get closer to the elections.
We already have the ability to obtain guns, you just need a license and a VALID reason to have one.
However.... that said, when only the criminals roam around freely, they have the upper hand.
Some of the idiots you see in society nowadays, its probably better they dont have access to them.
Most problems with guns and shootings are caused by young (immature people who havent grown up) or are on prescription medication.
There are other alternatives to guns.
We already have the ability to obtain guns, you just need a license and a VALID reason to have one.
However.... that said, when only the criminals roam around freely, they have the upper hand.
Some of the idiots you see in society nowadays, its probably better they dont have access to them.
Most problems with guns and shootings are caused by young (immature people who havent grown up) or are on prescription medication.
There are other alternatives to guns.
Re: UKIP saying handguns should be decriminalised?
Nice posts Malthouse said it all in brief, enough for me to not need to add. 
I have a strategy, it's not written in stone, nor can it be, this scenario has too many variables, everything about it depends on those variables, being specific is not possible.
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Yorkshire Andy
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Re: UKIP saying handguns should be decriminalised?
oops
Last edited by Yorkshire Andy on Sat Jan 25, 2014 11:35 am, edited 2 times in total.
If your roughing it, Your doing it wrong
Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine
Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine
Re: UKIP saying handguns should be decriminalised?
Careful 
Last edited by Malthouse on Sat Jan 25, 2014 11:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Yorkshire Andy
- Posts: 9889
- Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2013 4:06 pm
Re: UKIP saying handguns should be decriminalised?
removed it dont want a telling off 
If your roughing it, Your doing it wrong
Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine
Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine
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Bad Wombat
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- Joined: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:03 pm
- Location: Worcestershire, UK
Re: UKIP saying handguns should be decriminalised?
I despair. One of my chosen sports is target shooting and I would dearly love to be able to own and shoot a .22LR target pistol. Legally held .22 sporting pistols, issued to registered members of target shooting clubs, and stored securely (as all firearms should be) present no risk to the public. None. Zero. But I don't think Mr Farage is being clear enough on this issue. Did he mean for sporting purposes or is he suggesting that he was want's handguns (and by inference all firearms) to be legal to hold for self protection. That would be another matter altogether. Currently under UK legislation self protection is not a valid reason to hold any firearm, and I would not want that to change. But for progress to be made we need a clearer separation in peoples minds between 1) legally held firearms, held for sporting purposes, 2) the idea of using firearms for self defence, 3) and illegal firearms. I just wish he would have thrown in the phrase "target shooting" or "sporting purposes" in there to be clear. </rant>