Talk:Firearms regulation in the United Kingdom/Archive 2

message: nick it's clear that the consensus is against you, please stop making malicious edits or you will be referred to an admin. if you need evidence of this, simply  look below. the most editors take issue with your perspectives. while you may not agree, you must respect the community.
Notepad47 (talk) 08:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What "consensus"? Me "against" - it seems - Ghrom, with a four-day edit history, and you with a single day?  How convenient that you popped up out of nowhere to back him up at such a propitious moment. I would suggest that you be very careful throwing false accusations of "malicious edits" around, or you'll find yourself being the one reported. Nick Cooper (talk) 12:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Notepad47's editing history is "interesting" to say the least, i.e. registering yesterday, and then immediately making pronouncements on Wikipedia practice, including some rather strange identical "advice" to several other editors. S/he seems familiar with some Wikipedia practices, yet apparently unfamiliar with others, which at the least suggests someone who has previous editing experience, presumably under a different ID they are choosing not to use. One always gives newbies - e.g. you - the benefit of the doubt, but the behaviour of some - i.e. Notepad47 - make that difficult at times. Nick Cooper (talk) 07:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nick Cooper 

message: I have read and heard constant comparisons of UK and US crime rates and gun control laws since the 1960s from American gun control advocates like Carl Bakal in No Right to Bear Arms along the meme that UK has lower crime and tough gun control so tough gun control would lower our crime rate. 
It was interesting to me to read Colin Greenwood, Superintendent, West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police, in Restricting Handguns, ed. by Don B. Kates, North River Press, 1979, which includes extensive extracts from Colin Greenwood on pages 33 through 55. Colin Greenwood quoted his own Firearms Control, (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1972) writing in 1972 about the effects of half a century of UK gun control from the 1920 British Firearms Act to the 1968 Gun Control Act:
"No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm withoutout restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this class of weapon in crime than ever before."
Also on this point is Clayton Cramer's paper on Fear and Loathing in Whitehall: Bolshevism and the Firearms Act of 1920 which examined the BFA 1920 in particular and British gun control in general.  
Comparisons between New York and London as done by people like Carl Bakal (who was "qualified" as a New York Madison Avenue advertising executive and fan of the NY Sullivan Act), or some of the commentators here, are plainly useless. Comparisons of London gun crime rates before the BFA 1920 and after, and before the GCA 1968 and after, and before the Amendment 1997 and after, would actually be more pertinent to the issue of whether strict gun control is good crime control, but such comparisons are avoided.
In 1997, England banned private ownership of most handguns and confiscated 160,000 legally owned handguns from registered owners. Dave Rodgers, vice chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said the ban on legally owned handguns made little difference to the number of guns in the hands of criminals. 
When the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College, London, in Illegal Firearms in the UK stated: "....the short-term impact strongly suggests that there is no direct link between the unlawful use of handguns and their lawful ownership" the response from Ann Pearston, a founder of the Snowdrop Campaign to ban handguns in England, was this: "This completely misses the point of what we were trying to do. We never thought that there would be any effect on illegal gun crime, because that is a totally separate issue.... What we were campaigning for was to make sure that a civilian could not be legally trained to use a handgun."
If Pearston is to be believed, UK gun control is not about crime control and comparison of crime rates between New York and London is pointless. This raises the question, if not crime control, what is the point of Gun politics in the United Kingdom? 
In The Great UN Gun Debate from the Library of Kings College London 2004 on the Motion "Should the United States Senate Support the Proposed UN Treaty that Bans Private Ownership of Guns?" the director of IANSA, Rebecca Peters, answered a UK target shooter who lamented the loss of his sport: "Times change. I know that pistol shooting used to be a sport that was allowed in the UK and it no longer is. I am sad for you. I suppose if you miss your sport, take up another sport, take up a sport that does not require a weapon designed for the sole specific purpose of killing another human being." (What Olympic sport should UK target shooters take up then? Javelin, fencing, archery?)
If UK gun control does not reduce UK gun crime, is the point just to do away with traditional sports in some kind of culture war? Naaman Brown (talk) 13:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Naaman, I am an Australian visitor to this page, I have read the references you cite and I edit Gun politics in Australia. Sorry to tell you that this page is not about debating the merits of this or that regime of control, but reporting the facts in an encyclopaedic fashion. Secondly, the evidence of this article is that there is an apalling conformity of thought in the UK that they don't debate the issue - see line 1 of the article.  You can find Brits who disagree with the groupthink and enjoy the sport at Airgun BBS, British Militaria Forum and a few other dedicated forums. As for ms Peters check her out in this article:http://www.class.org.au/ideas-kill.htm ChrisPer (talk) 11:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Gun politics in the United Kingdom article.  This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject. That line is not always clear. Sorry if I went off-topic. Naaman Brown (talk) 17:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why US are interested in UK gun control 

message: Is it just me or does the first sentence of this article sound a bit POV towards the pro-gun-control side? CeeWhy2 05:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not so sure.  Maybe.  In any case, I think it could stand a rework.  —Thernlund (Talk | Contribs) 05:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The opening sentence is misleading, since obviously the totality of "gun politics" encompasses views on all sides. The statement of, "places its main considerations on how best to ensure public safety and how deaths involving firearms can most effectively be prevented," can more accurately be attributed to the claimed motives successive governments, as obviously some pro-shooting elements dispute whether that is actually the end result of either past, current or suggested furture legislation. Nick Cooper 08:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: I've reverted the recent amendment of the red-linked imitation firearms to link to Airsoft guns, as this is misleading in a UK context. The adjacent reference leads to the exact definition in law, which is:
:(8) In this section “realistic imitation firearm” means an imitation firearm whose appearance is so realistic as to make it indistinguishable, for all practical purposes, from—
::(a) a firearm of an existing make or model; or
::(b) a firearm falling within a description that applies to an existing category of firearms which, even though they include firearms of different makes or models or both, all have the same or a similar appearance.
:(9) For the purposes of subsection (8) an imitation firearm is not to be regarded as distinguishable from a firearm for any practical purpose if it could be so distinguished only—
::(a) by an expert;
::(b) on a close examination; or
::(c) as a result of an attempt to load or to fire it.
In practical terms, the specific breakdown of offences by weapon type in Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2005/2006  (page 43) sub-divides "imitation firearm" thus:
:Imitation handgun
:BB gun/soft air weapon
:Deactivated firearm
:Blank firer
:Other imitation
Clearly, linking imitation firearms to Airsoft guns alone is highly inappropriate. However, while some clarification of the use of "imitation firearms" is obviously needed, I'm not sure if it merits a page on its own, or simply an exaplanatory statement here. Nick Cooper 15:44, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Imitation firearms 

message: I came to this article to try and find out the laws regarding deactivated weapons as collector's items. Even if there is a different article regarding this I think it should be mentioned here, or at least a "see also" --Chrishopkins53 12:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deactivated weapons 

message: This is a little strained: "There is ... little debate between pro-gun control and pro-gun ownership advocates". The vast majority of those in Britain who think the laws are too strict would say they supported gun control, and in many cases to an extent that the average American would class as "pro-gun control". I'm uneasy that the phrase I've quoted seems to be using American terminology for a society where the "centre of gravity" of the debate is very different. 86.143.48.55 (talk) 18:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wording in lead section 

message: "Unlike in the United States, there is practically no modern organised "right to keep and bear arms" lobby in the United Kingdom, and little debate between pro-gun control and pro-gun ownership advocates. These two situations create what is believed to be some of the strictest gun legislation in the world.[1][2]"
-The references don’t really prove that to be the issue, one of the articles no longer exists as well.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.34.43 (talk) 04:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Headline 

message: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
I thought this was interesting given "...some of the strictest firearms legislation in the world."  Worth mentioning here?  —Darxus (talk) 19:58, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  High rate of violent crime or statisitical illusion ?