Is the USA a mini Somalia?

[Tommygunn]

In Europe owning a gun is like owning a camera or a car or a power saw - no big deal.

Actually, it's usually like THAT in America.
I understand europe is not monolithic and each country has its own laws. However, in a country with severe laws (like England ....not to put too fine a point on it) I find it hard to believe owning a gun is "no big deal."

 

[Wanderling]

This site is not very representative of the general US population. I watched "Trainspotting", should I form my opinion of life in the UK based solely on the subculture shown in that movie ?

US gun laws and attitudes (general public, not gun centered website crowd) are not as extreme as you may think. Still, they are shaped by American history and mentality. I came here 20 years ago firmly believing in strict gun control because this was the norm in Europe. I have since seen that the majority of gun owners here are law abiding and reasonable people, and I now believe that prohibiting gun ownership UK style will only disarm these law abiding citizens without making a dent in the ability of criminals to arm themselves. I do support better checks, especially mental health checks (a different issue altogether) but I don't think total weapon ban would work here. And I really don't know if it works over there in the UK. It definitely doesn't work in Russia or Ukraine where violent crime has skyrocketed since the breakup of USSR, the criminals are armed to their teeth, yet the populace is disarmed.

 

[Teachu2]

I don't think the US has more freedom, overall, than Western Europe. We simply have different sets of laws than Germany or UK. I could certainly argue that in the countries with multi-party parliaments an average citizen's voice is better heard. But let's keep politics out of this. I think the gun laws in the UK are overreaching, but that alone doesn't make the UK a less free country. Does it mean that Switzerland or Finland are more free just because they may have fewer restrictions on gun ownership than US does ? What about their system of government ? Their election process ? Their system of legal checks and balances making sure the government doesn't spin out of control ? Their courts ? What kind of protection from arrest or search or surveillance do citizens of each country have ? How easy is it for the Govt to bypass this constitutional protection ? I think when you compare different counries based on this criteria, it's unlikely that USs will emerge having the most freedoms. Not at the top, at least. Hopefully close.

Wanderling, you missed the boat on this one. Any US citizen can become a Congressperson - we've got farmers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, housewives, the whole bunch. Ethnicly diverse, too. And a rather unconventional President (by our standards) in office.
We know a wee bit about checks and balances, as well. Pretty high on citizen's rights, and it's still pretty hard to bypass our Constitution - although 9/11 has loosened it slightly.

There are a lot of reasons people wish to come here. Not so many want to leave.

 

[Highgate]

I find it hard to believe owning a gun is "no big deal."

It's unusual, yes. I meant that it isn't any sort of major political statement.

 

[Midwest]

This IS research. In real-time!



In the USA gun ownership appears to have an almost religious importance ... which seems a bit scary to me.

Maybe it seems that way. Or maybe we have come close a few times to really losing our gun rights and we are protective. Protective, not because we are being greedy...But rather fully recognize that when the citizens are armed...the government is less likely to make it into a police state.

And we do NOT want to end up like other countries where they HAVE disarmed their citizens and then have established a dictatorship. Or become a police state where there are cameras are on every corner, nook and cranny, alley ways, and out in the country and where people are forbidden to defend themselves.

Gun ownership is NOT limited to 40 year old + white males like some would like to believe. There are a growing number of women who are now carrying a pistol to protect themselves from muggers and rapists. There are the elderly who would be an easy victim except for that shotgun they keep handy if they ever need it. In addition to huge rise in gun ownership is the huge rise in those seeking carry permits in states that allow them.

If protecting oneself or ones family is a 'religion', then so be it. Why is the idea of protecting oneself or their family a foreign or illegal concept across the pond anyway? Why are people being charged with a crime for protecting themselves or their property there? We here in the U.S. do not want to end up with the laws that you have there, no offense. I am sure the U.K. is a fine place to visit, but I feel safer here in the U.S. knowing that I can defend my self and my family should the need ever arise.

 

[Tommygunn]

It's unusual, yes. I meant that it isn't any sort of major political statement.

For many in America it isn't really a political statement either. In my extended family, I am not the only gun owner, but I probably am the most politically minded. Most cousins, etc own rifles and shotguns and hunt with them and don't worry too much about politics save when they vote.

 

[phil dirt]

Yes, we americans have a lot of guns. We have a God given right to do so. After our long and bloody war to free ourselves from Great Britain and King George III, we wrote a Constitution that makes this right a part of the law of our land. We are freedom loving citizens, not subjects of the crown!

 

[Wanderling]

Teachu2: in Italy they had a prostitute win a seat in parliament back in the 90s. Does it make Italy "freer" ? And the political entry ticket price in the US is now in million$. When was the last time that an average person without much money and with no political party affiliation had won a seat in the US Congress ? And how often does it usually happen ? I bet you not more often than in a parliament of any other democracy. Maybe even less often. The monetary and political (party membership) barriers are pretty high.

The US is a desirable place for an immigrant because it's democratic and free - just like many other countries - but on top of it, it has a very large and until recently very vibrant economy, and being historically a melting pot it lacks the xenophobia so typical of European countries. Many people every year are trying to get into Canada for same exact reason - freedom, decent economy, and significantly less hostility towards people from other places when compared to Europe. US is great, but not the only free country on Earth, so lecturing others on how we have great freedoms and they don't isn't always justified, and may come across as... well, let's say it may not have the desired effect.

 

[throdgrain]

You do now need a reason. My firearms officer specifically required that I give one at my interview. Try getting a shotgun certificate without a reason!

Sorry, thats bollocks mate. All you say is - at most - I want to shoot clays with it, the end. The police still have to prove your unsuitability for ownership, i,e you're a criminal or whatever.

Having said that, I have 3 criminal convictions that my friends on here tell me would constitute "felonys" (from 25 years ago) and I've had a shotgun certificate over 7 years now. My friends on here also advise me that in the United States I wouldnt be allowed to own a firearm because of these offences.

So you could say that from a firearms point of view, I'm better off in Britain

 

[Odd Job]

Wow, what a thread! It's like a bag of liquorice allsorts, so much variety...

Firstly the Somalia vs USA comparison wasn't literal, the implied question is "why do you need all these evil military weapons when a gentlemanly weapon like my shotgun here in the UK will do." Some of you getting all heated up about that comparison seem to be lacking a bit of "nous" and need to stop looking at it literally.

I was born in South Africa and lived there until 1999. I've been in the UK since, but I visit the US every year (and make sure I shoot at a range while I am there). It's quite a simple thing: the Americans and South Africans share an enjoyment of shooting as a pastime, hobby and for hunting.
On the self-defense side a firearm is recognised as a useful tool for this purpose in SA and USA.
Not so much in the UK (although we did get a huge spike in visitors to the range here in London after the riots)

In my opinion the UK is ahead on a universal curve which leads to a nanny state where there is a culture where "the government will look after me" and there is an accompanying decline in good old-fashioned individual responsibility.
It may well be that the USA is heading in the same direction. It is not just in matters of policing and security but in matters pertaining to health and education also. We here on this forum are a minority. Our "brethren" out-number us and do not subscribe to our values. That's a subject for a whole different discussion that could go on at length...

To Highgate:

1) A firearm is just a tool. I have two rifles, one is a military-style SIG522 and the other is a Thompson Center R55 Benchmark. You can have these on a firearms certificate here in the UK. They are two completely different rifles but they fire the same cartridge. Yet one is an "evil black rifle" and the other is a more "traditional" bench rifle with a laminated wood stock. They'll both do the same damage. It wouldn't make sense to frown upon the ownership of the SIG but not the R55.

2) The London riots showed exactly why it is not a good idea to disarm law-abiding members of society. When that happens, you are at the mercy of the criminal and all that stands between you and him is the police. And if they don't stand between you, you end up with people losing their livelihood, being killed, having to jump out of flaming houses and all the other things that happened. In my opinion a Chav setting fire to a residence or a Chav inflicting bodily harm on a person is fair game and if there was any sense or justice in this country, those home-owners at risk of death by arson or direct violence should have been afforded the wherewithall to gun those Chavs down immediately. Instead here we were, blissfully unarmed....

3) As far as I am concerned, if a person's life is threatened he should not be punished for applying whatever tools are available to stop that threat. I couldn't give a damn if he drops a grand piano on the Chav's head or cuts him in half with a minigun, but if that's what it takes for him to stop, then so be it. There is too much focus on the tool and not enough focus on what's right. If you disagree with that, perhaps you can advise me what course of action is preferable.

To the others:

This citizen vs subject argument is moot. You could call the Brits whatever you like, but what you seem to be ignoring is the fact that in both the US and UK (and even SA) there are restrictions which make it less than ideal to own and use certain firearms. These restrictions weren't always there but are there now. Call it what you like but unfortunately we are all subject to the whims of our brethren.

To flip it around, how would you like it if I ridiculed you because you live in a State where you can't have a magazine with more than 10 rounds?
How would you like it if I started a great big hoo-ha about how you are not a free man because in the State where you live you either can't have a suppressor or you have to wait 6 months and pay several hundred $ for one?
Should I say you are in a nanny state because you can't be trusted to purchase alcohol until you are 21?

See what I mean?

It wasn't always like that, was it? How did that happen, ask yourself that...

I'll make a comment about rights also: I hate to break it to you but rights don't exist. Rights are benefits which are afforded you only whilst such "rights" are subscribed to by the majority of your brethren. Your right to own this and your right to do that are a human-manufactured entity and can be taken away just as easily.

In all three countries firearms owners had it much better in years gone by. Ask yourself why it is no longer so...

 

[brickeyee]

In Europe owning a gun is like owning a camera or a car or a power saw - no big deal.

So you are saying cameras, cars, and power saws require justification to the government for their ownership?

Like guns in Merry Old England? Or are you disowning Europe?

I need no justification for routine firearms.
There remain large numbers of more regulated firearms, like machine guns and rifled barrel weapons above .50 caliber.

No permission asked.

A quick criminal background check and I walk out with a gun.

The portion of guns used in crimes in the USA is vanishingly small, and criminals avoid occupied houses like the plague.

Even they realize there is unlikely to be anything worth their life inside.

It is far from a 'free for all' except in Hollywood movies.

 

[throdgrain]

Wise words Odd Job.

 

[browneu]

It's unusual, yes. I meant that it isn't any sort of major political statement.

And that is why you have to go through so many hoops to obtain a shotgun and ammunition.

It's not about firearms for us but about control. Our politicians know that firearm control, like other sensitive issues could end their political careers.

It's not a free for all over here like you think. I have to jump through hoops to own certain types of firearms and some states have become more like your country than remaining our own.

You state that you agree with your laws regarding gun control. Please tell us how stricter controls on your firearms and ammunition leads to less crime or violence?

You've already stated that criminals are already able to get firearms with such laws. I'm curious how these laws help, someone like you who has to go through hoops to defend chickens, reduce crime?

You also state that you don't want armed police. I don't want unarmed police. There jobs are dangerous enough armed, it would be even more dangerous unarmed. How does an officer of the law apprehend someone whose threatening them with a weapon like a knife, blunt instrument, or firearm if they're unarmed?

Officers had to shoot someone went on a stabbing spree here in Columbus. The invididual stabbed three people in an office building and was threatening the police even though they had their guns drawn. From what I heard they had to shoot him several times before he would succumbed to his injuries. So my question to you is how would British police react in that situation?

Come over and you'll change your mind regarding the AR.

 

[chhodge69]

Can anyone clarify the situation for me?

Yes. We're still a little touchy about that whole King George III thing.

 

[browneu]

This citizen vs subject argument is moot. You could call the Brits whatever you like, but what you seem to be ignoring is the fact that in both the US and UK (and even SA) there are restrictions which make it less than ideal to own and use certain firearms. These restrictions weren't always there but are there now. Call it what you like but unfortunately we are all subject to the whims of our brethren.

To flip it around, how would you like it if I ridiculed you because you live in a State where you can't have a magazine with more than 10 rounds?
How would you like it if I started a great big hoo-ha about how you are not a free man because in the State where you live you either can't have a suppressor or you have to wait 6 months and pay several hundred $ for one?
Should I say you are in a nanny state because you can't be trusted to purchase alcohol until you are 21?

You need to read this forum more often. We're constantly telling those living in California, Illinois and New York to either move to a free state or elect officials that better support freedom.

I'll make a comment about rights also: I hate to break it to you but rights don't exist. Rights are benefits which are afforded you only whilst such "rights" are subscribed to by the majority of your brethren. Your right to own this and your right to do that are a human-manufactured entity and can be taken away just as easily.

You don't understand our constitution. We call them rights because we created them for us to remain a free state. You're correct in that they could be changed or taken away but that will go against the highest law in our land. Changing these rights are not as easy as you might think without some type of change in government that could lead to civil war.

 

[exavid]

I agree, well spoken Odd Job.

 

[jeepnik]

I am one of those rare British residents who own a firearm.

Visiting this site I'm getting the impression that the USA is almost a Somalia-style war zone.

Why else would so many posters have so many guns, so much ammunition, so much concern about bullet lethality etc?

I have visited Boston & Denver a few times and I didn't see any firefights etc.

The only guns I saw were when an old black guy was dragged off a bus for not paying the fare and was forced to lie on the ground at gunpoint by maybe five armed officers with drawn weapons.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not any sort of commie criminal lover ... but I clearly am missing something about everyday threats in the USA.

Can anyone clarify the situation for me?

Thanks!

Oh it's pretty simple. A couple hundred odd years ago, we cast off the king, and went our own way. Now, the smart folks of the time realized that you couldn't trust a king or for that matter any other type of government. They figured out that an armed populace is the only thing that keeps a government in check, and some fool from declaring himself king. Ergo, the Second Amendment to our Constitution.

Many folks still feel that way. And try as some folks might, we still don't have a king. Heck, we've fired a president. Kings seem to be in it for life. Well except for that fellow that had the audacity to marry a commoner, a divorcee, and gasp an American.

 

[CountryUgly]

Somalia we are not. There the gangs get to run down the street blindly shooting their AK's in the air or into peoples huts terrifying the normal village folk who are unable to defend themselves. I could see how you may have gotten us confused with them if you had visited Chicago but not Denver. Oh wait you said you were in Boston I see where you may have gotten confused now.

 

[JustinJ]

Next time a thread like this pops up i'm opening a pool on how many posts in before people start espousing their politics.

Who had Obama bashing at post #23?

 

[Highgate]

All you say is - at most - I want to shoot clays with it, the end.

So if you lived in say Brixton and applied for a shotgun certificate then you would get it?

The police can do what they like at the end of the day.

 

[MagnumDweeb]

I have to add a point to the Revolutionary War discussion. The South gets no respect for its contribution. William Clinton and Nathaniel Greene are all but forgotten (Can you say Saratoga, got to love that it was an Irish sniper who picked off the English General and turned the tide of the Battle, One Can Make a Difference, if he can hit what he is aiming at). When the militias were playing tag in the forests during the Battle of Lexington, South Carolina took on and beat the British Navy when the Navy tried to take some of its fortresses. Oh and the folks in the Appalache had declared independence thirty years before our founding fathers, and when the British came in during the Revolutionary War with over a thousand soldiers, the settlers there formed up a hundred and fifty guys and kicked their teeth in and the British left with less than six hundred soldiers.

We after all had another victory over in South Carolina, that I now can't remember, that they used in "The Patriot" with the whole retreating Militia thing. Cornwalis didn't lose a single battle till he ended up in New York. And he went on to use the lessons he learned fighting us to subjugate India and help kill more than thirty million Indians, at least the Mongols built up something good and lasting.

Okay back to guns, AR-15s are fun, fun but expensive. And are the local hoodlums better armed in our country, yup. But when the good guys start shooting back with even just pistols, the bad guys tend to turn and run, just look on Youtube anytime you like. On a good day I can beat up three normal guys that are unarmed, I've had to do it in New Orleans once (granted my face looked awful for a month, and my ribs hurt like heck for a few months) but the second you start adding knives, pipes, and bricks to the mix. I'm not going to stand a chance.

So I'd rather go up against three guys armed with guns, with me having a gun myself, than taking on three guys bare-handed. Boxer fractures take forever to heal it feels like (my bench dropped twenty pounds and I couldn't curl bells heavier than sixty pounds). Three bad guys come walking up on me with guns drawn and looking to do wrong, I'll be sending no less than six bullets there way.

 

[gp911]

Doesn't the Constitution actually state that certain rights including the right to bear arms are given us by our Creator, thereby defining the right to bear arms as a God-given right rather than a mankind-determined privilege? Pretty sure that's in there fellas...

 

[Jim NE]

You can also lose your guns for a while if you get divorced or separated.

I know one guy whose hearing got very bad - so they took his guns permanently.

So Great Britain doesn't trust it's citizenry. What else is new? Just one of the many reasons we said "Thanks, but no thanks," a couple of centuries ago.

 

[throdgrain]

So if you lived in say Brixton and applied for a shotgun certificate then you would get it?

The police can do what they like at the end of the day.

Yes you would. Do you go on British shooting forums? Like Airgun BBS or Pigeon Watch? (To the American readers - AirgunBBS is about airguns but also has a very busy firearms section, full of very vocal, firearm supporting, Troops supporting shooters)

I think you should go on there mate If you did, and asked the question is GB becoming a mini Somalia, you would get the same response you've got here!

 

[highlander 5]

I've not read all 7 pages of post but I will say this if no one else has, Highgate I live outside of Boston should you come to the States again if you come to Ma send me a PM and I will take you to the outdoor range that I belong to and you can try any firearm that I have at that time free of charge. You might learn something and have some fun at the same time.