Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Ban all handguns
The Times reports here on the shooting of a teenager in Nottingham in what may to be a gang related incident insofar as the person shooting may have been a member of a gang.
We're not told the type of firearm used, but seeing as how I find it unlikely that the victim would have got into an argument with someone carrying a rifle or a shotgun, I'll assume a handgun was involved.
Of course I must be wrong in my assumption because after the Dunblane massacre a law was passed that banned all handgun ownership, so there's no way that anyone in England could be carrying a handgun other than the (highly trained and competent) military and police.
The fact that the penalty for illegally possessing a handgun is only marginally less than that for murder means in effect that the only people who'll not be deterred from possessing said handguns are those who're prepared to commit murder, but don't worry because they can't possess them because they've been banned remember.
Still I suppose for some people it must be comfort to know that the shooting wasn't carried out with a legally owned weapon. Personally I'm more far more concerned that law abiding citizens are denied the basic tools for self-defence, of course I don't really know what I'm talking (writing) about after all the police are there to protect us and the government will look after us. Oh yes silly me.
We're not told the type of firearm used, but seeing as how I find it unlikely that the victim would have got into an argument with someone carrying a rifle or a shotgun, I'll assume a handgun was involved.
Of course I must be wrong in my assumption because after the Dunblane massacre a law was passed that banned all handgun ownership, so there's no way that anyone in England could be carrying a handgun other than the (highly trained and competent) military and police.
The fact that the penalty for illegally possessing a handgun is only marginally less than that for murder means in effect that the only people who'll not be deterred from possessing said handguns are those who're prepared to commit murder, but don't worry because they can't possess them because they've been banned remember.
Still I suppose for some people it must be comfort to know that the shooting wasn't carried out with a legally owned weapon. Personally I'm more far more concerned that law abiding citizens are denied the basic tools for self-defence, of course I don't really know what I'm talking (writing) about after all the police are there to protect us and the government will look after us. Oh yes silly me.
Tags: handguns, liberty, rights, freedom
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
