We are a nation obsessed with the damn things for two reasons. They are used by criminals to kill people and they are really, really fun to play with. This week's silly gun story is here which I am willing to bet was one of these.
I used to be very much in favour of radical gun control, hearing the stats on the US made me believe that you would have to be stark raving bonkers to believe otherwise. However, several things have changed my view on this:
1). We have some of the toughest anti gun laws in the world and they don't stop people getting shot.
2). If you really want to get a gun it's not that difficult, the law simply means that only those who are already criminal will find doing so worthwhile.
3). If you go somewhere that has not banned guns and give them a go you will find they are very fun. (One of my abiding memories from my stag do was going to a bar in Poland with a shooting gallery. Not only was firing the guns fun but watching the recoil from a Glock wobble down a friends slightly corpulent form was pure comedy.)
I think a good first step would be to allow shooting galleries and let people fire as many guns as they like but not be permitted to take them out of the range. I don't see any good reason to disallow this but if anyone has some arguments against I would be happy to hear them.
Libertarian meat eater, right wing in the sense of conservative with a small c.
Friday, 21 September 2007
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2 comments:
Agreed 100% on shooting galleries, as you know.
However, the current situation means that criminals need to pay a lot of money for guns that don't work very well and often explode in their hands, which is probably a deterrent.
It also means that in the event that the rozzahs actually manage to collar a gangsta, the fact that he's carrying an illegal gun means five-years no-further-questions, rather than having to get people to testify that he nailed their ears to the floor. This is Useful.
If you restricted guns to the galleries you could still keep the carrying a gun 5 year thing in place. It wouldn't make it any, (or only very, very slightly), easier for the crims to get a gun.
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