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Old 01-02-2013, 11:41 AM
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X5Sport X5Sport is offline
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As someone who is not American looking in on this awful mess, I cannot see why everyone who wants to needs a gun anyway, let alone more than one? Assault rifles/weapons are certainly well beyond the needs of the average individual. I was trained as an firearms instructor with the UK Armed Forces and I know just how dangerous these things are and what damage they can do at both short and long ranges. If I ever had even the slightest doubt about any person I was teaching to handle and shoot a weapon, they never got their hands on it...period!! All of our weapons were kept under total control, as was the ammunition.

If you want to shoot for recreational purposes then fine - but keep the weapons secured in a proper armoury at the club you shoot at unless you actually need it for hunting, or target shooting etc.

It is precisely because everyone who wants to (legally or otherwise) can have a firearm that the 'gun culture' has proliferated. It's all about escalation and meeting fire-power with more fire-power. If the 'bad guy' has a gun then I need a bigger gun type approach just causes a never ending downward spiral of action and counter-action and round and round you go.

All this 'right' to bear arms has a cost in real lives, and is a smokescreen anyway. Why does anyone really need to carry a gun...I mean really, deep down basic level thinking...why? It's not as if the US is about to be invaded by anyone in large numbers anyway....or is it? And now there are so many vested interests that the whole business is a very sad mess and the discussions are polarised and completely entrenched.

Yes the UK had a serious issue and it locked down the types of guns that can be held, how they were stored, and a proper justification being required. It's not perfect and we do get 'leakers' who still manage to create the odd incident - and I agree it is still a very small minority of US Citizens who are involved in such an atrocity. Not that there is any real comfort for the affected families in that of course. Amnesties were run and most of the weapons taken out of circulation. The penalties for carrying a weapon now range from 5 years to life imprisonment, and that includes carrying replicas (blank firing/air soft/BB/etc) too

Looking in from the outside it's very easy to make comments without understanding the whole cultural ethos around the US Constitution and how tricky it is to make changes. But I can see that unless it's a major vote winner then no one is going to 'man up' and deal with this issue. One reason is the fear of losing votes, another is loss of sponsorship in elections and then of course some idiot with a gun may take a strong dislike to the changes and shoot you!!

I don't envy anyone in the US on either side of the argument. What I do hope is that somewhere common sense will prevail and a 'sensible' compromise' can be achieved on the type and numbers of guns anyone can keep at home or on their person. Delaying the inevitable will cost lives, innocent lives.

Good luck though.....what a minefield!!
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