This week it is gun control - at the forefront of everyone's minds after the latest horrific school mass shooting in the USA. Immediate knee-jerk reaction to ban all guns, which of course goes against the Second Amendment of the US Constitution "the right to bear arms"!
Fact - the US has the highest per capita gun ownership in the world
Fact - the US has the highest number of "mass" shootings in the world
Fact - actually no fiction - the US does not have the highest rate of gun homicide in the world.
In terms of gun deaths per 100,000 population per year the US comes in at number 11, behind countries like Honduras (6 times higher than the US!), Venezuela and Swaziland but interestingly of the "top" 20 one is in Asia (the Philippines at #13), one in Europe (Montenegro at #12), two in Africa (Swaziland at #3, and South Africa at #14) and the rest, all 16, are in the Americas!
Fact - most gun deaths in the USA are suicides
But the fact is that it is these "mass killings", and especially at schools, that catch everyone's attention and create the call for tighter gun control. People love quoting "Guns don't kill people, people do" - and they are right, it needs someone to pull the trigger, but that person also needs to be in the state of mind that makes them go out and kill as many people as possible.
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| Christmas 1960 |
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| Out with my airgun |
I took that rifle with me whenever we went out for a drive, and used to carry it about - but never shot at any animals back then, and certainly would never have shot anyone with it - even at that age I knew that would be wrong. My "targets" were tin cans, paper targets, old light bulbs (challenging when they were swinging!), and my Dad and I used to play "darts" on the verandah with the tiny flighted darts you could buy for airguns! Later in Mozambique, when I was 15 I used it for rat control in our chicken run, and got pretty good at taking down running rats in the tree branches.
I do not recall being "taught" that guns were dangerous, or it being drummed into me that you don't point it at people - if anything I would only have to have been told that once and that would have been enough. So why is it that some people, or even some nations, treat weapons differently.
In the UK, my homeland, it is quite hard to own a weapon - low-powered airguns can be owned by anyone under 18, though others are considered to be "firearms" and need licences to own. Handguns are no longer available to the general public, nor are semi-automatic rifles (the favoured weapon of the mass shooter in the USA), but shotguns and hunting rifles need a firearms certificate before they can be purchased. Ammunition needs a separate licence as well! The licence is weapon specific - it must list the particular weapon it pertains too, and adding others requires this to be recorded. Weapons must also be stored securely, generally in a gun safe, and ammunition stored separately, also under lock and key. The police will periodically come and inspect how the weapons and ammunition are stored, and often when the licence is renewed (every 5 years). It is a complicated process to get a firearms certificate, and includes a medical report on suitability of the applicant.
I understand that in the USA you could buy a gun and walk out of the store (you can even buy one in Walmart, not just in licenced specialised firearm stores) with it around 30 minutes later, assuming you don't fall into one of the "prohibited" categories (convicted felon, diagnosed mental illness, history of drug abuse, etc.) on the FBI database - so as long as you do not appear on their database, even if you have undiagnosed mental illness (so you do not need a medical certificate stating competency like the UK), you can buy a firearm - and this includes handguns, assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons. I believe that the Las Vegas shooter had also bought an adaptor (bump stock) that effectively turned a semi into a fully automatic weapon, and sales of these are unregulated!
Now I am not saying that the USA should ban weapon sales completely (not without changing the Constitution), but I do feel that they need more regulation - it does need to be harder to legally acquire firearms, especially multiple firearms! The process should be more rigorous, the background checks more detailed, and include a medical assessment as to competency, and it certainly should take longer than 30 minutes to acquire a lethal weapon! Possibly the process should also include some guarantees about the storage of weapons and ammunition, as there are many cases of children finding loaded unsecured guns and shooting someone with it. This is going to be the most contentious point, though, as many gun owners claim they are for protection, and if you have to find a key and unlock a "safe" (could be a drawer!) to get at your weapon in response to, say, a home invasion this could prove the difference between life and death!
In the 60's my Dad purchased a .22 handgun while we were living in Angola, in response to the commencement of the liberation struggle by "terrorist" anti-government organisations. He kept the pistol, loaded, in his bedside drawer. A few days after he moved it to a lockable cupboard in our lounge (not sure why he did that) he awoke to find an intruder in their bedroom (a pet mongoose, rather than the two dogs sleeping on my parent's bed alerted him!) - he shouted and then went in pursuit, stopping to unlock the cupboard and collect the pistol, but by the time he had it the intruder had vanished. It turned out that it had been a former domestic servant who had been fired recently, as there was no "break-in" but rather the back door had been opened using a key that was "hidden" by the replacement domestic employee. My father, however, was left in quite a state by the incident - he wondered what would have happened had the gun still been in his bedside drawer, and whether he would have been able to shoot at the intruder, and what his reaction would have been had he actually hit and killed the intruder. It affected him so much that he decided to get rid of the gun, as he was unsure whether he could use it against another human being, even in defence of his family, and felt, therefore, that keeping it was dangerous.
My point here is that maybe the British have a different view of guns and their use, to the Americans, and possibly part of this is due to the fact that it is harder to get hold of one (legally!) and therefore "we" look upon it as a privilege, and not a "right" instilled in our Constitution.
In the UK, my homeland, it is quite hard to own a weapon - low-powered airguns can be owned by anyone under 18, though others are considered to be "firearms" and need licences to own. Handguns are no longer available to the general public, nor are semi-automatic rifles (the favoured weapon of the mass shooter in the USA), but shotguns and hunting rifles need a firearms certificate before they can be purchased. Ammunition needs a separate licence as well! The licence is weapon specific - it must list the particular weapon it pertains too, and adding others requires this to be recorded. Weapons must also be stored securely, generally in a gun safe, and ammunition stored separately, also under lock and key. The police will periodically come and inspect how the weapons and ammunition are stored, and often when the licence is renewed (every 5 years). It is a complicated process to get a firearms certificate, and includes a medical report on suitability of the applicant.
I understand that in the USA you could buy a gun and walk out of the store (you can even buy one in Walmart, not just in licenced specialised firearm stores) with it around 30 minutes later, assuming you don't fall into one of the "prohibited" categories (convicted felon, diagnosed mental illness, history of drug abuse, etc.) on the FBI database - so as long as you do not appear on their database, even if you have undiagnosed mental illness (so you do not need a medical certificate stating competency like the UK), you can buy a firearm - and this includes handguns, assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons. I believe that the Las Vegas shooter had also bought an adaptor (bump stock) that effectively turned a semi into a fully automatic weapon, and sales of these are unregulated!
Now I am not saying that the USA should ban weapon sales completely (not without changing the Constitution), but I do feel that they need more regulation - it does need to be harder to legally acquire firearms, especially multiple firearms! The process should be more rigorous, the background checks more detailed, and include a medical assessment as to competency, and it certainly should take longer than 30 minutes to acquire a lethal weapon! Possibly the process should also include some guarantees about the storage of weapons and ammunition, as there are many cases of children finding loaded unsecured guns and shooting someone with it. This is going to be the most contentious point, though, as many gun owners claim they are for protection, and if you have to find a key and unlock a "safe" (could be a drawer!) to get at your weapon in response to, say, a home invasion this could prove the difference between life and death!
In the 60's my Dad purchased a .22 handgun while we were living in Angola, in response to the commencement of the liberation struggle by "terrorist" anti-government organisations. He kept the pistol, loaded, in his bedside drawer. A few days after he moved it to a lockable cupboard in our lounge (not sure why he did that) he awoke to find an intruder in their bedroom (a pet mongoose, rather than the two dogs sleeping on my parent's bed alerted him!) - he shouted and then went in pursuit, stopping to unlock the cupboard and collect the pistol, but by the time he had it the intruder had vanished. It turned out that it had been a former domestic servant who had been fired recently, as there was no "break-in" but rather the back door had been opened using a key that was "hidden" by the replacement domestic employee. My father, however, was left in quite a state by the incident - he wondered what would have happened had the gun still been in his bedside drawer, and whether he would have been able to shoot at the intruder, and what his reaction would have been had he actually hit and killed the intruder. It affected him so much that he decided to get rid of the gun, as he was unsure whether he could use it against another human being, even in defence of his family, and felt, therefore, that keeping it was dangerous.
My point here is that maybe the British have a different view of guns and their use, to the Americans, and possibly part of this is due to the fact that it is harder to get hold of one (legally!) and therefore "we" look upon it as a privilege, and not a "right" instilled in our Constitution.
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