From: Niall Gilsenan <ngilsena@i...>
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 15:04:56 +0100
Subject: Gun laws etc / Was Re: SV: [SG2] You'll never take me alive, coppers:
> At 10:39 23/09/98 +0300, you wrote: Simplistic, true. Its not a statement of fact though since it is my own opinion and I'm not forcing it on anyone else. They all have their own opinions in any case so I'm not going to try and change it. The net effect of strict gun controls here is that it is unusual for anyone in this country to be murdered by guns. People being stabbed to death is far more common (although still rare). Of course a lot more people die in car accidents over here than are murdered every year. Unfortunately we need knives to cut things and cars to drive places but as far as I can see guns are there to kill and with no other practical purpose. We don't need to hunt to catch food anymore. Unless its been a particularly bad day at the supermarket.. Therefore (IMO) the less guns available the better. Give them to people who may need them like the army or police but not to the general populace. If everyone needs a gun to live safely then it seems there may be something fundamentally wrong. Anyway since neither you nor I make the laws in our respective countries then its pretty much irrelevant to be arguing over it. Its not the right forum either. > So maybe its a January. > By a danish criminal. The incident before that was in the 60's. Actually if you live in the Republic of Ireland rather than the North of Ireland you are extremely unlikely to see a gun most of your life. The only one I've ever even been near was a hunting rifle years ago. The police are unarmed here for historical reasons. The main one being that their predecessors (the Royal Irish Constabulary) were armed and it was decided to have an unarmed police force to make a distinction between the RIC and the new police force. Its very rare for a policeman to be killed by gunfire here (or any other method). The last one was back in 1995 when an bunch of IRA bank robbers shot one for no particular reason other than he caught up with them and was unarmed. Before that it was 1984. If you go almost any part of the UK other than N.Ireland you're unlikely to see many guns either. I think most people have a vague idea of the situation up there (to some degree at least) and the fact that theres been guerrila warfare going on for the last few decades. I really don't see it as being comparable since the general populace is not armed. If it were there might have been a lot more killing. This is getting very off-topic all the same. > --