|
Aneirin -> RE: britain wants guns back (1/23/2009 1:12:34 PM)
|
True, if you want a gun, have good reason for having a gun, no, self protection and second amendment does'nt count here, you can apply for a firearms licence. No problem if you are a legitimate user with good standing, but before you get your grubby little mitts on a licence, you as a person are scutinised, your past is examined, past convictions or cautions are taken into consideration as is your health record. Any sniff of mental health problems, and this includes depression, forget it, your GP who is responsible for saying you are medically fit to proceed with the licence application has their own conscience to consider, not to mention the law. This I know from a friend who went through the application procedure just to own a shotgun for rabbit hunting, he had had in the past depression following a motorcycle accident, it was years ago, perhaps ten years ago, but it was there on his record, mental illness. His application did not get past the GP stage. Although he was advised that due to fact he had had police interest in the past for being caught fighting whilst drunk, that would be enough for the police to say no. Fair enough says I there is a procedure and in this case it was followed, now if that is done in every application and people get knocked back on the grounds of a history of violence or mental illness, that is far less legal firearms available to be used in society.Not to forget those who have been successful in their application and have a firearms licence and so own a gun, nothing is to say they are safe with that gun, people can go over the edge at any time, too many things can change in their life, depression is not a disease of the weak, neither is anger and unreasonable behaviour.
I hold some part of a firearms licence, I forget what part, but the part that enables me to service and use cartridge hammers, whether firearms certification is required or not anymore, I don't know, but I can do without those noisy smelly tools and if required will gladly give the certification back, as I no longer deal with the things. I cannot think in my new future where I will be required to hammer a nail through a rolled steel joist.
And before you say cartridge hammers are not weapons, one was stolen from our company, sprayed black and used to hold up a post office in the next county, it's very looks making it appear to be something else. A weapon it is not despite using nitrate cartridges, the interlocks to make the thing fire cannot be overcome in normal use, and it is debatable whether it can be modified to be anything more than a thing that hammers nails. Of things that hammer nails by rapid explosive expansion there are other things on the market which do not require a licence to have or use that are capable of inflicting harm far more readily than a nitrate cartridge hammer.
Edited to add, I have been shot at before, and it bloody hurt, so what if it was salt, I was shot at by a farmer with a gun, why, well, I was on his land with my pals when I was an um. This farmer was known to patrol his land brandishing his gun and he was a special cuntstable at that. But thinking back on it, farmers and guns and land, perhaps it is they, or some of them might be considered to have a frontier mentality and many farmers are under pressure with financial problems, the problems of living detached from society by the view that farms are out of town and the possibility of crime being committed upon them. Robberies happen to farms, sometimes just for the firearms that are held there. No wonder the police in their actions regularly and sometimes without warning check up on a known licence holder and the way they store their weapons, quite rightly so.
|
|
|
|
