Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 10:10:22 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking
From: Tom Holt <lemming.co@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: OT-British Gun Laws Update

The message <38b2d9fd.8496115@news.cyberg8t.com>
  from  gunner@cyberg8t.com (Gunner) contains these words:


> For our British and ex-pat friends:

> http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/01/16/stinwenws02004.html?999
> --------------------------


The truly stunning, amazing and bewildering thing about that article
is that the Times, which has effectively been the official Labour
Party newsletter for the last 15 years or so, is actually suggesting
that banning legally-owned guns might not be the answer to all the
world's problems. I'm assuming that whoever wrote that article has
since been sacked and slung out of the National Union of Journalists,
and will never work in the newspaper business again... Even so. A
glimmer of common sense in the *Times*, ferchrissake. What is the
world coming to?

The bullshit about "the main source of illegal weapons being
reactivated decommissioned guns" is, of course, garbage. There's no
evidence whatsoever to support this claim - the police have yet to
produce one re-activated weapon used in crime, but they carry on
repeating this drivel as they press for still more useless laws in an
attempt to distract attention away from their own inadequacy.

Yes, it's possible to buy a gun that's had the barrel slotted and
welded, the chamber and breech face milled out, the action welded &
pinned shut, action parts removed, hardened steel pins driven in to
every orifice; and yes, it's possible to turn them back into
functional weapons - but it'd take half the time to build the
original design from scratch, starting off with bar stock and piano
wire, as any machinist will tell you.

Please note that full-automatic weapons, rapidly replacing pistols
and shotguns as the main weapons used in crime, have *never* been
legal in the UK.

The point is that there are now at least 3 million illegal guns in
the UK - at least one gun per thirty people - *one and three quarter
million* more illegally owned guns in the UK than legally owned guns
before the ban; draconian gun laws have *increased* the number of
guns in the country and put them into the hands of the people most
likely to kill and maim the innocent and helpless, while ordinary
law-abiding people have no means whatsoever of defending themselves.
For the first time, schoolkids in the major cities are carrying guns
in the playground, as a fashion statement.

Does anybody detect a trend emerging here?

It's too late to do anything about this nonsense in the UK, where
ordinary logic and common sense ceased to function a long time ago.
Americans, however, should think very carefully about this before they vote.

Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 17:01:09 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking
From: Tom Holt <lemming.co@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Killings rise as 3m illegal guns flood Britain: OT-British Gun 
	Laws Update

The message <BEcs4.335$d26.7165@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net>
  from  "N9NWO" <2121d@GTE.net> contains these words:

> When I was in Europe in 1996, it was well known
> that they UK was flooded with illegal guns then.  There
> was a huge smuggling operation coming out of the
> former Warsaw Pact countries.

Entirely true


> Plus nearly 800,000
> hands were never turned in when the ban was put
> in force.

Not true. Because the UK had draconian registration laws before the
confiscations, virtually all the legally owned weapons were
successfully confiscated. Moral; when they tell you "we only want to
register your guns, not take them away from you," do not be inclined
to believe them.

> Tony Blair is so stupid.

As another poster pointed out; don't confuse stupidity with malice.
Mr Blair is a very intelligent, shrewd, cunning man, with a long-term
agenda. If he was an idiot, he wouldn't be nearly such a menace.

Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 22:42:12 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking
From: Tom Holt <lemming.co@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: OT-British Gun Laws Update

The message <38B5A338.550@nowhere.com>
  from  Phil <no-one@nowhere.com> contains these words:


> N9NWO wrote:
> >
> > : >> > AFAIK there have been no similar episodes since the ban
> > : >> > was enacted, so it has served its purpose of reducing that area of
> > : >> > gun-related crime.
> > : >>
> > : >> this is most likely a delusion, as the "episodes" you speak of are
> > : >> rare to begin with. . .
> > : >
> > : >It's not a delusion, and having thought about it some more it
> > : >doesn't depend on whether or not something similar has happened
> > : >since - it's a case of proof by definition. The article claimed
> > : >that the aim of the ban was to prevent legally-held guns of that
> > : >sort being used in that way. Since it is no longer legal to have
> > : >guns of that sort, legally held ones can't possibly be used to
> > : >go on the rampage - so the ban has had the desired effect.
> > :
> > : This HAS to be the most inane, circular logic I have ever
> > : seen.  The object of the legislation was to reduce the use
> > : of legally owned guns in crime, and so by eliminating
> > : legally owned guns, the legislation has succeeded?  Very
> > : funny!
> >
> > The thing is, the average Brit is now looking to buy
> > guns via the black market.

> That is utter bull shit!! A few criminals and gang member buy illegal
> guns, "the average Brit" does not!

More than 'a few', I'm afraid. Apart from the large percentage of
gang members and professional criminals who carry as a matter of
course, a great many young people in the big cities, including
schoolkids, regard guns as essential fashion accessories.

Anybody with half a brain would have seen this coming, of course;
criminalise something, give it an aura of danger, wickedness and
glamor, and every young testosterone freak on the street will want
one... Result; a heavily-armed subculture of disaffected young thugs
turning the city centres into no-go areas and battlefields, while the
average Joe is left defenceless and afraid.

There are other ugly side-effects, of course; the UK police, a
dangerous bunch of morons at the best of times, are now issued on a
regular basis with guns they don't know how to use, thereby creating
a greater hazard to public safety than the drug gangs with their
Uzis. One example; a man was shot dead in the street recently by
police who 'suspected he was carrying a gun'; he was, of course,
unarmed and had done nothing overtly threatening; the 'gun' turned
out to be (quote from the police statement) 'a gun-shaped piece of
wood in a cloth bag'

I heartily agree that there are some people who should never be
allowed to have guns under any circumstances; namely, the British
police. Leaving them aside for a moment; the situation we have at the
moment is that there are over 3 million guns in the hands of the very
people who are most likely to use them to kill and maim the helpless
and innocent. Anybody who wants a gun for such purposes can get hold
of one without difficulty. Nothing the government can do will alter this.

The British 'experiment' has conclusively proved that gun
confiscation is not only futile but lethally counterproductive.

Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 00:11:55 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking
From: Tom Holt <lemming.co@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: OT-British Gun Laws Update

The message <slrn8bbdn8.2r7.jdege@jdege.visi.com>
  from  jdege@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege) contains these words:



> The British government is reporting 3 million smuggled guns?

Very likely an underestimate. This figure does not, of course,
include the weapons in the hands of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland.


> Seems like
> more than a few.  I'd be surprised if the UK had 3 million criminals
> and/or gang members.  It's not that big a country.  Either the numbers
> are wildly inflated or there is a sizable population buying smuggled guns.


UK population; 58,260,000.

That makes one illegal gun per nineteen people.

Let's make the point one more time. Confiscating legally-owned guns
doesn't work. Instead, it concentrates lethal firepower in the hands
of those who are most likely to kill and maim the innocent and
helpless, leaving the law-abiding citizen at their mercy.

Please bear this in mind when you vote.

From: Robert Bastow <"teenut"@ hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: misc.survivalism,alt.survival,rec.crafts.metalworking
Subject: Re: OT-British Gun Laws Update
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 04:35:51 GMT

Before I left England..Twenty four years ago, I was an avid target shooter,
licensed FAC holder, and collector of antique and modern firearms.  Even then it
was absolutely DEAD easy to buy a non-registered firearm..I owned many,
including a 9mm Sten Gun (Full auto, sub-machine gun) up until I left the UK,
when I gave it to a friend.  I know for a fact he still has it and I could have
it, and a ton of ammo in my hands within hours of landing there.

Non registered arms have always been rife and easy to get..in any Pub in the
UK..none of THEM have been surrendered and the market is flooded with more with
every container ship that docks.

The Stupid ban of firearms has simply turned a whole sector of previously law
abiding Brits into Criminals..and created an international awareness of a ready
market for smuggled guns, that organised criminals are only too happy to feed.

Besides that, it has made an international laughing stock..NOT of the
Politicians..Pols DO that stuff!..But of the once proud and free Brits who let
themselve be suckered and blind-sided, into allowing it to happen, by a noisy,
self- centered and politically naive, left wing of Hidden-Agenda tree-huggers.

You guys richly deserve what you got..and it will only get worse if you don't
start to fight baloney with FACTS..Right NOW!!

Sorry I can't help you!  I crossed and burned my Bridge a long time ago.  I am
proud of my British Heritage and the wealth of Knowledge, Law, Civilisation,
Peace and Freedom it helped bring to this World.  But I am finding it
increasingly difficult, to feel real proud of what it has been ALLOWED to
degenerate into!

Sadly,

teenut

Eric Pinnell wrote:
>

>     Really?  So you mean a nutcase can't go to his local criminal and
> buy a gun?  Betcha it'll happen in a year or two...
>

Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 22:01:05 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking
From: Tom Holt <lemming.co@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: OT-British Gun Laws Update

The message <88vhsh$a1$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
  from  J. J. Farrell <jjf@bcs.org.uk> contains these words:


> Selective quoting. Note also that the article pointed out that the
> purpose of the ban was to prevent crime committed with legally held
> guns, such as the nutcase who finally cracked in the Dunblane massacre
> which led to the ban, or someone getting unusually annoyed with his
> neighbour. AFAIK there have been no similar episodes since the ban
> was enacted,

There hadn't been a 'similar episode' for ten years *before* the
confiscation. In fact, there have only been *two* such 'episodes' (of
somebody using legally held guns) in British history

During the first 70 years of the 20th century, when gun ownership per
capita was almost as high as in the US today, the degree of misuse of
firearms was negligible in the UK.

Today, with some of the most brutal and draconian anti-firearms laws
in the world, Britain is flooded with illegally held guns and
firearms abuse is rocketing. Fully automatic weapons are used every
day on the streets of Manchester, Liverpool and London, and
inner-city kids are carrying guns to school.

> so it has served its purpose of reducing that area of
> gun-related crime.

Big deal. Amputating the right hands of every adult male over 7 years
of age would probably reduce the shoplifting statistics, to a certain
extent. Banning cars (do you own a car, Mr Farrell?) would save
thousands of lives; it'd save more lives in a year than were lost to
firearms abuse in the whole of the 20th century - and, as you'd say,
if it just one life, surely it's worth it...

The facts of the matter are that the 1996/7 anti-gun laws were cheap
political opportunism, playing off public hysteria whipped up by the
press and the media. Even taking into account the Hungerford and
Dunblane incidents, the percentage of firearms abuse committed with
legally-owned guns in the UK was negligible. As the soaring gun death
and injury statistics should prove to anybody capable of drawing a
logical conclusion, the 1997 confiscations have done nothing to
increase public safety; they were a futile act of political
witch-hunting cynically enacted in the furtherance of political and
commercial agendas.

Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 22:06:00 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking
From: Tom Holt <lemming.co@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: OT-British Gun Laws Update

The message <wTKs4.5513$i47.69313@news2.atl>
  from  "Flyonthewall" <fly@onthewallwhichdoesnotexist.com> contains
these words:

> The NRA and
> private Americans shipped guns to England. You never returned them after
> war. We would like them back. As I recall, you owe my family a couple of
> nice deer rifles.


You're out of luck; the British government dumped them in the sea in 1946

As one of the few Englishmen of my generation who cares to remember
the fact that Britain owes its freedom to American support during
WW2, I honor those who made the effort to try and help this country
in its darkest hour.

Having seen what's become of this country since, as a realist I have
say; guys, you shouldn't have bothered

Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 00:21:47 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking
From: Tom Holt <lemming.co@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: OT-British Gun Laws Update (long and farther OT)

The message <38b857da_4@news.intensive.net>
  from  "Yan" <NOyan@ellis-logistics.co.ukSPAM> contains these words:


> If any of Gunners posts help to educate just one free thinking person then
> all of the petty bitchin that invariably follows one of his gun ban related
> posts is worth it.

Agreed!

> Some people seem to forget that we still have a lot to lose over here,
> slowly but surely our rights are being eroded. We lost semi auto's, then we
> lost hand guns,
> We still have the *right* to own rifles and shot guns.

Well... Not quite.

At the moment, provided we jump through the necessary hoops and
comply with the ludicrously draconian demands of the police and the
Home Office, we're *allowed* to own *certain kinds* of rifles and
shotguns, though there are further highly restrictive limits about
when, where and how we use them. We do not, however, have any
*rights* whatsoever.

In the next couple of months, when the government announces the next
generation of anti-gun laws, gun ownership will effectively be wiped
out in the UK. Having read the submissions to the government
committee currently drafting the new laws, I am resigned to the
following, as a bare minimum;

(1) shotguns being licensed in the same way as rifles and
muzzle-loaders; which will wipe out most clay pigeon shooting and
game shooting, in turn leading to the collapse of what remains of the
gun trade; the police will use their 'discretion' to limit shotgun
ownership to farmers and professional pest controllers (who are, in
the stated opinion of the Labour government, the only people who
should be allowed to own shotguns)

(2) gun ownership of any kind being illegal in 'urban areas' -
another Labour party 'manifesto promise'

(3) outright confiscation of lever-action rifles and muzzle-loading
pistols, possibly all guns capable of firing more than one shot
without reloading; criminalisation of antique, deactivated and
replica guns, crossbows and airguns

(4) further persecution of smallbore and fullbore rifle clubs,
effectively making it almost impossible for them to recruit new
members and thereby wiping out the sport in the UK; imposition of new
'safety' and 'registration' criteria that will be impossible for most
clubs to meet, thereby forcing them to close and leading to immediate
confiscation of their members' guns

(5) requirement that all guns used for target shooting (as opposed to
pest control) be stored at clubs rather than in owners' homes; taking
the security 'requirements' announced during the short-lived
'reprieve' for .22 pistols as a minimum required standard (but expect
even more stringent demands), very few clubs will be able to meet
these demands, and will therefore close. Without clubs to belong to,
UK target shooters will lose their licenses and have their guns confiscated

(That's assuming that the government doesn't opt for outright blanket
confiscation; which Labour party sources admit is their ultimate
objective. So far, the threat of having to pay some level of
compensation to former owners has deterred the government from
wholesale confiscation; the likely cost has been estimated by Home
Office officials as in excess of 5 billion pounds sterling, which the
Treasury cannot afford. Accordingly, the government plans to reduce
the numbers of gun owners by (uncompensated) attrition by means of
the measures referred to above, to the point where confiscation
becomes affordable. However, pressure from anti-gun extremists within
the Labour party may well force the government to seek a blanket
confiscation now, and deal with the problem of wriggling out of
paying compensation later)

Is there anything that can be done to save gun ownership of any kind
in the UK? No, nothing at all. Gun owners are a very small minority,
vilified by the media to the point where no politician who values his
career would dare support them in public. Red herrings such as the
appeal to the European Court or the Bill of Rights are doomed to
failure, as Britain has no constitution and the government of the day
has no restraints on its power - with the effective abolition of the
House of Lords, malignant legislation can't even be delayed, let
alone defeated. The options are; put up with it, or emigrate.

For Americans, the moral should be clear; giving an inch means
conceding a mile. You'll never satisfy the anti-gun lobby by
appeasement; your only chance of preserving your rights for any
length of time is to oppose *all* proposed infringements with as much
strength of numbers and argument as you can muster. Learn from our mistakes.