My take on why gun-restriction works in Europe but not in the US

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I wholeheartedly agree with someone's right to protect themselves, I wouldn't be a police officer if I didn't think so. I just feel that in the UK and Greece hand-guns are not a necessity to do it.
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That could only be true if every citizen was of equal stature, strength, and skill. Except for firearms, there is no means, let alone common means that so completely equalizes the disparity of force between young, healthy attackers and the elderly, handicapped, slight of stature, etc.

OP, you either haven't thought this through, or you are only capable of seeing the issue through the thick lens of your culture, in my opinion.
 
I Have my suspicions about some of BBs posts some of them don't add up.
Some seam anti gun to me i didn't like to come out and say he was a troll so we will see if he comes back on to defend him self.

He said that the metropolitan police have firearms training, him being a police officer should know that police in the MET don't have firearms training unless they are in armed response.
 
The USA was basically a bunch of RAG TAG farmers with guns in their hands and burlap sacks on their feet when we sent the redcoats home for more tea!

It wasn't our ability to form a line of armed gents for the "volley" of lead balls that lead to victory...

It was our hunting ability that put our men in the trees, fence rows and between buildings waging guerrilla warfare against the most powerful army on earth that beat england from our shores...
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There was also the assistance the French gave us in the form of aid and also the French Naval Fleet.

in 1776 and 1777 the aid from the French through neutral ports helped sustain the revolution. Britain declared war on France in 1778 which helped to take some of the heat off the colonies. Britain also declare war on Spain and the Dutch in later years over support for the Americans. French Soldiers were landed at Newport and were put under Washington's command at White plains. The French also landed troops at Chesapeake to aid Lafayette in the blockade. The French defeated the British fleet during the Battle of the Chesapeake. Then the French landed a siege force at Yorktown to complete things.

The French also kept the British busy around the world during that period. Which kept the British from flexing its full military might upon us.

Yes we won some battles and lost some battles without the assistance of others it might have been game over for the colonies.
 
For me I guess the questions reversed..... Why would the people of the UK allow what appears for all purposes to be some level of serfdom and allow themselves to be in the position of having little real power to do anything to the government should the government decide to step it up a few notches...

If they did the people of the UK would be in a very, very bad position... not that they appear to be all that far from it now....
 
first, i do not usualy post to this forum but i will now. whats good for us may not be good for them. guns is in our blood maybe not so much theirs. Anything that involves such a large segment of the population remains legal no matter what, and in great brittain i dont believe its a very large population at all owns or wants to own guns. Our constitutional law has been interpreted as being legal for individuals to posess guns for too long now to change it. Theres no such thing as saying its legal to own guns for 200+ years and then saying "oh wait there may be a mistake guns are just for police and military". you do that and the economy will be the least of everyones worries.
 
Crank, What folks need to realize is that the gun came to america with those who settled here... Guns were a part of their euro lives thus brought here...

No more a part of life for us as them... they just opted to let the monarchy do to them that led to a massacre of civvies by redcoats... THEY CAME FOR THE GUNS FIRST!!!

That really wasn't well accepted as our founding populace saw the means to an end england was (literally) shootin' for...

Brent
 
Agree hogdogs,

We don't just have guns today simply cause they've always been here.

The only reason we have guns today is the fact that we have demanded them and fought over the years for the right to keep them.

We don't have to go back many years at all in our own history to find bills that were/are drafted trying to cripple our gun rights.

IMO,make no mistake, if our pro-gun movement wasn't as strong as it is today, we wouldn't have our gun freedoms we have today. Also, its a continued fight that will never end. Don't believe that, just search some of the more recent anti-gun bills that have been drafted and voted down just this year.
 
Welcome to TFL

Hello British Bobby!

Good to see someone from Europe posting on here. I was stationed in Europe for over 5 years total with the US Army so I am familiar with the culture(s) there. Here are a few of my thoughts on this anyway.

1. I agree with other posters that crime (violent or otherwise) includes a multiplicity of reasons and causes. My logic is that if you can show places (or countries) with strict gun control who have high crime and then show other places where gun laws are not prevalent but whose citizens enjoy low crime rates then the idea of gun laws effecting crime cancel each other out and presuppose other reasons for crime or lack thereof. My belief based on what I have read and studied is that causality between guns and crime just isn't there. Others may disagree.

2. So, what that means to me is that what matters is whether one has the natural right to self defense. If one does have that right then I would disagree that handguns are not necessary to it since they are one of the best tools for personal defense.

3. I do not agree (and my opinion is known on TFL) with the "insurrection theory" that some on here espouse. I think our democratic institutions keep us free from governmental tyranny in the USA and not the AR in my closet. However, there are threads on that you can find here and read up on that.

4. Having lived in Europe there is a clear difference with cultures and diversity from the US and the fact that the USA is so large and so diverse makes a huge difference with crime and other social issues (health care, gun laws?). Having said that I notice with concern that the demographics of Europe are changing with a greater influx of others from different parts of the world. I wonder if the riots in London and some of the issues Sweden is facing now is not a harbinger of things to come and might change some ideas about citizen self defense in the future?

Anyway, good thread and thanks for visiting.
 
Eghad said:
Yes we won some battles and lost some battles without the assistance of others it might have been game over for the colonies.
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Good read of history Eghad. This "rural" legend of the rag tag farmer beating the entire British Army is laughable and ignorant of history. Without France and had the UK brought it's entire might against us we would not have prevailed as we did.

The same claptrap is brought up about Vietnam. Had the US brought it's full might against Hanoi AND had China and Russia stayed out then that conflict would have turned out quite differently.
 
On a tangent, I don't know if it's part of the cause of so much gun ownership (I think it's partly the other way around, there is such a strong gun economy because of the ability and desire to own guns), but I do believe the economic engine around firearms is just as strong of a defender of gun rights as the constitution is. We are a capitalistic country and anything that has strong economic power is going to be hard to push aside. Like I always say on everything, vote with your dollars. If you like something, pay for it and support it, if you don't like something, don't do business there.
 
Just cause it came up, 3 billion is drop in the bucket as far as GDP in the U.S. Warren Buffet just gave Bank of America $5 Billion :p

Country GDP (millions of US$)
— World 62,909,274[4]
— European Union 16,282,230[4]
1 United States 14,657,800
2 People's Republic of China 5,878,257[nb 2]
3 Japan 5,458,872
4 Germany 3,315,643
5 France 2,582,527
6 United Kingdom 2,247,455
 
We have guns because our founding fathers saw a higher need for personal freedom. How could we have a free country if the govt imposed restrictions upon us from the start?

Freedom is and was more important. I dont see any other country with tehe same level of freedom as we enjoy here.
 
Some mentioned that British Bobby might be a troll. My curiosity caused me to check his posts.

He was here only ONE HALF of ONE DAY.

His first post was on the 19th August at 12:20 PM.
His last post was on the 19th August at 10:12 PM.
He posted 19 times.

He probably was arrested as a terrorist because America, after all, has 280,000,000 gun owners and is, therefore, a hotbed of revolutionaries. Well, we DID do that once and UK doesn’t want the likes of that debacle ever again.

Or,
He might have met the squire on the street and failed to genuflect and touch his forelock. How dastardly, if I do say so, myself! Wouldn’t have happened had he not been chatting with us cheeky Americans!
 
Whether Bobby was a troll or not, if he thinks he raised a case and won on the merits...ah, no.

I think we had a good discussion. Too bad Bobby has gone away. I can see why he isn't posting anymore.
 
European countries have a mainly Socialistic rule concept of goverments. Those goverments keep a control and restrictions on certain things society can own, and have.
Obama and his theory idea of 'Change' is very similar, if not the same to this.
 
It seems that British Bobby saw little need to defend his position. He left at about post 40.
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Little need or little point? I suspect the latter. Bobby was "outgunned", so to speak.

Sort of like Paul Krugman and the blog he closed last year. The great Nobelist kept having his theories and ideas rammed into his left ear and other orifices based on the facts...by non-Nobelists, to boot. He finally closed the blog, if his fuliminations in op-ed columns haven't changed. Took his little soccer ball and hobby horse and went home, rather than admit losing on the facts.

Krugman and Bobby would get along. :D
 
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