Post A Reply
my profile
|
directory
login
|
search
|
faq
|
forum home
»
Flare Sci-Fi Forums
»
Community
»
The Flameboard
»
A Topic About Gun Control.
» Post A Reply
Post A Reply
Login Name:
Password:
Message:
HTML is enabled.
UBB Code™ is enabled.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by The Ginger Beacon: [QB] Being so far removed (i.e. across the Atlantic) I find it difficult to properly relate to the stories that I see on the news. Guns are completly foreign to me outside of the occasional activites my scout group used to do with the army cadets. In the UK, the murder rate is under 2 per hundred thousand people, and the number of these commited by firearms is about 7%. There were soething like 750 murders last year in the country (60 million ish people in total), so, although the figures are low, there is still a gun problem here. With some of the most strict gun laws in the world. If we travel go across the channel to Europe you meet France, another nation with strict gun laws (although the underground gun culture is becoming a real problem). If you keep going left and then down a bit, you find Switzerland (who despite liking the work of Orson Welles, I find myself obliged to point out did not invent the cuckoo clock). Last time I checked, you can buy an assult rifle (like a Kalashnikov, beloved of terrorists everywhere) quite legaly. Men between 18 and 30 (depending on rank upto their mid 50's) are conscripts - they serve at least 2 weeks a year in the militia. As a result every fit man [b]has[/b] an assult rifle, or if you are an officer or in the medical corps a pistol. They are given ammuntition and this is inspected regualy, to make sure it's not been used unless they have been told to. Ammuntion is subsidised if it fits in an army issue gun, and shooting clubs can be found in any small town. Most of the shootings in Switzerland (around 300 per annum from a population of 7 1/2 million) is either a suicide or a murder of a family member. Currently anybody over 18 can buy a gun - a semiautomatic no less - without a permit. Nor does paper work get in the way of buying a sporting rifle or a historic repeating gun. Here there are more guns than people. So what we find is a nation with a strong historic claim to a right to bear arms, infact a requirement to bear arms. The difference is the fact that as members of the militia they are kept under tight control and supervision. Next year Switzerland becomes a bit more European - they join the Schenge treaty, or something or other, and as such they will have to make it a crime to possess an unlawful firearm, and have to put numbers on guns. They will also be restricting the private sale of second hand weapons, requiring official documentation. On the other hand, you can't blast your horn at somebody if they cut you up on the road. Just like not turning off your engine at traffic lights or a junction, it's against the law. Instead, you note the cars number plate and look it up when you get home in a readily available directory so you can phone them up and abuse them at your leisure. Switzerland, it seems, is bit of an odity, a blot on the map that outsiders can't quite get their heads around, so I don't think that their way can be anybody else's, but it does strike me as an interesting parellel to the gun politics we see in America, sitting across the pond from our cousins. [/QB][/QUOTE]
Instant Graemlins
Instant UBB Code™
What is UBB Code™?
Options
Disable Graemlins in this post.
*** Click here to review this topic. ***
© 1999-2024 Charles Capps
Powered by UBB.classic™ 6.7.3