Americans and guns
I don't know anybody who owns A gun.
But I know a whole lot of people who own many.
What's it like in your country?
But I know a whole lot of people who own many.
What's it like in your country?
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
Gun ownership here in the UK is very unusual - even among the drug-crime rubbish. Not only because it is strictly controlled - and you will not find armaments in the Co-op or even Sainsbury's - but there is no general public appetite for being armed.
Murders by shooting, especially the extremely rare "mass" killings of several innocent people and no clear motives, tend to call for stricter laws still. They are not met with rosy ideas about ordinary citizens being able to kill the murderer immediately and "cleanly", like the goodies and baddies in some John Wayne film.
I have known very few gun-owners among all the people I have known over so many years: farmers (for pest control - including some legal right to shoot pet dogs attacking livestock), and one or two sports-shooters (firing shot-guns at clay-pigeons).
I have also met, but not known personally, a few game-bird shooters - an activity for which I have reservations although the birds are bred for shooting and in a narrow season; not wild birds blasted out of the sky for "fun".
Also a friend who had three or four antique firearms. Those guns could not be used safely but he occasionally demonstrated the flintlock action on one, using a small black powder charge but no shot.
All these people were properly licensed.
Murders by shooting, especially the extremely rare "mass" killings of several innocent people and no clear motives, tend to call for stricter laws still. They are not met with rosy ideas about ordinary citizens being able to kill the murderer immediately and "cleanly", like the goodies and baddies in some John Wayne film.
I have known very few gun-owners among all the people I have known over so many years: farmers (for pest control - including some legal right to shoot pet dogs attacking livestock), and one or two sports-shooters (firing shot-guns at clay-pigeons).
I have also met, but not known personally, a few game-bird shooters - an activity for which I have reservations although the birds are bred for shooting and in a narrow season; not wild birds blasted out of the sky for "fun".
Also a friend who had three or four antique firearms. Those guns could not be used safely but he occasionally demonstrated the flintlock action on one, using a small black powder charge but no shot.
All these people were properly licensed.
