Knife Control is coming to Scotland

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Fair enough there will be a hardcore of criminals that will continue to carry knives no matter what but cracking down on knives and handing out harsh sentences does send a warning to less hardened gangsters (im not talking about people like lucky guliani here but young kids that would like to be tough) but unless that is done properly then i would like it legalised because if all the neds have them then i would like to be able to carry for my own protection.

Since Britain started giving harsh sentences for gun carrying it is a lot less common for gang members to carry as a lot of them have criminal busineses to run and dont want to get sent to jail for a long time and lose their business. Though on knives i hope this crackdown works but wouldnt rule out supporting decriminalising carrying them if it didnt.

I and many other types of minorities in the community have been targeted by troublemakers. I have had my house under attack and been out in the street totally outnumbered fighting these people. I would have loved to have had a gun a these times to defend myself but i dont think it would be worth the human cost in deaths here thats all. Though the courts lenient dealing with these people makes me sometimes wish i carried a gun.

Unlike in the past in recent years i have been threatened to be stabbed by people that didnt actually have knives on them. I think that is probably due to the police starting to take knife carrying seriously.

I am with the GHA also and have been told that i didnt have enough points to move anywhere there apart from the high flats. Is that were you stay? Renting in Pollokshaws is out of the question though as the rent for private lets is a bit more expensive than Govan were i stay.

I think that cracking down on neds carrying any weapon is important because if antisocial behaviour isnt tackled then things detioriate rapidly. We should do the same that New York done with a zero tolerance initiative (while being careful to treat people as humans at the same time) It seems to have worked over there. If we can deal with attituides in the long term then im all in support but until then i want to be able to walk around the streets without worrying about big groups of people attacking me or any other person.

/me shakes head.

No one is responsible for the actions of another individual. One person's ownership of guns does not make them responsible for some wackjob which uses guns to kill someone.

By that logic it could equally be said that it is gun control advocates fault that people are dying from intruders breaking into their home in the middle of the night and killing them. It might not have happened if the occupant of the home was armed and could defend themselves.

Here are some facts regarding gun bans, if you are interested in learning the truth:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=21902



Crime has increased in countries with gun bans because criminals know their victims are defenseless sheep now.

I'm on the 15th floor, Great view of some of the Northside and over Pollok Park, but thats the total advantage of living here. Sunny Govan, Oh!, the times I've spent there ( on my way to/from the Southern General ). The last good things to come out of here ( Pollokshaws) were John McLean and the Maxtons, those were the days of the Red Clydesiders.
I'd love to feel safe from neds, looking at behaviour around here though, the neds are just apeing their parents, I wish all the bigotry could be tackled as thats whats behind a lot of the trouble here. Why do so many of these kids think it's cool to be able to boast of the trouble they've been in, the beatings given and received and their loyalty to a football team?
Even when I was young it made no sense at all to me.

If that article is right then i have been misled by the statistics that i have bben reading in newspapers all these years but even that article admits that murder rates are much higher in the U.S. Guns are the biggest factor in that. So i still disagree with the US policy overall.

I actually have enjoyed shooting guns in the past and have been told that i am a good aim (probably not now because i was half decent at snooker but have lost some of that co-ordination) but im not very comfortable with the idea of Guns being in everyones home.

I suppose it makes sense though that "contact" crime is higher in countries with stricter gun control were there is less fear of someone shooting you for your crimes. Whether that be your intende victim or the police.
If your country and people allow gun ownership the im afraid that you all have a collective responsibility for the high murder rate there.

Im not a defenceless sheep. Is that why you advocate guns. Out of fear of being a victim? The fear of crime is usually worse than the reality but the reality is bad enough but the allowance of guns which leads to multiple murders of innocents is a route that this country is not prepared to go down as of yet. Even if it does make people feel "bad". "Not to mess with" or "Anybodies victim". These are all quotes i have read on the internet from pro-gun people.

Last edited by eamonn on 09 Aug 2005, 12:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I stay on the third floor fo a tenement right now though not for long as i am moving to round the corner. The view is great here as well. I can see the river clyde, the secc centre, dry docks, glasgow tower, the armadillo etc. I wouldnt like staying in a high flat as a lot of people i know have stayed in them and always complain about getting burgled when they are away. Was it the southern you stayed in after you attempted your life? Did they send you to the psychiatric ward afterwards? Does the food that they serve give you an inspiration to carry on and be healthy like it does me?

I think that bigotry is getting to be less of a problem these days as far as celtic-rangers go. Though il admit its still a problem. I couldnt understand it when i was a kid but soon learned and even got involved in a couple of clashes myself but i have grown up a lot and realise that people are people and its really just the worst representatives on either side that get involved in bigotry.

Last edited by eamonn on 10 Aug 2005, 2:49 am, edited 2 times in total.

Lots of crime, and I think they moved most of the bigots into this area. There are often "Teams" hanging about the Off-Sales in their colours, heckling those wearing the wrong coloured clothes, or looking like they might belong to the other side. I like the view and although I sometimes wonder if it is wise to stay this high up, it usually comes down to thinking that at least it will be effective.
For some bizarre reason the food in the Southerns Psych ward comes from Gartnavel. I don't know why ( budgets?, do they dope it? )anyway it is vile. Yes it was the Southern they sent me to. I sometimes got to go for walks, but that's the limit of my knowledge of Govan.
I'm feeling a bit guilty about posting this in this thread.

How exactly does a gun kill someone. Last time I checked they all had a device called a trigger that has to be operated if you want the firing pin to hit the primer and therfore light the poweder and sent the bullet from the muzzle. the logic some of you use that a high rate of gun ownership causes crime implies that new york city should have almost no crime and North Dakota should be a war zone.

The logic i use would suggest that most of europe has little amount of gun related deaths and the USA has many. Guess what, that is the case. If you want to carry a gun fair enough, i would like to as well but i would refute anyone who claims it doesnt contribute towards death rates.

anyone seen "bowling for colombine"?

I have. I take it your anti-gun then. I have mixed feelings about it but i think it is silly to deny that it contributes towards death rates.

Some people die from shootings. However, those statistics are far lower than those for cars, swimming pools, and even most natural causes, which banning those would be consedered absurd, so why ban guns? It would only mean more government inrtusion into people's lives and would gause more crime-related deaths by means other than guns because people woud not be able to defend themselves (shootings in self defense are not counted with gun related crimes here).

I still think there would be less deaths without guns but you have a point with cars etc causing more deaths than guns. I like shooting guns so im beginning to question my anti-gun stance but i wish pro-gun people would admit the truth about the cons of widespread gun ownership.

If it weren't for convicted felons with illegaly possesed guns, there would be almost no gun crime statististics to speak of. As for enjoying shooting sports, that is why people don't want their gun rights messed with. Law abiding gun owners shot their guns at ranges, remote areas during hunting season, targets set up in remote areas for leisure, and some people's guns haven't left the closet in years because they are for home defense. When the government bans a type of gun, the law abiding citizens register that type of gun if they have one, and don't try to purchase one on the black market. Criminals, on the other hand, don't abide by gun laws. For example, assault rifles are still illegal in California despite recently becoming legal again in the rest of the country. I have no criminal record and cannot get an assault rifle here. A criminal in California who just walked out of prision can aquire an assault rifle in under 24 hours on the black market. Its not the guns, but the type of person behind the trigger that creates the crime statistics.

The whole philososphy behind gun control legislation is fundmentally flawed. Let's use a hypothetical liberal controlled government for an example: Violent crime is on the rise, so they require more paperwork for gun purchases. Crime is still on the rise, so they ban some types of guns. Crime is still on the rise, so they ban more guns. There is a gang war, so they ban light caliber pistols, the gangs still have light caliber pistols and now some sawed off rifles and shotguns, so they ban more guns. There's a poltical asassination attempt, so they ban mre guns, there's a bank robbery that ends in a massive shootout, so they ban more guns. A parolee shoots a cop, so they ban more guns.

Most of this is a condensed version of real events over 25 years condensed into a paragraph. These gun laws have done nothng to stop crime, and now I can't get assault rifles, some types of pistols, detachable magazines larger than 10 rounds, or semiautomatic combat shotguns. While most criminals don't care for combat shotguns, they have no trouble aquiring any of the above and more without a background check or "cooling off period". Additionally, about once a year I'll hear a shooting that involves a fully automatic weapon somewhere within about a quarter mile radius of where I live. I can't get automatic weapons either. With the exceotion of cops and veterans, I've known alot of gun owners and none of them have ever shot anybody. Oh wait, there is one guy I met recently who wrestled the gun a way from a robber in a liquor store and killed him with it, but that falls under the subheading of criminals causing problems with guns.

I reckon Sean has a good point there. While I definately believe in gun control, I don't think it's the answer to stopping gun-related crimes, since, as he pointed out, those who wanted to obtain guns could do so through the black market. As long as there's a demand for guns, there will probably be a supply somewhere. I think to halt gun-related crimes and other crime, we need to figure out the root causes of such crime. Definately one cause is the widespread use and importation of drugs, and while there are some ways to alleviate that problem, it's a pretty complicated, huge issue. I think one big cause is poverty. I think that if we reduced or eliminated poverty, gun related crimes would go down. Please forgive me if I'm stereotyping here, but it seems that most gang activity (and gun activity) goes on in poor neighborhoods, which makes sense if you think about it. If you're working really hard and making little money, or can't even get a job because of discrimination, lack of education (which can be very difficult to get if you're poor), or other reasons, and you see people making thousands of dollars a week or even a day selling drugs, it's got to be quite tempting. I really don't think gangs spring up very often in middle or upper class areas, since it's a highly dangerous, risky lifestyle that most people probably would not want to take up if they were making enough money. Also, I think that people from poorer backgrounds are more likely to experience abuse or neglect as babies and children which can lead them to become criminals later on in life. Also, they're exposed to violence at an early age and sort of grow up with it, and become desensitized to it. I've seen this sort of thing in the poor neighborhoods of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where shootings are a regular occurance. So while it may not be the only solution, reducing/eliminating poverty, IMHO, is a good one. But I think the most important thing is to look at the root causes of the crime and focus the solutions there.