World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[marurun]

The police exist solely to shoot people and keep us all down.

...and to ruin a perfectly nice makeout session.

The whole "no gun" thing seems to work well in England.

Japan, too.

That said, both countries have much more strict gun laws.

Though, in Japan, shotguns are pretty darn legal to own (unlike pistols).

[RCBH928]

Without a gun, what does the English police man do when a criminal pulls a gun on him?

[emwearz]

Without a gun, what does the English police man do when a criminal pulls a gun on him?

Much like Australia, Police have guns, civilians can't, unless for a specific reason (farming, sport, etc), self defense is not one of them.

EDIT: When I was England I had photos with police and didn't notice they were not carrying guns, so I was way off! Same point though, not many people in the public have them, so they don't need them. If they get called to a crime in which they would, they call in a squad with guns.

Thus we don't get police shooting people often in Australia, because our police force is not as concerned with everyday people pulling a firearm on them. We also have strict laws about when police are able to hostler their weapons.

Sure we still have random gun related killings, but statistics don't lie. (Though Australia's are little off after an incident in Sydney recently) Australian deaths by firearms pre 1996 (Port Arthur massacre introduced massive new gun laws) and post 1996, with most of those being organized crime related.

[Ivo]

Without a gun, what does the English police man do when a criminal pulls a gun on him?

Hide behind cover and call for backup, hopefully.

But I think the point is because legal ownership of small firearms is much more difficult (and so is concealing a larger firearm like hunting rifles or whatever), it is also much more difficult to illegally obtain them.

Knives are more common but a trained and protected cop with a truncheon is at a greater advantage over a criminal with a knife than a trained and protected cop with a pistol over a criminal with a pistol.

Note that, as far as I know, you can own a licensed pistol in the U.K. You just have to jump through more hoops to do so (e.g. self-defence is not a valid justification, but collecting or sports use is), and it probably is more expensive.
The end result presumably is that fewer people end up owning them and those that do are better trained and more careful with them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politi ... om#Pistols

[Pulsar_t]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... death_rate

Switzerland has a higher per-capita gun crime than I thought, but it's still lower than many other countries. Anyway I still maintain the view that the more life is valued in a certain country (equality, opportunity, social cohesion etc), the lower the crime rate. That's the important equation, and firearms are a secondary (but still important) concern.

[Erik_Twice]

Without a gun, what does the English police man do when a criminal pulls a gun on him?

Common criminals don't have guns in Britain or most of Europe, nor do they want them (They are expensive, attract attention and open you to more than petty crime charges) so this scenario is fairly rare.

[ZeroAX]

Without a gun, what does the English police man do when a criminal pulls a gun on him?

Common criminals don't have guns in Britain or most of Europe, nor do they want them (They are expensive, attract attention and open you to more than petty crime charges) so this scenario is fairly rare.

Petrol bombs on the other hand...

[Sarge]

Yeah, I think it's less a firearm thing and more a cultural thing. There are also other factors that make gun control unfeasible in the US. Large, porous borders don't help, and criminal elements that would have access to firearms regardless also don't help.

I'm very much a Second Amendment guy. I can see why the right to gun ownership exists, and would prefer it continue to be so.

[TSTR]

[Forlorn Drifter]

I think the Americas, as a whole, have had a gun culture for far too long to pull it all at this point. For one, there's a crap ton of guns out there, and the majority of people who own firearms own more than one. That's quite a few guns to take away, and there's a pretty good portion of people who would still choose to keep at least one firearm illegally. Mix that with how easy it is to get an illegal gun, and things just won't work out well.

I'd imagine, that once it was viewed as "safe" for officers to work without firearms, in the idea that the general population has none, there would be a surge in the use of illegal firearms against officers.