This is a collection of thoughts and statements about things that annoy me. I am a big, angry man. Hear me roar, or piss off and give me peace.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

The scourge of civilised society...

Angry Steve with a Bren Mk II
I am referring to the deactivated weapon, not the large, angry, man pictured. (That's a Mk II Bren, by the way.)

The politicos and pantywaist whiners want to ban deactivated guns, to somehow protect the public... Protect the public from what exactly? Being beaten to death by an inert firearm? That's all the above Bren is good for...

The BBC helpfully reports that:

"Deactivated guns are not capable of firing live ammunition, but criminals often alter them for re-use."


The BBC don't cite any figures for how many of these deactivated guns are being converted.

Why bother converting a deactivated gun anyway? I would expect it's cheaper to buy a fully working firearm on the qt than have a replica converted, and risk being called "lefty" when it blows up in your hand.

John, with a Mosin Nagant

A fully working Mosin Nagant rifle can be bought in the USofA for $100 (here) and a deactivated version can be bought in the UK for £155 (here)
The fully operational firearm is a third of the cost, excluding conversion costs etc. I expect that deactivated pistols are similarly priced...

"Tackling gun crime is key to making people feel safer and more secure in their communities. We already have the tightest controls in Europe but there is more we can do to remove the threat of gun crime."


That's our Home Secretary speaking. With some of the tightest firearms laws in the world, why are law abiding citizens still being shot at by head-bangers? Would that be because criminals don't give a fuck?

These same politicians tell us that "Firearms are not an acceptable means of protection in Great Britain and authority will not be granted to possess a firearm for this reason." Yet they have protection from armed police officers. Will they tell the police to hand in their Glocks? I don't think so!

(It's worth noting that in Northern Ireland, you *are* allowed a firearm for personal protection).

Anyway, back to crime sprees committed using deactivated weapons:

"the most recent Home Office firearms figures from 2005/6 show that reactivated or deactivated firearms were recorded as being used in just eight offences, out of a total of 11,084."


Not much of a spree, is it?
That's less than 0.1%

"Gill Marshall-Andrews of the Gun Control Network said: "We are delighted, this has been on our agenda for a long time. It is a big loophole in our firearms legislation."


And she can fuck right off. Big loophole? <0.1% Big loophole my arsehole.

Gill Marshall-Andrews appears to be well known for spouting such claptrap.

1 comment:

Johnny said...

Seems to me it's getting to the stage where the only way to retrieve the situation is to go down the route taken by Switzerland and make gun ownership compulsory.