This article in praise of libertarianism, which has been on the UKIP website for a couple of weeks, is well worth a read.
Gregg Beaman suggests, quite rightly, that both the smoking ban and the hunting ban should be repealed. Unfortunately he doesn't go as far as to say that drugs should be legally available (suitably regulated and taxed); that all the silly rules against prostitution should be scrapped, that traffic lights should be turned off and absolute speed limits on motorways should be ended, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
Gregg Beaman, you rock!
So What Will Be Done About The Officer?
22 minutes ago
15 comments:
Don't forget ending the abortional policy that is gun control.
When people ask me where I stand politically I usually answer: "I support the legalisation of heroin, the right of people to set cats on fire, and the private ownership of nuclear weapons. I'm a libertarian, which is another word for nut." :P
SC, guns are your area of expertise.
Altho' by rights I should be in favour or making legal gun ownership easier (it's the illegally owned ones that are used to kill people, by and large), it's not something I personally am too fussed about one way or t'other.
Looks like I've got some convertin' to do :P
LFB has an interesting take on this.
I am mulling, I am mulling.
traffic lights are just fine; they just need to be all 'green'
Thanks for that Mark, I've replied there :)
Pushing for an end to gun control is a waste of effort. There is no way that there will ever be a significant number of people in favour of it and as a licensed firearms owner I would be very opposed to it. To get a FAC in the UK you will be drilled by your club in safe weapons handling and private firearms clubs have a fine safety record. I would be most concerned if any idiot could purchase a modern firearm without having to acquire a certificate and without that training.
Of course I would like to see the legalisation under licence of target pistol shooting but even that modest proposal would be political hemlock to anyone who proposed it. Realistically, it's never going to happen.
Stephen, the last word goes to you, well said!
I'm sure people said the same about nationalised industry in Britain, or dictatorship in Russia or segregation in the USA. Just because something seems far off now doesn't make striving for it worthless. Whilst I am sure an end to gun control is far off, I am seeing a slow but noticeable shift in opinion amongst many people, particularly young people. People are starting to realise that gun control doesn't work, that criminals are armed and they are not, that governments cannot and should not be trusted with a monopoly on arms. Just the other day, an 18 year old university student who has never touched a gun told me how much he wished they would implement concealed carry pistol permits in the UK.
Currently, most people wanting a firearms certificate spend 6 months supposedly learning safe gun handling and so on. I teach people safe gun handling in under five minutes and I've never had anyone ND.
People in Vermont can walk into a store and walk out with a gun and carry it with them without any training at all. Vermont doesn't have a gun problem.
48 of the 50 US states allow citizens to carry guns concealed. Many have no requirements for training, but some do. Of those that do, it's usually around a total of 16 hours of classroom and range time. None of these places have a problem with concealed carry permit holders.
British people can buy and use a shotgun without any training. There is not a problem with British shotgun owners.
There are many countries like Switzerland where you do not need any training to buy a gun, and they don't have problems.
Of all accidental shootings in the USA, virtually all of them are hunting accidents despite most US states requiring hunters to pass a 'hunter's ed' class. Conversely, accidents with concealed carry, target shooting and home defence guns are rare, despite there being less or no training requirement.
British gun clubs do have a fine safety record, but so do those in the US, Norway, Switzerland etc. Shooting is the safest sport in Britain, with lots of training requirement, and in the US, with no training requirement.
Having said that, and while I oppose all gun control full stop, if it takes a mandatory 16 hours of training before you can buy or carry a gun, I'm not too bothered just so long as you can actually buy and carry a gun. Six months, on the other hand, is ridiculous and unnecessary, not to mention detrimental to the shooting sports and to the safety of the British people.
To drive a car, most people will have between 20 and 30 hours of lessons, plus around 2 hours of testing. Most everyone takes this test at or around 17, and most pass it in a timely fashion. A car has 22 controls and can easily kill multiple people in the event of an accident. You do not need to take any test or have any training to buy a car or use one on private land, at a track etc. You only need this if you want to use it in public.
Most guns have between one and four controls and, even in the event of a negligent discharge, it's relatively unlikely to hurt one person, let alone several. Yet, all guns except shotguns require between 3 and 6 months of training even to own, and carry is forbidden (except for politicians, obviously).
There is no reason for carrying a gun, let alone owning one, to require more training than driving a car.
You don't spend six months learning safe handling. The principles of it can be imparted in five minutes, as you say. I used the word 'drilled' in my first post deliberately. It is easy to understand the principles, quite another for them to become second nature. In my club for the first three months you are chaperoned at the firing line to ensure that you don't inadvertently make a mistake. For many or most people this is OTT but better to be safe than sorry. A mistake cannot be undone.
Although there is no legal requirement to get instruction in using a shotgun, I would suspect that very few responsible owners have not had at least informal training. An incorrectly positioned butt during clay pigeon shooting is not a pleasant experience and sometimes fractures can be caused.
There isn't 'lots of training requirement' in the UK. It is done informally during target practice. It is not onerous but since everyone goes through it, it means that you can be reasonably sure that someone with FAC will know what they are doing.
I don't know where you have got this six months figure from. The law says that you must belong to a club for three months before you may apply for membership and the grant of your first certificate. Some clubs stipulate six months but waive this if they are completely happy with the applicant. I got my certificate within about 3.5 months of my first shooting session there.
Most guns have between one and four controls and, even in the event of a negligent discharge, it's relatively unlikely to hurt one person
Simon, I find this insouciance about firearms safe handling to be rather alarming! When I am handling a firearm I am not interested in whether an unexpected discharge is 'relatively unlikely' to hit someone, I am interested in ensuring that such a discharge is next to impossible by keeping the breech open except when at the firing line. Are you UK based? Do you have a FAC?
"I used the word 'drilled' in my first post deliberately. It is easy to understand the principles, quite another for them to become second nature."
I agree that it's smart for people to seek training and that drilling safety, as you say, is important. My point is only that it should not be required by law. Now, I'm not overly bothered about it if we're talking about 10, 15, 20 hours of training. But when you're talking about months, that's quite serious.
As you say, it's not as if you spend all of that period being exhaustively trained but the idea is similar and the effect is to greatly discourage people from shooting and to overtly delay their acquiring a firearm unnecessarily. A woman getting death threats from her estranged boyfriend shouldn't have to wait months before she can get the tools to defend herself.
"Although there is no legal requirement to get instruction in using a shotgun, I would suspect that very few responsible owners have not had at least informal training. An incorrectly positioned butt during clay pigeon shooting is not a pleasant experience and sometimes fractures can be caused."
This is precisely my point. The vast majority of people learn safety and most get some training too. Why the need to mandate it in law?
"There isn't 'lots of training requirement' in the UK. It is done informally during target practice."
Perhaps me choice of words was misleading. I meant only that there is a long period where you must effectively shoot under supervision and gain experience before you can acquire a firearm. This is not training per se, but the idea and effect is much the same.
"I don't know where you have got this six months figure from. The law says that you must belong to a club for three months before you may apply for membership and the grant of your first certificate."
Most clubs that I know of choose to extend this to six months to spread out the hours you need to attend the club for. Some clubs do stick with the basic three, but I did mention this towards the end of my post.
"Simon, I find this insouciance about firearms safe handling to be rather alarming! When I am handling a firearm I am not interested in whether an unexpected discharge is 'relatively unlikely' to hit someone, I am interested in ensuring that such a discharge is next to impossible by keeping the breech open except when at the firing line. Are you UK based? Do you have a FAC?"
Yes I am based in the UK and yes I have a FAC (and a SGC). I did not intend to appear lax about safety, I assure you I am extrmely careful and follow the four rules at all times. I'm actually a lot more paranoid than most people! What I am saying is that, whilst guns are potentially very dangerous they have a lot less potential for accidental injury and death than cars. To avoid hurting someone with a gun you need only follow four simple rules and learn to use a couple of controls. With a car, there are dozens or hundreds of rules and more than a score of controls to learn. If you crash your car, you're very likely to hit another car or a pedestrain. If you have a negligent discharge (not that you should!) the realistic chances of actually hitting someone is a lot less than the automobile equivalent. In a car, if you crash you might kill a whole family, but a negligent discharge is highly unlikely to do so.
I am certainly not saying that a gun is something you can treat like a TV remote or a newspaper, but I believe a gun is inherently less dangerous in terms of accidents than a car. For instance, I would not be happy getting in a car with someone and letting them drive me around on their first day of learning to drive, but I'm quite happy to stand with someone on their first day shooting after explaining the four rules.
Unfortunately he doesn't go as far as to say that drugs should be legally available (suitably regulated and taxed); that all the silly rules against prostitution should be scrapped, that traffic lights should be turned off and absolute speed limits on motorways should be ended
... and that's because of UKIP's elephant in the room- all of those issues are third rails for the party, which aside from its libertarian element, comprises a large chunk of former Conservative members with protectionist and authoritarian tendencies. That's why he chose 'soft' examples that both groups find common ground on.
Basically, the party runs along similar lines to the Conservatives, with factions concerned with wholly different world views.
Otherwise, I find his article slightly disingenuous, peddling false memes about the Conservatives on charging for supermarket parking, when it clearly wasn't put forward by the party, and also in not recognising the fundamental split that also runs through the Lib Dem membership, too. That's not to say the thrust of what he's saying is wrong, but why not use credible examples? Perhaps to be fair, he should have been more truthful about UKIP's less libertarian pronouncements, including a five year freeze on immigration, local control and management of transport and retaining a fundamental block to economic and social development by 'protecting' the Green Belt.
When trying to win people over with fresh thinking, it helps to be able to legitimately mount the moral high ground at the same time.
MU, you make very good points, (altho' I am perfectly aware of all this).
Re immigration - GB puts forward Paraguay as a workable solution. It strikes me that this uncontrolled mass immigration tends to reduce the liberties of the existing population (more crime and political correctness) so I am relaxed on UKIP's proposed freeze.
Not sure about UKIP's transport policies.
As to the Hallowed Greenbelt, overcoming this nonsense is partly a question of education, I have posted on this before.
Fair enough, Simon. I think it was semantics on which we disagreed rather than the principles of safe handling. Do you hold any pistols on s7? I am trying to make up my mind whether I want to shoot pistols at a heritage site. I'd love to give my Webley Mark VI an outing at the range but that would necessitate keeping it permanently at a heritage site, which I can't quite bring myself to do yet.
Afraid not Stephen, just rifles and shotguns. I am facing a similar situation though: next year I'm moving into rented accommodation that bans firearms so I'll have to move everything to a club armoury :(
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