According to the UK Green Party website the Green Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election: CJ500 Gun crime is a particularly serious problem and the Green Party is committed to tackling it by ensuring a high level of gun control as well as addressing the […]
Continue Reading Green Party Policies : Gun Control and Gun Crime
They don’t go far enough for me. I would take all fire arms out of private ownership. I campaigned to remove hand guns and I am compaigning to remove all fire arms. It would be nice if the Green Party had the guts to show some real choice between the existing parties and their opinions on gun control.
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All firearms should be banned from private ownership. One tragedy like the Cumbrian murders, or Dunblane, is one too many.
Only the Police, Soldiers, and perhaps specially trained Pest Control Officers should have access to firearms under very strict guidelines.
It is time we stopped pointing the finger at fire arms and shot gun owners! One nut job every 20 years or so goes off their heads. It is for the police fire arms inspectors to vet people for mental illness along with GP’s. The main culprits for gun injuries are kids with air rifles and BB guns as well as sling shots, bows and arrows etc. All should be locked in a steel locker in order to keep them away from children. I would make the age of 21 years to purchase all weapons with a minimum of 1 year of schooling on how to use fire arms safely.
I have cut and pasted part of a BBC news item re air gun injury stats in uk.
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One in 10 airgun injuries results in hospital admission
Doctors are calling for stricter controls on the use of air guns in a bid to reduce the number of injuries they cause.
Too many people wrongly believe the weapons are harmless toys, say the specialists in children’s surgery and emergency medicine at St James’ University Hospital in Leeds.
Writing in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, they set out a series of measures to stem the continuing rise in accidents and injuries involving air guns.
Air weapons are capable of inflicting serious and potentially fatal injury in children
St James’ researchers
Under UK law, conventional air weapons do not require a licence and children under 14 can use them if supervised by an adult.
But the Leeds doctors call for air gun use to be restricted to supervised target ranges and for the power of their pellets to be reduced.
In 1998 to 1999, official statistics show there were almost 17,000 firearms offences, 60% of which involved air guns.
The following year, air gun offences increased by 17%.
One in five offences caused injury and in almost one in 10, the victim had to be admitted to hospital because of shock, fracture, or multiple wounds.
Eye injury is a major problem.
Education need
It is estimated that there are 4m air guns in UK households.
Doctors at St James’ recorded 73 patients with air gun injuries between 1996 and 2001.
Half were under 18. Some children who were injured were as young as four.
Most of those injured were teenage boys.
In 16 of the children the pellet had penetrated the skin and in four it had caused deep internal injury.
The researchers, led by Dr Mark Stringer of the department of paediatric surgery at St James’, wrote: “Air weapons are capable of inflicting serious and potentially fatal injury in children.
“Several measures to reduce air weapon injuries have been suggested.
“These include stricter legislation on the ownership and use of air weapons, promoting awareness of their hazards by wider education of the public, parents and retailers, and restricting use to supervised target ranges.
“It is time for a co-ordinated approach from the public, police, sporting organisations, manufacturers, and retailers, and politicians.”
Danger
A spokeswoman for the Home Office commented: “There are already laws in place to control the use and possession of air weapons, particularly by young people.”
She said it was an offence to give an air weapon to a person under 14 or to sell one to a person under 17. It is also an offence to have a loaded air weapon in a public place or to discharge one within 50 feet of the centre of a public road.
Carrying an air weapon with intent to endanger life or property carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) said the key was to increase knowledge about how dangerous air guns could be.
“People have to be aware that they are weapons, and in the wrong place they can cause damage.
“What we need to do is to educate people to understand that.”
He added that adults need to ensure that air weapons did not fall into the hands of children.
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The only problem I see with this proposal by the Green party is it does not go far enough.
I am part of a campaign that wants to see a total ban on the private ownership of any gun.
The augments above from gun lovers is typical. Rarely do your hear any compassion or empathy for the victims of their licensed friends – just blind, and outrageous arrogance as they defend their right to own guns and shoot.
Some claim to feel truly sorry for the victims of slaughters like Cumbria and that is refreshing but most gun-lovers are quite blasé about these matters. Most of the time they are turned into statistics and compared to deaths on the road. I’ve even seen Mr Bird the shooter from Cumbria compared to Dr shipman & the London bomber etc. They can never see it as removing an unnecessary risk. We need Drs so we could hardly ban them could we? And, the weapon of choice for the bomber is explosive and that is illegal to have at home. These are just like the knives and car analogies we persistently hear from these people – but nothing they say adds up
Time and time again we hear the same arguments from the pro gun persons as they put themselves forward as the absolute authority on what’s best for our society and us. They are like mini dictators. They tell us we should be armed to protect ourselves because the police cannot. That we should not look to the state to protect us. Well I for one am looking to the state to protect me for the likes of them
It is commonsense that guns should be banned before we have another School, Hospital, or Shopping Center at the middle of another slaughter.
Remove the circa 2 million guns held by 1.5% of our population and this country will be safer and there will be less stock available for the criminals to steal from too. Commonsense there will be fewer guns on our streets – the only people that cannot see this are the gun lovers. It’s time for the other 98.5% of the population to have their say
Moderator: Paul Please do NOT Respond to your own post under another name. You have posted as Dan agreeing with your own post Please do NOT.
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It is time to ban all guns they are evil tools used by evil people!
Moderator: Dan Please do NOT Respond to your own post under another name. You have posted as Paul agreeing with your own post Please do NOT.
Then may be its time we put a ban on cars, push bikes, lorries, trains, stairs, glass windows, ladders and all that causes a risk to life??? May be we should all walk around in cotton wool suits and put a stop to time?????? The greens are a load of Nutters!!!!
It seems rather counter-intuitive to be taking guns away from citizens. Although you may not know this, criminals do not obey the law, as that is the definition of a lawbreaker. So if this law is enforced (god forbid) do you think the criminals will abide, and leave us law-abiding citizens alone? Most unlikely. They will still get their guns by various means, and that leaves us with no defence, other than local law enforcement, which cannot protect everyone, all the time.
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Hi Just a question I am a student doing a photo shoot on an action hero theme, where do I stand regarding the use of toy guns for theatrical performances? Last thing I want is to be arrested!
Kind regards,
Beth