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Thanks Silver Fox. Now you have me really wanting to put together a L1A1.
I only used them for a year before we got the L85A1, but there's something about the SLR I always loved.
To be honest my only experience with it was when I was in the UK and still in the military.
Ammo was ammo. At the time it was my job and not a hobby so I really didn't pay much attention to it.
I haven't had access to it over here so can't compare. Sorry for a completely uninformative post!
tac, You mentioned that shooting is now the second most popular sport in the UK. Do you have a link to anything online (preferably not directly connected to a gun site) that references that information?
hey TAC...........GOT HAGGIS?
you said "explain with justification" as if you agreed with the laws that restrict gun ownership and totally make illegal a lot of firearms. When there are laws that I don't agree with in the states I will explain them to people but never have I ever backed them up with "justification" of any kind.
Sir - you appear to have totally misconstrued the words I used in an attempt to make me look like a panty-waisted 'yes-boss' - something I most certainly am not.
However, by way of explanation - here in UK the legal justification for ownership of firearms is for one of two purposes -
1. To use the firearm to shoot at paper or clay targets - that is to say - target shooting.
2. To use the firearm to shoot at vermin of one sort or another, or game, or both.
Those two REASONS to acquire are called, in THIS version of English that is spoken over here - 'justification'.
In UK law, self-defence is NOT a reason to own a firearm. That's all there is to it.
I know that you mentioned that you hadn't had a "gun crime" since 2002, but what other crimes happened?
I wrote that we had not had a gun crime since 2002 in my county. Of course, many other crimes happened, but NOT involving the use of firearms.
That is much like saying that cars were very restricted and only certain people could have them and because of that we haven't had a car crash. People would still find ways to hurt themselves wouldn't they?
This does not follow from either your or my statement. I am confining my posits to those concerning firearms.
Here is an article on wanting a ban on knives because someone was killed by one in the UK.
Knife crime here in UK is the largest killer in criminality - far outstripping ANY gun crime EVER recorded in this country. It is not the death of 'someone', as you put it, but of an ever-increasing number of inner-city knife murders. After the Government's Knives Action Programme was launched last year, there were 126 "sharp instrument homicides" between July 2008 and March 2009.
Such murders are carried out, for the most part, by males between the age of eleven and sixteen - mostly, it has to be said, black.
I'm not sure and I'm pretty sure that you don't agree with just banning things because they have potential to be used as a weapon against another person. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1411652/posts
Please do not try to patronise or to second guess me - it does neither of us any good, and does not serve the interests of this so-far relatively informative thread. The 1997 handgun ban in mainland UK, as I have reiterated, was totally unconnected to the rise of the use of handguns in crime in this country. The legal handgun owner lost everything, but the criminal, by definition, does not obey the laws or their strictures. FYI, I was a soldier for almost 34 years - full-time, no reserve, and view criminal activity of any kind with a very jaundiced eye. Add to that that I have been a shooter since age six, and a registered firearms holder since 17 - I am now almost 64.
Another on wanting to ban swords http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=13054
You have once more failed to read the 'small print' in your attempt to trash my post. By limiting the sale of genuine or replica swords, and knives of all kinds to those persons over 18, it was hoped to reduce the numbers used in crimes by persons of those ages or lower. If any person really wants to get hold of a sword for criminal purposes, they are hardly going to walk into an antique store and pay out thousands for a real katana...
All this to say that "yes" we do have problems over here in the states and yes we do have more lax weapons laws, but the two don't have to be linked. The pure and simple fact is that people are inherently evil and though some of us live by standards many do not. Those that do not will find some way to hurt someone else. That doesn't mean that it is justification to ban the object that a "few" people choose to use as a weapon.
You are commenting as though I had never heard of the USA and its gun licencing laws, or that I am unaware that bad folks do bad things to innocent people with anything they can find that is to hand. FYI, I spent almost five years part-time teaching in a non-user-friendly part of Washington DC, and also had many tours of active duty in terrorist-ridden Northern Ireland, so what people can do to each other with seeminlgly innoccuous items of kitchenware, garden tools or home-handyman equipment from spot-welders to tank cutters and garlic presses are best left to your imagination. I, Sir, have seen a lot of it. And BTW, after the USA, Japan and Philippines, the UK buys more baseball bats than any country on the planet. For what purpose? I have never seen a baseball diamond here in UK in my life, although I guess there are some, somewhere.
We in the united states have the 2nd amendment to protect us not from animals or intruders or allow us to hunt (though those are good uses). We have it to protect ourselves from the government. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it was worded so that we wouldn't ever be lorded over again by government.
I am not posting any judgement on your current government here. I dare say that I am more familiar with your constitution than a great percentage of your population, but I would not dream of offering any correction on the contents of the US Constitution to any US citizen. Although you and many others like you seem to believe that you have the right to tear the British government to shreds on a public forum, using your constitutional right to free-speech, you should be aware that the British public are actually very good at doing it themselves, and on a daily basis, and we really don't need your help doing it.
Every day more and more there are those that want to take that right away from us in the USA, and every day there are those that fight to keep them. The reason that we still have those rights is because for some reason we still have it in us that we fought for the freedoms that we have. I fear that one day we will forget that as a nation and fall into being more and more regulated much like what you have listed above.
That, Sir, is a problem that you can correct at the polling booth.
I for one will fight it with everything in me, and personally if it comes to another war on our soil I will do everything in me to enlist again and fight for our freedom.
I hope that it never comes to that, but fear that someday in some way it will.
I have no comment to make on either your internal politics or your intentions if and when it all goes tits-up and the SHTF.
Again, I'm not arguing. Your phrasing that I'm hoping was just a mis-type "explain with justification" just got me to thinking about how many in the USA are starting to think that way as well.
Again, the remedy to that is in your own hands - I could not possibly comment. Unlike the recent visitor to your shores, Lord Monckton, and his address to you over in New York, I am neither an accredited former diplomat and ministerial advisor, nor a politician. My own personal view of your administration, and those who run it, are my own private affair, and I won't be drawn further on the subject.
Since this thread has taken a political turn, one that I am neither qualified to comment on, or to offer advice of any kind, I am now bowing out of it.
To those who responded to my thread in a positive manner, even if the positivity reflected badly on our unjust laws, thank you all.
And to those of you who took this as opportunity to do some makes-ya-feel-good and well-deserved public arse-kicking to the stuck-up and stupid Brit and the ridiculous laws he feels he has to obey, well, thank you as well.
At least I now have some idea who my likely friends are.
Take care, all, and good and safe shooting.
tac
I have worked with many that come from your neck of the woods and with them a majority were the "yes-boss" type that didn't stand up for their rights in any way shape or form. I'm glad to hear that you are not.
I also in no way meant to come across that you have no idea about our politics or laws etc etc, and yes we have some messed up states that for all I care could fall into the ocean. My point again there was not to be-little you or your home country, but to draw a line that no matter what laws or bans they will impose a "gun crime" in one case may become a "baseball bat" crime if you remove the gun. The thing that we can not control is "people". Fortunately for those of us that use our brains they haven't found a way to regulate "free will", but unfortunately for those that would commit crimes they can't take it away from them either.
Please don't take what I said as crass or putting you down. It is just an issue that we all deal with on one level or another. I think it is good that you have given clarity to those of us that didn't understand the regulation that you have. I for one found it very interesting, but again something I never want to ever deal with in this country.