Lord Norman Tebbit: "Kids should go out on shoots"

[Glocksman]

Guns are not banned. Common misconception that. If they were, those gun shops I go past have been there a bloody long time without the Fuzz noticing.

Banned, no.
But can you just walk in, pay cash, fill out a form, and walk out 20 minutes later with a Colt .45 automatic or a Bushmaster AR?

I won't even ask if you can get a concealed carry permit.

All kidding aside, it's a cultural thing.
Most Americans see it as a right, even extending to carrying handguns for self defense.
Hell, 39 US states have 'shall issue' laws for carry permits.
That means if you meet the criteria set out in the law, the cops are required to issue the permit.
9 others are 'may issue' where even if you meet the objective criteria set out in the law, the police can still deny the permit.
Only 2 states (and Washington DC) deny concealed carry altogether.

Whereas in most other countries, it's not seen as one and frankly see the idea of carrying one for self defense as 'odd'.

[K. A. Pital]

But admit it Stas, wouldn't you love to have a Moisin M38 carbine or a Nagant revolver as collector's memorabilia of the Great Patriotic War?

Actually I can do that if I get an appropriate license and buy no less than 5 units of said weapon with the purpose of cultural collectioning, IIRC. The gun laws here are pretty moot. Though firearms have a date of expiry of "war ability" before 1891, this date is set by the minitry of culture not in the form of law (there are motions to get more solid dates into the law so that collectioners would not fear arbitrary prosecution), so far.

If those weapons are in a non-shooting state and purely for display purpose, then I don't even need much, just go and buy them getting Ministry of Culture documents, no MVD permits IIRC.

If he's not under adult supervision, I agree.

Of course. I'm just pretty skeptical towards putting people in control of increased danger devices such as say a car or a gun before the age where they could be appropriately held responsible for their actions. I don't approve of teaching kids before 18 to drive (age may differ by legal code of country), since the question should be asked, WHY teach a person to do what he isn't allowed to do by law yet, in an age where he can't be responsbile for his actions?

I understand that the death rate from gun accidents is low; interesting, however, are accidents where a 0-17 year old accidentally kills another person during gun wielding under supervision?

[Glocksman]

I honestly don't know that information, as the CDC doesn't break it down that far.
My guess is that most of them are either cases where an unsupervised child found an improperly stored gun or hunting accidents either with or without an adult present.

Due to the structured nature of target range shooting, I'd expect range accidents to be the rarest ones.

But again I don't know this for certain.

[Glocksman]

Bah, I misread your post.
I'm not aware of any data on 0-17 year olds as the perpetrators of accidental shootings.
There's data for that age group deliberately shooting someone from the FBI's crime reports, but I don't know if anyone keeps track of the accidental shootings perpetrated by 0-17 year olds.

Though I can probably say with near certainty that no 0-1 year olds have shot anyone.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Banned, no.
But can you just walk in, pay cash, fill out a form, and walk out 20 minutes later with a Colt .45 automatic or a Bushmaster AR?

I won't even ask if you can get a concealed carry permit.

All kidding aside, it's a cultural thing.
Most Americans see it as a right, even extending to carrying handguns for self defense.

I don't think we have to worry about the British retaking the colonies, to be honest.

I had been considering joining a gun club before I moved down south. Not seen any locally and I'm too lazy to go further afield. Though I can safely say that gun training will not affect gun crime, given the root causes for such violence is related to gang culture and drugs rather than idle curiosity and gun glamour. They'll resort to knifing attacks even if they had no guns anyway.

[Dartzap]

I had been considering joining a gun club before I moved down south. Not seen any locally and I'm too lazy to go further afield

I just found both a rifle and pistol club, both based at the University within 2 seconds of typing 'Cambridge Rifle Club' in Google.

[Darth Wong]

Bah, I misread your post.
I'm not aware of any data on 0-17 year olds as the perpetrators of accidental shootings.
There's data for that age group deliberately shooting someone from the FBI's crime reports, but I don't know if anyone keeps track of the accidental shootings perpetrated by 0-17 year olds.

There's not much data on drunk driving accidents by 0-17 year olds either, and yet we're pretty confident that it would be a bad idea to give a 16 year old kid a car and booze.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I just found both a rifle and pistol club, both based at the University within 2 seconds of typing 'Cambridge Rifle Club' in Google.

Bah, that's all the way over in Cambridge. At least 30 minutes away. So baws to ye.

[Big Orange]

It is interesting to note the UK youths tooling themselves up with guns are being overwhelmingly inspired by the trashy gangster "culture" from America's inner city ghettos, where being a murderous thug and violent, sexist cumstain is a lifestyle choice for fine young men. But seeing the surprising replies in this thread, drafting disafected youths for firearm training could be a good idea on paper: they could be drafted into the army/marines.