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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Fucking Guns
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I think what say-say said about gun ownership and open carry being normal in some places is right, actually. Not that it *should* be, but it is. And as she pointed out, she just lives here. I don't think she's advocating it, just reporting on what she's encountered.
The household in which I grew up was mind-bogglingly stupid about guns. Rifles leaned against the wall at the front of a frequently-used clothes closet, ammunition right by them. Don't know if they were loaded. I, as a little kid, frequently had to move them to get stuff stored there. They'd been used in the past for hunting and target shooting; but, at that time, they were there for a sense of safety. (Not rural, but not properly urban, either.) Fortunately, I wasn't inclined to play with them. But there'd been gun-safety promos on TV, and I knew this wasn't a good situation, and some younger kids were going to be visiting. So I explained to the grownups what the promos had said--and they were dramatically shocked and stunned. It honestly had never occurred to them that it was dangerous. The guns were moved to the back of the closet for the visit. IIRC, they might have been moved back to their usual "home" afterwards.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
IIRC, customers were wearing guns into Starbuck's, and a manager tried to stop them.
And, surely the manager has every right to tell people if they want to be served in his coffee shop they don't bring a gun inside. What's to stop him? Apart from fear of getting shot, that is.
IIRC, the law, unfortunately.
So, the law says it's illegal to refuse to serve someone because they're carrying a gun. But, it's perfectly fine to refuse to bake them a cake if you don't like the man they're going to marry. Right ... yeah, I suppose that makes sense to some Republicans or someone.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
In a twisted sense, they're both about individual rights/freedoms. People are free to wear guns, and people are free to honor their conscience and not tangentially participate in a same-sex wedding by baking a cake.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Legitimate uses include:
1) Food. There are still a lot of hunters in this country who rely heavily on what they kill to eat.
As I said, I can see hunting as a legitimate use of guns. I don't see why they need to be hanging around at home though. What about an arrangement with the local police station, or some other location that's secure, where you come in on Friday evening to sign out the gun you need for your weekend hunting trip, and a sensible amount of ammo, and sign them all back in on Sunday evening? You still get to hunt your food, but don't have guns around the house where they're liable to shoot someone accidentally or get stolen by someone to use in a crime, or used by a teenager in the house who's decided to take action over the other kids at school who called him names.
And, in a civilised society, people shouldn't be in a position where not killing an animal that crosses their road leads no dinner on the table.
quote:
2) Protection from coyote, wolves, bears, rattlesnakes, copperheads, etc. This is mostly why the people I know who frequently carry guns carry them.
Yes, might be useful in the back of beyond. But, even rattlesnakes will prefer to be out of sight and out of the way unless you go around poking them.
But, when was the last time there was a venomous snake in your local Starbucks? I'm not counting Congressmen in that, though they probably qualify as venomous snakes.
quote:
3) Protection from other people. The fact of the matter is that there are some evil people in the world.
And the statistics are really in your favour there, aren't they. I know there are studies that may be a decade of two out of date, showing that guns were used for self-defence in less than 0.5% of all crimes - and in half those cases the gun was used by a cop. On the other hand, to provide a gun that is almost never going to be used in self defence means a substantial risk of an accidental injury (to yourself or someone else) or for the gun itself to be the item stolen.
You yourself noted that the majority of criminals don't carry guns. If a burglar breaks into my home armed with nothing more than the screwdriver
he used to force the backdoor, it makes little sense to have a gun lying around that he can then arm himself with - and subsequently sell onto a more dangerous criminal because it's easy money.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
In a twisted sense, they're both about individual rights/freedoms. People are free to wear guns, and people are free to honor their conscience and not tangentially participate in a same-sex wedding by baking a cake.
Yeah, but the manager of the local coffee shop isn't free to refuse admission to someone carrying a gun.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Carrying a gun as in carrying it in their hand, or carrying it in a holster?
I agree, if it's in their hand, leaving (or putting some large solid object in between you and the person) is probably the best option.
Otherwise, in many parts of the US, a person with a holstered gun is simply too normal a sight to cause concern.
Okay, sorry to everyone who is decent and sensible, but:
What the fuck is wrong with you people? How many seconds does it take to fill an empty hand with a gun from a holster? Am I supposed to be able to tell the difference between some John Wayne-wannabee who just might shoot me, and some John Wayne wannabee who's actively thinking of shooting me? Do the less shooty ones wear a different coloured hat for my convenience?
You can fuck right off with that. If they're not wearing an actual badge from an actual accredited arm of government, I'm out of there.
I don't know what Smoky Mountain first person shooter game saysay lives in, but if I saw a person without law enforcement/ security attire with a holstered gun in a public place, that would freak me right the fuck out. And I would move far away from them.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Personally, I find people in law enforcement uniforms carrying firearms disturbing. I'd feel safer not seeing any cops.
Though, my only experience of armed police has been in the US, and a couple of times around UK airports. Most civilised countries manage just fine without their police officers routinely carrying anything more offensive than a truncheon.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Personally, I find people in law enforcement uniforms carrying firearms disturbing. I'd feel safer not seeing any cops.
Ditto.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Most civilised countries manage just fine without their police officers routinely carrying anything more offensive than a truncheon.
Yes.
Having the police armed makes the criminals more likely to arm themselves. A vicious downward spiral.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
If the number of deaths in the USA currently caused by guns were caused by a disease, heaven and Earth would be being moved to eradicate it.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
No, the less shooty ones tend to be very comfortable with the fact that they are wearing a gun and not reach anywhere near it unless violence seems immanent.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?
The coffee shop. Exactly the place where you're going to find a deadly rattlesnake. Leave the fucking gun in the car. Hell, even Atticus Finch had to go indoors to get his rifle.
Also, your police officers are on course for killing 1000 people this year. Your homicide by firearm rate is an order of magnitude greater. Yes, there's a problem with them. The bigger problem is the fuckhead civilians with guns.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Leave the fucking gun in the car.
To be stolen by a passing criminal.
Leave it at home in a very well locked cabinet.
Better still, don't have any guns and deal with rattlesnakes another way. I was brought up where snakes lived in the garage, we carried snakebite kits and that was it.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I understand that in the US Up to 100 children a year die from accidental shootings. I wonder how that compares with the number of rattlesnake attacks?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
For some added perspective:
"In gun debate, it's urban vs. rural: In parts of the country, shooting and hunting aren't a way of life. They are life." (USA Today, Feb. 27, 2013)
Study: "Why own a gun? Protection is now top reason"--Section 3: Gun Ownership Trends and Demographics (Pew Research Center, March 12, 2013)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
According to the CDC between 7000-8000 people a year are bitten by venomous snakes, with about 5 fatalities.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
the fact that a lot of gun owners either live or spend a significant amount of time in rural areas, while a lot of gun control advocates have never and would never fire a gun and don't see why anyone should.
OK, enlighten me. Why does where someone live make a difference? I know a few people who live, or have lived, in rural areas. All but one of them never thought about owning a gun (the exception was someone who shot clay pigeons, an activity he'd been doing before he moved out of town). Most of them felt safer living in the sticks with their nearest neighbour quarter of a mile away than living in town. OK, none of them were/are farmers who had to potentially deal with a fox in the chickens or something similar - but, I bet your "lot of gunowners" aren't farmers either.
Hang on. I am UK based and grew around guns. We have always had guns at home, rifles for shooting game, mostly pheasant, but my father has shot deer with the same rifle (to kill a badly poached deer that was injured and walking around with gangrene). My father shoots for the pot, as part of a shooting syndicate and has been asked to do some vermin control by local farmers (ferrets gone feral, mink).
I remember, back before Hungerford, guns just lived in the cloakroom, propped up with the coats (the ammunition was locked away). My best school friend was a farmer's daughter and her brother was into shooting, and again we were casually clay pigeon shooting with no controls when I was a teenager. Just set the trap up in a convenient field and played around. That one I would have liked more time to try rather than the few goes I got before we drifted off to do something else.
The UK has progressively increased the protections around guns. Hungerford banned the ownership of semi-automatic weapons by individuals. Dunblane banned the home ownership of handguns. Dunblane meant that my friends who competition shoot had to find different ways of storing the handguns for range shooting. These are members of Bisley and members of the Olympic teams. One of my friends was until recently a member of the GB 300m squad.
These days, to continue owning a rifle to hunt game, the licensing is far more rigorous. It requires medical certificates, police checks to check that the gun is locked in a proper gun cabinet with the ammunition locked away somewhere else. That there are signed agreements from the local farmers and other members of the shooting syndicate to agree that this is what the gun is used for. And the police check all of this before issuing a gun licence. (I haven't been forever, but I suspect the gun now has to be locked away while being transported.)
And yes, I have shot handguns on a shooting range - I'm crap at that one. I'm not so bad with a rifle, but don't get the time or practice to want to push it.
But this has been progressive following shooting incidents. We started with casual ownership of guns in the UK.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Hang on.
Hang on yourself. So, you know different people from me. So what? What's wrong with my statement that the people I know who live/have lived in the countryside don't automatically long for the opportunity to fill their home up with guns? I don't know the statistics for the UK, but the impression from what I've seen of shooting estates in Scotland is that the majority of people coming to shoot a deer or a brace of grouse are not locals, and probably live in urban areas.
Hence, my conclusion that a) the desire to fire guns is not restricted to those who live in the countryside but includes a lot of townies and b) that not everyone in the countryside wants to have a gun. For the UK, of course. I was asking if it's so vastly different in the US. I can't believe it is. If only because the oft repeated "on average one privately owned gun per citizen" suggests that either everyone in the countryside owns hundreds of guns, or that a lot of those guns are owned by people living in towns.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Alan, I was pointing out you were making sweeping generalisations based on your experiences, and not everyone's were the same. In a post that pointed out that the UK gun laws have become more rigorous, gradually, following shooting incidents.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
No, the less shooty ones tend to be very comfortable with the fact that they are wearing a gun and not reach anywhere near it unless violence seems immanent.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Um, she didn't say it was good...
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
You probable aren't aware but Paternoster Square, next to St Paul's Cathedral, London, is policed by men carrying semi-automatic weapons. It looks like an inner city US scene when they come barrelling through, dropped off in an armoured van. Somewhere I have a photo.
We also have a lot of illegal guns floating around in gang culture in the UK. Better laws in the US would help us too. Most teenagers I know, and I work in the same sort of areas that Kelly does, but in the UK, and with teenagers, lust after guns, some have even handled them. Think Kidulthood. The law makes unlicensed gun ownership illegal. Guns are removed if found and the perpertrators charged with firearms offences. Mostly the kids carry knives, which are equally capable of killing. But we aren't so far off some of these situations in the inner cities in the UK.
We have the same attitudes of individualism and having to teach young people to socialise and work co-operatively. And some of the same problems of different treatments for black and mixed race or Asian teenagers, and a feeling of being picked on.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Sweeping generalisations? I was trying to address a sweeping generalisation (specifically "the fact that a lot of gun owners either live or spend a significant amount of time in rural areas") with the best of my knowledge which is that out a small sample of people in the UK who live in the country (those I know) I only know one person who has ever owned a gun - and he'd done so as a townie anyway - and the others have never to my knowledge expressed any desire to own a gun. My conclusion: that (in the UK) that sweeping generalisation is not true, and probably wouldn't be true if our gun control laws were less severe than they are.
Of course, it's a small sample. And, it's a sample limited to parts of Scotland and Northern England. And, it's in the context of gun control which means people are not exposed to guns regularly so may not develop a need to have a gun. And, it's in the context of a nation not obsessed with guns, so even if someone felt a gun would be useful they may not express that.
Is that a sufficient number of caveats to convince you that I never intended to make any sort of generalisation, but address the fucking stupid generalisation saysay had produced by giving counter evidence from the UK and asking if things are that different in the US. Have I satisfied your desire for properly expressed arguments in Hell?
Now, do you have anything Hellish to say about a culture which has resulted in more US citizens being killed by people with guns in the last 50 years than the total number of US soldiers killed in every war fought since a group of colonists decided they didn't like the British King and ditched some tea into Boston Harbour?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Alan, I have two points to make about the gun culture.
- Gun culture in the UK has changed recently, in the wake of disasters. Guns were casually owned in the UK, similarly to that of some of the US, until recently. I can remember going to country fairs and half the men were there with rifles carried broken over their arms.
- Secondly, inner city London isn't as far from the US as you fondly imagine.
I have worse stories of WW1 and WW2 guns still being stored casually in homes. Found when the houses were cleared when the old person died. I am remembering a Sten gun here, and a few other things.
[ 04. October 2015, 09:29: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Alan--
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Hang on.
Hang on yourself. So, you know different people from me. So what? What's wrong with my statement that the people I know who live/have lived in the countryside don't automatically long for the opportunity to fill their home up with guns? I don't know the statistics for the UK, but the impression from what I've seen of shooting estates in Scotland is that the majority of people coming to shoot a deer or a brace of grouse are not locals, and probably live in urban areas.
Hence, my conclusion that a) the desire to fire guns is not restricted to those who live in the countryside but includes a lot of townies and b) that not everyone in the countryside wants to have a gun. For the UK, of course. I was asking if it's so vastly different in the US. I can't believe it is. If only because the oft repeated "on average one privately owned gun per citizen" suggests that either everyone in the countryside owns hundreds of guns, or that a lot of those guns are owned by people living in towns.
I may be wrong, but I suspect that a shooting estate in the UK is very different from everyday life in rural America.
And wasn't there once a tradition in the UK to have the family weapons displayed/ready over the fireplace? Or was that a rare thing??
Oh, and where did you pick up that one gun per citizen idea, please??
BTW, I saw something on PBS about the ancestral home for a particular Scottish clan, still lived in and maintained by the chieftain and his wife. They had a jaw-dropping display of weaponry, and I thought at the time that there was quite enough there to start a real revolution. I'm not saying that's the same as an American farmer having a bunch of guns...but maybe there's something of the same impulse?
I'm not saying the US obsession with guns is at all good. But, as someone else pointed out, it isn't unique to us. And we sure didn't invent a fascination/obsession with weaponry.
![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
I may be wrong, but I suspect that a shooting estate in the UK is very different from everyday life in rural America.
Yes, of course it is. Of course, so is most of the UKs countryside - with the exception of the moors of northern England, Wales and Scotland our countryside is almost exclusively farmed. Our only semi-wilderness areas are also those shooting estates ...
quote:
And wasn't there once a tradition in the UK to have the family weapons displayed/ready over the fireplace? Or was that a rare thing??
Yes, as has been pointed out, the UK was much more relaxed about guns in the past. I don't know about over the fireplace, but display cabinets for hunting rifles or a rack for the shotgun by the door (or, just propped in the corner) would be normal for those who owned guns. But, things have changed considerably.
quote:
Oh, and where did you pick up that one gun per citizen idea, please??
Well, according to Wikipedia it's only 0.88 (in 2014). What's 12% among friends? Almost one gun per citizen.
quote:
BTW, I saw something on PBS about the ancestral home for a particular Scottish clan, still lived in and maintained by the chieftain and his wife. They had a jaw-dropping display of weaponry, and I thought at the time that there was quite enough there to start a real revolution. I'm not saying that's the same as an American farmer having a bunch of guns...but maybe there's something of the same impulse?
Although, the armoury of a clan chief wouldn't be exclusively for personal use. That would also be the stock of arms he'd hand out to the clan if they needed to go to war. Certainly before the 18th century reform of the clan system the men of the clan effectively formed a militia (whether it was 'well organised' is another matter), not all of whom would have had their own weapons.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Golden Key, I'm not talking shooting estates. I've never lived or stayed on a shooting estate. That's a different thing entirely.
I am talking about ordinary farms and village houses, in Northamptonshire, for growing up as a teenager.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Re display of weapons over the fireplace, and at the clan home:
I wasn't just thinking of guns. More of swords, battle axes, etc.
I think there were few, if any, guns in the clan armory.
I should've been more specific. There's a fascination with weapons that goes far farther back than guns.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
CK--
I know. Alan was the one who mentioned shooting estates.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Re display of weapons over the fireplace, and at the clan home:
I wasn't just thinking of guns. More of swords, battle axes, etc.
I think there were few, if any, guns in the clan armory.
I should've been more specific. There's a fascination with weapons that goes far farther back than guns.
Well, displays of weapons were also for political reasons as much as anything else. A big display showed any visitors "look how many men I can provide with top quality weapons". Getting someone to think twice about tangling with you before meeting on the battlefield is good all around.
The main weapon of the Scottish clans was the claymore (muckle great sword). In close combat far more effective than a musket (which at that point is not much more than a club). By the time there was widespread use of rifles the clan system, and indeed the feudal system in England, was breaking down and the regular army was doing all the fighting rather than local militia - and, especially in the Highlands, militia more likely to fight each other than any threat from outside the country.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Actually, the claymore was very expensive and only Highland 'officers' could afford them.
It's estimated that only around 1 in 8 of Bonny Prince Charlie's army - at its height - had the traditional claymore, targe (shield) and dirk. The rest were armed with farm implements or with French muskets when a shipment arrived.
After Culloden, Cumberland estimated that some 2,000 swords were collected from the field. That was a higher proportion than 1 in 8 - but still indicates that most of the Jacobites weren't wielding claymores. Recent battlefield archaeology has revealed that the rebels fired off far more musket and pistol rounds than had previously been thought ... but somewhat ineffectively because they were all bunched together in a mass and not arrayed in ranks like the government troops in order to provide mass volleyed fire.
Only the first two or three frontline men on the rebel side could actually fire their muskets or pistols without the danger of shooting their own comrades.
Anyhow - as has been said, weaponry tended to have a status value in the Scottish Highlands and most of the peasant farmers would have been unarmed. There was a clampdown on privately owned arms across the region after the 1715 rebellion - so there wouldn't have been a huge amount of hardware available in 1745.
Even at the time of the English Civil War, the first major engagement at Edge Hill saw an entire Welsh regiment on the royalist side armed only with farm implements.
County armouries were generally pretty sparse - because of the cost of maintenance. Nobody wanted to pay for the upkeep.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
In a twisted sense, they're both about individual rights/freedoms. People are free to wear guns, and people are free to honor their conscience and not tangentially participate in a same-sex wedding by baking a cake.
Another take on "individual freedom" -- you need to watch to the very end to see why I'm posting this on this thread.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
I grew up in the countryside, in the 70s and 80s. I knew members of the minor aristocracy, and members of the farming community, and members of the hunt. I went to school with them and their children.
The first time I fired a gun was at (my 2nd) university, in a three-way competition between the Clay Pigeon, Target Shooting and Archery clubs.
The idea that the 'countryside' has guns and thinks nothing particular of it isn't true. In my day, a few people had them, and the great majority didn't. (The local hunt could fuck right off too. The only reason they could continue to do what they did was because two people owned all the land, and wanted it to. Many were entirely ambivalent, and many more against.)
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Very few people in the countryside have guns now. It has become far less common than it was even when I was growing up. My point is that we have changed from the situation when farmers often did have guns. Walking in the wrong place, or even in the right place, it wasn't uncommon to be accosted by a farmer with a gun on his arm when I was a child and teenager. Nowadays guns are rare and carefully locked away when not in use.
We did it gradually, stage by stage. As we saw the need arise. First the automatic weapons, then the hand guns. But where I am now, in countryside just outside London, I have heard of kids handling illegal guns both in this local environment and in the inner city. (Damn difficult to act on hearsay, however convincing.)
(I probably first shot a gun at 13 or 14, clay shooting. Did a lot more beating before that. The shooting range and handguns was at university.)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I did clay shooting too as a teenager. My grandfather hunted. However, his rifle was registered, he needed to go through physical and mental checks every few years to have his licence renewed ... You know, the sensible things.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Actually, the claymore was very expensive and only Highland 'officers' could afford them.
Which is exactly why they're the ones that got put on display to impress visitors.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Addictions are notoriously hard to break. Meanwhile, the death toll keeps rising.
I've seen the odd recent Hollywood offering where gun violence is so graphic I turn it off. But then these youngsters are going to get it off the Net these days anyway.
When you think the West was won by the gun, it's almost as if the Spirits of dead Indians have come back to haunt them. I mean something is possessing these killer kids, and I just don,t buy all the banging on about mental illness.
If America really wants to change it's culture then it will take something more massive even than prohibition, (not forgetting of course that the 1920s alcohol ban failed totally).
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
(not forgetting of course that the 1920s alcohol ban failed totally).
Not true. We had a thread some time back about someone's kid (and I mean like 15 or 16) who fell into a ditch in a drunken stupor on the way back from a party and slept it off all night in the ditch. The Brits were all, "ah, childhood memories" and the Americans were horrified. There would appear to be a casual attitude toward drunkenness, I think, in the UK that has gone from the US.
It also gave rise to the root beer industry which produced some really good sasparilla-based soft drinks.
Of course Prohibition also produced or greatly enhanced our organized crime scene, so it's a mixed blessing to be sure.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Alan, I was pointing out you were making sweeping generalisations based on your experiences, and not everyone's were the same. In a post that pointed out that the UK gun laws have become more rigorous, gradually, following shooting incidents.
Alan's comment made me fervently wish that the next generations of kids in the US will be able to say the same thing about law enforcement with no weapons.
As for rattlesnakes-- there are these things called sticks. Big fat sticks for whacking things. Snakes existed a long time before guns did, have been managing just fine without them, and no weapon in the world is going to replace a lack of vigilance, anyway.
I think the big elephant in the room is mass media-- how do we convince ourselves that weapons are sexy, anyway? Well, that's easy-- every definitive "alpha" celebrated by movies and tv waves a gun around. The same people who sniff about gun control cheer when Indiana Jones plugs the guy with the saber.
Eyerolls to commence, but another front line story-- the place I am working at is in the nexus of high gang activity. That might be a lesser problem to the fact that there is also a high number of overworked parents letting the TV be the babysitter, or letting kids stay up way too late to watch shows kids have no business watching just to have some semblace of family time after their 14 hour day. ( All of these kids are Walking Dead fans. Jesus.)
At the start of the year, we had the worst problem arising from simple "gun play" escalating into real, physical punching and kicking and clawing. Because TV rules are, you don't stop the fight until the bad guy can't get up. If you are not the clear victor, you must be the bad guy. It was so bad that a couple of kids literally did not know how to enter a group playing anything-- building sand castles, blocks, water play-- without knocking someone's building over or or just slapping them in the face. It was more than just normal impulse control problems, it was like these kids honestly didn't see any way to engage with others that didn't involve a fight.
So, this was a " modest proposal" I thought up, because I really do wonder what would happen on the kid level if we pulled this off. Let's say people in the UK got organized enough to ask the EU (?) to issue this statement.
quote:
We, the undersigned representatives of the UK stand in solidarity with the more than 10,000 US victims of gun violence per year. We abhor the gun culture that poisons the US and enslaves its citizens, and we reject American mass media's atrempt to promote such culture, by normalizing and celebrating gun violence. To that end, we encourage the citizens of our own country to boycott movies and television in which gun violence is glorified, or is used as the primary solution to conflict. We also encourage them to immediately cease purchasing any merchandise related to such media.
We ask the citizens of the countries undersigned to commit to three years of said boycott, and we heartily encourage like minded Americans to participate.
To ( ironically) quote Quentin Tarantino, people don't listen till you start fucking with their paycheck. If by some miracle a campaign like this worked, I bet even Jerry Bruckheimer would suddenly become a flower sniffing hippie.
And my bet is, by year three, American teachers would start seeing a difference in the classroom. Maybe not a complete turnaround, but a difference.
People hear stories before they hear facts. Much cerebral reasoning can be undone by sitting someone down to watch " The Purge" Why is it we can spend all this time expressing mystification about US gun culture without holding Hollywood's feet to the fire, at least a little? They make a good deal of money off of American collective fear.
It would be a hard row to hoe, though, because the entity we would be confronting would also have the biggest tools for shutting us up.
[ 04. October 2015, 16:32: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Kelly, you probably didn't read all my links, but one of them was to a story from last month, describing how our inner city London gangs are tooling themselves up by mail order guns from the States.
We need to sign a letter that doesn't just ask that guns aren't glorified in films and TV, but also that guns aren't posted to our gangs (who get their mores for the same films and TV that your guys do).
[ 04. October 2015, 16:43: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
That, too, but I guess I kind of thought that was obvious. And I was wondering about how gun culture is spreading to the UK. That one comedy a while back featuring Brit cops with guns really made me uneasy.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
We have always had a bit of criminal gun culture.
Guns aren't normally carried by the police. For gun use they have to be signed out with special licensed police marksmen, and an investigation if anyone is shot. However, the one thing that scared me badly this summer was seeing a patrol in Paternoster Square, next to St Paul's Cathedral, armed with automatic weapons, openly cradled in their arms and holstered. I am not sure if they were a private company, like G4S, but it was heavy armament for the UK. Paternoster Square is a private shopping and business area. The guys were dropped at one side, barrelled through and were picked up the other side by the same armoured van.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
an investigation if anyone is shot.
An investigation if the gun is even fired. Every bullet has to be accounted for.
quote:
However, the one thing that scared me badly this summer was seeing a patrol in Paternoster Square, next to St Paul's Cathedral, armed with automatic weapons, openly cradled in their arms and holstered. I am not sure if they were a private company, like G4S, but it was heavy armament for the UK. Paternoster Square is a private shopping and business area. The guys were dropped at one side, barrelled through and were picked up the other side by the same armoured van.
I'm guessing City of London police. They wouldn't have been a private company, because that would have been massively and definitively illegal.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
an investigation if anyone is shot.
An investigation if the gun is even fired. Every bullet has to be accounted for.
Although accountability is questionable. Most departments have only internal accountability, and the Blue Wall is a thing.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
an investigation if anyone is shot.
An investigation if the gun is even fired. Every bullet has to be accounted for.
Although accountability is questionable. Most departments have only internal accountability, and the Blue Wall is a thing.
It is, but every single police use of a firearm is reported and investigated automatically to an independent organisation, the IPCC. There are inevitable arguments about their actual independence and their methodology, some of which are well-founded. Reform is probably long-overdue.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
This is what we don't have. Cops usually do internal investigation of shootings in the US.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
This is what we don't have. Cops usually do internal investigation of shootings in the US.
Wish I'd said that. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
... And in case you didn't know, the Blue Wall is a thing.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
... And in case you didn't know, the Blue Wall is a thing.
Don't push it, woman. ![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
If only because the oft repeated "on average one privately owned gun per citizen" suggests that either everyone in the countryside owns hundreds of guns, or that a lot of those guns are owned by people living in towns.
Most people who own guns own several. Some are family heirlooms, some have different uses. If you hunt, it's certainly not unreasonable to own three or four rifles and a couple of shotguns per person in your household: each gun has a different use. If you carry a handgun for self-defense, you probably have three or so (something small to conceal in summer clothing, or in a small evening bag; something with more stopping power as a normal carry weapon, and a large .45 or something.
If you told me that the average US gun owner owned 10 guns, I wouldn't be surprised. A hundred would be unusual.
(I certainly know a few people in suburbia with guns. They get used once or twice a year, maybe.)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
We had a thread some time back about someone's kid (and I mean like 15 or 16) who fell into a ditch in a drunken stupor on the way back from a party and slept it off all night in the ditch. The Brits were all, "ah, childhood memories" and the Americans were horrified. There would appear to be a casual attitude toward drunkenness, I think, in the UK that has gone from the US.
Passing out drunk in a ditch (or worse) seems to be pretty much par for the course at college frat parties. The main difference is that Americans tend to be a couple of years older when they go through their stupid-with-alcohol phase.
(I'd believe that Brits drank more, on average, and that there were more young American adults who either didn't drink or drunk very little, but I seem to find a pretty casual attitude towards drunkenness wherever college kids gather together.)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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