Cyprus-Forum.com

[Nikitas]

Ah Bill,

Blaming the means, and not punising the person committing the crime is the politcially correctt way of doing things.

So the system goes something like this- person A commits a crime with a gun, ban all guns, knives etc. A mechanical way of approaching a social problem and it gives everyone the satisfaction that they have DONE something, even if it is absolutely nothing.

Like you pointed out, every male in Cyprus keeps an assault rifle, but armed crime is at a negligible rate. In Crete it is the custom to give every boy a pistol at his christening. The armed crime rate in Crete is one of the lowest in Europe. But you mention these facts and you get prefab asnwers about the "gun culture" whatever that may be.

In a post above I mentioned something about risk. Do we dare as society to place the risk of committing a crime, at the time a crime is being committed, squarely on the shoulders of the asshole committing the crime? If yes we are on the way out of the crime -yobbery problem. If not ,then things are going to get worse everywhere.

And in case anyone wonders, yes I do shoot (clays and the occasional rabbit) , and no, I do not advocate universal gun ownership and all that Rambo crap.

[raysue]

Bill,if you not being able to go clay pigeon shooting can save AT LEAST one life for the ban which i would like to see (along with most people) then it is a price worth paying. build more prisons i say,and yes,it costs money i know,but millions are wasted every day,so whats a few more gone if it is for a good use?

[zan]

I don't really want to get involved in this discussion but can I just say that you do not have to ban clay pigeon shooting if there is a ban on guns. The guns can be kept at the club which is the best place for them.

[Steve0505]

Banning anything is never the answer. managing it is the solution

[Southerner]

Not sure about the gang culture,but the government should ban weapons to EVERYONE except the forces,!

Are you saying that you wish to take away the pleasures of clay pigeon and target shooting just because a section of society have become gun crazy .
Let me please remind you that with the exception of a couple of instances the gun crime in the UK is the result of illegal guns bought on the street corner ~~ banning weapons for everyone will never take away gun crime and guns will still be available on the inner city streets ~ the only people to suffer will be the legitimate gun owners who have a purpose and valid reason for owning a gun.
How many guns do you think there are in Cyprus ? ~~ You realise of course that virtually every Cypriot has a hunting gun and those on the national guard reserve have a G3 auto somewhere in the house ( usually under the bed ) so why haven't the Cypriots gone gun crazy ?
It's not the legitimate guns that need removing it's the idiots buying them on the street corner with the intent of using them to harm others that need sorting out and sorting out quick before the situation gets more out of control than it is now.
And as the prisons seem to be over crowded please refer to my previous posts about using old disused army and RAF camps to set up a hell on earth correction centre employing ex army personnel with a open remit and no come back from the liberal namby pamby pc brigade .
Bill

Bill prior to the Hungerford and Dunblane massacres people could own all types of weapons AK47d etc these things should never have been in public hands because they were killing weapons not sporting firearms.
The people who suffered afterwards were the genuine sporting fraternity such as our Olympic champion Malc Cooper who now has to train abroad because his target pistol is now banned in this country.
What is ludicrous is that a friend of mine who is a member of our local target shooting club is legaly allowed to own a revolver the size of a Colt Buntline special.

[CopperLine]

Those of the "lock 'em up and treat 'em harsh" brigade might want to stop and ask why, in the UK and the USA which have some of the highest rates of imprisonment and toughest sentencing regimes, the rescidivism (re-offending after release) is so high. If you want punishment regimes to stop people re-offending then be sure to know that locking up and treating convicts doesn't actually work. (To be sure, if you just want to make their lives miserable irrespective of the consequences then put them in the slammer and make their life hell).

The question of prison and sentencing has got pretty much nothing to do with the so-called and much maligned 'human rights' brigade.

On a related note, and something no one has mentioned here (which is itself a reflection of the bog standard hang em and flog em brigade), how is it that convictions for rape in the UK are at their lowest point for some 30 years or so ? How come the reporting of rape is at its lowest for that period ? Those who are so appalled and mouth off about yob culture and the need for harsh punishment regimes might just bear in mind that most rapes - a violent crime - occur between spouses/partners, are most likely committed by persons already known by the victim. Basically all the research suggests that the incidence of rape has not decreased but what has happened is that women - because the vast majority of victims of rape are women - who have been raped have no confidence in the criminal justice system.

My suggestion is that those who (rightly) bemoan the failings of the criminal justice system forget about boot camp and the like and put their efforts behind measures to fix the abysmal record in the prosecution and conviction of rapists. After all rape is one of the most common, most unreported and most violent of crimes.

[Southerner]

CopperLine if prison meant hard labour to pay for your keep how many criminals would be so ready to reoffend.
You can't pick which laws to enforce, all laws should be enforced.
Sreet parking in North Derbyshire has now become anywhere, anyhow anytime to the point where it is now becoming downright dangerous to approach junctions due to parked cars.
This car parked like this just 25yards from my gate most nights even after the police were informed, in doing so it broke several laws; yet the driver was never prosecuted.
All laws have to be upheld

[Bill]

Bill,if you not being able to go clay pigeon shooting can save AT LEAST one life for the ban which i would like to see (along with most people) then it is a price worth paying. build more prisons i say,and yes,it costs money i know,but millions are wasted every day,so whats a few more gone if it is for a good use?

Absolute rubbish and you know it is ~

I personally would like to see a total zero tolerance policy on drinking and driving ( an accepted cause of a good few deaths on the road ) but it will never happen because it's not a vote catcher and wouldn't go down well with the majority ~~ I do enjoy a drink from time to time but never drive as I think my driving is bad enough let alone bringing alcohol into the equation.

Gun owners are very much in the minority ( legal gun owners that is ) so it's ok to persecute them and take away their guns and their pursuit of a legitimate hobby to give the majority a feel good factor that it's solved the gun crime situation and nobody will be killed or injured with a gun again

At a guesstimate I would say there are many more illegal guns on the street than there are in legal ownership

I suppose you will be calling for a ban on kitchen knives / baseball bats / cars and even pairs of tights as they can all be used as instruments of death in the wrong hands.

I will leave it at that and not comment further into the rights or wrongs of legitimate gun ownership because it makes absolutely no difference to the problem we have of gun related deaths and injuries on the UK streets.

Bill

[CopperLine]

Southerner,
The evidence from those US states where effectively they practice what you propose -

hard labour to pay for your keep

- is that reoffending rates are still as high.

[Southerner]

Southerner,
The evidence from those US states where effectively they practice what you propose -

hard labour to pay for your keep

- is that reoffending rates are still as high.

And do they only have to serve half of the actual sentnce same as us, sorry but I got fed up with Thatcher's favourite get out "this is how they do it in the US" everytime she introduced something unpleasant.