No, but then again we don't get a lot of U.K. news here, unless it is high profile.

I know when the last stabbing was though, and those are supposedly on the rise.

Oops! Sorry, Derrick Bird. He used a rifle and a shotgun.



Violent crime recorded by the police soared by 16 per cent last year to nearly 700,000 offences, new figures show.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) covering the 12 months to the end of September last year showed 699,800 recorded incidents of violence against the person compared with 604,100 offences in the previous 12 months.

The data also showed a new record level of rapes recorded by police in England and Wales.

There were 24,043 rapes in recorded crime figures for the year, a rise of 31 per cent on the previous 12 months and 81 per cent higher than a decade earlier.

The figure beat the 22,000 figures recorded in the previous quarter's data and suggests that continuing confidence in police and the courts is leading growing numbers of rape victims to come forward.

Sounds like people, in general, are just more violent today. Why?
 

Sure beats the snot out of fighting them with a fountain pen and some papyrus over a cup of tea...

One target pistol I purchased years ago to - target shoot. I was given an old Italian rifle by a friend after his father died. It is debatable whether it is a serviceable firearm or not.

I decided to buy a larger bore pistol with which to target shoot, so purchased a 9mm. My son has expressed an interest in hunting, so I may buy a shotgun. We have a dearth plethora of deer around here, so we may take up the sport, requiring rifles. I won't shoot animals just to shoot them, rather, they must be used for food by us or it isn't going to happen.

Why do you care whether or not I own guns or not, living over there as you do? Just because you can't own a gun doesn't mean that I should not.

** As kos alertedly brought to my intention, I indicated that we have few horned automobile stoppers (see strikethrough); this is not true as Pennsylvania has many more deer actually than available land can realistically support due to human beings spreading like a virus.

Maybe it's because, as you allude to in your post, more crime is getting reported. We could be just as violent as we've ever been, but more people have more faith in the prosecution and support systems, so feel they can speak out.

The statistics are only as good as the figures they're based on.

Course, it could all be violent movies and video games. Let's just blame Doom and have done with it. :C

Dearth means scarcity. You going to kill the last bambi? You heartless bastard :C

That's not my reason for asking, or caring really. I'm just curious about your reason for wanting to own. Hunting, target shooting etc seems fair enough.

I was more curious if you were to use "safety" as your reason. I know Ken feels the need to own guns from a safety POV. I suppose the safety comes down to your local area, neighbourhood, crime rates etc.

I played Doom a lot years ago. Do you mean to say that I am about to go out and shoot up a Christmas tree lot or a knitting party? Ye Gods and little fishes!  8-O

I realised that as soon as I posted it, but I neglected to fix it, had to scurry off to work after posting and looking at the time. We have a plethora of Pecora. That said, if we can't use the meat, we cannot harvest it.

Safety would be a secondary or even tertiary reason to [my] owning a gun. I would say that there exists a certain percentage of Americans who are rather "cowboyish" about their guns; I suspect a certain percentage of those may have Freudian issues.

We have a glut of deer in the Highlands. Land owners take as much as they can realistically use/sell, but there's still too many according to some (mainly complaining about the destruction they cause to forestry and their tendency to jump in front of cars).

Some idiots are even campaigning to reintroduce a top level predator like the wolf to keep them under control.

Wolves!? I'm sure they'll be happy when they venture into the cities like the foxes do.

We'll need a higher level predator to take care of the wolves. Before long we'll have dinosaurs, so I'm all for it.

Two words:

shark

nado

If anyone's interested, there is an actual campaign for this. Weirdos.

http://www.wolvesandhumans.org/wolves/is_time_right_for_wolf_reintroduction.htm

Why's his nipple bleeding, did he run a marathon in the wrong sort of t-shirt?

I don't think it's his/her/its blood.

Werewolves are mythical. Unfortunately, gun-crazed Americans aren't. And now...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/media/guntv-plans-24-hour-sales.html?_r=0

I don't believe you would ever use your guns to fight your government

From what I have seen, most USians seem to be trained from an early age to do exactly what any Police officer tells them, I cannot imagine you refusing to comply - and even more so should we talking about State or Federal level Officers. 

We are limited here with the number of deer we can harvest, although I suppose a private landowner would be allowed to protect property from damage.

The tree-huggers here generally complain loud and long at the killing of Bambi, but you don't hear much from them when somebody hits one that runs in front of a car. I suppose that might be OK in the whole Circle of Life™ thingy. What they tend to forget is, too many deer competing for too little food results in death anyway. Since we continue building open spaces at a rampant rate, the deer have no choice but to move, generally in an undesirable (for man) new location. The fact that they refuse to use Common Sense Birth Control means the horney horns reproduce with reckless abandon during the ruts. After a couple of weeks, they are introduced forcefully to an automobile.

That's where you would be wrong. We did it back in 1776, for starters - and we won. I think it was also done again in 1861 if I recall correctly.
 

What show are you watching? If this is the case, why are the police shooting so many non-compliant people? I'd suggest to you that you don't know "most USians"; I'd suggest to you that, given events going back to the 60s, that you are incorrect in your assumption that we do "exactly what a police officer tells" us. Police departments across the nation are now viewed with a measure of suspicion due to many examples - especially recently - of undue force and violence being used. More people today are challenging the police in a nonviolent way because they have informed themselves about what the police can and cannot do.