Firearms amnesty as UK gun crime rises 27% this year

If such is not believed, take it up with law enforcement directly.

https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q589.htm

Q589: Are there any legal self defence products that I can buy?

The only fully legal self defence product at the moment is a rape alarm. These are not expensive and can be bought from most local police stations or supermarkets.


There are other self defence products which claim to be legal (e.g. non toxic sprays), however, until a test case is brought before the court, we cannot confirm their legality or endorse them. If you purchase one you must be aware that if you are stopped by the police and have it in your possession there is always a possibility that you will be arrested and detained until the product, its contents and legality can be verified.


However, accepting there is a lot of concern about street crime, we can try to clarify matters a little by putting forward the following points.

• You must not get a product which is made or adapted to cause a person injury. Possession of such a product in public (and in private in specific circumstances) is against the law.
• There are products which squirt a relatively safe, brightly coloured dye (as opposed to a pepper spray). A properly designed product of this nature, used in the way it is intended, should not be able to cause an injury.
• However, be aware that even a seemingly safe product, deliberately aimed and sprayed in someone's eyes, would become an offensive weapon because it would be used in a way that was intended to cause injury.
• Any products bought from abroad have a greater chance of being illegal.

The above advice is given in good faith, you must make your own decision and this website cannot be held responsible for the consequences of the possession, use or misuse of any self defence product. See Q85 for information on the use of reasonable force.

According to law enforcement, anything that can cause injury when used is an offensive weapon, and thus illegal.

All available information indicates that the following story is an example of the rule, rather than the exception.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-red-handed-arrested-defending-property.html

A businessman who attacked two thieves caught red-handed in a night-time raid was arrested after defending his property, a court has heard.

Andrew Woodhouse, 44, was today on trial facing assault charges on the two raiders he found stealing diesel from his business.

A jury heard how Woodhouse grabbed a fence post one was carrying as a weapon - and used it to fight back against them.

The father-of-five - who says he has repeatedly been a victim of crime at his gardening company - kept hold of the two burglars until police arrived.

But the court was told it was Woodhouse who was then arrested and accused of using excessive force.

The thieves ended up with £75 fines - but businessman Woodhouse could face a prison sentence if he is found guilty of attacking them.

 

And the result of this trial was....

£5 says he'll get off scot free. As he should.


I've been featured in the Daily Mail for this sort of thing. My arrest made the news, but the dropping of charges against me, didn't.
Man isn't charged for not breaking the law, not such a good story.

It is the rule that the use of violence in this country will precipitate arrest and investigation. You don't get to hospitalise people here without eyebrows being raised. Such behaviour here is not the social norm.
It is not the rule that self defence will result in impeachment. Should his story prove believable, he will walk away innocent in the eyes of the law.
In my own example, the police granted me a larger gun license at the end of it.

I would most certainly argue that one of the side effects of increased gun ownership is decreased burglary.
But it is also in my opinion, matched with increased homicide. So it may simply not be a price worth paying. Opinions differ.

 

yeah its hard to understand someone living THERE, being so Obsessed about our laws HERE.

 

when I SHOT one of two thugs trying to mug me, I was not charged and cops in the town bought me drinks for months anytime they saw me in a bar.

 

Sweet !

I would have treated you to a steak dinner too.

 

Agreed.
Just googled death by gun,latest available by Wikipedia USA 10.54 per 100000 UK 0.23.

 

Members of the police force here, also took me out for a day of drinking after my own incident.
The Prime Minister quoted me in parliament and all the rest.

People standing up to crime in this country is widely applauded.

 

Such statistics tend to exclude the nations that have strict firearm-related restrictions, a government with sufficient power to enforce them, and yet still experience significantly high levels of firearm-related violence and crime, for whatever reason.

 

I don't live in fear of knife wielding criminals at all. I'll go further, I work with knife wielding criminals daily and indeed am one myself.
Nor do I fear facing them or indeed gun wielders barehanded. I'm from Cambridge.

If I ever wished to face off with criminals with a gun in my hand, I am perfectly able to do so. And indeed have done.
Bare handed is enough for me. Hug your gun if you wish. I understand the comfort it brings. I do not live in such fear of others however. I do not wish to either. It's a **** way to live.

 

In my state I have really good weapons to deal with thugs-including a SIG MCX M4 rifle with a flashlight and red dot sight sitting right behind me in my office

 

Please explain the highlighted part,


"But it is also in my opinion, matched with increased homicide."

How is that true ?

Homicide is Murder and a crime, people defending themselves is not Murder or a crime in most places.

 

Emotional twaddle, I have no fear of others nor hide behind a gun, however, I have a sidearm in reserve for a really bad attack.

Which is better, for me to kill an attacker barehanded ?
Or draw my sidearm and hold the attacker for the Police ?

 

Clearly you fear others. You keep a gun for defence.
There is no shame in living in fear.

Circumstances may force this upon you.

If you pull a gun on me I will kill you or you will kill me. You will have escalated the situation to one of lethal force.
If you wish to hold someone only, try a rugby tackle perhaps.

A strong blow to the temple is my preferred method of subdual. But you might also consider various forms of locks and holds. Kicks to the balls are traditional etc.
Breaking ankles and elbows if necessary.
As i see it, guns are for killing. Not waving at people to assert your domination. By doing so you have introduced a level of violence into the scenario that may backfire on you. Take you places you did not wish to go.

If you are carrying a sidearm, you are not in my eyes holding it "in reserve". Far from it.
You are actively looking for trouble. You have made a conscious decision to seek it out. I would not hang out with you.
Leave it at home mate.

 

More unfounded twaddle.
I am Retired from the Official force and am allowed my sidearm thereof.
You straddle the fence between admitting you are part of some Security Service or the like.

You obviously disdain firearms and cast aspersions on those weilding them, and that wide brush paints you as well.
Your emotional twaddle and accusations are most unseemly and unwarranted in my case.
I am over 50 and my ability to unarmed defense is no match for younger stronger assailants.

You do as you wish,
I will continue to defend myself as I have always done, no dominance or any such humbug.

 

Carrying a lethal weapon is carrying a lethal weapon. Be you policeman or wannabe policeman,
You have it in mind to use lethal force on another person and must be respected as such.

A policeman with a gun? Yes, I feel a strong disdain for you.
Few things disgust me more.

Defend yourself? From whom?
Who exactly are you expecting to attack you? Paranoia or do you really have such enemies in your daily life?
I live free of such concerns. My society is peaceable in nature.

And yes dominance. You are over 50 and see a gun as your best medium for physical dominance over another person.

I'm 47. My confidence may be misplaced, but the lifestyle this confidence affords me is a good one.
Hug your gun. I've been known to do so myself. But that kind of trouble must come to me. I don't go looking for it.

@the other guy.
Yes knock out blows come with the risk of brain damage. Gunshot wounds however are vastly more risky.
If I wanted to kill or maim, the temple would not be my aim.

 

Well, you sure have issues, even offering to kill me, my my such violent talk.
I am not as violently inclined as you are.
You gratuitously offer to do violence and injure and that is something I eschew, and my track record speaks volumes as I have never escalated a conflict,
I use alternative methods whenever possible.

Carry on then.

 

You feel I have offered to kill you?

I feel you are paranoid.

How often do you use alternative methods?
That you have used them at all, marks you as a man of violence.

I am willing to use violence but I don't live the kind of life that precipitates the scenario's in which those responses are triggered.
Indeed I very much avoid them. I aspire to be a gentleman.
I have the capacity for violence, as do we all, but not the intent.

You on the other hand appear to have spent a lifetime actively seeking those situations out.
You aspire to be a crime fighter. A professional gunman. And for you in your culture, you feel this is something to be publicly admired. While in my culture you should more expect to be publicly despised for that. Feared even.

One of the more obvious and simple ways I avoid them is not to routinely walk around with gun. Is not to feel physically enabled to put myself in such circumstances without the very highest of risks to myself. I set the price to myself of being in those circumstances be very high indeed. It is quite motivational.

 

What's the total intentional death rate?

 

I do not fathom your nature, you know nothing about me, yet you assume much in spite of knowing nothing.

You have been condescending and insulting because why ?
Firearms ?

Yet you have them too, and have admitted using them.

You also take the moral high ground in spite of having the same access to firearms.

You can insult me as much as you wish,
I have been respectful of you and will continue to do so, as quality will always tell.

And if I hug anything, it would be My Gold card credentials, stamped ***RETIRED***
In bold letters, but valid non the less.
Makes encounters much easier.

So very strange.

 

Oh I see.

Yes it's usually the criminal element of society who want their victims to be disarmed. Criminals are, after all, innately cowards, which is why they do their violent crime in groups.

Thanks for the insight into the basis of your opinion.

 

I know as much about you as you tell me.
It may not trigger the desired response in me you were aiming for.

I don't feel my comments toward you have been any more or less disrespectful to you than yours to me.


Yes I have and use firearms.

And yet I am from a different culture. One which you routinely misrepresent.
My aim is only to correct you when you do so.

I'm sorry if it doesn't further your political agenda.

 

Your obsession with gun crime is not shared by the people of my country.
I am doing my best to educate you on this cultural variance but you seem unable to accept our national differences.

Everyone at work is issued with a knife. Most crimes here are not violent in nature.
So while fear of violent crime may be a big justification in the American gun debate, it doesn't much apply to life in the UK. Sorry.

Draw your own conclusions as to why, we all do.

 

Oh I couldn't care less if you want to give up your right to defend yourself with a firearm. Since you admit you're involved with criminality, actually, I do care less.

Nearly all of our murder rate is done by gangs in this country and drug dealers killing other gangs and drug dealers.

If you want to live in a country where the important people are protected by guns, and the rest of you defend yourself with your little butter knives, knock yourself out.

 

I was of the impression that most murders in your country and mine were domestic in nature. Not linked to crime or organised crime in any way at all.

I have no desire to give up my right or ability to defend myself with a firearm. We all have that right here and I don't feel it to be under any threat.
I live in a country were most people don't feel threatened. We don't feel any particular need to defend ourselves at all.
The lack of gun ownership here, reflects that, in my opinion.

It's just not a issue here. Sorry. Different society, different social issues.