asks the Children’s BBC website. This treatment is plenty better than it was the last time I posted about CBBC coverage of the subject. This time if you follow the list of links to related mini-stories you’ll see they explicitly give the pro-gun side a hearing! Still, it’s fairly pathetic that the article does not even mention the very different laws in different states. Handguns are practically illegal in some notably high-crime areas such as New York or DC.
“Why do so many people in the USA have guns?”
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To protect us from the King, of course.
The article doesn’t point out that many people in the US have guns because large parts of the US are still unsettled wilderness. We still have bears, poisonous rattle and coral snakes, alligators, mountain lions, coyotes, (even crocodiles in Southern Florida,) etc. unlike Western Europe which killed off most of its dangerous wildlife centuries ago. Most people I know who have guns live in rural or wildnerness areas, as a matter of fact. (Canadians who have even more wildnerness land and wildlife than we do, also have a high percentage of gun ownership.)
Back over here we are not allowed to have guns, despite wild Socialists and Lib/Dems freely roaming the countryside terrorising the defenceless inhabitants (for proof note the % that voted for Blown)
More to the point, why does the BBC think it right to raise such a question for children? Obviously the same freaks and wierdos who inhabit our state schools also staff the office of CBBC.They cannot look at a child without seeing a pliable animal, a blank canvass of a mind to be programmed and moulded.
They could also ask why do CHILDREN in sub saharan Africa have guns.
Has anybody else noticed that the CBBC’s characteristicly diligent researchers state that it’s still OK to own a handgun for shooting vermin.
Oh, that’s alright then. That burst of Uzi fire down Tottenham High Road recently was just the guy from the kebab shop keeping the rats down.
themuttsnuts
I can’t say I noticed that, but being 35 years of age CBBC isn’t really my thing. On reflection though, CBBC must surely offer a target-rich environment to us, as those bad gun owners would say. On the piece Natalie linked to I noticed:
“The American Constitution, which sets out the country’s rights and freedoms, says people are allowed to “keep and bear arms.”
This makes it very hard to make laws limiting the way guns are bought and sold.”
Whether this is true or not, why can I only read it with a whiny, snivelling, liberal voice in my mind? BAD constitution!
Susan,
You’re right about the wild animals. Here in Georgia, I live in a suburban area and we still have coyotes and foxes that come around at night. Two of my cats have disappeared and other people’s pets have disappeared or been killed by coyotes. I have one cat left and I keep her in at night. Not long ago, there was a bear roaming around in the city of Gainesville! What it was doing out of the mountains, I’ll never know. There’s a lot of development going on in my area so I guess a lot animals are looking for new places to go. That doesn’t explain the bear, though. But you have to have a gun in some cases. During the time it takes animal control to arrive, a small child could be devoured by then.
Is it just me, or do other folk see an agenda at work [apart from the it goes without saying All-Yanks-Are-Scum one] ? There’re seven sections, two of which mention airguns. We’re told that ‘Airguns are not as powerful as guns that fire bullets and the pellets don’t travel as far.’
Well, yeah, baby! The average rifle has a hitting power of 2500 ft/lbs, while the air rifle hits at 11.5 ft/lb – somehow ‘not as powerful’ doesn’t quite cover it. Air guns can be lethal – but not noticably more so than baseball bats. The best way to kill with an air weapon is to shout ‘look! There’re our ancestral rights escaping over the floor!’, then when a socialist bends down to grab them, hit him over the head with the butt of the rifle. Until then, the Left will be reliant on claiming that ‘People thought if hand guns were harder to get, there would be less gun-related crime. But pro-shooting groups think this is not the case.’
Gosh, it’s been long enough since Dunblaine that I think we can safely judge if tighter gun control has reduced armed crime or not. How come the Left is so reticent about giving us the verdict ?
“Why do so many people in the USA have guns?”
Because we can.
(OK, someone had to say it.)
Yay, Angie Schultz!!!!!
And now children, just look at our low crime rate…….
Stuart,
“look at our low crime rate….”
Yes. Although you are speaking sarcastically, I think everyone interested in gun control/gun rights should study the US crime rate, in detail. Also study the history of the British crime rate.
The results are sometimes surprising.
Why? Well a bunch of British people fled oppression and decided to kick out those of their compatriots who were cruelly exploiting them. While they were at it they dumped the King as well. Then, being basically violent, i.e. human, they turned on eachother after they mostly destroyed the hapless natives, etc. etc. etc.
What’s more amusing is the anti-gun folks posing with weapons which indicates to me that their fixation is a glamorous one, not a realistic notion.
In Virgina where I live, guns are legal. Across the river in DC, there are very few remaining licensed guns left, but FAR more in the way of illegally owned weapons, and the place is FAR for dangerous than the worst parts of Virginia which are poorer and more densely populated than Washington DC.
I don’t have to have a weapon myself. I just have to live in a place where a potential criminal doesn’t know who does and doesn’t have one. Very simple. Very safe.
No huge “debates” about trying to regulate kitchen knives and kun-fu classes as has been raised by the likes of the Guardian, the Indy, and their fellow travellers.
We shouldn’t lose sight of the main point: what is the BBC doing asking young British viewers, on a children’s programme, why a country they have never visited and whose government they do not understand, has some states that allow citizens the freedom to defend themselves? What did the BBC have in mind?
Verity,
My guess is to brainwash the future generation into believing that defending one’s self is a bad thing so that they will grow up to be pacifist adults and hate the U.S. just like they do. All to make sure that the future generation will never defend Britain against tyranny such as the EU or Islamic terrorists and such. They probably want to make sure that the US/UK alliance comes to an end also, I’d be willing to bet. Just my guess.
Yes. It was a rhetorical question. This is, of course, the intent. And they will succeed, as the British socialist-driven universities have succeeded in turning out two or three generations of acquiescent people who think the state should direct their lives. It works.
Denise
logically, that is the only possible conclusion. Look down the road thirty years to a more Islamic Europe and it don`t look good for Israel.
logically, that is the only possible conclusion. Look down the road thirty years to a more Islamic Europe and it don`t look good for Israel.
Or the US. Britain has been our most stalwart ally for nearly 100 years. We are up a creek without the proverbial you-know-what without Britain as a friend and ally.
However, as all the native Brits flee the socialist+Islamic paradise for Australia, it looks like the “special relationship” may be transferred to Canberra.
To some,people having guns means they might use them,like Tony Martin.Good.
Susan
How exactly would the US be up a creek without Britain? The US doesn’t need anyone at presnent, which is what makes some of us evil socialist islamist rest of the worldites a bit uneasy.
By the way for every Brit who emigrates to Australia we get an Aussie back, and what cheerful and competent lager pourers they are.
Admittedly the US doesn’t ‘need’ anybody, but Great Britain is about the only ‘ally’ we’ve got worth having and I’m sure we’d all regret loosing her.
“The US doesn’t need anyone at present”
Actually, the US does. A large number of Asian banks are propping up the US currency. It’s a symbiotic relationship, of course – especially the Chinese want to keep such a large market spending. But the effects on the US economy would be disastrous if the dollar were devalued.
The US also needs foreign oil supplies. It, too, may be a symbiotic relationship with the oil cartels, but with China’s aggressive growth in oil usage, the US would be up the creek without access to long term oil supplies from without its borders.
I think we were speaking militarily not economically.
I have guns for one reason only.
THe law cannot (and will admit it cannot) protect me. The law can only respond after a crime is committed, and does not have the resources to patrol the entire civilized American nation to prevent crimes. Given this fact, and the almost certain future event of a crime committed against me, my family or my household, I am failing my family if I do not make some attempt to protect them. I could spend many thousands of dollars on security or alarm systems and STILL I could be attacked, because some criminals simply count on speed and are gone before the alarm is answered.
If I do not protect my family, nobody will. My guns are for my protection. There are evil and dangerous people in the world and in my town, and I cannot just sit and let them have their way with the people I love, or with me.
why is that so damned hard for leftists to understand?
Just going over what Roxanna said, i.e. That the US-American nation do not NEED anybody and thus are implying that the US are militarily and economically omnipotent. I ask you where would the mighty US military machine be without foreign imports of fuel oil, raw materials and currency, I believe the US currently owes China alone four trillion US-dollars and rising.
Incidentally, China has a population of 1.3 billion citizens and a miniscual gun crime rate in comparison…
I’m probably to the left of most of the posters on this blog, but this is one thing I DO admire about the US. We’re one of the few families in the country to own a pellet gun. I don’t agree with violence but I do think that people deserve the right to defend themselves. Recently a woman got sentence to 6 months in prison for firing a pellet gun AT THE GROUND near a group of chavs who had been terrorising her for the last six months because of her job as a social worker and her son’s sexuality.
At present is only really criminals who own guns and they don’t give a shit about the law. People need the right to defend themselves. And in any case, there are little or no controls about knives, and knife crime is completely out of control in this country. The only restriction is that you can’t buy a knife under 16, and of course nobody really inforces this law. When I was 13 I bought a little pocket knife from a stall, and there are some primary schools (!!) where basically all the kids carry knives for self-defence.
It makes no sense to carry on having guns illegal so the only people who dare to have them are the people we need to be protected from!