A fool-proof method of determining whether a person should be allowed to own a gun

[Hymie]

Only one question need be asked, and that question is:-

Do you want to own a gun?

Should the answer be yes, then clearly you are an unsuitable person to own a gun.

[boxtops]

..but I had one, we used to go clay pigeon shooting.

[DrFilth]

that is cruel, i hate blood sports what have clay pigeons ever done to you :)

[ttfn]

Is your real name Skeeter Davis boxy?

[boxtops]

Foiled! I must admit I didn't do it very long, then OH was much better at it than I was, I nearly broke my jaw with the recoil.

[DrFilth]

did you eat any of them

[ttfn]

Nah - they are still on the barbie DF

[boxtops]

DF I've have some tough beefburgers in my time, perhaps I could have used them instead of clays. Pull could sounds like Bull.

[DrFilth]

think i may have eaten one in macdonalds once

[paddywak]

I had a shotgun and used it most weeks for years but gave my cert up in 2002, when due to ill health I could hardly hold a gun let alone shoot it. Thousands of people shoot regularly, clays, vermin and for the pot and very few go mad and on a killing sprees

[boxtops]

That's what the guy was saying on Newsnight last night, paddywak - you can't legislate against something that happens very rarely in this country.

[paddywak]

Even after all the years I spent shooting, and knowing how many normal, reponsible people shoot, on the rare occassion that this sort of thing happens it makes me wonder just what can be done. After all we don't know just why a person suddenly cracks and what triggers it and often, as in this case everybody seems to regard the guy as just a normal everyday bloke

[rov1200]

Why should anyone be allowed to keep guns at home. Even soldiers when not on active service have to return the gun to the regimental storeroom after firing practice.
So why can't the local police have a storeroom to issue them out?

[paddywak]

Nice in theory Rov but with the number of people who shoot it would be a full time job checking guns in and out, for instance I know five people on my street alone who shoot on a regular basis, there's not enough police as it is to handle their ordinary duties. Also while your normal law abiding person would hand there guns to a central control if required a certain group would not. After Dunblane when the laws regarding hand guns changed, thousands of law abiding people handed their weapons in but there is still as much gun related crime as ever

[VHG]

>Only one question need be asked, and that question is:-
>Do you want to own a gun?
>Should the answer be yes, then clearly you are an unsuitable person to own a gun.

Sounds like a section of Thin Blue Line, see this 2 minutes in

http://www.youtube.co...AfbF8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWlz51AfbF8&feature=related

Thin Blue Line - own a gun

[Hymie]

I was hoping to keep the fact that I write material for popular sitcoms secret – oh well.

[Greedyfly]

If life was this cut and dry - it wouldn't be so damn screwed up!

[anotheoldgit]

Reading the question and some of the answers to it, makes one wonder if any of them would be fit to own a pea-shooter.

[razza]

There are more unlicensed gun owners than licensed ones in this country,anyone can buy a gun from unscrupulous dealers or criminals.

[anotheoldgit]

There are many people who get a great deal of enjoyment out of guns.

http://www.london2012...c-sports/shooting.php

Are you saying that places such as Bisley should be closed down, and shooting events removed from the Olympics, just because one person goes bananas with a gun?

However tragic, it has happened and it will happen again, just has it has on the streets of London, for the past few years, and still there is no end to it.