RE: Should Hand Guns Be Legal In the UK?
It's not only gun control that is pretty crazy in this country as well as the rest of Europe, but self-defence laws are utterly retarded as well. Here in the UK and elsewhere is is practically illegal to defend yourself successfully against someone if you are not careful because of the way the law is worded.
When you are attacked you are supposed to use 'reasonable' force, but that is so vague it is simply down to how the jury and the judge feel at the time what is reasonable and what isn't. Much like with police officers who can arrest people on "reasonable suspicion" it leaves far too much room for people to abuse that law and put otherwise innocent people who just defended themselves in jail.
We aren't even allowed relatively non-lethal weaponry in Europe generally, there was a girl in Denmark who was attacked by somebody and she used pepper spray to defend herself, doing everything right, she didn't kill her attacker and managed to keep herself safe yet she was threatened with a fine because she had the pepper spray in the first place. The police didn't give a fuck about the fact that she was attacked, all they cared about was the fact that she had the pepper spray.
I absolutely believe that if Jo Cox had a gun things would have definitely turned out differently, but these people here in Europe and particularly in the UK are so utterly paranoid and irrational about firearms they will never admit it or allow people to even open carry a handgun.
They're too fucking fearful and scared of everything, so nothing in this area will change.
Good points. Yes the self defence thing is tricky - the pepper spray thing is insane. I agree the fear of firearms would never allow it. Interesting thought exercise though.
As far as I'm concerned it should be a case of, who attacked first and was anyone killed? In which case it could escalate then into if the death was justified or not when the person defended themselves. For cases like this where you have these two people walking away unharmed it shouldn't be an issue, the victim should get help and counselling if necessary and the scumbag that attacked her should end up in jail.
As pointed out by this scenario though you can now see what deliberately vague law can do to a persons' life even by any persons definition they are completely innocent.
Yes like in the video you mean? Absolutely. Also think of the psychological impact on the daughter she has to live with that her whole life.