^
I mention the move to rifles as the way the ban was sold to the public, I well remember Jack Straw spouting this shite, was that it would make the public safer, which was utter nonsense. Until Hamilton murdered the kids, most people had not a clue that legally held handguns were owned and didn't give a shit . Then the media started the campaign as if everyone was in mortal danger (dangerous dogs anyone?) and that started the whole ban ban ban storm. There was never actually a need to ban handguns, even the new Labour Govt knew this, but it was a vote winner at the time, Hamilton never would have been able to do what he did if the Police had actually done their jobs and removed his guns when he was thrown out of Sterling gun club. Gun crime rose 40% after the ban, went down for a bit, then rose again, but none of this was down to the handgun ban, it had zero impact on criminals and their access to handguns.
Anyway, its not about deflection or whatabouterry, I'm just trying to point out that a ban is not as easy as people flippantly state on here on a regular basis, and using the UK as an example its like comparing apples and oranges. You just cannot compare other countries to the US - their legal and illegal gun numbers are off the scale, the USA holds half of the entire number of firearms in the world, fucking mental numbers. Texas on its own has 7 times the number of REGISTERED firearms than the UK had, its not as simple as people make out. Then its the cost. The UK, at an average of £500 per gun, spent £80 million in compensation, it was a lot higher than that due to a lot of very expensive guns being handed in. At $500 each, the USA is looking at $160 billion. People quickly lose the appetite for bans when costs like that are involved.
I tried to find out how many illegal guns there were in the USA and its hard to get a figure. Its estimated that 380,000 guns get stolen each year (law enforcement and the military also lose a lot but don't give figures), so we are talking about getting on for 4 million added to the illegal numbers in the past decade. Its probably fair to assume that there are 40 to 50 million illegal guns in the USA.
I agree an overnight ban would have an affect on the deaths by firearm numbers, seeing as 55% are suicides, but they'll likely just kill themselves another way. Of the rest, I doubt you'd make much of a dent as criminals aren't handing guns in, so they will keep killing each other. Plenty of legal owners will also just pull the "I lost it/it was nicked/I destroyed it". I knew someone who claimed he'd thrown his gun in the Mersey, before shooting dead a fella in a kebab shop in Hannover Street, over a debt. This is why I say target illegal guns first, because otherwise, you're spending huge amounts of money to achieve nothing.
