Should crossbows be banned

[308tikka]

How would you feel if the next proposal was a ban on magazine rifles after all ,all the crack shots on here only need one shot.
On the plus side we could create a new job, that of the Archery Equipment Enquiry Officer.
Some of the posts on this debate make me despair.

Thankfully I dont get to read many of the contributions for licensing/bans as the usual culprits are on the ignore list.

As soon as someone starts talking pish (away from off-topic!) and has no body of evidence of useful/knowledgeable posts on stalking, equipment, gralloching or reloading they are on the ignored list - sadly the way it is now.

 

[Lateral]

Some of the posts on this debate make me despair.

DITTO !

It starts with people seemingly incapable of reading, and digesting the content of a post, and then posting analogies, that are at best, just daft.

I’m not looking to ban bows, or crossbows. I took up archery at the age of 12yrs. I have a crossbow, be it pretty impractical to use.

Like it or not, the “anti’s” will take any, and every opportunity to associate bows, crossbows, firearms, as the same problem.

As bad, and as rife as knife crime is, it’s nigh on impossible to associate it with firearms incidents !

 

[Jagare]

So with all that is going on in the UK at the moment, Illegal Imigration by the thousand, all the covid bollocks, knife crime out of hand and the Government not doing to well because they are a bunch of lying sh1tbags. The best the incompetent Home Secretary can come up with is, ban cross bows. Well that will make the good people of England sleep safe in their beds at night. Reading some of the reply's on this thread you realise that shooting sports in the UK are well and truly phucked

 

[Apthorpe]

And strangely, but statistically true, more people are run over, and killed by cars, and trucks, than are run over, and killed by snow ploughs

I think it’s fair to say, that nigh on every house/kitchen on the planet, will have some form of knife in it, crossbows, not so much

I struggle to understand the argument, that inanimate objects don’t kill people, therefore anyone should have open access to them !

If you don't subscribe to that argument, then what? What else makes sense? If you restrict access to objects which have the potential to kill, then there is no line.
You'd probably agree people should not have open access to, say, heavy artillery. Given that position, how do you justify letting people have access to objects which have actually been used in crimes to kill people much more frequently? Knives, bricks, metal, footwear, hand tools, vehicles, bicycles, baths, matches, cookers, rope, electricity. You can't, because the argument is so evidently absurd. Therefore you permanently have a defective settlement where the state pretends and fails to protect people.
You can only proceed sensibly on the basis that people commit crimes and kill people, and that objects don't.

Just where would you draw the line on that line of thinking ? Or is there no line ?

Why should there be a line? What is the benefit of transferring the blame for crimes from the perpetrator to the tool?

Just as a point, I voted against banning, but I believe where possible, we should control certain things.

Which things? And how can you then reconcile when your list is different to other people's? Who has precedence?
Why not ban some of the things that are not on your list?

Are we also arguing that there shouldn’t be any licensing in place for guns?f

I would. What is the point of it? To prevent deaths. If that is the point, it doesn't achieve it, so it is a waste of time.

 

[Island]

I would. What is the point of it? To prevent deaths. If that is the point, it doesn't achieve it, so it is a waste of time.

You genuinely believe that there should be no licensing, at all, for any sort of firearm? That there would not be a marked increase in gun crime if anyone, anyone at all, could simply walk into a shop and buy one?

 

[Apthorpe]

As bad, and as rife as knife crime is, it’s nigh on impossible to associate it with firearms incidents !

Many would disagree. They are essentially the same in all respects except the tool used.
Nobody can doubt that knife murderers would not use guns if they had them, nor that having no access to guns they still kill people with the most convenient alternative just as, if not more, frequently.
27 teenagers have been killed with knives in London this year. Adjusting for population, that is equivalent to 950 teenagers being killed in the USA. That is more than the number of American children of all ages murdered with guns.That doesn't sound like we've created a much safer world here than the US, by imposing draconian and pointless restrictions on guns here.

 

[Apthorpe]

You genuinely believe that there should be no licensing, at all, for any sort of firearm?

In the absence of real evidence that it makes anyone safer, yes.

That there would not be a marked increase in gun crime if anyone, anyone at all, could simply walk into a shop and buy one?

Of course there would probably be an increase in gun crime. However, there would not be an increase in overall crime. I do not buy into the premise that being killed with a gun is any worse than being killed with a knife, hammer, brick or baseball bat. You're focusing on a meaningless subdivision. Does anyone whose relative is killed with a gun think it would have been better if he'd been stabbed to death or beaten to death with a hammer? I suspect not.
Our crime statistics show no reduction in homicides attributable to gun restrictions.

 

[saddler]

So with all that is going on in the UK at the moment, Illegal Imigration by the thousand, all the covid bollocks, knife crime out of hand and the Government not doing to well because they are a bunch of lying sh1tbags. The best the incompetent Home Secretary can come up with is, ban cross bows. Well that will make the good people of England sleep safe in their beds at night. Reading some of the reply's on this thread you realise that shooting sports in the UK are well and truly phucked

Typical distraction "look at this new set of laws" BS to focus attention away from their bad handling of everything else they're in charge of = you'll get the meeja playing along with it, as they are obsessed with banning weapons - something Freud had comments about.
As others have said - adding more laws to a long list of existing laws that are constantly ignored for statistical reasons is NOT a way to fix this issue or any similar perceived problem in the UK

It literally could be a lot worse - the more usual default of a badly run administration wanting to divert attention and get a win in the eyes of the public is to start a small war/get involved in a shooting match with some - hence the '82 Falklands "War", etc. = though suggesting/calling for another ban on an inanimate object by the .gov proves that they have not learnt from the negative results of similar bans on the sporting community.

Will they also now push to ban Sikhs from carrying knives, even the token type, on religious grounds??

 

[Mike L]

I can't believe 7 members so far have actually voted for banning

 

[Morkai]

Chester being a major castle / fortress right on the border of the marches, Wales and the naughty Welsh men were only a Crossbow / Bow shot distant.

Chester is full of scousers in the evening. They dont worry about the Welsh anymore, just the young lads from the Wirral causing trouble.

 

[Apthorpe]

I can't believe 7 members so far have actually voted for banning

I can. It's in line with the normal distribution of intelligence. What is surprising is that they managed to register their votes.

 

[Island]

In the absence of real evidence that it makes anyone safer, yes.

Of course there would probably be an increase in gun crime. However, there would not be an increase in overall crime. I do not buy into the premise that being killed with a gun is any worse than being killed with a knife, hammer, brick or baseball bat. You're focusing on a meaningless subdivision. Does anyone whose relative is killed with a gun think it would have been better if he'd been stabbed to death or beaten to death with a hammer? I suspect not.
Our crime statistics show no reduction in homicides attributable to gun restrictions.

And I rather suspect that the line "well, they were probably going to get murdered anyway so why bother licensing firearms in the first place?" would equally provide very little solace.

I find your train of thought very, very unsettling. You are implying that "people are going to get murdered anyway so why bother licensing firearms", that just does not sit well with me.

 

[Island]

Many would disagree. They are essentially the same in all respects except the tool used.
Nobody can doubt that knife murderers would not use guns if they had them, nor that having no access to guns they still kill people with the most convenient alternative just as, if not more, frequently.
27 teenagers have been killed with knives in London this year. Adjusting for population, that is equivalent to 950 teenagers being killed in the USA. That is more than the number of American children of all ages murdered with guns.That doesn't sound like we've created a much safer world here than the US, by imposing draconian and pointless restrictions on guns here.

One must also ask "how many more would have been killed if every single person in the UK had access to any sort of firearm without restriction"?

I suspect that the answer may be "significantly more".

 

[Apthorpe]

And I rather suspect that the line "well, they were probably going to get murdered anyway so why bother licensing firearms in the first place?" would equally provide very little solace.

Of course it wouldn't. Because it makes no difference.

I find your train of thought very, very unsettling. You are implying that "people are going to get murdered anyway so why bother licensing firearms", that just does not sit well with me.

Why? That's precisely what I'm implying. Surely it makes more sense to put the effort on reducing the supply of murderers, given that almost anything is capable of being used as a murder weapon?

 

[Apthorpe]

One must also ask "how many more would have been killed if every single person in the UK had access to any sort of firearm without restriction"?

Yes, one must. And because we have homicide statistics stretching back so far, we are able to see that slightly fewer people were killed when they had less or unrestricted access to firearms.

I suspect that the answer may be "significantly more".

Most people suspect that, but the data disproves the suspicion.

 

[Apthorpe]

One must also ask "how many more would have been killed if every single person in the UK had access to any sort of firearm without restriction"?

I suspect that the answer may be "significantly more".

One may also ask, how much has the probability of you killing someone risen as a result of you owning firearms? I think we can agree that the answer is zero.
Who are the group of people who do not currently murder people, but would do so if they had guns?
It makes no sense to suppose that there is a subset of people who want to murder people but only if they can use a gun. There's no evidence such a group exists.

 

[Greenmist]

Blow pipes are banned due to the ability to use drug darts, so restricted under s5 I believe.

Would it not make sense to ban drugs, oh hang on

 

[Dunwaters]

Are we also arguing that there shouldn’t be any licensing in place for guns?f

Why not? After all guns were unlicensed for centuries without causing any major issues.

 

[bfltd0]

If anyone on this forum thinks they can deflect any form of ban on their shooting by offering up another part of the shooting community (i.e. bows), they either have not been shooting very long and have not read the last 30-40 years of firearms regulations changes, or they are hopelessly naive.

 

[tdawson]

I use crossbows to collect biopsy samples from cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc). It's the gold-standard methodology! We use specially adapted bolts with a cutting head that takes a chunk of blubber (without harming the animal) - see my profile photo! I hope they don't get banned - but I can see they might require licencing!