Originally Posted by
sinkov
We could well have had the same problems 59/60 ? I doubt it very much, despite what the laws said the culture of the two countries regarding carrying and owning guns was totally different. Or are you trying to tell me that the poor buggers working down t'pit in Victorian times, or the navvies digging out canals and railway cuttings were carrying Smith & Wessons ? My grandad worked as a tackler in a cotton mill, rest assured he never owned a gun, he couldn't have afforded one for a start, and why would he have felt the need for one, whatever the law said on the matter would have been irrelevant to people like him, of whom there were millions.
So you're not clear what I'm advocating ? That may be because I'm not being so presumptuous as to advocate anything, the problem appears intractable to far cleverer people than me. I'm just pointing out that sneering from this side of the Atlantic, and claiming we are far too clever and sophisticated to have allowed this problem to have developed here is ludicrous. Those poor kids in Manchester haven't been long enough in their graves yet for us to be thinking we know better than the Yanks how to deal with maniacs intent on mass murder.