</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by tacfoley:
<strong>we have NEVER been able to own fully-automatic weapons of any kind here in UK - there is simply no justification for ownership - we don't have that kind of culture and never did. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Tac, that statement implies US culture is such. No one I know in RL owns a machine gun (at least who’ll admit it), nor have I ever heard live automatic fire around where I live. Even between 1918 and 1934, civilian machine guns were very rare, as most people couldn’t afford a Tommy gun or a BAR. Besides the last time the Oregon National Guard carried unloaded M16 rifles in a parade years ago, (and one mentioned afterwards he felt ridiculous) I don’t think I’ve seen a full auto obviously carried in public. Even the last time I went to the airport. Now Israel, there’s a machine gun culture. I guess this “machine gun” reputation for the US comes via the American gangsters and bandits of the 20’s and early 30’s, who were the most well armed and dangerous criminals ever up to that time.
I’m also perplexed by something. You keep constantly re-iterating how the UK is, and has been basically a non-gun culture, and that “shooting is not a thing people do” as you wrote. (Um, did you forget Northern Ireland?) If you’re obviously so proud of this core cultural heritage, how can you possibly keep getting upset that the UK government took it a step further and embraced the concept?
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