Posts Tagged ‘Europe’

EU fires first salvo for stricter gun control

Thursday, November 14th, 2013

Story via Euro News

(Video available at linked story)

Gun crime is on the rise in Europe with the Schengen open border policy making it easier for criminals to move weapons across the continent.

In addition, Brussels says as many as 500,000 legally registered guns have been lost or stolen.

The European Union wants action, however any tightening of EU gun laws is likely to impact on registered owners.

Europe’s gun lobby is dead set against stricter regulation arguing that criminals already operate outside the law and more stringent measures will in no way stem the flow of black market weaponry.

UK Judge to burglars: Being shot is a ‘chance you take’

Thursday, October 11th, 2012

Original Story Via:  BurtonMail.co.uk

A judge has told two burglars permanently injured when they were shot by a homeowner: “That is the chance you take.”

Judge Michael Pert QC jailed Joshua O’Gorman and Daniel Mansell for four years each after rejecting a plea that he take the shooting into account.

O’Gorman and Mansell, who have a string of convictions between them, were blasted with a legally-owned shotgun by Andy Ferrie as they attempted to ransack his isolated farm cottage in the early hours of September 2.

O’Gorman, who was shot in the face, and Mansell, who was hit in his right hand, had pleaded guilty to the break-in in Welby, near Melton Mowbray, at an earlier hearing.

Sentencing them at Leicester Crown Court, the judge said: “I make it plain that, in my judgment, being shot is not mitigation. If you burgle a house in the country where the householder owns a legally held shotgun, that is the chance you take. You cannot come to court and ask for a lighter sentence because of it.”

He was responding to a mitigation plea from Andrew Frymann, representing O’Gorman, who said being shot was for his client akin to a “near-death experience” for which he was not prepared. His injuries left him with blurred vision, severe pain and problems with his balance.

Replying to Mr Frymann’s suggestion that O’Gorman was traumatised, Judge Pert said the arrest of Mr and Mrs Ferrie on suspicion of grievous bodily harm could be considered just as disturbing. He said: “Some might argue that being arrested and locked up for 40 hours is a trauma.”

Mr Ferrie, 35, and his wife Tracey, 43, were held in custody for nearly two days after Mr Ferrie called police to tell them he fired his shotgun at the intruders. Their arrests prompted widespread criticism. The couple were later bailed and told they would not face criminal charges.

Mansell, 33, and O’Gorman, 27, both from Leicester but with no fixed addresses, appeared in the court dock each wearing a grey sweatshirt and showing physical evidence of the confrontation. A scar was clearly visible on the right side of O’Gorman’s face and Mansell had his arm in a sling.

Commenting after sentencing, a spokesman for Leicestershire Police said: “The decision made by the Crown Prosecution Service, after reviewing all the evidence, was to take no further action against the homeowners involved. We are unable to comment any further as we have an ongoing investigation with three men currently on police bail.”

Sportlich-Praktischer Schützen Club Holding IAPCAR Charity Shoot Competition! Trophy and Cash Prizes! Saturday 13, October 2012

Friday, September 14th, 2012

Courtesy of Sportlich-Praktischer Schützen Club (SPSC)

To read original charity shoot invitation from SPSC please click here!

Location:  Innviertler Schützenhof, Miinsteuer 8, 4980 Antiesenhofen (Schießstätte IHS – Innviertler Hofschützen)

Organizer:  SPSC – Sporty and Practical Shooting Club

Date:  Saturday 13, October 2012

Time:  From 13:00 to 17:00 (close)

Entry fee:  20 – Eur. including state fee. The Excess of revenues competition our expenses we will give to IAPCAR – International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights http://iapcar.org/!

Weapons:  Require approval from including automatic rifles Caliber .223 Rem up (eg Steyr AUG-Z, Oberland Arms Austria OA-15 / OA-10 Austria, Austria SG 550, HK SL-6)

Sights:  Each optical sights or magnification allowed; also open sights!

Program:  100m sitting launched; SPSC pistol target, 5 shots for Sample – then 2x 10 shot score (maximum 220 points, timeout 5 minutes); trophy and cash prizes!

Important:  Prior notification by e-mail are welcome! Weapons and Ammunition from the shooter bring your own! No lasers!

For more information please contact:

www.sportlich-praktisch.org

info@sportlich-praktisch.org

SPSC – Sportlich-Praktischer Schützen Club
ZVR# 039439401
Tel.: +43 660 733 5990

 

Continuous drip-drip of distorted gun-related news reporting

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

Derek Bernard

6th September 2012

During the afternoon of Wednesday, 5th September, a British family were attacked in their car while on holiday in France, near Chevaline. The 3 adults were shot to death, together with a cyclist, while 2 little girls in the car survived the attack.

Many of the news reports attempt to link the event to the strictness, or lack of it, of gun control in France.

For instance, Henry Samuel, Daily Telegraph, 5th September 2012, included the following:

“France has one of the highest levels of civilian gun ownership in Europe, with far more relaxed gun laws than the UK.

Handguns, semi-automatic weapons and pump-action shotguns are legal if held by active gun club members who must have a licence for them and undergo a medical check.”

As with virtually everything uttered by governments, police and the media on the subject of gun control, gun ownership and criminal violence, the purported linkage has no connection to reality. But this constant, almost subliminal, flow of distortion maintains and strengthens the fearful fantasy that guns, in and of themselves, are dangerous, nasty things that will turn ordinary, non-violent people into criminals and ordinary criminals into murderers.

This fantasy is what drives the European love of complex, expensive, slow and inconvenient gun control procedures, such as gun registration.

In 2007 the Harvard Journal on Law & Public Policy published an article by 2 of the world’s leading researchers, Professor Gary Mauser and lawyer Don Kates. It contained this interesting paragraph:

“One statistic stands out: There are 9 European nations which have less than 5,000 guns per 100,000 population and 7 that have more than 15,000 guns. The average murder rate of the 9 low-gun ownership nations is 3 times higher than the murder rate of the 7 high gun ownership nations. That is apparently because nations w/ high murder rates adopt stringent gun laws, but these don’t work, so high murder rates come to coincide w/ low gun ownership.”

I don’t expect it to be published, but I have sent the following letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph:

Dear Sir,

It was very disappointing to read your correspondent, Henry Samuel (5th/6th September), attempting to link the laxity or otherwise of French gun control laws with the murder of a family of British tourists.

French gun laws are not “relaxed”. Like the UK’s they are complex, expensive and highly anti-social in their effects. In addition to their negative effects on sport, pest control, hunting, manufacture and distribution, as well as police efficiency, they, just as in the UK, disarm honest victims.

Does Mr Samuel think that these killers, who clearly wanted to kill every witness to whatever they were up to, went to the “relaxed” French police and asked if they could have a gun or two as they had some murders to commit?

Yours faithfully,

Derek Bernard

Jersey

Greece: Demand for guns up over worries for personal safety

Monday, June 11th, 2012

Original Story VIA:  Digital Journal

Desperate times are fueling an unprecedented crime wave in Greece. Criminals are targeting Greek homes and attacking pensioners. Worries over personal safety have fueled the demand for hunting rifles for protection.

Digital Journal recently reported the Greek Citizen Protection Ministry reported “one homicide every two days, 18 robberies every 24 hours and 11 thefts every hour: all this in a country that once enjoyed one of the lowest crime rates in Europe.”

On Wednesday Eleftheros Typos reported two men armed with Kalashnikovs burst into a café before noon, in Melissochori,Thebes. Their intent was to seize the pensions of the elderly. The thieves shot two men, including the postman who was delivering the pensions, before stealing €10,000 and escaping on motorbikes. The two victims were both hospitalized.

In the early hours of Thursday morning Albanian robbers broke into three homes in Paiania. Digital Journal reported the thieves threatened a woman at knife-point in her own home. According to Dimokratia News the home of 55-year-old Kyriakos Davaris, who had just been released from hospital, is surrounded by iron railings. Davaris owns a family taverna in Paiania and his two sons both help him when they are back in the village from their university studies. Locals are incensed at the wave of crime targeting the area where hard working people are turned into victims. In this incident one of the Albanian burglars was shot dead.

In the wake of the Paiania shooting Ekathimerini reports a sharp rise in the number of people asking about hunting rifles. They report they spoke to gun shop owners that related most of the requests for rifles were from people that “were quite open about the fact they wanted the guns for personal safety, not hunting.”

Authorities are concerned that more people may begin to take the law into their own hands in vigilante fashion due to the perceived ineffectiveness of the police.