Hunting, home invasion, car jacking, walking home late at night. While there are crazy people who want to make a huge body count, most gun owners are just normal people who enjoy recreational shooting or want to be responsible for their own safety.
But that's the thing, Americans often have this notion that Europeans are anti-gun. We're not. We just have some tests in place that can tell whether you are a responsible person or a total nutjob. So people who just wanna have a gun for protection or hobby can get it but people who would use it to shoot up a school can't.
I mean, we have background checks and things too. The people breaking the law and killing people though, more often than not, wouldn’t be able to pass those.
Yeah but from what I hear from other Americans on the internet, generally all it takes is an hour or two of paperwork, and sometimes they even say that they think it's too much. In my country, the tests consist of a medical/psychological checkup, knowledge of the law concerning guns, technical/mechanical knowledge (assembling and disassembling etc.) and the obvious criminal record check. It can take a couple weeks because you gotta study for those tests. Basically, guns are treated the same way as cars, you gotta have a licence for a specific type and you gotta pass a theoretical and practical exam to get it. I really don't see what exactly about this system makes people think we're anti-gun or anti-freedom or whatever, the way it works seems perfectly reasonable to me. But I grew up in this environment, I'm obviously not unbiased.
In he UK there are two types of weapons kinds of weapons licenses. Shotgun Licenses and Firearm licenses.
Shotgun Licenses are generally given out a lot, because the only reason you couldn't obtain one, is if the police provided a reasonable explanation as to why you can own one (mental instability, criminal record etc)
A firearm license however, you have to apply for a specific weapon and actually justify your reason for owning it. So you maybe covered to use say an M1911, but that doesn't mean you can own something like an AK-47. Even then, you need to prove you are legitimately using it for something like sport, pest control, etc. They won't give out a firearm license for weapons just because "I wanna have all the guns".
You've gotta love how aggressive certain Americans are whenever you question anything about their culture - I love the three US flags at the end as it just screams 'MURICA. I imagine that he's one of those people who love the #2a hashtag.
Shotgun Licenses are generally given out a lot, because the only reason you couldn't obtain one, is if the police provided a reasonable explanation as to why you can own one (mental instability, criminal record etc)
A firearm license however, you have to apply for a specific weapon and actually justify your reason for owning it. So you maybe covered to use say an M1911, but that doesn't mean you can own something like an AK-47. Even then, you need to prove you are legitimately using it for something like sport, pest control, etc. They won't give out a firearm license for weapons just because "I wanna have all the guns".