you is me
 

lol gotta love the American we did this attitude, by we you actually mean you as it was us who came there then became you. so infact there was no we kicked you out as we kicked ourselves out with alot of the help from ourselves and other EU nations who also happen to be you.

But having some american friends I do understand why some feel the need to carry firearms or at least have them for home protection. In one of my friends states there has been more police officers killed in line of duty by scum with firearms than in the whole of the Uk by any means in the last 5 years. They all think Im nuts for not locking my doors at night, but I am of the opinion if they are gonna enter your house they will do so and if they can get past my evil chinese crested dog, not break their necks falling over my cats and find any of my electrical appliances remote controls then they are doing better than me.

oldbmw
 

Im just in my thirties and I can remember the days of walking into the nearest city with a rifle to get it fixed or going to the nearest pub with farmers and gamekeepers with shotguns over the shoulder, so yes things have changed why because someone walked into a school and killed lots of folk and it has not happened since they introduced the laws.
I always had a decent sized locknife/hoofpick in my pocket as I owned horses, and when I was a chef I always had a knife set with me but I sure as hell would be nervous these days even walking into a club with steel toe caps on.
The clampdown on guns in the Uk worked to some degree many small time cons still would not even think about carrying a shooter as its way too much time when caught but they all carry knifes ect as the law isnt getting tough on that despite what the government says.

So I think the camping in the desert question is pointless but should really be how do you survive going anywhere as lets face it every country has it problems.

We are pretty much in agreement on most things however.

How often did it happen before they changed the gun laws? None. not once in a hundred years did anyone murder a load of kids until that single lunatic let loose. On that basis if a car driver ran over a number of pedestrians we should all have our cars confiscated to prevent it from happening again. Punish the entire population for one idiots wrongdoing. Does not seem quite right to me.
Truth is it is part of a long, ongoing ( since the russian revolution) process worked, excuse by excuse to disarm the peasants. Since 9/11 we have lost Habeus corpus enshrined in the Magna Carta. as is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty and the right to trial by 12 man jury. 900 years of justice and most of my reasons to be proud to be British dumped down the toilet.

I dare say that Ray Mears' bushcraft knife could be construed as an offensive weapon in modern Britain these days .

There will always be nutters who will kill innocent people and they will use whatever means they have at their disposal .

It could be argued that; if there were armed responsible citizens in Hungerford when Michael Ryan went on his rampage ,he could have been stopped before he killed so many .
Similar events have happened in just about every country in the world .
You cannot legislate against firearms and expect the problem to go away .Dunblane came after Hungerford and it's sad to say another tragedy will follow sooner or later.

It is a shame that ill-thought out legislation has been passed making the lives of legitimate sportsmen and women all the more difficult ,and yet every weekend there are many thousands of enthusiasts who take part in shooting sports in the UK and never harm anybody.
So what was actually achieved?

Gun crime has ,apparently ,doubled in the last decade .

Illegal firearms will still be available to those who are determined to get hold of them .
Bombs ,which have the potential to do much more damage, can be made from agricultural fertiliser and diesel .Hence every farmer is a potential bomb maker ,yet as far as I know there have been no new laws regarding fertiliser purchase and storage -[organic farmers might be let off the hook here ].



Using Ted's [unoriginal] hypothesis about penis size and gun ownership ,I will leave my rifle at home next time I go out into the woods ,for I feel that I am adequately equiped to defend myself from any Grizzly bears I might encounter .

Sweet a political flame fest! I AM SO IN!

But most of the guns I have had came from the old USSR, China, and the no gun having EU. Odd you can not have them but see no wrong in proffiting from them. And before that the people that came here 300 years ago (and even before that) where from Europe. They brought the "gun culture" to the USA (or that what it is called now). Before that there was no guns here. The guns were used "resettle the indigenous people", funny but the avatar movie was about the same.
Now as far warmongers go if I am right it was the now EU that started both world wars. Killing millions now that is good waring not gust killing like when you settle an continent or two. You know going up a people that are armed with rocks and sticks.

The whole you is me thing cuts both ways, we are heartless warmongering killers ran by even worst heartless warmongering killers. In my state we have 6 or 7 police officers killed in December alone. Now that is not a very mary christmas thought.
So do not take a gun with you. No matter how big it makes your junk look.

Don't confuse the UK with the EU: gun-ownership is quite legal in a number of EU countries: it's the carrying of concealed weapons that is more frowned upon and legal gun acquirement is tight in most place, and gun ownership is typically a target shooting thing, asi understand it...This I have no problem with.

I have to ask then, who started the most recent world war, even if it has not yet been given that name?

As opposed to only killing a few hundred thousand. I'm glad to hear that there is a good kind of war... I was worried for a while that they were all pretty horrendous events that really only benefitted banking institutions and big industrialists.

Not to mention that whilst I don't really agree with Ted's poetic analogy, when did he make a reference to the USA? And yet two posts rebuffing his comparison having been citing this and that the US....Why?! This thread was about the Sahara!!!

With that in mind, are we not drifting ever so slightly away from the initial question?

Exactly Warthog.
All I did in my first post was to say even though I legally hold guns, I would not take one anywhere with me on a camping trip. Somehow the mention of the word 'gun' Has again triggered paranoia.
I use a rifle for hunting and vermin control. My pistol is used for target practice only as the possibility of wounding an animal is too high with a pistol. They are all tools, same as the machete, axe, chainsaw,tractor and other contraptions that can be found on a farm.

Oh we want to go back to the initial question? dam there went flame fest. bugger.
I did not derail this thread. Most posts now have gone from what you can do in the Sahara to keep your self safe, to guns, the USA, and of all things the size of a mans junk. I was thinking in the fog of drink that it was open to flaming any one. Ted started it then the 300 years ago
I went to kill people so i needs me a gun! thing. This thread went down long before my last post.
The EU not having guns is my bad. Many states in the EU do not alow there people to have guns. As do many states in North America. but as people where throwing all of them under the bus so to speak I did the same. (my guns where German and UK so there the bad ones)
Who started the most recent world war? The same people that start all wars, rich old bastards that do not have to fight. but the one that started this last batch did get drunk and shot his friend the head.
It is better to kill less people than more.
It was the WE vs. YOU thing that got me going. The WE are clean peace loving BMW is grate vs. YOU gun lover hate filled people BMW is bad. (I had to BMW it is gust to funny)

On the plus side we may only lose only 5 cops seems the news got it wrong and the LEOs may make it. :D

So it a flame or how to keep safe? If it how stay safe we need a mod clean up the thread.

Ah Yes! You can try the roof of the Hotel des Remparts for that. And no need to leave the Transalp in the street - you can push the bike inside that hotel. The beds are certainly unmade.

Please take DLBiten there for a bit of fun but no L.Cohen please.

Have you no ear for Gnaoua music on Jemaa el Fna? This liking for L. Cohen's funeral music has done so much damage.....:palm::eek3:

An unusually challenging post....:scooter:

Hey all..

I do apologise for bringing the whole gun thing into this....It wasn't my intention to start a UK vs US anti gun thread..... We are all from the same mould and I have no anti American feelings whatsoever !

My "I own a gun = small penis" comment was posted after coming back from a rather merry night out in the pub and not thought out at all. Just like half of my very strange alcohol fueled Ebay purchases (Childs wheelchair, 99p anyone ?)

:oops2:

I don't think owning a gun as a tool is a bad thing at all.. Shooting rabbits, defending yourself against bears in the wilds and hunting for survival are things I will never have a gripe with and I apologise for not stating that in my post. I have shot rabbits myself as well as other small "pest" game.

For the rest, I stand by my original comment ! Handguns in the top draw for "home security" or a rack full of widow makers above the mantle makes me automatically thing "LOSER" !! I just cant see the necessity for it all.

Apologies to the rest once more.

We seem to have gone off on a tangent in the last 14 posts...

Gun arguments apart, it's an interesting set of responses ranging from
- hide the camp, don't show lights
- better to live another day and let them take things
- pepper spray is illegal in the UK
- learn martial arts
- hit them with something big and heavy

Only Caminando seemed to share my sense of frustration of watching people rob and stand idly by.

Yeah, sorry Tim.... Christmas boredom and winter blues must be setting it to us all !!

I think you're just best doing what you feel comfortable with ! I think you'l be just fine....

I think everyone would feel frustrated and want to stop the theives, but it comes down to is one's GPS, stove, camera or pride worth getting hurt over or worse still killed over....

It is easy to say we would act one way or another, and to get angry imagining oneself in that situation; feeling the outrage of such an intrusion. However, when it comes down to it, I suspect that most woud follow the path of least resistance and greatest safety.

Make a mental not of what they look like, names if you can, and get to the local authorities: it may be they are well known and your stuff retrieved...