Oxygen is also used in a surprising number of criminal activities. Wait, is that you, Sidney?
5 Likes
Actually, in terms of Northern Ireland you’re far more likely to see them filled with explosives and parked somewhere.
5 Likes
But … but … what are wealthy private hunters and marksmen in the UK going to do without access to and the ability to own the high-powered and high-calibre military sniper rifles addressed by the bill? So unfair!
One thing I’ve learned from 20 years of reading gun threads in Internet forums, for a lot of people owning these weapons is more than just a hobby; they’re also identity-defining totems and/or penis substitutes and/or right-wing political fashion statements. Debating fundies who have these worldviews, at least directly, is a mug’s game.
Putting aside the fact that Rees-Mogg and his fellow hard Brexiters scuttled the bill for purely political purposes and instead generously accepting at face value their “concern” on behalf of a handful of wealthy sport hunters and marksmen, the real purpose of the bill was to make it more difficult for terrorists and narco-criminals (who can also afford these weapons) to get their hands on any weapon (including non-automatics) of a kinetic energy of over 13,600 joules at the muzzle. The only plausible targets for such weapons in the current territory of Great Britain outside of a military shooting range are humans and their vehicles.
And our resident BS artist’s continued contentions aside, again, this ban would have had absolutely no real effect on weapons used by WWII re-enactors, let alone those replaying 17th and 18th century battles given the power and calibres specified (and, per ryuthrowsstuff’s comment above, the fact that weapons used by re-enactors are usually inert and don’t fire live cartridges or even blanks). Muzzle-loaders don’t have anything approaching the same muzzle energy specified, and during WWII cartridges of .50 or greater were only fired from weapons on static mounts or on heavy tripods.
4 Likes
Use cases: make immense holes in soft tissue.
1.252 cm diameter. Jeez. Messy.
1 Like
Only c. 60 people in the whole of the UK? I’ll take that bet 
Edited for sectarian clarity. 
2 Likes
Re-edited for further moral clarity (not that ‘terrorists’ wasn’t unambiguous)
3 Likes
Look - all serious preppers know that when the fit hits the shan - you’re gonna want a high caliber bread for toasting. Dinner rolls just don’t have the stopping power.
10 Likes
I have no idea why they’re not illegal, especially since a number of them were used to kill soldiers in Northern Ireland.
That’s right - the Conservatives and the DUP blocked a law intended to remove weapons used to kill British service personnel. A proposal requested by the police and intelligence agencies as some of the IRA weapons have never been found.
Remember that the next time a Tory talks about Labour being pro-IRA.
8 Likes
Well, you say that, but you sound pretty steamed about the UK’s (widely supported) banning of all guns.
If there’s a one in a thousand chance of your collection being stolen in the next 20 years, and a one in twenty chance that one of those guns is then used to kill someone, you’re saying that 50 µmurders is a price worth paying for you to have that collection. I’m firing those numbers out my ass, but one does tend to err on the side of safety in these things, and more to the point, it’s not for you to set the price because it’s not you who would pay it. The question is for society as a whole: if 100,000 people keep gun collections for fun, is (say) one murder every 4 years an acceptable price for not requiring those guns to be deactivated?
Obviously it’s a moot point in the US, where the consensus is that it’s OK for more than one person in every 10,000 to be shot dead every single year. In that scenario, you could save significant numbers of lives with regulatory tweaks that people wouldn’t even notice. In the UK, that low-hanging fruit has already been picked, but the number of gun deaths still isn’t zero, so we’re down to the harder questions, like “would it be worth killing off target shooting as a (civilian) sport, if it saved lives?”
There is anyway a fundamental cultural difference between the UK and US here. For better or worse – and, no question, it’s both at various times – there is a widespread acceptance in British cultures that sometimes you have to conform first, and complain about it afterwards.
4 Likes
I’ve never handled a rifle since boy scout camp-- I was so scrawny that I had trouble holding the rifle, much less “steadying” it, so feel free to take my observations with the grain of salt they properly deserve.
But I’ve been led to believe, mostly by realistic shooters like Ghost Recon but also by odd books and articles, theta the 0.50 sniper rifle is an anti-materiel rifle that is specifically designed to shoot engine blocks.
4 Likes
I’ve heard that a rock cake below the heart can be fatal
6 Likes
Non viewable here.
Is it anything like a fruitcake? Those things are deadly.
3 Likes
I can’t afford $7,500 -$15,000 rifles nor the land to where you can actually use them.
And these haven’t been “tank busting” since WWI. Well technically early WWII. They developed things like 20mm Lahti for that.
You mean like martial arts, Shinto-Ryu, fencing, or the various forms of European medieval combat? I got a shit leg so that isn’t really an option. I do have dozens of interests that i dabble in. But hey, keep forming opinions on potential what ifs vs actual crime stats in the UK.
They are already highly restricted in the UK.
Oh so you’re in the "ban them all’ camp. Cool cool. You do you. Every bolt action rifle of decent caliber is a potential sniper rifle.
Ah yes, we must erode more rights (well, privileges in the UK) because of potential terrorism. Why yes, officer, go ahead and shift through my personal computer and check out my social media as I enter your country. Of course you can use the built in back door to unlock it. Cool, cool. Feel free to look at my junk and take pity on me in the air port scanner.
Never mind that any bolt action .30 cal rifle with a decent scope has similar or better performance than a military sniper rifle, cutting through Kevlar with no problem. Never mind that actual terrorists have actual networks to import weapons, such as Libya in your mentioned example above. Never mind that the IRA isn’t active any longer. No, no, we just further subjugate legal, licenses owners because the IRA might become active and might steal these weapons and might start using them for terror.
I respect they are more honest with their intentions. It doesn’t mean I like it. Sort of how you may appreciate someone calling you a “sum’ bitch” to your your face, rather than behind your back.
4 Likes
If you make them wrong then the name is very accurate.
7 Likes
We used to have a family tradition where my father wrapped the same fruitcake and placed it under the tree as a rolling gag gift year after year.
Damn thing was longer lasting than any Twinkee.
So - these cakes were small caliber arms as opposed to a full sized bolt action fruitcake that could shred Kevlar?
3 Likes
You know my grandma got a fruit cake one year and we ate it and it was actually pretty good. Lots of booze in it. I dunno if it was home made or store bought.
There’s a wide variety of tasty fruit cakes in the world.
The American mass manufactured, nuclear colored fake fruit version isn’t one of them.
2 Likes
I can’t afford those breads, nor the bunker-grade toasters where you can actually use them. Sadly, I must confine myself to more affordable prepper slop buckets.
5 Likes
Jim Baker says that with your own milling machine you can make your own deadly toasting bread.
Let’s see the gubmint try and stop that!
7 Likes
