There is no idea like an idea whose time has come: It is time to amend the Second Amendment.

[Rumpole]

The left/right divide has little to do with the gun control issue. The Dem supporters merely have to suffer being on the side of gun control.
Nearly all of them have fallen silent on the issue.

Where are those who should be speaking out in support of you or me?

They're not yet ready to bravely speak the truth on their country's culture that is the cause of the 'shooting's problem.

To admit that eliminating some guns is not the problem, then calls for naming the problem.

The problem is the gun worshipping and gun fetishing has become something of a national pathology.

That is the problem, the veritable sickness that has to be addressed.

My idea in the op, a 28th amendment which will effectively give states more freedom to regulate arms as they see fit, along with municipalities, is the first step in that direction. In my view.

 

[Donald H]

The problem is the gun worshipping and gun fetishing has become something of a national pathology.

Yes! That's another way of saying what I've been saying.

That is the problem, the veritable sickness that has to be addressed.

Of course.

My idea in the op, a 28th amendment which will effectively give states more freedom to regulate arms as they see fit, along with municipalities, is the first step in that direction. In my view.

I fully appreciate your opinion that individual states should be enacting gun control laws. You've made that abundantly clear, but are there ever going to be enough people or politicians to make it happen. I think not!

There are methods at hand that can start doing the job of changing the 'culture' of death with guns.

Keep on with this project! It can only be helpfull, regardless of the opinions on how to bring about change.

It's worth adding here: Michael Moore named the problem on MSNBC after one of the big mass shootings, but they changed the subject! Even the left didn't want any part of it!

 

[task0778]

Not a point raised in the OP. Like I said, the point is a tree doesn't grow until a seed is planted.

Plant all the seeds you want, but it'll be a long time before that tree starts growing. I don't see much in the way of progress on gun control; the Left has been bitching about gun control for how long now? What makes you think that time has come to do anything on the issue, much less change the 2nd Amendment. Basically, support for gun control rises with each mass shooting and then falls in time, mostly because the current gun control propositions will do nothing to reduce the number of mass shootings in the future.

 

[Donald H]

Plant all the seeds you want, but it'll be a long time before that tree starts growing. I don't see much in the way of progress on gun control; the Left has been bitching about gun control for how long now? What makes you think that time has come to do anything on the issue, much less change the 2nd Amendment. Basically, support for gun control rises with each mass shooting and then falls in time, mostly because the current gun control propositions will do nothing to reduce the number of mass shootings in the future.

The left's politicians have been bitching about gun control for a long time, but the left's voters are not with them.

Leftist Americans are every bit of in a trance over gun rights as the right.

And both sides support the 'culture' of killing and wars. The left even moreso than the right on account of it being the left's war.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

That very well might be, but that time for that is not now or any time soon. The democrats are not going to get 67 votes in the Senate and the House in the foreseeable future, and even then would all 67 Senate democrats or 67% in the House support the changes you support? They couldn't even get 51 Senate votes for their BBB Bill, what makes you think the democrats from red and purple states would risk ending their political careers by voting for this?

I remember Bill Clinton admitting that the biggest factor in his party losing majorities in both houses of Congress was the fraudulent 1994 “assault weapon” ban. There was a higher correlation between voting to support that scam, and losing in the next election, than with any other cause.

So, if Congress even thinks of trying to put together a proposed amendment to overturn the Second, what do you think will be the effect on the political career of any congresscriminal that supports that?

 

[Bob Blaylock]

My idea in the op, a 28th amendment which will effectively give states more freedom to regulate arms as they see fit, along with municipalities, is the first step in that direction. In my view.

You could do a lot more to make us “safe” by overturning the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth Amendments, and Eighth Amendments, than you ever could by attacking the Second.. Give the police/government more freedom to simply round up suspected criminals, and dispose of them, without having to bother with all that nonsense of warrants, probable cause, due process of law, and such.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Donald H]

I remember Bill Clinton admitting that the biggest factor in his party losing majorities in both houses of Congress was the fraudulent 1994 “assault weapon” ban. There was a higher correlation between voting to support that scam, and losing in the next election, than with any other cause.

That's right Bob! The left's voters are together with the right in significant numbers to make gun control an ineffective issue for the left.

The political right doesn't own the 'culture' of guns and the slaughter that goes with it.

So, if Congress even thinks of trying to put together a proposed amendment to overturn the Second, what do you think will be the effect on the political career of any congresscriminal that supports that?

They will not be supported.

Rumpole: This is progress, even though it's through careless ignorance.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Plant all the seeds you want, but it'll be a long time before that tree starts growing. I don't see much in the way of progress on gun control; the Left has been bitching about gun control for how long now? What makes you think that time has come to do anything on the issue, much less change the 2nd Amendment. Basically, support for gun control rises with each mass shooting and then falls in time, mostly because the current gun control propositions will do nothing to reduce the number of mass shootings in the future.

The more the left wrong continues to attack the people's right to keep and bear arms, while at the same time, promoting blatantly pro-criminal policies that give criminals free reign to prey on human beings, the more obvious it becomes why we need to keep our right to keep and bear arms, and why we need to demand that Government keep it's filthy corrupt hands away from this right.

The true motive of the left wrong has long been obvious, and in recent days, is becoming even more so. They are openly on the side of subhuman criminal; shit, and against the side of actual human beings,; and they want to disarm us to turn us into easier prey for subhuman criminal shit.

Left Wrong-wing shit such as Rumpole[stiltskin] lie to us, telling us that they only want to disarm us for our own “safety”, fully knowing and intending that the real result will to put us in greater peril. They believe and hope that we will be stupid enough to believe them, and sadly, too many of us are.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

And both sides support the 'culture' of killing and wars. The left even moreso than the right on account of it being the left's war.

The left wrong, of course, is all in on abortion, whereby more innocent human beings are savagely murdered, by several orders of magnitude, than die in any way having anything at all to do with firearms. By supporting this savage practice, the left wrong prove that they are flat-out lying when they express any concern at all for any value of human life. They are an ideology of evil, madness, and death.

 

[Rumpole]

Yes! That's another way of saying what I've been saying.

Of course.

I fully appreciate your opinion that individual states should be enacting gun control laws. You've made that abundantly clear, but are there ever going to be enough people or politicians to make it happen. I think not!

It's like this. A tree takes time to grow, but it won't if the seed isn't planted. I am doing that today. The nation IS gradually, ever so gradually shifting more to the left. There will come a day when the tree will be much more visible.

There are methods at hand that can start doing the job of changing the 'culture' of death with guns.

All for it, care to discuss?

Keep on with this project! It can only be helpfull, regardless of the opinions on how to bring about change.

It's worth adding here: Michael Moore named the problem on MSNBC after one of the big mass shootings, but they changed the subject! Even the left didn't want any part of it!

Well, the indictment of Trump, a historical first, sucked up all the oxygen. Then the racist expulsion in Tennessee.

Thanks for your comments,


Rumpole

 

[Rumpole]

The left wrong, of course, is all in on abortion, whereby more innocent human beings are savagely murdered, by several orders of magnitude, than die in any way having anything at all to do with firearms. By supporting this savage practice, the left wrong prove that they are flat-out lying when they express any concern at all for any value of human life. They are an ideology of evil, madness, and death.

Fact, banning abortion causes deaths among the female poor to increase.

Banning the mifepristone drug will incur more injuries in women.

Apparently the death cult is on the right.

FYI neither a fertilized egg nor a fetus are 'persons'. Determining personhood is beyond the purview of science, and can only be declared via judicial decree, and that depends on 'judicial philosophy' which is a fancy way of saying 'political leaning". Roe set it at about 22 weeks, so somewhere in that time frame, the debate lingers.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Fact, banning abortion causes deaths among the female poor to increase.

The very worst harm that could possibly be claimed to be caused by completely banning abortion in all cases is NOTH(ING compared to the innocent people who are unjustifiably murdered by the process.

FYI neither a fertilized egg nor a fetus are 'persons'.

A hateful lie will never become true, no matter how loudly or how often it is repeated. These are innocent people, as human as you or I, and you are openly defending their murder. This shows us that to your very core, you are a soulless, evil, murderous piece of shit.

It certainly puts the lie to any claim on your part to give a shit about the value of any human lives, which totally destroys whatever argument you think yo9u have for undermining the Second Amendment.

It should therefore be no surprise at all, that you wish to disarm human beings, in order to make us easier prey for other subhuman murdering pieces of shit.

There is no insult that I can craft that comes anywhere near to being adequate to address you.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Also note that since I am not an expert on rifles, my view on single-shot bolt action versus semi automatic rifles is not solidified in my proposal, and I remain open to arguments presented by experts on their reasoning for continuing to allow for semi-automatic rifles. Also note that the amendment allows states to allow for semi-automatics--remember, a constitutional amendment is not a ban whatsoever, it is just being amended to allow states more freedom to regulate without interference from, what I personally view as, second amendment radical groups such as the NRA. Obviously, the NRA and it's hard core believers will oppose this idea, and I expect that.

I think you should take the time to increase your knowledge of firearms. For example, what is a "single shot bolt action," rifle? Is it disposable, in that you fire it once and it can't be used again? If not, what is the process for firing a round and then firing another? How long does it take a skilled user to fire such a rifle twice?

It's important for anti-gun radicals to understand the guns they oppose if they want to have a serious conversation about them.

 

[AZrailwhale]

It's like this. A tree takes time to grow, but it won't if the seed isn't planted. I am doing that today. The nation IS gradually, ever so gradually shifting more to the left. There will come a day when the tree will be much more visible.

All for it, care to discuss?


Well, the indictment of Trump, a historical first, sucked up all the oxygen. Then the racist expulsion in Tennessee.

Thanks for your comments,


Rumpole

Your tree will never grow because Americans who believe in liberty and freedom will salt the ground where you plant those seeds like the Romans did to Carthage.

 

[Rumpole]

Plant all the seeds you want, but it'll be a long time before that tree starts growing. I don't see much in the way of progress on gun control; the Left has been bitching about gun control for how long now? What makes you think that time has come to do anything on the issue, much less change the 2nd Amendment. Basically, support for gun control rises with each mass shooting and then falls in time, mostly because the current gun control propositions will do nothing to reduce the number of mass shootings in the future.

Naysayers and gun worshippers say 'do nothing'.
Democrats, moderates and sensible republicans say 'do something'.

I see no compelling reason for the former, but solid reasoning for the latter, given that......

America has more gun related deaths and injury per capita than other nations,
and America has more guns per capita than other other nations, and despite anemic
hollers that 'correlation is not causation', for which the correct reply is, there is causation
when the volume of statistics is so great that it overwhelmingly points to one, irrefutable inescapable conclusion,
not to mention that gun related deaths are the number one killer of children as of 2020 and that correlates to the proliferation
of guns via the gun worshipping/gun fetishing culture that is spreading like a malignant cancer by the likes of the NRA and
MAGA movements. This idea that MAGA republicans are 'pro life' is a delusion. Ban abortion, deaths of the female poor go up, proliferate guns, and more children die. As for MAGA republicans and gun worshippers, one can only conclude, they are pro death.

As Adam Winkler wrote in his book, 'Gunfight, the battle over the right to bear arms in America', wrote:

His work has frequently been cited in judicial opinions, including in Supreme Court cases pertaining to the First and Second Amendments

 

[2aguy]

Naysayers and gun worshippers say 'do nothing'.
Democrats, moderates and sensible republicans say 'do something'.

I see no compelling reason for the former, but solid reasoning for the latter, given that......

America has more gun related deaths and injury per capita than other nations,
and America has more guns per capita than other other nations, and despite anemic
hollers that 'correlation is not causation', for which the correct reply is, there is causation
when the volume of statistics is so great that it overwhelmingly points to one, irrefutable inescapable conclusion,
not to mention that gun related deaths are the number one killer of children as of 2020 and that correlates to the proliferation
of guns via the gun worshipping/gun fetishing culture that is spreading like a malignant cancer by the likes of the NRA and
MAGA movements. This idea that MAGA republicans are 'pro life' is a delusion. Ban abortion, deaths of the female poor go up, proliferate guns, and more children die. As for MAGA republicans and gun worshippers, one can only conclude, they are pro death.

As Adam Winkler wrote in his book, 'Gunfight, the battle over the right to bear arms in America', wrote:

View attachment 774841

His work has frequently been cited in judicial opinions, including in Supreme Court cases pertaining to the First and Second Amendments

again...you are lying........


Over 27 years, from 1993 to the year 2015, we went from 200 million guns in private hands in the 1990s and 4.7 million people carrying guns for self defense in 1997...to close to 400-600 million guns in private hands and over 19.4 million people carrying guns for self defense in 2019 (in 2020 that number is 21.52 million)...guess what happened...

New Concealed Carry Report For 2020: 19.48 Million Permit Holders, 820,000 More Than Last Year despite many states shutting down issuing permits because of the Coronavirus - Crime Prevention Research Center


-- gun murder down 49%

--gun crime down 75%

--violent crime down 72%

Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.
======

The gun murder and gun suicide rates in the U.S. both remain below their peak levels. There were 6.2 gun murders per 100,000 people in 2020, below the rate of 7.2 recorded in 1974.


What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

Paper...why crime declined in the 90s

https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf
========
======

Over the past few decades, the number of guns in America has increased massively, so much so that there are now more guns than people in the United States. Yet federal crime statistics show that firearm homicides dropped about 40 percent between 1993 and 2018, from 7 per 100,000 people to 4.3 per 100,000 people (for nonfatal crimes involving guns, the decline was 71 percent). Violent crime, including homicides, did spike during the pandemic, and while the most recent data is incomplete, it's clear that gun-related violence remains far below where it was 30 years ago despite more guns than ever being out there.

When it comes to schools, the 2020–21 academic year, the latest for which full data is available, did see the highest number of school shootingswith casualties this century. There are thankfully too few violent deaths to generate statistically significant conclusions, but the long-term trendsshow no increase in homicides or suicides among students, staff, and teachers.

Do 'more guns lead to more deaths'?
========
========


Bureau of Justice statistics...

The rate of firearm homicide per 100,000 persons age 12 or older declined 41% across the 26-year period of 1993 to 2018, from 8.4 to 5.0
homicides per 100,000 (figure 1). During the more recent 5 years from 2014 to 2018, this rate was between 4.0 and 5.2 homicides per 100,000 persons age 12 or older. A total of 150 persons age 11 or younger were victims of firearm homicide in 2018, resulting in a rate of 0.3 homicides per 100,000 persons in this age group (not shown).
-------
In 2018, there were 470,800 nonfatal firearm victimizations against persons age 12 or older, down 69% from 1.5 million in 1993 (table 2). Data on nonfatal firearm violence in this report are from
the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and include rape
or sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault victimizations against persons age 12 or older in which the offender had, showed, or used a firearm.

https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/tpfv9318.pdf


This means that access to guns does not create gun crime........

Why do our democrat party controlled cities have gun crime problems?

What changed in 2015?

The democrat party did 3 things...

1) they began a war on the police that forced officers to stop pro active police work, allowing criminals to run wild.

2) they began to release the most violent and dangerous gun offenders over and over again, not matter how many times they had been arrested for gun crimes

3) they used their brown shirts, blm/antifa to burn, loot and murder for 7 months in primarily black neighborhoods while the democrat party mayors ordered the police to stand down and not stop them......in order to hurt Trump during the election.

 

[Donald H]

It's like this. A tree takes time to grow, but it won't if the seed isn't planted. I am doing that today. The nation IS gradually, ever so gradually shifting more to the left. There will come a day when the tree will be much more visible.

You're making an effort and I can tell you care!

All for it, care to discuss?

How can I help to convince some people that the culture that's been adopted is what needs to change. It's so self incriminating to them that even the left can't accept.
I would recommend not concentrating on other solutions that allow them to divert away from facing the truth.l
l'm sorry but I have to agree with them that taking away their guns is just not going to work to change the attitudes that are to blame.

Well, the indictment of Trump, a historical first, sucked up all the oxygen. Then the racist expulsion in Tennessee.

Thanks for your comments,

Thanks for your efforts and don't give up!

Rumpole

 

[2aguy]

Naysayers and gun worshippers say 'do nothing'.
Democrats, moderates and sensible republicans say 'do something'.

I see no compelling reason for the former, but solid reasoning for the latter, given that......

America has more gun related deaths and injury per capita than other nations,
and America has more guns per capita than other other nations, and despite anemic
hollers that 'correlation is not causation', for which the correct reply is, there is causation
when the volume of statistics is so great that it overwhelmingly points to one, irrefutable inescapable conclusion,
not to mention that gun related deaths are the number one killer of children as of 2020 and that correlates to the proliferation
of guns via the gun worshipping/gun fetishing culture that is spreading like a malignant cancer by the likes of the NRA and
MAGA movements. This idea that MAGA republicans are 'pro life' is a delusion. Ban abortion, deaths of the female poor go up, proliferate guns, and more children die. As for MAGA republicans and gun worshippers, one can only conclude, they are pro death.

As Adam Winkler wrote in his book, 'Gunfight, the battle over the right to bear arms in America', wrote:

View attachment 774841

His work has frequently been cited in judicial opinions, including in Supreme Court cases pertaining to the First and Second Amendments

In 6 years, between 1939-1945 the wonderful Europeans, under the control of the socialists, murdered 15 million innocent men, women and children.....after they first registered, then confiscated guns........

Gun murder in the United States over our entire 246 year history?

About 2,460,000

And the majority of those gun murder deaths are not the innocent people murdered by the Europeans...they are majority criminals, murdered by other criminals engaged in the criminal lifestyle.........

So you and your gun grabber buddies have nothing to teach us about guns....

 

[Rumpole]

Your tree will never grow because Americans who believe in liberty and freedom will salt the ground where you plant those seeds like the Romans did to Carthage.

Your strawman aside,

Every basket has a few rotten apples. Every group has a few nattering naysayers of negativity, and lo, here we are as the pithy aphorisms manifest in this very forum.

The notion that gun regulation does not work is as preposterous as it is unfounded. Observe, if you will, our peers (the first world USA western aligned countries) across the pond in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan, whose stringent firearm regulations have engendered a drastic reduction in gun-related deaths and crimes. To contend that regulation is futile is to dismiss, with casual disregard, the resounding evidence before us. Permit me to assert, with no small measure of conviction, that the myth of regulation's inefficacy is naught but a desperate attempt to cling to a dated and dangerous narrative.

Of course, it would be simplistic to point to numbers alone, as, in my view, the proliferation is due to the NRA's vast propaganda machine which perpetuates and foments the gun worshipping/gun fetishing culture that exists in America. That, is the problem.

 

[2aguy]

Your strawman aside,

Every basket has a few rotten apples. Every group has a few nattering naysayers of negativity, and lo, here we are as the pithy aphorisms manifest in this very forum.

The notion that gun regulation does not work is as preposterous as it is unfounded. Observe, if you will, our peers (the first world USA western aligned countries) across the pond in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan, whose stringent firearm regulations have engendered a drastic reduction in gun-related deaths and crimes. To contend that regulation is futile is to dismiss, with casual disregard, the resounding evidence before us. Permit me to assert, with no small measure of conviction, that the myth of regulation's inefficacy is naught but a desperate attempt to cling to a dated and dangerous narrative.

Of course, it would be simplistic to point to numbers alone, as, in my view, the proliferation is due to the NRA's vast propaganda machine which perpetuates and foments the gun worshipping/gun fetishing culture that exists in America. That, is the problem.

Britain
Police struggle to stop flood of firearms into UK

Police and border officials are struggling to stop a rising supply of illegal firearms being smuggled into Britain, a senior police chief has warned.

Chief constable Andy Cooke, the national police lead for serious and organised crime, said law enforcement had seen an increased supply of guns over the past year, and feared that it would continue in 2019

The Guardian has learned that the situation is so serious that the National Crime Agency has taken the rare step of using its legal powers to direct every single police force to step up the fight against illegal guns.

The NCA has used tasking powers to direct greater intelligence about firearms to be gathered by all 43 forces in England and Wales.

Another senior law enforcement official said that “new and clean” weapons were now being used in the majority of shootings, as opposed to guns once being so difficult to obtain that they would be “rented out” to be used in multiple crimes.

Cooke, the Merseyside chief constable, told the Guardian: “We in law enforcement expect the rise in new firearms to continue. We are doing all we can. We are not in a position to stop it anytime soon.

“Law enforcement is more joined up now than before, but the scale of the problem is such that despite a number of excellent firearms seizures, I expect the rise in supply to be a continuing issue.”

The increasing supply of guns belies problems with UK border security and innovations by organised crime gangs. Smugglers have increasingly found new ways and innovative routes to get guns past border defences.

Cooke said that the dynamics of the streets of British cities had changed and that criminals were more willing to use guns: “If they bring them in people will buy them. It’s a kudos thing for organised criminals.”

Simon Brough, head of firearms at the NCA, said: “The majority of guns being used are new, clean firearms ... which indicates a relatively fluid supply.”

He said shotguns were 40% of the total, with an increase in burglaries to try and steal them.

Handguns are the next biggest category, most often smuggled in from overseas, with ferry ports such as Dover being a popular entry point into the UK for organised crime groups:

Two in three police force areas in England and Wales are experiencing rising gun crime, with one force facing levels six times higher than a decade ago, Guardian analysis of Home Office data has found.

-------



Concerns are now being raised about the growing availability of firearms in parts of the north of England and the Midlands as some police forces are struggling to tackle rising gun crime with fewer officers than they had a decade ago.



The sharpest rise is in the north-east, where gun crime has more than tripled from an average of 91 firearms offences a year between 2009 and 2012, to 294 a year between 2019 and 2022.



In the Cleveland police area, firearms offences have risen almost sixfold, from a yearly average of 22 to 127. Durham, Sussex, Lincolnshire, Northumbria, South Yorkshire, Norfolk and Kent police have all seen numbers more than double in 10 years





Gun crime rising in two-thirds of police force areas in England and Wales

---------

County lines​

Peter Squires, professor of criminology at the University of Brighton, told The Guardian that so-called “county lines” – a form of criminal exploitation where urban gangs persuade young people to take drugs to rural areas of the country – are probably behind the rise in gun crime in places such as Sussex, Kent and Cheshire.

-----

Gun smuggling​

The prevalence of firearm offences is also partially to do with gun smuggling, experts say. Firearms can now be hired for as little as £100 around the UK and can be acquired in “less than a day”, reported the i news site’s investigations correspondent Dean Kirby.



According to Dr Robert Hesketh, a criminology expert at Liverpool John Moores University, it is “relatively easy” to get hold of a firearm in many cities.

“A MAC-10 will cost about £3,000, an MP5 £3,000,” Hesketh said. “These are automatic weapons. Another gun doing the rounds a few years ago and possibly now was a Desert Eagle, for about £500. It isn’t hard, put it that way.”

There is also an option to rent a weapon – with criminals borrowing firearms for short periods. “You can get one possibly for £100 to £150 if you know the right people,” Hesketh said.



While it is working to cut off supplies to the UK, the National Crime Agency has seen a “gradual increase” in the use of fully automatic weapons.

Some of the weapons used are deactivated or blank-firing devices, which are being bought in eastern Europe, where they are legal and unrestricted. They are then illegally reactivated by criminals before being transported to the UK, Kirby said.

Guns can also be bought on the dark web, and stolen, lawfully bought guns have also ended up being used in shootings. On the messaging app Telegram The Sunday Times found firearms advertised for sale from £400.

In 2019/20, the National Crime Agency seized 552 illegal firearms in the UK and abroad. The UK Border Force, meanwhile, picked up 2,600 lethal and non-lethal firearms in the year to September 2020.



Why is gun crime on the rise? | The Week UK



=================





Gun offences had been increasing since roughly 2015 across England and Wales, according to figures from the Office of National Statistics. But then came the pandemic.

Are gun crimes on the rise again?​

Dr Robert Hesketh, from the School of Justice Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, thinks the incidents will increase because of the cost of living crisis.

"People are getting desperate and desperate times call for desperate measures," he said.



Dr Hesketh disagreed with senior police officers, who say it is hard for a criminal to buy a gun in Britain.



The academic instead suggested in Liverpool a cheap firearm can be obtained for as little as £150 with a bit of asking around.



Gun crime is closely linked with drug dealing. At the top of the criminal tree drug gangs arrange imports to sell in the UK.

The retail arm of the market has become dominated by a relatively new business model.

County lines gangs, using dedicated mobile phones for customers to make orders, shift drugs around the country and have been blamed for increasing the risk of violence involving guns and knives.

Liverpool is an important part of the UK's drug gang infrastructure.

http://[URL='https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62667546[/URL]']https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62667546

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