Can your average UK person just go to the gun shop and buy one? Can everybody keep a gun at home if they want? Can you buy good protection shotgun rounds such as 00 buck? Do you have to be a member of a shooting/hunting club to own one a shotgun or rifle there? Can you actually use your rifle/shotgun to defend family or property without going to prison? Just curious. I was in Germany many years and did quite a bit of shooting there. The Germans had many restrictions on owning guns such as club membership requirements, limits on how many rifles/shotguns you could have, certificates, some had to store their weapons at a club, etc. I did know one German Dad who had many guns in his house with almost zero restrictions. He was also a high ranking Polizei official. The vast majority of Dads in Germany don’t have a gun. Is the UK similar?
“Can your average UK person just go to the gun shop and buy one? Can everybody keep a gun at home if they want? Can you buy good protection shotgun rounds such as 00 buck? Do you have to be a member of a shooting/hunting club to own one a shotgun or rifle there? Can you actually use your rifle/shotgun to defend family or property without going to prison? Just curious. I was in Germany many years and did quite a bit of shooting there. The Germans had many restrictions on owning guns such as club membership requirements, limits on how many rifles/shotguns you could have, certificates, some had to store their weapons at a club, etc. I did know one German Dad who had many guns in his house with almost zero restrictions. He was also a high ranking Polizei official. The vast majority of Dads in Germany don’t have a gun. Is the UK similar?”
Yes, but not handguns. Yes, if they have a gun licence. Yes. No and yes respectively.
The vast majority of UK residents don’t own a gun now and didn’t before the handgun ban and it is extremely rare for criminals to use guns in the UK as demonstrated by the fact that our 60m population country averages fewer than 50 gun homicides per annum despite a largely unarmed police force. Ultimately comparing gun laws between the UK and US is pointless as they are very different countries and the UK electorate just don’t like guns and won’t vote for pro-gun politicians. When I lived in the US I was very pro-gun and the right to own a gun is very important there, but not here.
My guns are either kept here in my office or out in the land rover if I’m out and about on the farm and the local police are pretty relaxed about it as they know me.