by Sean at An NC Gun Blog has what must be considered the Quote of the Day:
Come on people, if you can’t keep guns out of the hands of terrorists living on an island, where can you do it?
Sean was speaking about a story from Omagh, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland where a man was charged under their terrorism laws for having 3 shotguns, a sub-machine gun, ammunition, and explosives. While shotguns are legal, he had them “under suspicious circumstances.”
Thanks!
It's like magical thinking or something. If we all think happy thoughts and make all the right ritual maneuvers, vicious people will stop being murdering thugs.
They can't control the criminals, so they settle for controlling everyone else.
@ Sean: Having read about the guy arrested, other than the sub-machine gun, I wonder how much is really "terrorist" material.
He is a member of the Sons of Rising Dixie. Believe it or not, but they do (American) Civil War reenacting in North Ireland. Go figure.
There were lots Irish fighting on both sides during the War of Northern Aggression. Reenactors in Ireland doesn't really suprise me at all.
Isn't Blackpowder an explosive, as contrasted with its substitute Pyrodex, and with modern smokeless powders? It wouldn't be impossible for his UK betters to consider the BP to be an explosive. It isn't too great a leap of logic to think that, once he was in trouble for owning legal shotguns under suspicious circumstances, and a sub-machine gun under unspecified circumstances, the BP became an explosive and the concrete juice cans ammunition.
When I worked in Aerospace, in my department was a man who participated in Civil War re-enactments with a group who had obtained some variety of Civil war cannon. Whether full size or half-size, Union or Confederate, I don't know. However, compared to a .58 caliber Hawken or .44 Colt, or especially the .36 caliber Colts, a cannon, even half-scale, uses A LOT of blackpowder with each shot, and a weekend of re-enacting can result in the making of several "booms". My co-worker got questioned by the FBI because he was buying what they thought was an inordinate amount of black powder.