Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

In 1986 when I was 19, I visited one of the first official gun shows in Holland. It was in the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam and I think it it was called the "Schietsport Informatie Weekend" ("shooting information weekend"). Visitors of that trade show where allowed to go to the nearby shooting range at the Amstelveenseweg 1. There I was allowed to shoot a .357 Desert Eagle. Anyone who knows the Desert Eagle, knows that you need giant hands to hold and shoot it. Not to mention it's weight! But my interest in big guns was definitely sparked there. I became a member of a shooting club together with my dad as soon as I was allowed to (18 in the Netherlands).
Well, today I had a bit of a flashback to that moment, when I visited the new "SIW" (Schietsport Informatie Weekend) in Papendal, Arnhem together with a friend of mine. We both became member of a shooting club here in Almere this year and we both hope to buy a gun sometime next year. So for us both it was a good opportunity to see what the current gun manufacturers have to offer. Which is a lot.

I'm more of a handgun man myself, but my friend is more of a rifle/carbine aficionado. I do have to say that I like the Steyr AUG guns and surely the different Heckler & Koch carbines (in 9mm or .45acp) but I like to stick to the more common guns like the 9mm H&K P30L.

But I like the more exotic guns too. So when I came across a stand where they had a real life .475 Wildey Magnum, I knew I had to hold it in my hands! For those who have no clue what I'm talking about: the Wildey .475 Magnum is a movie icon. It was used in the 1985 in the movie Death Wish 3 by Charles Bronson. It is about as famous as the Smith & Wesson 29 that Clint "Dirty Harry" Eastwood wielded in his famous "Dirty Harry" movies. In fact it resembles the .44 AutoMag that Clint Eastwood uses in his fourth Dirty Harry movie "Sudden Impact". But unlike that gun, the .475 Wildey pistol has a unique patented gas system that makes it possible to regulate the gas pressure so that it can accommodate different cartridge loadings.
It has a nice stainless steel finish and is big. I mean: real big. As you can see by the photos it really put a smile on my face. Except when I heard about the price tag: about € 1200,-. Anyway: in Holland this sort of gun is unpractical and pretty much useless. But just to show you a bit of the fun you can have with it, it looked up some YouTube videos. Enjoy!

Nothing better than squeezing off a few rounds out of a S&W after a long day. It requires concentration and is relaxing at the same time. I'm looking forward however to the moment I can start shooting some serious 9mm, .357magnum and/or .45acp again. That's serious fun. I will be shooting for the small caliber competition this Saturday though.

Ah, that was fun! I went to the shooting range today for the first time in 10 years or so. Here in Holland shooting and owning a gun is a big hassle actually. My friend Rutger and I decided to go join a shooting club at the beginning of this year: it's the only way you can (legally) own or shoot a gun here in Holland. But with all the paperwork etc. it took more than a month before we actually could go to the range. First you need a signed affidavit from the (local) police stating you're a good citizen and do not have a police record. Getting this used to be no problem and was handled automatically. But this has changed and now you need to pay € 30 for it and wait about a fortnight. Anyway: we managed to get through all the paperwork and this let to the point where we finally could go shoot today.

Because of the strict gun laws and such here in Holland you can't own a gun right away: you need to be a member of a shooting club for a year and then you can buy a gun. The good thing about that is off course that in Holland we have hardly any gun related problems like in the US. Also when you join a shooting club you have a 6 month probation period before you become a full member.

The latter also applies to the club we joined. It also means you can only shoot small caliber arms during those 6 months. So for the next 6 months I'll be 'plinking' away .22LR rounds, which is a bit of bummer.

After some hours of instructions and information about guns (no news for me there) we could finally go to the range and start shooting. I started of using a nice Ruger Mark III and I was happy that I still could hit my targets at 25 meters (27,3 yards). After doing that for about 30 minutes our instructors decided they'd gave us a taste of the good stuff so they allowed us to fire some 9mm, .38 and in my case even a Colt Python with some .357 magnum rounds. For me nothing new, but some people on the range never fired a gun before and were - off course - pretty impressed with the recoil. Funny thing was: I did better with the .38 and .357 than I did with the .22.

Anyway: now I have to continue shooting the wimpy .22 stuff for 6 months before I can switch to the real deal. Oh well, I guess you just have to be patient here in Holland.

The more I read and hear about the background of the shootings at Viginia Tech University, the more I am convinced that politicians in the US (in general) are dumb, uneducated and clueless as how a modern society should deal with violence and crime. Gun owner groups (backed up by the gun industry lobby) are now using this tragedy to promote the idea that if more people had guns the shooting could have been avoided. What a dumb idea. It is the idea that you fight fire with fire. Right, [sarcasm mode on] look how perfectly that has worked out in countries like Israel; it has virtually stopped all terrorism in it's track - not ! [/sarcasm mode off]. Also I am getting more and more convinced that the debate about gun control versus the pro gun ownership will never be resolved.

Something I didn't know, is that Virginia gun laws are among the most relaxed in the US (see below). If Virginia laws war up to par with other states, a simple background check would have revealed that Cho Seung-Hui had a criminal record and that he had a history of mental problems for which he was comitted (suicide atempt). Both reason why in any other state he would not had been able to buy a gun legally. This specific tragedy could have been prevented.

Virginia State Requirements (source: Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco and Firearms - ATF)

Rifles and Shotguns

Permit to purchase rifles and shotguns? No.
Registration of rifles and shotguns? No.
Licensing of owners of rifles and shotguns? No.
Permit to carry rifles and shotguns? No.

Handguns

Permit to purchase handgun? No.
Registration of handguns? No.
Licensing of owners of handguns? No.
Permit to carry handguns? Yes. A permit is required if concealed.

Other Requirements

Is there a State waiting period? No.
Is there a FBI *NICS check for firearm transactions? No. State system.
Permit to carry a concealed weapon required? Yes.
Record of sale: No.

(*NICS - National Instant Check System)

Basically Cho Seung-Hui walked into a store, bought his guns and walked out. Nobody ever bothered doing a background check or anything.

Way to go USA! Once again some madman walked into a school and killed at least 20 31 33 (who's keeping count anyway?) students and teachers. Just keep the right to bare arms in your constitution and before we know it everyone is shooting everyone! Stupid as they are, right-wing politicians maintain the myth that gun control does not mean that less people get killed "because criminals will still have guns". As I heard one NRA member say on TV once: "Gun control is hitting what you aim at" (and don't forget the bumper sticker either). Apparently this shooter had very good gun control. Right... Well, if you don't want gun control in the form of strict laws that outlaw gun ownership (like civilized countries such as Holland have), then don't act all surprised when terrible shit like this happens. And by the way if you do believe that owning a gun is the answer: tell your kids to bring their Uzi or 9mm Beretta to school or otherwise they can "kiss their defenseless ass goodbye". And by the way: why not go back to the good ol' times of the Wild West and arm everyone while you're at it. And let's see if that works. Actually I am all out of sympathy for these kind of cases. If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. Do something about it or stop whining and take the consequences.

It's just mind boggling to me that the US government wants you to wear a seatbelt when you drive a car to prevent you from injury and enforces even something dumb as speed limits on the highway, but when it comes to a far more life-saving rule like banning guns, it's suddenly impeding with your - "God given" - rights as a citizen. Well, I argue that if you are allowed to own a gun you should also be allowed to not wear a seatbelt and drive 100 miles an hour whenever you want. That's part of your freedom too right? So why do you accept those rules as sensible but act all mad about something way more life-saving?

The US doesn't have to be afraid of Islamic terrorists: they have enough psycho's in their own population!

Here in Holland we don't have any such killing sprees going on. And guess why... Because it is hard to get your hands on a gun. And guess what: we hardly ever have any shootings that involve people that legally own a gun. Since WW II (1945 in case you don't know that either) I can think of only such incident: in 1983 one guy shot 6 people in a bar here in Holland and to be honest; he wasn't even Dutch but Turkish. So yeah, in Europe we can rightfully call those things "incidents".

No sir, those Americans will never learn. They try to police the world and spend billions of Dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan, but they can't even police their own people... Shame on the politicians and shame on the people for letting their politicians not doing anything about it. How many "incidents" do they need before they see it their not incidents but part of a pattern?

My sympathy goes out to the survivors and the family of the victims of this horrific tragedy.

"Gun control is hitting what you aim at." Or it least that's what the bumper sticker said I read during my first visit to New York in the USA in 1995. No doubt the owner of the car was also a NRA member, or, as they are known: the National Rifle Association. And I am sure I'm not the only one that noticed there is only one letter that distinguishes them from the IRA, a now dormant terrorist group from Ireland. Now the reason I bring this up off course, is the fact that today there was yet another school schooting in the USA: a 32-year-old milk truck driver walked into an Amish schoolhouse Monday, binding and shooting three girls execution-style before killing himself. Seven other girls were wounded in the vicious attack. The gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts IV was not Amish himself and he did not have a police-record.

It has not been the first of such an "incident". In fact, last Wednesday a 16-year-old girl died when an armed man, who also killed himself, took six students hostage at a Colorado high school. And on Friday, a head teacher at a high school in Wisconsin was killed when he confronted an armed 15-year-old student as he entered the school. Now, the difference with other cases is, that it wasn't a student that shot the little girls. Still, it is a very disturbing thing that - with a few exceptions - the US seems to have this exclusive problem of school shootings.

The US is also the one country on Earth that I know off - and please correct me if this is wrong - where the right to bear arms is part of the constitution. In fact it's the Second Amendment, right after the First Amendment. In a way it is ironic, because the First Amendment gives US citizens freedom of speech and religion, and the Second Amendment gives them the legal right, basically, to protect that with arms.

And there lays the problem. The fact that the US constitution says that anyone has the right to own a gun makes gun control virtually impossible. I think that gun control might be the only solution to these kind of problems and incidents. But it ain't going to happen, I'm sure.

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