(no subject)

[elettaria]

I've read somewhere (it's quoted in one of the essays in Christa Wolf's Cassandra, but I can never find quotations in that book) that approval ratings for capital punishment are relatively high when it's legal, but drop enormously after a few decades when a country ceases to practise it. I'm curious to see how far that holds out, and also with regard to gun ownership.

So here's a poll. If you've moved countries in your life, select the one which you think of as home.

[Poll #1402429]

I'm perfectly happy for people to discuss this, but please do so with sensitivity.

Comments

[finnygan.livejournal.com]

I think I did that wrong - not feeling too well - but I believe that both gun ownership and capital punishment are both illegal in the UK [at least I really hope they are]. Anyways - I'm against both but might show all wrong in the poll.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Capital punishment isn't illegal in the UK - we just don't do it anymore. The punishment for High Treason is still death by hanging - that statute was never removed from the books; no-one's been accused of High Treason in decades though. Just because we don't do it anymore, that doesn't mean it's illegal.

Gun ownership is still legal in the UK; it's just incredibly bound up in red tape. The only guns you are legally allowed to have at home are hunting rifles, and you have to have a permit and an approved gun cabinet where they are kept locked. Sporting pistols have to be kept at an approved and licensed firing range.

[fluffymark]

Actually, the wisdom of Wikipedia seems to say that the death penalty for Treason was repealed back in 1998. I think you're right about guns, though.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

Blast, I had a feeling it was going to turn out to be complicated. I wasn't so much interested in the minute details as the general picture, though: even if the death penalty for high treason still existed, in effect we have not had capital punishment in the UK since 1964. It's been 45 years, we're completely used to not having it, we find it alien. In contrast, I'm always jolted when I encounter people from countries where it is still practised, who take it for granted that people will approve of capital punishment and think it's only the crazies who disapprove.

Ach, there probably wasn't much point doing a poll, it's a small group and politically probably not representative of the general population. I was just curious.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

for values of legal gun ownership that are heavily regulated, licensed, and preclude guns in most public spaces.