WHY BRITAIN NEEDS MORE GUNS

As gun crime leaps by 35% in a year, plans are afoot for a further crack down on firearms. Yet what we need is more guns, not fewer, says a US academic.

"If guns are outlawed," an American bumper sticker warns, "only outlaws will have guns." With gun crime in Britain soaring in the face of the strictest gun control laws of any democracy, the UK seems about to prove that warning prophetic.

For 80 years the safety of the British people has been staked on the premise that fewer private guns means less crime, indeed that any weapons in the hands of men and women, however law-abiding, pose a danger.

Government assured Britons they needed no weapons, society would protect them. If that were so in 1920 when the first firearms restrictions were passed, or in 1953 when Britons were forbidden to carry any article for their protection, it no longer is.

The failure of this general disarmament to stem, or even slow, armed and violent crime could not be more blatant. According to a recent UN study, England and Wales have the highest crime rate and worst record for "very serious" offences of the 18 industrial countries surveyed.

But would allowing law-abiding people to "have arms for their defence", as the 1689 English Bill of Rights promised, increase violence? Would Britain be following America's bad example?

Old stereotypes die hard and the vision of Britain as a peaceable kingdom, America as "the wild west culture on the other side of the Atlantic" is out of date. It is true that in contrast to Britain's tight gun restrictions, half of American households have firearms, and 33 states now permit law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons.

But despite, or because, of this, violent crime in America has been plummeting for 10 consecutive years, even as British violence has been rising. By 1995 English rates of violent crime were already far higher than America's for every major violent crime except murder and rape.

You are now six times more likely to be mugged in London than New York. Why? Because as common law appreciated, not only does an armed individual have the ability to protect himself or herself but criminals are less likely to attack them. They help keep the peace. A study found American burglars fear armed home-owners more than the police. As a result burglaries are much rarer and only 13% occur when people are at home, in contrast to 53% in England.

Much is made of the higher American rate for murder. That is true and has been for some time. But as the Office of Health Economics in London found, not weapons availability, but "particular cultural factors" are to blame.

A study comparing New York and London over 200 years found the New York homicide rate consistently five times the London rate, although for most of that period residents of both cities had unrestricted access to firearms.

When guns were available in England they were seldom used in crime. A government study for 1890-1892 found an average of one handgun homicide a year in a population of 30 million. But murder rates for both countries are now changing. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and by last year it was 3.5 times. With American rates described as "in startling free-fall" and British rates as of October 2002 the highest for 100 years the two are on a path to converge.

The price of British government insistence upon a monopoly of force comes at a high social cost.

First, it is unrealistic. No police force, however large, can protect everyone. Further, hundreds of thousands of police hours are spent monitoring firearms restrictions, rather than patrolling the streets. And changes in the law of self-defence have left ordinary people at the mercy of thugs.

According to Glanville Williams in his Textbook of Criminal Law, self-defence is "now stated in such mitigated terms as to cast doubt on whether it still forms part of the law".

Nearly a century before that American bumper sticker was slapped on the first bumper, the great English jurist, AV Dicey cautioned: "Discourage self-help, and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians." He knew public safety is not enhanced by depriving people of their right to personal safety.

Joyce Lee Malcolm, professor of history, is author of Guns and Violence: The English Experience, published in June 2002.

I checked the link and did a search and this was the last article from this lady that I could find. There were also a few emails responding to the article that I find interesting:

As a mother, an expat and most relevantly a resident of Dunblane when Thomas Hamilton took his legally held weapons into our school, this academic is just wrong! I recently spent four weeks ducking and diving my way around my neighbourhood in fear of a sniper. As much as I tried to shelter my eight-year-old, the stress of this experience cannot be measured. Guns have no place in civilised society, find some other solution! M, Washington,DC, USA

Professor Malcolm isn't saying there'd be fewer shootings (accidental and otherwise) but fewer burglaries, muggings and rapes. This seems unarguably true; the question is whether it's a price worth paying. There is no direct link between civilian gun ownership and crime - the areas of the UK with the highest crime rates are hardly those with the most legally-owned guns. The government should get tough on the causes of crime, not the tools. Paul Williams, UK

I'm an expat living in Singapore - here there is mandatory death penalty for anyone in possession of a gun. The Police are armed and appear to have a no-nonsense policy. Even with the recent terrorist threats here I've never felt safer. I don't want to live in a country that needs me to carry a gun. Chris Shaw, Singapore

California has 12m fewer people than the UK but gun crime is 18 times what it is here. The professor's assertions are the kind of empty-headed nonsense that the American gun lobby has been touting for years. The facts and figures tell the true story. Robert, UK

The stats tell the real story: there are more legal guns in the US and there are more murders. That's all we need to know. Alex, UK

Perhaps Prof Malcolm should address her comments to the parents of a six-year-old who has just accidentally shot dead her younger brother. This "independent" academic is part of a large and powerful industry determined to continue the trade in weapons that have no purpose other than killing human beings. With this anti-life attitude Americans struggle for my sympathy. Karl Upston-Hooper, New Zealand

The author compares the mugging rate of London and New York, why didn't she mention the billions of dollars New York has put into hiring more police officers, because this would weaken her argument. If this argument is taken seriously then we have learned nothing from history, in history I mean Columbine High School. Does Britain want its own Columbine? Kashef, Canada

I have no problem with responsible gun ownership, but lets face it, most people are not responsible enough to own and operate a gun in safety. Gun ownership is not necessary in a society that informs on criminals and helps the police to root out crime in the neighbourhoods. Greg, Canada

In this country they don't even give the police guns so what hope do we have. Roger, UK

I'm also an expat living in the US, and I do have guns at home - rifles for deer hunting which I do for food, not sport. That said, I disagree with the commentator, who is clearly unaware of the striking differential in handgun homicides between the US and the UK. There are tens of thousands of these in the US overall, compared to a few dozen in the UK. Mick, US

What a bunch of mind numbed sheep.

You are now six times more likely to be mugged in London than New York.

Good heavens - is this true? And New York has among the tightest gun control laws in the country.

Although I am what might be conservatively described as a firearms enthusiast, it may be that a little more than that is involved here. What seems to me key is the overall prohibition on carrying "offensive weapons" (a misnomer, really, since their primary function for the honest citizen was defensive) enacted in 1953 was the most visible sign of a failed social experiment, i.e. the notion that the state could provide a level of protection to the individual that would obviate the need for the citizen to act in his or her own self-defense. It wasn't just guns - you could be busted for carrying a billy club.

If Great Britain is to address the very real issue of "hot" burglaries an easement in the possession, at least, of long arms at home would be, IMHO, advantageous. But this would represent such a sea change to current and long-standing policies that I don't see it happening anytime soon. (Handguns per se, much less their concealed carry for civilians would, I suspect, give the British law enforcement agencies a case of the collective vapors.) I think it's the attitude on the part of a nanny govermnent that must change first. And that isn't any easier for the Brits than it is for us.

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