“It was because the British elite feared an uprising.”
Which is precisely why our forefathers made the right to bear arms the “Second Amendment”. They knew how important it was in times like these.
In the olden days every free Englishman was required to have certain weapons in his home and to practice with the bow and arrow each Sunday after church, AND to appear at an “Assize of Arms” so the local lords could know how many armed men they could depend on.
The French, did not trust their serfs when given arms as the serfs then considered themselves free men. As a result, the French preferred Genoese Crossbowmen to back them up.
After gun confiscation and Dunkirk, England prepared to throw back a German invasion with those now standard traditional English weapons, the Garden Hoe, Hay rake and scythe.
Then American citizens decided to “SEND A GUN TO DEFEND A BRITISH HOME!”
They have no reason to change it now. To that sort, terror is just an example of the lower classes preying on the lower classes. “There’s a fox upsetting the chickens! Release the hounds! Tally ho!”
Ping-Worthy?
Mr. niteowl77
Many years ago I used to read articles by Colin Greenwood. I always thought he was the clearest thinking voice in the gun control debate.
The one point he made over and over was that before gun control, Great Britain, or maybe it was just England, I can’t recall for sure, had less than 5 armed robberies per year.
The reason what he had to say was so important is he destroyed the argument that Britain had a lower murder rate than the U.S. That was supposed to show how effective gun control was.
In fact it was demographics which was the major controlling factor and gun control actually did harm instead of good.
Modern gun control in the U.K. also tended to be a response to whatever was going on in Northern Ireland. The laws that were created and passed in about 1967 that required permits for legally acquiring shotguns was partly inspired by the then recent killing of two British police officers and increasing violence in Belfast and elsewhere in Northern Ireland. The killing of the two police officers sparked public calls for the return of the death penalty that had been abolished in about 1965, and the gun controls enacted then most likely acted as a diversion from such demands.
The continuing IRA related mayhem in the 1970s and 1980s most likely played a role in the 1987-88 legislation (semi autos and pump actions being banned) that had the Hungerford massacre as it’s public excuse.
Thomas Hamilton’s bloody rampage in 1996 in Dunblane that gave the government it’s public excuse to ban almost all pistols and handguns most likely had the Good Friday Peace Accords with the IRA and Sein Fein as an underlying influence as well.
Right in the middle of that photo of the confiscated guns is an 1847 Colt Walker replica, a black powder cap and ball revolver.
They didn't just ‘fear’ an uprising. The Irish Nationalists had already staged one insurrection in 1916. In 1920 the IRA was fighting another in Ireland (and striving to incite sympathetic revolts in places in England and Scotland). The Bolsheviks and anarchists were active in the Labour Party, and there were riots of near civil insurrection level in some industrial centers. Massive civil disorder had erupted all over Europe, and not just in the losing countries.
They didn't just ‘fear’ an uprising. The Irish Nationalists had already staged one insurrection in 1916. In 1920 the IRA was fighting another in Ireland (and striving to incite sympathetic revolts in places in England and Scotland). The Bolsheviks and anarchists were active in the Labour Party, and there were riots of near civil insurrection level in some industrial centers. Massive civil disorder had erupted all over Europe, and not just in the losing countries.
ping
Think what you will...I never filled out a form in 1985 when I was handed a .45 and an M-16 while being a combat medic . I have three firearms from wherever I obtained them....not a piece of paper on any of them.......I do not ask permission for a right.
Any person who allows another to disarm them deserves his or her fate....you can’t fix stupid....I do not enjoy killing but to rid my soil of intruders ? It is with no remorse my pleasure to rid my republic of the vermin in a very vicious manner which I would enjoy. NO FEAR
The hand wring liberals are saying that their gun confiscation laws kept the terrorists from getting guns.
I never understood how the Brits went from a people whose monarchs REQUIRED them to be armed and proficient with longbows to a people who had to BEG guns from the US in WW2!