[Secret Agent Man]

Your average Brit isn’t allowed to have handguns. Much less defend themselves with it.

[Ozguy1945]

“Your average Brit isn’t allowed to have handguns.”

over 100 years ago ....... ????????

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Your average Brit isn't allowed to have handguns. Much less defend themselves with it.

True.

Now.

Prior to Labor's take over after WWII it was quite common for upper class and middle class Brits to own guns and shoot.

Lower class, not so much although they did have shotguns and rifles in the country. But a handgun licenses was about a weeks wages a year for a lower class man so they tended to stick with knives.

If you read British pre-WWII literature you find plenty of guns. Starting in the sixties they began to disappear and by the eighties only the police and bad guys had them. By the nineties they began to have hysterics at the sight of one.