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Gun Control’s Great Petri Dish
American Rifleman magazine ^ | James O.E. Norell

Posted on 10/03/2002 9:26:45 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo

After suffering every gun control scheme prohibitionists can devise—registration, licensing, government-mandated storage standards, home inspections, gun bans and, finally, confiscation of their personal property—the British people are now suffering from a surging wave of violent crime..

Violent crime rates in Great Britain far outstrip those of the United States in virtually every category. And violent crime committed by thugs armed with handguns—in a country that bans ownership of handguns—is rising at an alarming rate.

New Scotland Yard figures show London murders with guns increased 87 percent in the first eight months of 2001 compared to the same period in 2000; armed muggings rose 53 percent. And there were significant rises in virtually all offenses involving firearms. The BBC reports that London is not unique—Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham also are under increasing attack from armed criminals.

When Britain’s move to disarm all licensed handgun owners came to pass in 1997-1998, the confiscation of registered handguns came in two phases—first, a ban on all center-fire handguns; .22s remained legal so long as they were stored at licensed shooting ranges. Soon, however, .22s were also banned and their owners forced to turn in their property to the police.

On Feb. 27, 1998, the deadline for Britain’s licensed owners to turn in their registered guns, the Home Secretary solemnly declared: “The government fulfilled its pledge to remove all handguns from the streets of Britain today … .” The Home Office compounded that lie by promising that the final confiscation of the final registered gun from the final licensee “prevents legally held handguns from falling into the wrong hands.”

Those words should sound familiar to American gun owners. “Keeping guns out of the wrong hands” is, of course, the catchphrase used by the gun-ban group formerly known as Handgun Control, Inc., to cloak its licensing/registration agenda. But HCI has not always been so dishonest. Its co-founder, Pete Shields, was more candid than his HCI successors Sarah Brady and Mike Barnes or, for that matter, the former Clinton Administration staffers who pull down big paychecks at the newest anti-gun lobby—Americans for Gun Safety (AGS), funded solely by billionaire Andrew McKelvey. Shields made clear the goals of registration and licensing in a 1976 interview in The New Yorker magazine, saying: “Our ultimate goal—total control of handguns in the United States—is going to take time … . The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition—except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs and licensed gun collectors—totally illegal.”

When you hear U.S. politicians demonizing traditional American gun shows and exploiting fears of terrorism, keep an eye on Britain—that’s where they would like to take us as soon as they possibly can.

Today, as disarmed Britons are being mugged, shot, raped, robbed, assaulted and burgled by an emboldened criminal element, Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer insist U.S. law be rewritten so they can capture private information on every law-abiding American gun purchaser in a federal database.

And farther down the road? Back to Great Britain.. Britons effectively are forbidden to use their remaining legal long guns for defense of themselves, their families and their homes—acts of self-defense are dealt with harshly by British courts. Life in this gun-control Utopia was captured in a remarkable headline in the Electronic Telegraph: “Crime and Punishment: Where To Move Away From Burglars.”

In truth, of course, no one who is stripped of the right to self-defense is ever immune from thuggery—there’s no place to hide.

In February 2001, the Dutch Ministry of Justice published its 2000 International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS), showing that fully 26 percent of the people in Britain had been victims of crime that year. Furthermore, the study said that Britons are at greater risk of being assaulted, robbed, sexually attacked and burgled than are people in any other developed country (except Australia, another infamous gun-control laboratory).

More recently, the Center for Defence Studies at King’s College looked at gun crime and concluded criminal use of handguns increased 40 percent in the two years after British authorities confiscated all legally owned handguns from private hands. The Center’s August 2001 report, “Illegal Firearms in the UK,” was written by the former head of firearm research at New Scotland Yard, and the key findings are hardly shocking: 1) licensing law-abiding gun ownership doesn’t deter criminals from having guns, 2) firearms robberies rose following the handgun ban and 3) “the short-term impact [of the handgun ban] strongly suggests that there is no direct link between the unlawful use of handguns and their lawful ownership.”

The reaction of the anti-gun forces in Britain to the report was remarkable. In a press statement, the Gun Control Network said: “There are no great surprises here. Of course illegal guns are a big problem … but we mustn’t forget that almost all illegal guns start out legal, so it’s not so easy to draw a neat line between the two … . Creating a safe society has got to be about cutting down on illegal and legal weaponry.”

The government’s reaction to the King’s College study was equally revealing. A Home Office spokesman said: “The government did not believe that banning handguns by itself would eradicate gun crime. We recognize there is a continuing problem with the use of guns by criminals and that it has increased over recent years.

“We are taking further measures against criminals who use guns, and we already have schemes in the pipeline to curtail illegal gun use. These include a national register of legal guns.” That means, of course, sporting rifles and shotguns.

Ann Pearston, who headed the initial million-dollar campaign to bring about the ban, is unashamedly blunt: “We never thought that there would be any effect on illegal gun crime, because this is a totally separate issue. What we were campaigning for was to make sure that a civilian could not be legally trained to use a handgun.”

Here in America, self-appointed engineers of gun control, such as billionaire Andrew McKelvey, follow the lead of their British counterparts. For example, British gun control authorities long ago discovered the benefits of talking about “gun safety” and “safe gun storage,” rather than gun control.

Indeed, one of the key elements in British gun control schemes has been home storage. In order to keep firearms in their homes, Britain’s licensed gun owners must meet severe security and storage mandates—complete with home inspections by police. British law leaves the entire issue of what constitutes “safe storage” up to the final discretion of local police. No matter what kind of storage is installed—even an armor-plated gun room—if crime in the neighborhood increases, police can use that factor alone to revoke a certificate. As the neighborhood goes, so do legally owned guns.

“Safe gun storage” is one of the “sensible first steps” now being proposed in America, as “gun safety” replaces “gun control” in everything from political talking points to names of well-heeled organizations. AGS is spending a million dollars promoting the Lieberman-McCain bill to end gun shows. In “newspeak” worthy of British author George Orwell, it calls the bill “legislation that protects gun rights”—when in fact the bill would plant the spores of the disarmament agenda in our American culture.

With the easily documented facts proving British gun control’s dismal failure, it’s incredible that anti-freedom zealots would knowingly try to lead Americans down the same dangerous path into the dark world of personal disarmament. But they are.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Miscellaneous; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: banglist

1 posted on 10/03/2002 9:26:45 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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To: *bang_list
Bang
2 posted on 10/03/2002 9:28:10 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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To: Rye
I don't think that the Brady bunch want to be confused by the facts...
3 posted on 10/03/2002 9:31:21 AM PDT by white trash redneck
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To: Rye
The Center?s August 2001 report, 'Illegal Firearms in the UK,? was written by the former head of firearm research at New Scotland Yard, and the key findings are hardly shocking:

1) licensing law-abiding gun ownership doesn't deter criminals from having guns,

2) firearms robberies rose following the handgun ban and

3) 'the short-term impact [of the handgun ban] strongly suggests that there is no direct link between the unlawful use of handguns and their lawful ownership.'

Duh! This is what we have been saying for years.

The reaction of the anti-gun forces in Britain to the report was remarkable. In a press statement, the Gun Control Network said: 'There are no great surprises here. Of course illegal guns are a big problem ' but we mustn't forget that almost all illegal guns start out legal, so it's not so easy to draw a neat line between the two ' . Creating a safe society has got to be about cutting down on illegal and legal weaponry.'

Safe for whom? Criminals? Police state governments?

4 posted on 10/03/2002 9:37:50 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants
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To: Rye
At the moment, Britain can brag that their murder rate isn't as high as the United States.
What is happening with Britain's violent crime is the criminals aren't killing witnesses because of the revolving door justice due to the lack of prison space. Farmer Martin wasn't released because of public outcry. He was released because there wasn't room to put the more dangerous criminals.
If Britain ever decides they have had enough of celebrities losing 1,000 dollar necklaces to street thugs and start handing down real sentences, the thugs will think twice about leaving someone to testify. Wait for things to get worse. Much worse.
5 posted on 10/03/2002 9:41:14 AM PDT by Shooter 2.5
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To: Blood of Tyrants
As I write this there is a breaking story from Montgomery County, MD. A shooter is driving around killing people at randon, apparently, just ordinary people going about their business.

The talking heads on TV are afraid to speculate that this might be terrorism. And in the Peoples Republic of Maryland, the People have been effectively disarmed.

But no matter what the motive is of the shooter(s), this is effectively terrorizing the people of Montgomery County, MD. The schools all the way to Washington DC are on lockdown, the kids can't even go outside.

And the decent citizenry has been disarmed "for their own protection".

Disgraceful.

Don't try this in Texas...

6 posted on 10/03/2002 10:03:02 AM PDT by Kenton
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To: Kenton
The talking heads on TV are afraid to speculate that this might be terrorism.

Any word yet about what the suspects....uhhh....look like?

7 posted on 10/03/2002 10:06:17 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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To: Rye
Any word yet about what the suspects....uhhh....look like?

No word at all, just some vague reference to a white Isuzu van that was in the area of one of the shootings. But whoever he is, he's acting like some sort of pro. 5 for 5, taken out methodically and seemingly at random, without so much as a single eye-witness account. This is not an amateur.

8 posted on 10/03/2002 10:41:05 AM PDT by Kenton
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To: Rye
When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.

Philip J. Cook, a professor of economics and sociology at Duke University, spoke Thursday to a standing room only crowd about gun control. Cook lectured about different laws regulating gun control, problems with the laws and ways they could be improved.

One of the first things Cook said at the lecture was that the results he found in his study were actually damaging to the gun control movement, a movement that he is for.

The ineffectiveness of the Brady Act was one of the major findings of the study that Cook felt was damaging.

SNIP What Cook found that hurt the Brady Act was the fact that it had little, if any, affect on gun-related crimes........

"[The Brady Act]is not stopping murder; it’s stopping interstate gun running," said Cook. Cook went on to say that the sources changed, but the availability and uses of guns remained the same.

Link for the entire story: http://trw.umbc.edu/articles/3224?Newspaper_Session=2cbe0148cba0dc9076c9853e20d10f5b

9 posted on 10/03/2002 10:41:30 AM PDT by chuknospam
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