But modern English governments have put public order ahead of the individual’s right to personal safety.
There's a book that hits the mark: "Dial 911 and Die".
The "public order" professed by the gun-control lobby and politicians and bureaucrats that support it looks more like chaos to me. Criminals that don't abide the law in the first place have no problem getting guns while honest citizens are forced to traverse red-tape laws to buy a gun to be used in honest self-defense against dishonest criminals. That chaos is what politicians, bureaucrats and the gun-control lobby consider the proper "public order" -- criminals having the upper-hand against their victims.