MARK STEYN: This is what happens when governments try to ban guns

The Daily Telegraph ^ | January 5, 2003 | Mark Steyn

[Stefan Stackhouse]

The monumentally useless British police, with greater manpower per capita on higher rates of pay and with far more lavish resources than the Americans, haven't had an original idea in decades, so they cling ever more fiercely to their core ideology: the best way to deal with criminals is to impose ever greater restrictions and inconveniences on the law-abiding.

At the same time that all this rubbish is going on, I saw a program[me] (probably of BBC origin) a few weeks ago on our Discovery Channel about "bad drivers" in Britain. It showed some pretty egregious things, of course. But they also had plenty of instances of the Nanny State Constables pulling drivers over for the most trivial little nit-picking things -- taking a quick sip from a bottle of water while driving, instead of "keeping both hands firmly placed upon the steering column at all times", for example. It is apparently also a crime to be holding a map or written directions in one's hand while driving, even if you keep both hands on the steering wheel -- you apparently are supposed to either have a photographic memory or else just automatically know where to go at all times.

Meanwhile, as the British police are busy keeping drivers safe from themselves, the murder rate continues to rise.

[Little Bill]

No only a change of demographics, my Gandmothers Grandfather was President of the LDS Mission in Birmingham in the 1840s', the out of work and the starving were the only worries then.

As an aside, we in Eastern NH have more guns than the commies in the Hannover area.

[Happygal]

You would think if "gun control" was going to work anywhere it would be on a small island. Particularly a small island at whose ports of entry the zealots of HM Customs like nothing better than performing intimate cavity searches on the off-chance you've got an extra bottle of duty-free Beaujolais tucked away up there.

Mark Steyn has never visited Northern Ireland, obviously! *LOL*

[Happygal]

The biggest deterent to criminals is penalty.

Build more prisons.
Bring back the death penalty.

And sack all of the social workers and psychotherapists to pay for it.

Whatever happened to 'Commit the crime, do the time?'

Time to get tough!

[Never2baCrat]

As a copper in the UK around '67 to '69, I look back and see that I was kind of brainwashed into thinking the the British bobby could do his job without ever arming. Then I came here 16yrs ago, thank God and I feel my plans about retiring there have gone up in flames a long time ago. Can't they get it through their thick skulls, "More guns = Less crime".

[Happygal]

Excellent post!

[facedown]

...Americans kill at about the same rate as nancy-boy Canadians.

"And we nancy-boys are damn proud of that fact!"

I hope you're being sarcastic but I'll take the opportunity to plug Free dominion for ya.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[Bullish]

Delightful read. fabulously sarcastic and witty.

[harpseal]

Having grown up in thw smallest city in the Granite state The pick up truck better armed than most EU armies is the NH I remember.

Stay well - Stay safe - stay armed - yorktown

[harpseal]

The NH I remember is the one where the average pick up truck was better armed than most of the EU armies.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[dennisw]

btttttttttttt

[dennisw]

Aston is the logical reductio of British policing: rival bad guys with state-of-the-art hardware, a cowed populace, and a remote constabulary tucked up in bed with the answering machine on.

[Rebelbase]

Bump and bookmarked. No doubt I will enjoy telling the next liberal I engage in a gun debate that Britain's soaring crime rate, post gun ban, was documented by none other than the beloved UNITED NATIONS.

[pepsionice]

Europe's crime stats are not exactly the most reliable. I live in Germany...10th year now...and the Russian mafia has basically taken over the small eatery establishment game here in my local area. They show up with 4 thugs, demand a $200 payment each month for protection and the local Germans pay it. The people that ran to the police, had their tires cut later and reminded who runs the region. The people that refused to play the game, had their place broken in and destroyed. The local cops really don't want to have deal with any of this...otherwise, the mafia will come and visit their house at night. This is simply the beginning stages. By 2020, Germany will be one massive mafia zone, with public fear and lack of trust in government. And what does the German government do? Why they make owning a weapon harder each passing day. Hunters still have rights and can own weapons, but there is such massive public fear about children in houses where guns are, and that these kids have access to the weapons.

Europe will slowly watch its murder numbers increase and eventually agree about hardened criminals, and the need for public safety...but only after thousands of innocent victums die.

[wardaddy]

The corpulent provocateur Michael Moore, in his film Bowling for Columbine, currently delighting British audiences, spends an entire feature-length documentary investigating the "culture" of American gun violence without mentioning that blacks, who make up 13 per cent of the population, account for over half the murders (and murder victims, too). Once you factor them out, Americans kill at about the same rate as nancy-boy Canadians.

I wonder if Steyn is a racist too like me. I have been called that repeatedly on this forum for saying exactly what he wrote...the truth.

He left out that this issue is pivotal in creating the gun law morass going back to the FED 1968 GCA which was in large a response to the minority urban unrest of the 60s.

So, our politicians in their wisdom to limit 2nd amendment freedoms from neer do wells decide to punish all of us and limit our ability to defend ourselves from the thugs who started the dominos falling in the first place.

Of course, now gun control is so much more than that. It's all about subjugation now.....public safety issues only opened the door 3 decades ago.

We need a 20 million man/woman/child armed march on DC. Think the media would listen? Let the bastards know what they are really up against. Don't wait for the NRA to carry our water.

[Travis McGee]

Outside of US urban ethnic ghettos life is VERY safe. The criminals are in great fear of armed house owners! If any damn "Russian mafia" tried that "protection racket" crap in our towns, the shop owner would rally a few old Army buddies and blow up the "Russian mafia's" cars. No kidding. We free men are for the most part allowed to have such things as semi-automatic rifles in calibers 7.62 and 5.56. Do you think we fear a clique of steel teethed Russian crooks? We do not. We would shoot them dead on our doorsteps before we would pay them 200 rubles for "protection".

Or look at how many Korean American owned businesses were burned during the LA riots. None. It would have been a fatal mistake to throw a brick through the window of a Korean business.

[Travis McGee]

There are powerful tectonic plates shifting in both directions. At the same time the statists continue to restrict the 2nd Amd in CA, NJ, MD etc, we have passed CCW laws by initiative in over 30 states.

Eventually that fault line will rupture, and we will have some type of dirty civil war, similar in some ways to the one I describe in my novel.

[wardaddy]

Yes and I know I'm ready....ready as a middle aged fart with some "experience" can be...if it comes later then I plan on my loved ones being on the right side....armed and educated.

Without firearms, we just like any other bootlicking citizenry. It is precisely what separates us from the world's fodder.