Why Britain needs more guns

BBC News ^ | January 15, 2003 | Joyce L Malcolm

[MadIvan]

As gun crime leaps by 35% in a year, plans are afoot for a further crack down on firearms. Yet what we need is more guns, not fewer, says a US academic.

"If guns are outlawed," an American bumper sticker warns, "only outlaws will have guns." With gun crime in Britain soaring in the face of the strictest gun control laws of any democracy, the UK seems about to prove that warning prophetic.

For 80 years the safety of the British people has been staked on the premise that fewer private guns means less crime, indeed that any weapons in the hands of men and women, however law-abiding, pose a danger.

Government assured Britons they needed no weapons, society would protect them. If that were so in 1920 when the first firearms restrictions were passed, or in 1953 when Britons were forbidden to carry any article for their protection, it no longer is.

The failure of this general disarmament to stem, or even slow, armed and violent crime could not be more blatant. According to a recent UN study, England and Wales have the highest crime rate and worst record for "very serious" offences of the 18 industrial countries surveyed.

But would allowing law-abiding people to "have arms for their defence", as the 1689 English Bill of Rights promised, increase violence? Would Britain be following America's bad example?

Old stereotypes die hard and the vision of Britain as a peaceable kingdom, America as "the wild west culture on the other side of the Atlantic" is out of date. It is true that in contrast to Britain's tight gun restrictions, half of American households have firearms, and 33 states now permit law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons.

But despite, or because, of this, violent crime in America has been plummeting for 10 consecutive years, even as British violence has been rising. By 1995 English rates of violent crime were already far higher than America's for every major violent crime except murder and rape.

You are now six times more likely to be mugged in London than New York. Why? Because as common law appreciated, not only does an armed individual have the ability to protect himself or herself but criminals are less likely to attack them. They help keep the peace. A study found American burglars fear armed home-owners more than the police. As a result burglaries are much rarer and only 13% occur when people are at home, in contrast to 53% in England.

Much is made of the higher American rate for murder. That is true and has been for some time. But as the Office of Health Economics in London found, not weapons availability, but "particular cultural factors" are to blame.

A study comparing New York and London over 200 years found the New York homicide rate consistently five times the London rate, although for most of that period residents of both cities had unrestricted access to firearms.

When guns were available in England they were seldom used in crime. A government study for 1890-1892 found an average of one handgun homicide a year in a population of 30 million. But murder rates for both countries are now changing. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and by last year it was 3.5 times. With American rates described as "in startling free-fall" and British rates as of October 2002 the highest for 100 years the two are on a path to converge.

The price of British government insistence upon a monopoly of force comes at a high social cost.

First, it is unrealistic. No police force, however large, can protect everyone. Further, hundreds of thousands of police hours are spent monitoring firearms restrictions, rather than patrolling the streets. And changes in the law of self-defence have left ordinary people at the mercy of thugs.

According to Glanville Williams in his Textbook of Criminal Law, self-defence is "now stated in such mitigated terms as to cast doubt on whether it still forms part of the law".

Nearly a century before that American bumper sticker was slapped on the first bumper, the great English jurist, AV Dicey cautioned: "Discourage self-help, and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians." He knew public safety is not enhanced by depriving people of their right to personal safety.

Joyce Lee Malcolm, professor of history, is author of Guns and Violence: The English Experience, published in June 2002.

[MileHi]

Had nothing to do with the 30's-40's.

They were disarmed then, which is why NRA members sent them privatly owned rifles and hand loaded ammo so they could attempt to defend themselves. They learned nothing from the experience.

[Shooter 2.5]

I still find it hard to believe someone from another country would send his own firearm to a dimwit that let himself be disarmed in the first place.

But it did happen. And after it was all over, the government disarmed the dimwits again and sank the guns into the ocean.

I do know of one rife that survived. The owner had placed a plaque on the stock with his name and address.

[Shooter 2.5]

I still find it hard to believe someone from another country would send his own firearm to a dimwit that let himself be disarmed in the first place.

But it did happen. And after it was all over, the government disarmed the dimwits again and sank the guns into the ocean.

I do know of one rife that survived. The owner had placed a plaque on the stock with his name and address.

[jjm2111]

Is she the John Lott of Britain?

Excellent post and excellent article. Maybe the Brits will finally wake up.

[jjm2111]

The disarming was a recent knee-jerk reaction to school slayings. Had nothing to do with the 30's-40's.

Actually, after the withdrawal at Dunkirk, the British Home Guard was drilling with pikes and umbrellas because they had NO GUNS! The NRA sent hundreds of rifles to Great Britain to fight off a possible Nazi invasion. After WWII ended the British government siezed the guns and threw them into the sea.

[KeyWest]

Culture is everything.

[Cacique]

At some point something's got to give. My Slovenian (Yugoslav) cousins fared better being armed to the teeth than did jews who walked vouluntarily into gas chambers.

The ruling class fears an armed people, even if it means higher crime. What do they care? They live in secluded communities protected by armed guards. Just ask Hillary Clinton, if she'd give up her armed bodyguards.

Dictators throughout history have agreed. Gun control works !!

[Da_Shrimp]

Thanks for posting this, Ivan.

As you say, astonishing that it comes from the BBC website. Having recently heard the positive side gun ownership discussed on local radio, I think that there may be grass-roots support for handgun ownership growing within Britain. Let's hope so!

[Eagles2003]

I wasn't aware they lost their rifles at Dunkirk. This had nothing to do with private arms ownership though, I just wouldn't want to use bird shot and small .22 in combat. I hadn't quite thought that thru, I just ass-umed they had hunting rifles, a little firepower.

The British troops drilled with broom sticks before the Revolutionary war, very little shooting experience compared to Americans, who could hit moving targets.

I heard we had our own army troops late in the Clinton administration that couldn't have target practice and were certified without firing a shot because they didn't have ammo. I think this was in SFTT, Col. Hackworth's weekly newsletter, which I no longer receive.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[hotpotato]

>> Culture is everything. <<

And we live in a multi-cultural society in the US which isn't going to change. I have a difficult time with the logic of skewing the gun fatalities by removing an entire segment of our society that isn't going to disappear with an eraser. I'm not disagreeing with your statistics. I just don't understand the purpose of skewing the numbers in that way. The dead are still dead. Maybe your point is not about numbers as a whole but risks as individuals? Anti-gun people quote the total numbers to strike fear in the hearts of the average citizen when actually, it isn't the average citizen at risk (not by the numbers quoted). Is that your point? That the average black citizen is at greater risk than the average white?

[junta]

I'll bet the Yardies like that little sweet boy.

[jjm2111]

In the 30s, the Brits had a large Navy and a relatively small Army in Europe, the BEF (British Expeditionary Force). The British Home guard was the "militia" and they were supposed to provide their own arms. The BEF managed to hold onto their rifles after Dunkirk, but the Home Guard had next to nothing.

I heard we had our own army troops late in the Clinton administration that couldn't have target practice and were certified without firing a shot because they didn't have ammo.

I'm a reservist and when I first qualified in firearms (1999), I fired all of 40-50 shots. I was like, "That's it?" So I went a jumped throught the hoops and shelled out the money for my own weapons. I had to put about 1000 or so rounds through each of them before I felt comfortable with them. I think Clinton did more to damage our Armed Forces than all the other presidents combined.

[45Auto]

Some sources put the black murder rate in the USA 8 times higher than the white murder rate when adjusted as a percentage of the population. Of course, dead is dead. But I'll wager that 95% of gun violence in the USA is gang- and drug-related. The bigger question is whether one wants to live in a free Republic, which by its very definition means that we have to accept a certain level of civilian casualty, or whether one wants to be merely a "subject", which may be a polite term for slave.

An armed citizenry at least offers a large deterrent to criminal action, since the vermin don't know who's armed at any given moment. That's the big reason that Britain has a much higher burglary rate than the USA. And we haven't even addressed the real reason for an armed citizenry: to thwart tyranny by government. An armed society is a free society.

[hotpotato]

You are preaching to the choir. I haven't stated anything about disarming society (shudder). I'm trying to understand the reason for skewing the number of fatalaties. I strongly advocate self-protection and live that life regardless of who is shooting whom.

[MinorityRepublican]

Why won't you emigrate to America? It is obvious that Great Britain does not appreciate her patriots such as you.

[KeyWest]

BTW Welcome to FR. Yes, any inner city black is at much greater risk than whites and most of that is from gangs and drug wars. Way back when, both blacks and whites were about equal in the violence against their own. With the government sponsored destruction of black families, the level of violence changed dramatically, which would be expected in a nearly fatherless society. So culture is everything.

You can have a multiculture society as long as they are not tribes, which is what we have to a much greater extent with blacks vrs all others. This country is designed to destroy the tribe but keep traditions, food etc. In the case of black society, we have done the exact opposite and encouraged the tribe. I see more self imposed segregation today than I did after segregation was outlawed. Most of it is because of culture. If you do not merge with the culture you are in, no matter where, you will not succeed in that culture. And that is tragic.

I commend you on your gentle spirit in what could be a "hot potato".

[MadIvan]

Why won't you emigrate to America? It is obvious that Great Britain does not appreciate her patriots such as you.

I have thought about it.

Regards, Ivan

[45Auto]

I think the racial aspect to the argument comes as a reaction to the anti-gun, anti-freedom crowd's 'lumping' of all gun-related crimes into a single inflated number so as to make it look like there is a real need to disarm society in general. The fact is there is a racial element involved in crimnal behavior and unfortunately, the black population is involved way out of proportion to their percentage of the population.

At the same time, there has been an attempt by the political establishment in this country over the 20th century to deny blacks their 2nd Amendment rights. If any population really needs a greater measure of protection, it is the inner city black population.

The city of Oakland, California, is a living laboratory of the failure of the welfare state, of socialism in general, of the drug war, of the attempt to lower crime by disarming the law-abiding. In this city of nearly a half-million, there is one CCW permit: issued to the mayor's bodyguard.

[MinorityRepublican]

Well, America is happy to have you anytime, whether you want to come here for a visit or permanent residence.