Why Britain needs more guns

By Joyce L Malcolm
Author and academic

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?


The 'wild west' image is out of date
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the vision of Britain as a peaceable kingdom, America as "the wild west culture on the other side of the Atlantic" is out of date.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.


Concealed weapon can be carried in 33 states
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.


Gun crime rates between UK and US are narrowing
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.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2656875.stm

This is a good observation by J.L.Malcolm thanks TM. You should click the bbc news link you included and scroll down to the mini bio for J.L.Malcolm and just below click on "have your say..." and read the comments. It will give you an insight to the British way of life today, without guns. I agree with Ali on this, in the U.K. or Australia I wish to walk down a high street without worrying about who's carrying a firearm. In the U.K. we have gun shops and gun clubs which are seriously controlled. Apart from the odd homicidal maniac (very rare) it works fine.But in the U.K. armed robbery is still a shock to the public even if the guns were not used. The courts deal very severely with gun crimes - they throw the fucking book at you. The British are not comfortable with guns, as Ali said most crimes are passion or rage orientated. I'd hate to spill my drink on a gun carrying person. J.L.Malcolm is an American who has written good work for Havard but it simply will not do for the British Government to listen to her advices, when public opinion is so set. It may take a few generations yet TM to when people in the U.K. carry arms. I lament the recent violence of teenagers with firearms - this is not a happy time; firearms are not good.

i would suggest that most law-abiding gun carrying citizens would respond the same way to a spilled drink with or without a gun.

have you ever known a guy who was literally a bad ass? a guy who if he wanted to, could probably end your life with just his hands? a guy who could walk into any situation without fear because he was confident in his abilities? Generally these guys are soft spoken mellow characters who will avoid violence in any way possible. Why? because they are secure and confident and they have no point to prove.

the same can be said about a responsible gun carrier. the gun is for emergency use only after all other avenues have been explored.

it is the responsible law abiding citizen that will no longer be carrying a weapon if the weapon is outlawed. the criminal is a criminal - laws don't really mean that much to them anyway.

UG, I explained my reasons for disagreeing with people carrying guns around the street. If you don't understand my point, then that's fine. You will not convince me to think otherwise no matter how dramatic you want to get about it.

I know how to handle a gun. I could have my hands on any number of weapons within a couple of hours if I wanted to. My children are in the process of learning how to handle weapons.

I don't disagree that people should own guns. I simply disagree that they should be carrying them around the street. I also happen to think there should be very strict laws about who should be allowed to own them. For instance, nut jobs should not be allowed to own guns. Clearly, many do. Clearly many of them own guns illegally also, but my concern here is for the people who commit impulse crimes and because they happen to be carrying a weapon because that's acceptable, the crime becomes exponentially worse.

Fortunately I don't live in your country though. So I don't have to worry about all the nut jobs out there who carry guns around.

I would walk down just about any street in Australia without carrying a gun and feel safe. Certainly I'd walk down any street in Brisbane and feel safe. There are some areas of Sydney and Melbourne I would avoid after dark because I know it's not prudent to be there after dark alone. Those areas are very small though, and I don't believe having a gun in my handbag would save me from opportunistic crimes anyway. It's been proven time and again that just because you carry a gun, it doesn't mean you're safe. See shopping centre shooter last week as an example.

I'm just saying that guns and firearms shock the British. In Europe as a whole they have more access to firearms with different rules - I still am bemused at the Itailian carrobernerie having a thick cord attached to their pistols and ut belts. In Britain the people don't want guns.

By what authority do you speak for the British people?

Ali you are absolutely right. I shouldn't carry a gun unless I'm prepared to use it to full affect. Good point too.

Is there any pressing reason in morality or physics not to have 1000 rounds?

Now I'll get snarky: how many rounds in a brick of .22LR? Secondarily, how big is that brick, and how heavy?

How big a plastic bottle to stow 2500 beebees for a Red Ryder Daisy BB gun?

Though Radar and I fight like wombats ("Ow! Quit it!" "Take that!" "Oh shut up and bite!" "But then I can't add insult to injury!"), we are freedom people. We are not necessarily convinced the non-gun or the anti-gun are. There is the matter of the mindset Lookout123 mentioned. Meanwhile, arms and their skill are measurable. Votes, to be sure, are far more pleasant -- but tyranny is far more unpleasant.

Well -- more to follow soon.

Radar is a purist, and he hates yer guts.

I am a strict Constitutional constructionist and a pure libertarian, but I don't hate people who disagree with me unless they try to legislate their opinions or religious doctrine onto me or infringe upon my unalienable rights.

Radar, it almost impossible to disagree with you without you thinking we are trying to legislate our opinions or religious doctrine onto you or infringe upon your "unalienable rights".

I've said this many times, gun culture is much different from place to place in America. All the pro-gunners I've seen here talk from a responsible respectable gun culture. I am assuming where you guys are from, a gun is moral responsibility where when you are carrying, your moral level should be even greater than when you are not carrying. If the whole country was like this, then it would be very rational to not have any gun restrictions.

But unfortunately the entire country does not share this gun culture. If you go to the inner city or a neighborhood that has a lot of drug dealings, guns are not a moral responsibility, but a tool to enforce one's power on others. Once we get a change in gun mindset and culture, it is only rational to look over the current laws and see if maybe change is in order. I am not advocating any change, just that it would be irrational and foolish to refuse to take a look at our situation.

I do not have a strong stance in this debate but I know for a fact that a universal gun law in the United States will never work because of the two completely opposite gun cultures in our country. Guns laws should be made by either the state or local community, not the people in Washington.

Gun laws should not be made by the local, state, or federal government. No government at any level has any legitimate authority to place any restrictions or limitations on gun ownership.

We are born with an UNLIMITED right to keep and bear any number of any type of weapon we want with any kind of ammo we want without any government permission, registration, or oversight.

As long as people don't try to make laws that place limitations or restrictions on the number of weapons, type of weapons, or kind of ammunition or body armor civilians may own, I don't hate them.

If they support any restrictions, registration, waiting periods, etc. they are an enemy of liberty and are causing deaths to law abiding people. These people are my enemy.

If you can prove that we are born with UNLIMITED rights to keep and bear any number of any type of weapon we want with any kind of ammo we want without any government permission, registration, or oversight I will agree with you.

You are trying to make philosophy fact Radar, it just doesn't work. If a society agrees that we have the right to an UNLIMITED right to keep and bear arms then fine, let them have it but if a society doesn't agree that we have an UNLIMITED right to keep and bear arms then gun laws should be in place.

You cannot prove that the universe gives us rights, so don't force it down other people's throats. If you really want the right to bear arms, move to a place that will allow you too or protest to change/preserve your wanted right. If you don't want to move or you cannot change/preserve your wanted right, than you have to accept the rulings in that area. Its that simple.

But our country was founded on this principle.