UK Gun Ban
By Shaun Connell • Jan 3rd, 2008
On March 16th of 1996, Thomas Watt Hamilton joined ranks with Martin John Bryant, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold and other horrific school murderers. An unemployed Hamilton entered the primary school of the Scottish town of Dunblane and systematically commenced the murder of the schoolchildren and teachers. In the end, Hamilton murdered sixteen children and a teacher. The victims had no method of self-defense other than hiding under desks and chairs. Given their outrageous disadvantage, the slaughter was inevitable.
The people of the United Kingdom were shocked and horrified. They demanded that something be done to prevent future such mass killings from happening again. Unfortunately, in the emotional response that followed the killings, rationality was completely abandoned. Rather than a rational response based upon goal of saving lives, the government passed highly restrictive gun laws to decrease crime and mass killings.
The reactionary ban that followed included a ban on handguns, and most rifles and shotguns, including low calibers such as .22s. The ban flew in the face of a thousand years of common law – a system which respected the right of self defense, and the right to keep and bear arms.
The response was not only against guns, but also against self-defense itself. Take, for example, the following story of a Brit, published by Reason Magazine in 2002:
“In 1999 Tony Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone in a shabby farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass as two burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his home. He had been robbed six times before, and his village, like 70 percent of rural English communities, had no police presence. He sneaked downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. Martin received life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar, having served 18 months of a three-year sentence, is now free and has been granted 5,000 of legal assistance to sue Martin.”
A man who defended himself is serving longer than those who were robbing him. An innocent man who has done nothing wrong has been imprisoned. The utter ridiculousness of the anti-defense movement is realized.
As was predicted, these anti-defense policies brought with them dire consequences. All sorts of crime rates skyrocketed, including violent crime, armed crime, non-violent crime, robberies and others.
Homicide exploded after the ban, considering victims are less able to defend themselves and are at the mercy of criminals, gangs and thugs. Unfortunately for researchers, the United Kingdom’s government counts homicides in a completely different manner than the US government does. The UK method is used to conclude that the statistics are actually much lower than thought. From Reason Magazine in 2002:
“The murder rates of the U.S. and U.K. are also affected by differences in the way each counts homicides. The FBI asks police to list every homicide as murder, even if the case isn’t subsequently prosecuted or proceeds on a lesser charge, making the U.S. numbers as high as possible. By contrast, the English police “massage down” the homicide statistics, tracking each case through the courts and removing it if it is reduced to a lesser charge or determined to be an accident or self-defense, making the English numbers as low as possible.
…Cultural differences and more-permissive legal standards notwithstanding, the English rate of violent crime has been soaring since 1991. Over the same period, America’s has been falling dramatically. In 1999 The Boston Globe reported that the American murder rate, which had fluctuated by about 20 percent between 1974 and 1991, was “in startling free-fall.” We have had nine consecutive years of sharply declining violent crime. As a result the English and American murder rates are converging. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and the latest study puts it at 3.5 times.”
Connect the dots. The US has seen crime dramatically decrease while the UK has seen it dramatically increase. More specific in regards to the UK violent crime rate,Bloomberg reports in 2005:
“Violent crime in the U.K. rose 6 percent in the three months through September, led by an increase in alcohol-fueled offenses and gun crime, police figures show. Violence against the person, excluding sexual offences, rose 7 percent from the year-earlier period, U.K. Home Secretary Charles Clarke said, citing police statistics, while firearms offences increased 5 percent in the year through September, to 10,670 incidents. Total crime across the U.K. fell 6 percent from the year-earlier period, the figures show. “Violent crime remains our biggest challenge,” said Clarke at a London press conference, his first on crime figures since he took over from David Blunkett in December. “It’s a difficult task, but we are going in the right direction. It will be my number one priority to drive down violent crime.”’
It makes sense. Criminals are encouraged to increase their violence when the risk of doing so has been drastically lowered. They have the guns. The good guys don’t. Do the math.
Violent crime rate wasn’t the only type of crime that skyrocketed. As a matter of fact, gun crimes period increased. Read that again: handgun crime increased. Gun control utterly failed. AsBBC reports in 2001, “[a] new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned.” The crime rates didn’t stop there. AsBBC reports in 2003, “Gun crime has risen by 35% in a year, new Home Office figures show. There were 9,974 incidents involving firearms in the 12 months to April 2002 - a rise from 7,362 over the previous year.”
The ultimate purpose of a gun ban is to at least lower the number of gun crimes – but even this didn’t even happen. Gun bans fail to disarm anyone but the victims. Criminals know it too.
Other forms of crime increased too. As the same BBC article in 2003 reports, “Overall crime in the year to September was up 9.3%, with domestic burglary up 7.9%, drugs offences up 12.3% and sex offences up 18.2%.”
The lessons were predicted by the NRA and other pro-gun activist groups. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will own guns. More citizens were murdered. More women were raped. More homes were robbed. Less guns, more crime.
—, “Gun crime soars by 35%.” BBC NEWS 12 January, 2003 25 May 2007
Shoesmith, Claire. “U.K. Violent Crime Rises 6% on Alcohol, Gun Offenses.” Bloomberg News 25 January, 2005 25 May 2007