GUNS&AMMO July 2003
Page 30
Cap Gun Criminals
Dr. Paul Gallant & Dr. Joanne Eisen
In spite of foolish gun laws, British ‘subjects’ are finding
that self-reliance just may save their lives.
The headlines are all too familiar: “Gun Crime Soars By 35
Percent:’ “Handgun Crime Rises By 46 Percent:" “Murder Rate
At Highest Level." “Shootings Part Of City’s Violent Trend."
They tell, in a nutshell, the story of what’s happening in
Great Britain today.
The murder rate in Britain has reached its highest level
since record-keeping began there 100 years ago. As Mark
Steyn pointed out in the January 5, 2003, Telegraph,
“...America’s traditionally high and England and Wales’
traditionally low murder rates are remorselessly converging.
In 1981 the U.S. rate was nine times higher than the
English. By 1995 it was six times. Last year, it was down
to 3.5. Given that U.S. statistics, unlike the British
ones, include manslaughter and other lesser charges, the
real rate is much closer. New York has just recorded the
lowest murder rate since the 19th century. I’ll bet that in
the next two years London’s murder rate overtakes it?’
But it is more than the attempted creation of a gunfree
island that has spurred the dizzying metamorphosis of a
once-peaceful people into a culture of victims. It is the
message of guaranteed safety to the criminal class.
Aside from civilian prohibition of the best tool for
self-defense, British criminals have little reason to fear
their victims. Britain’s Telegraph reported that the
government was proposing to afford criminals greater success
“in suing members of the public who injure them:’ especially
“if the injury is much more serious than the illegality?’
Nor do criminals have reason to fear Britain’s criminal
justice system. Early this year, the Telegraph disclosed
that “police were ordered not to bother investigating crimes
such as burglary, vandalism and assaults unless evidence
pointing to the culprits is easily available. Under new
guidelines, officers have been informed that only ‘serious’
crimes such as murder, rape or so-called hate crimes should
be investigated as a matter of course. In all other cases,
unless there is immediate and compelling evidence, such as
fingerprints or DNA material, the crime will be listed for
no further action?’
Soon after the new U.K. crime statistics were announced in
January, another round of “tough†antigun shenanigans
designed to placate the public was launched. Some proposals
from the “Gun Crime Summit†held in London in early January
included banning imitation guns, air guns, cap guns, water
pistols and replica guns that can fire blanks.
There is some dissent about the proposed ban on toy guns.
Antigun activist and author Peter Squire stated: “I don’t
want to ban the use of [replica weapons], and I don’t want
to deprive people of the fun they can have. But I think
they should be kept out of the home and under lock and key
in shootings clubs."
Toy-gun shooting clubs? We’re not making this up, folks—it
appears that Squire’s reasonable compromise with gun owners
is “safe storage†laws for toy guns and water pistols.
While even the government admits that the police haven’t the
time to catch real criminals, they apparently have plenty of
time on their hands to raid shops that sell still-legal
replica guns, even before the law has been finalized. In
one day alone, 1,700 such toys were confiscated from one
chain store.
There will be mandatory five-year sentences for any one in
possession of an illegal gun; there is currently a six-month
minimum sentence for possession of an illegal firearm.
There will be a new national database of lawfully held
firearms. And there are proposals for new measures to
provide witnesses to shootings “greater protection†against
intimidation and reprisals “to encourage more cooperation
with police and help tackle soaring gun crime†as well as
the instigation of police-manned road blocks in south London
to intercept illegal guns.
In addition to proclaiming its intent to get really, really,
really tough on crime now, the British government has
trotted out its old standby: the vaunted, venerable
crimefixer, the gun “amnesty†program. The latest amnesty,
scheduled to run from March 31 through April 30 of this
year, was designed to “...cut back on soaring firearms crime
and beat Britain’s burgeoning gang culture?’
It is worth recalling that a firearm amnesty followed the
1996 shooting by Thomas Hamilton at Dunblane Primary School
in Scotland, when Great Britain implemented its total ban on
private handgun possession.
More than 60,000 firearms were handed in then, but both
firearm-related crime and non-firearm-related crime kept
rising despite the removal of those firearms from the social
fabric.
In announcing the latest amnesty, Home Office minister Bob
Ainsworth declared: “This amnesty provides an opportunity
for people to get rid of an illegal weapon... Taking guns
off our streets will save lives and cut crime’
To profess that criminals will voluntarily surrender their
hard-earned handguns manufactured in eastern Europe, some 10
million of which were recently reported to have been
illegally imported into Great Britain, is beyond naive. We
continue to be amazed at the chutzpah of those who do.
Through foolish social policy that totally ignores human
nature, the British government has created a climate in
which criminals have been empowered and emboldened. That,
in turn, lead to an unprecedented rise in crime throughout
the U.K. An embarrassed government has been forced to
disguise the true level of crime, and a clear pattern of
massaging down the crime statistics continues.
For example, “forceful theft of car keys from a person to
enable a car to be stolen†is now being recorded as “the
taking of a vehicle without the owner’s consent†What this
means to the thief (if ever convicted, let alone apprehended
in the first place) is the difference between a possible
lifetime jail sentence and a fine and/or a maximum of six
months in jail.
So far the British government hasn’t found a way to disarm
criminals (nor has any other government or social theorist);
instead, it targets the only people it can hope to control:
the nonviolent segment of the British citizenry. The result
has not been the creation of the peaceful, gunfree,
harmonious society that British subjects were promised but a
society of disarmed victims, preyed upon at will by a
government-protected and well-armed criminal class.
But that may be changing. Although the victims are
suffering the consequences of fools, they themselves are not
fooled. While the British government’s arsenal of
crime-fighting tools doesn’t include citizen self-defense,
what has emerged is that British subjects and their
politicians have drastically different ideas about how to
cope.
Reuters recently reported on the findings of a telephone
survey of 1,000 Britons: “Guns feature alongside baseball
bats and hammers among the arsenal kept by almost one in 10
worried householders." While 44 percent of respondents said
they slept with a blunt instrument such as a baseball bat
handy, 10 percent of women in the survey stated they keep a
gun nearby (maybe even one of those 10 million illegally
imported guns).
The report further noted: “Sixty percent of respondents
believe people have the right to take the law into their own
hands, and nearly half would be prepared to kill in order to
protect their family?’ In short, many Brits have reached the
breaking point and are willing to risk even the fate that
befell Tony Martin. Martin was the farmer who shot
intruders and was sentenced, at first, to life in prison;
the sentence was reduced on appeal to five years. Martin
has become a cause célèbre and received more than 7,500
Christmas cards in his jail cell.
Martin was denied early parole, partially on the basis of
death threats made against him by friends of the criminal he
killed and partially because of his lack of remorse. The
British police admit they cannot protect Martin. When he is
released, he will not have the required tools to protect
himself.
All the laws in the world cannot extinguish that reflex
lying deep within the human spirit. Despite Martin’s
treatment by authorities, the principle of self-defense and
protection of one’s loved ones is alive and well in the U.K.
While we are watching the change in Great Britain from a
culture of lawful firearm ownership to one where firearm
ownership has become almost illegal, we may also be witness
to a new, burgeoning culture of self-defense.
Page 30
Cap Gun Criminals
Dr. Paul Gallant & Dr. Joanne Eisen
In spite of foolish gun laws, British ‘subjects’ are finding
that self-reliance just may save their lives.
The headlines are all too familiar: “Gun Crime Soars By 35
Percent:’ “Handgun Crime Rises By 46 Percent:" “Murder Rate
At Highest Level." “Shootings Part Of City’s Violent Trend."
They tell, in a nutshell, the story of what’s happening in
Great Britain today.
The murder rate in Britain has reached its highest level
since record-keeping began there 100 years ago. As Mark
Steyn pointed out in the January 5, 2003, Telegraph,
“...America’s traditionally high and England and Wales’
traditionally low murder rates are remorselessly converging.
In 1981 the U.S. rate was nine times higher than the
English. By 1995 it was six times. Last year, it was down
to 3.5. Given that U.S. statistics, unlike the British
ones, include manslaughter and other lesser charges, the
real rate is much closer. New York has just recorded the
lowest murder rate since the 19th century. I’ll bet that in
the next two years London’s murder rate overtakes it?’
But it is more than the attempted creation of a gunfree
island that has spurred the dizzying metamorphosis of a
once-peaceful people into a culture of victims. It is the
message of guaranteed safety to the criminal class.
Aside from civilian prohibition of the best tool for
self-defense, British criminals have little reason to fear
their victims. Britain’s Telegraph reported that the
government was proposing to afford criminals greater success
“in suing members of the public who injure them:’ especially
“if the injury is much more serious than the illegality?’
Nor do criminals have reason to fear Britain’s criminal
justice system. Early this year, the Telegraph disclosed
that “police were ordered not to bother investigating crimes
such as burglary, vandalism and assaults unless evidence
pointing to the culprits is easily available. Under new
guidelines, officers have been informed that only ‘serious’
crimes such as murder, rape or so-called hate crimes should
be investigated as a matter of course. In all other cases,
unless there is immediate and compelling evidence, such as
fingerprints or DNA material, the crime will be listed for
no further action?’
Soon after the new U.K. crime statistics were announced in
January, another round of “tough†antigun shenanigans
designed to placate the public was launched. Some proposals
from the “Gun Crime Summit†held in London in early January
included banning imitation guns, air guns, cap guns, water
pistols and replica guns that can fire blanks.
There is some dissent about the proposed ban on toy guns.
Antigun activist and author Peter Squire stated: “I don’t
want to ban the use of [replica weapons], and I don’t want
to deprive people of the fun they can have. But I think
they should be kept out of the home and under lock and key
in shootings clubs."
Toy-gun shooting clubs? We’re not making this up, folks—it
appears that Squire’s reasonable compromise with gun owners
is “safe storage†laws for toy guns and water pistols.
While even the government admits that the police haven’t the
time to catch real criminals, they apparently have plenty of
time on their hands to raid shops that sell still-legal
replica guns, even before the law has been finalized. In
one day alone, 1,700 such toys were confiscated from one
chain store.
There will be mandatory five-year sentences for any one in
possession of an illegal gun; there is currently a six-month
minimum sentence for possession of an illegal firearm.
There will be a new national database of lawfully held
firearms. And there are proposals for new measures to
provide witnesses to shootings “greater protection†against
intimidation and reprisals “to encourage more cooperation
with police and help tackle soaring gun crime†as well as
the instigation of police-manned road blocks in south London
to intercept illegal guns.
In addition to proclaiming its intent to get really, really,
really tough on crime now, the British government has
trotted out its old standby: the vaunted, venerable
crimefixer, the gun “amnesty†program. The latest amnesty,
scheduled to run from March 31 through April 30 of this
year, was designed to “...cut back on soaring firearms crime
and beat Britain’s burgeoning gang culture?’
It is worth recalling that a firearm amnesty followed the
1996 shooting by Thomas Hamilton at Dunblane Primary School
in Scotland, when Great Britain implemented its total ban on
private handgun possession.
More than 60,000 firearms were handed in then, but both
firearm-related crime and non-firearm-related crime kept
rising despite the removal of those firearms from the social
fabric.
In announcing the latest amnesty, Home Office minister Bob
Ainsworth declared: “This amnesty provides an opportunity
for people to get rid of an illegal weapon... Taking guns
off our streets will save lives and cut crime’
To profess that criminals will voluntarily surrender their
hard-earned handguns manufactured in eastern Europe, some 10
million of which were recently reported to have been
illegally imported into Great Britain, is beyond naive. We
continue to be amazed at the chutzpah of those who do.
Through foolish social policy that totally ignores human
nature, the British government has created a climate in
which criminals have been empowered and emboldened. That,
in turn, lead to an unprecedented rise in crime throughout
the U.K. An embarrassed government has been forced to
disguise the true level of crime, and a clear pattern of
massaging down the crime statistics continues.
For example, “forceful theft of car keys from a person to
enable a car to be stolen†is now being recorded as “the
taking of a vehicle without the owner’s consent†What this
means to the thief (if ever convicted, let alone apprehended
in the first place) is the difference between a possible
lifetime jail sentence and a fine and/or a maximum of six
months in jail.
So far the British government hasn’t found a way to disarm
criminals (nor has any other government or social theorist);
instead, it targets the only people it can hope to control:
the nonviolent segment of the British citizenry. The result
has not been the creation of the peaceful, gunfree,
harmonious society that British subjects were promised but a
society of disarmed victims, preyed upon at will by a
government-protected and well-armed criminal class.
But that may be changing. Although the victims are
suffering the consequences of fools, they themselves are not
fooled. While the British government’s arsenal of
crime-fighting tools doesn’t include citizen self-defense,
what has emerged is that British subjects and their
politicians have drastically different ideas about how to
cope.
Reuters recently reported on the findings of a telephone
survey of 1,000 Britons: “Guns feature alongside baseball
bats and hammers among the arsenal kept by almost one in 10
worried householders." While 44 percent of respondents said
they slept with a blunt instrument such as a baseball bat
handy, 10 percent of women in the survey stated they keep a
gun nearby (maybe even one of those 10 million illegally
imported guns).
The report further noted: “Sixty percent of respondents
believe people have the right to take the law into their own
hands, and nearly half would be prepared to kill in order to
protect their family?’ In short, many Brits have reached the
breaking point and are willing to risk even the fate that
befell Tony Martin. Martin was the farmer who shot
intruders and was sentenced, at first, to life in prison;
the sentence was reduced on appeal to five years. Martin
has become a cause célèbre and received more than 7,500
Christmas cards in his jail cell.
Martin was denied early parole, partially on the basis of
death threats made against him by friends of the criminal he
killed and partially because of his lack of remorse. The
British police admit they cannot protect Martin. When he is
released, he will not have the required tools to protect
himself.
All the laws in the world cannot extinguish that reflex
lying deep within the human spirit. Despite Martin’s
treatment by authorities, the principle of self-defense and
protection of one’s loved ones is alive and well in the U.K.
While we are watching the change in Great Britain from a
culture of lawful firearm ownership to one where firearm
ownership has become almost illegal, we may also be witness
to a new, burgeoning culture of self-defense.