has never had a serious problem with firearms-related crimes, but that’s not because it has strict gun laws. English, Scottish, and Welsh pistol competitors are still required to train outside of the U.K.ĭisarming Law-Abiding Citizens Didn’t Make the UK Safer are so restrictive that Olympic shooting competitors required special permission to travel to the 2002 Commonwealth Games and the 2012 Olympic Games, because possession of necessary firearms for common shooting events was a criminal offense. had not experienced a mass public shooting in almost a decade.Ĭurrent gun laws in the U.K. In the five years prior to the massacre, Scotland experienced only three homicides involving legal, licensed firearms-approximately 0.4 percent of all homicides during that time. Public pressure from the victims’ families led to a complete ban on semi-automatic weapons and handguns, even though only 9 percent of homicides in England at the time were committed with firearms, and only 14 percent of those gun-related homicides were committed with legally possessed firearms. On the heels of a tragic mass shooting in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, Parliament banned the civilian possession of semi-automatic firearms and handguns, requiring private citizens to turn in all but muzzle-loading guns, pistols of historic interest, and signal pistols. The purchase and possession of shotguns became heavily regulated in 1988, requiring registration and a showing of costly security arrangements for “safe storage.” In 1964, officers were informed that “it should hardly ever be necessary for anyone to possess a firearm for the protection of his house or person” and that “this principle should hold good even in the case of banks and firms who desire to protect valuables or large quantities of money.”īy 1969, the instructions effectively removed self-defense from the definition of good cause, with the Home Office stating that “it should never be necessary for anyone to possess a firearm for the protection of his house or person.” The laws also required the “safe storage” of lawfully owned firearms.īetween 19, the Home Office instructions to local police increasingly narrowed the definition of “good cause.” In 1936, Parliament passed laws heavily regulating (and de facto prohibiting) the civilian possession of short-barreled shotguns and fully automatic firearms. This measure was enacted over fears of communist and anarchist insurgencies, and it had very little to do with concerns over gun-related crime, which was nearly nonexistent in England at the time. must obtain a certificate from the local chief of police upon showing that he or she has “good cause” to possess a firearm and is not “unfitted.” Under the 1920 Firearms Act, would-be handgun and rifle owners in the U.K. In reality, modern Britons have had this right completely stripped from them, to the point where they may be reprimanded for using kitchen knives against home intruders. In theory, the 1689 English Bill of Rights protects the right of individual British subjects to possess arms for purposes of self-defense. They will not be satisfied by merely taking away your scary “assault weapons.”Ī History of Civilian Disarmament in the UK This crackdown on knives, and the surrounding rhetoric demonizing those who would carry them in public, should serve as a warning to Americans disconcerted by the vocal anti-Second Amendment activists in our own country. already criminalizes the purchase or possession of various types of knives, and the carrying of any knife with a blade longer than 3 inches in public is illegal unless it is carried “with good reason.” Self-defense is not considered a good reason. The knife control measures will include the deployment of 300 additional London police officers to conduct “stop and frisk” searches of individuals suspected of knife-carrying, a policing tactic once roundly condemned by Khan.Įmergency legislation also appears set to prohibit knives purchased online from being sent to residential addresses. The surge in violence prompted London Mayor Sadiq Khan to announce a massive “knife control” campaign eerily reminiscent of those sometimes proffered in the United States in response to firearms-related violence. The United Kingdom has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the world, so the increased murder rate in the British capital is largely a result of a sharp rise in knife-related crime. It was widely reported earlier this month that London experienced a higher number of murders over the first three months of 2018 than did New York City-the first time in modern history that has occurred.
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