“The right of self-defence is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
- Henry St George Tucker, in Blackstones “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” 1768

Self Defence Studies of Armed Crime.

Here are the results of certain studies relevant to the current question of armed crime and hand-gun ownership. The citations accompanying this article are instructive and relevant. Here are their summaries for three countries: Australia, U.K. and U.S.

Australian Experience:
Gun control increases violent crime – data from the Australian Bureau of Stats.
[see extract from Australian report]
US Experience:
Firearms ownership doesn’t lead to higher murder rates. Liberalised concealed-carry handgun laws are a major factor in reducing violent crime.
[see extract from US report]
U.K. Experience:
Handgun deaths in England hit a seven year high in 2000 despite a ban on handgun ownership, proving that criminals don’t obey gun laws.
[see extract from UK report]
Concealed Weapons Permits:
From the point of view of increasing public safety and reducing armed crime, these data suggest that, rather than vilifying gun owners through the press, and persecuting them by confiscating their guns, it might be better to get them onside and utilise their talents for the community good instead. Given the enormous amount of gun familiarity that exists within the gun club membership, and the general good character of the members, some concealed permits might be issued to some club members. The effect of the public knowledge of this possibility, even if the number is very small, could be dramatic, since no-one will know how many, whom & where.
Dr John Whitley, lecturer at Adelaide University, makes the point that taking away people’s guns simply removes a deterrent to crime. (The Age, Tue 31 Oct 02)

In addition, a quote from John Ross in his book “Unintended Consequences”, attributed to [the then] President Bush, seems to summarise the situation that we are tending towards as a consequence:

“… I found that violent criminals have a government guarantee that honest people are unarmed if they’re away from their homes or businesses. It’s a felony for a citizen to carry a gun for protection [in certain states]. Giving evil, violent people who ignore our laws a government guarantee that decent people are completely helpless is terrible public policy. It is dangerous public policy. Our Federal and State governments have betrayed the honest citizens of this country by focussing on inanimate objects instead of violent criminal behavior, and I am ashamed to have been a party to it. It is time to correct that betrayal.”

A work of fiction, to be sure, but nonetheless refreshingly accurate for all that.

Ideas can kill.

Reading the daily press over the past few months in Australia, one could be forgiven for thinking that the dominant ideas current within the anti-gun mind are that people cannot be trusted with handguns for their own defence; that it is absurd that someone would need a gun for self defence in any modern city in Australia; in consequence of which, that it is impossible to justify having a handgun in the glovebox of the car for self defence.

I wonder what the girl who was being assaulted in the car in Sydney last year by an organised group of youths armed with mobile phones would have thought of the strange idea that there is no justification for anyone to carry a handgun for self-defence – she could have used a simple 0.22 revolver to scare them off, no doubt of that.

Janice Balding, abducted and murdered by some youths in NSW after alighting from her train, could be alive today if she had a snub-nosed anything in her handbag.

So would Anita Cobby have found the idea that no-one needs a hand gun for self defence in a major Australian city just a little bizarre. But then, she does not need one any more.

If there had been just one concealed weapon in the pocket of a man of good character at Port Arthur, would all Bryant’s victims have thought that these ideas made any sense to them at all?

There were two people of good character recently exhumed in Victoria this year 2002 who would find it very hard to understand that there is no justification for concealed handguns for self-defence in the year 2002.

The Dunblaine students are all dead because there was no concealed handgun for self-defence in the pocket of a well-trained teacher – well-trained in marksmanship and the handling of guns, that is.

I suppose that all the law-abiding (and very dead) backpackers in NSW abducted and murdered by Milat would find it weird that anyone could say that a handgun for self-defence is simply an absurd idea! Milat can have a pistol to kill them, but they cannot have one to defend themselves.

Maybe the man from near Barrow Creek, shot dead on the road in the NT in this century, would have found the idea that people no longer need handguns in the glovebox of their car for self-defence in the year 2002 very strange indeed. His girlfriend would have welcomed one.

And what of Cheryl Jones? Confronted by some black Zimbabweans and shot with a 0.303 rifle, wouldn’t she have been glad of some training with a 0.44 magnum revolver? No doubt she would have wanted to be carrying an AK-47 assault rifle in her car with many 30-shot magazines?

How many Jews and Gentiles from Germany and Poland, all legally disarmed for years before the police and the state had their way with them, would find these ideas that they should depend on the police and the state for their self defence simply quite laughable, if not obscene.

American research shows, for example, that the state of Vermont has the lowest homicide and robbery with violence statistics – and it also has had for some time concealed carry permits for all people of good character. Other states, too. These things are not coincidences.

If criminal activity is increasing in Australia, as the statistics suggest, then, far from the conclusion that handguns should be confiscated from good citizens, it would seem that concealed handgun permits for self-defence, particularly for women, might be exactly what we need.