THE LIBERATOR ONLINE

March 7, 2002
Vol. 7, No. 5
Circulation: 52,308 in 104 countries

Published by the Advocates for Self-Government.

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http://www.self-gov.org/

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Update: Britain’s Gun Ban Breeding Crime and Violence

In 1997 Britain imposed a ban on ownership of handguns.

Officials hoped the ban would lower gun-related crimes.

Instead — exactly as gun rights advocates predicted —
gun-related crime and violence has skyrocketed. Honest
citizens have been disarmed and rendered helpless before
criminals, while the criminals themselves have greater
access to black-market guns than ever before.

Gun crime has almost tripled in London during the past
year alone, according to the London Daily Telegraph. And
other cities are reporting similar numbers.

Gun-wielding gangs — a phenomenon almost unknown outside a
few London boroughs before the ban — are now spreading
across the country. Frequently the violence is related to
the illegal drug trade, another predictable occurrence.

Overall, handgun crime is now at its highest since 1993.

Increasing numbers of citizens are fed up and are demanding
change. In a fiery column entitled “If the state fails us,
we must defend ourselves,” British journalist Simon Heffer
said:

“Now we have reached a situation in which few can feel safe
even in their homes, and this could be the breaking point…

“The Government absolutely lacks the political will to deal
with the violation of one of the most fundamental liberties
of the people it governs: their right to feel safe in their
own homes.

“Given this scandalous situation, it is time for the
Government to confer a new right on the people: the right
to bear arms. Gun control in this country is in any case a
joke. There is far more gun crime now than there was before
the idiotic law passed by the Major government to ban
handguns…

“The police obsessively regulate shotguns and rifles held by
sportsmen who have no intention of killing anyone with them,
while failing utterly to control illegal weapons. In
America, the two states with the highest level of gun
ownership — New Hampshire and Vermont — have the lowest
levels of crime.

“One of the most murderous places in the United States,
Washington DC, has the most rigorous gun control in the
Union. For a householder to shoot a burglar in most states
in the US is regarded not so much as permissible as part of
his civic responsibilities. ”

(Sources:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/02/24/nguns24.xml