Despite some of the strictest anti-gun laws anywhere in the world and despite the abject failure of those laws to make this country a safer or better place in which to live, the anti-gun hysteria shows no signs of abating:
The Government will attempt to tackle Britain’s gun culture with plans to be unveiled this week for an overhaul of outdated firearms laws.
David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, will publish a consultation document which is expected to lead to tougher restrictions on the sale and manufacture of replica firearms as well as new age limits on gun ownership, especially for airguns, starter pistols and shotguns.
The consultation follows lobbying by the police and anti-gun campaigners who say Britain’s gun laws are confused, out of date and in desperate need of reform.
Of particular concern are replica firearms which are popular with gun collectors and can be bought legally but are being converted by criminals into lethal weapons to fire live ammunition.
By ‘reform’ they mean ever-greater restrictions leading inexorably to prohibition. In due course, toy guns, water pistols, potato guns and anyone with the surname ‘Gunn’ will be added to this list.
The whole subject of firearms has gone way beyond any arguments about citizen’s rights to self-defence or law and order or communal safety. Guns are now just bad ju-ju; the modern equivalent of the ‘evil-eye’ or some other medieval, peasant superstition the mere sight or mention of which is sufficient to induce an impulsive and irrational terror.
Bad ideas can be challenged with good ideas but superstitions are far more difficult to combat. For that, we need a whole new ‘Age of Reason’.
Since “they” don’t give a rat’s arse “about citizen’s rights to self-defence or law and order or communal safety“, but are absolutely scared to death the populace will eventually wake up to that fact, the faster they move to implement the latest set of draconian measures the better for those political puppet-masters.
Total Serfdom, here we come !!
You better hope they don’t realize every TV and most computer monitors have “electron guns” in them, or you’re toast. 🙂
What next? Licence for kitchen knives? Register of cricket bats? These idiots wouldn’t be satisfied until all law-abiding people are completely defenceless.
They appear to be so now, Elaine. If you can be prosecuted for defending yourself, it hardly matters if you cannot use or own a weapon to do it. The bite of the issue is self-defense, the rest is just an attempt to keep the populace distracted and arguing over the details.
Push for laws protecting (or re-establishing) a citizen’s right to self defense (none of this reasonable test bullshit–if someone tries to rob you or steal from you, there is no limit to the amount of force you may use in your defense)–then the rest won’t matter. Certainly the various groups could begin to rally around that one key point.
Mrs du Toit, You don’t understand. The British have been browbeaten and have accepted it because they fear to speak out. Why? They’re frightened of being condemned as right wingers (protecting your own life and the life of your family is for loony rightists only.) This is the penultimate worst thing you can be called in Britain. Only insane people don’t trust the state to protect them.
The UK is passive, Mrs du Toit. There are no “groups” to rally around this key point. Tony Blair, when he first came to power, had a massive, massive majority. He could ram through any law he wanted. He disarmed the citizenry overnight. He incorporated the disastrous Human Rights Act of Europe into British law (and his “human rights” lawyer wife has made out like a bandit on the back of it). He was a new prime minister at that point, and every one of those Labourite MPs was hoping for promotion, the key to which was, pleasing Tony and voting for his favourite projects. Pleasing Tony and coming to Tony’s favourable attention was far more important than representing the views of their constituents.
There was no democratic discussion to speak of. Tony Blair has steam-rollered over Parliament by giving promotions and preferments to Labourites who vote the way he wants them to vote. Parliament has been sidelined under his harsh rule. It’s only now beginning to come to life again.
But the damage they have to done Britain and traditional British liberties is immense. In seven years, they have made it “normal” to think having a gun in your home to protect yourself and family is criminally insane.
We all understand what should be done. It’s just that there is no one with the will – or, given the BBC and its throat-hold – the means, the rally anyone to a cause. Bizarre, isn’t it? Because it is such a tiny country. It could fit into Texas three-and-a-half times.
Reminds me of the conversations I have every day I work in Frontierland (in Disneyland), trying to explain to people why we can’t sell wooden muskets anymore (WDW-Florida still can, however)… people will only get outraged once something stupid like this impedes their impulsive decisions ten years down the road.
Great Britain has a “gun culture” ? Who knew?
I like “outdated firearms laws”. Two major changes in a decade and already they are outdated? Some of the provisions of previous changes (i.e. the tinkering in the Anti-Social Behaviour Act) have scarcely had time to come into effect yet.
Let’s have less outdating in the law. It should be modern and up to the minute. If Parliament were to sit in shifts and approve Statutory Instruments at the drop of a hat, then we could have hot-from-the-press law at all times. No one would know what it was, or whether it was any good, but there’d be another one along in a minute, so it wouldn’t matter. What’s more it would promote the rights of the public and victims by ensuring no weasel-lawyer could mount a defence in the morning that would be valid in the afternoon when judgement was given.
Go for it Tony! Out with static statutes, in with a dynamic, polymorphous, regulatory state!
…. What? You already did that? Why’s the law still “outdated” then?
The article is factually incorrect on the subject of brococks. The new age limits don’t apply to them in any way whatsoever. The reporters are getting confused by the new measures which ban the sale, import and manufacture of these items (1st May 2004 I believe) requiring existing owners to hand them in or get a license for them.
This new brocock law effectively addresses the ACPO and government concern about converted replicas as it is the brocock style gun that is generally converted.
I’ve blogged this Brocock issue here.
Other replicas, the most popular airsoft form, are impossible to convert.
State propaganda, media confusion and GCN bullshit all coming together again to achieve absolutely nothing except to ensure that only the state and criminals have guns.
Hah hah, what’s next … I wonder when the chikens**t leftieweenies will ban pointy sticks too!
Fat lot of good has the hysterical anti-gun laws done here anyway, gun crime is up something like 80% since Noo Lapour took over. The laws are so ridicilious that our olympic shooting team has to practice overseas with their .22 sporters.
For availability of illegal firearms, couple of hundred will get you saturday night special in any major UK inner city.
I don’t know. My country’s circumstances are definitely different(tiny island city state, blah, blah), and gun laws do seem to ‘work‘.
Of course, when carrying an illegal firearm is an automatic death penalty…
200 GBP for a “saturday night special”? ouch! Right now, that’s equivalent to 354 USD. For that much (across the Southwestern US anyway), you can purchase from a wide variety of quality used handguns at one of your local gun shops/pistol ranges. ~30 USD, a valid ID (socialist bastards!) and a quick, multiple choice gun safety test gets you a box of ammunition and an hour to find out if you like the handgun or not on the 50yd range, BYOP (Bring Your Own ear and eye Protection). If you are visiting the US and do not or are not allowed to own a gun in your country, this is a fun and enlightening way to spend an afternoon.
If you want to pay even less, you can buy your firearms from people with “connections” who spend a few nights a week running guns across the Mexican border. I don’t remember the price for particular handguns or an AK-74 or AK-47, but you can buy unused Chinese SKS “assault rifles” for $100 and the superior Russian and Yugoslav versions for $150-$200 dollars from these people. The funny thing is, that as part-time smugglers without a good understanding of market pricing, they feel a little guilty about selling their products for so much…I won’t guess what their cost is today, but in 1994, one of these gunrunners told me he was doubling his money on every sale, and prices were 15-20 percent cheaper then (before the Brady Bill started driving prices up).
You can buy 1000 rounds of ammunition for these rifles off the web or from outdoor magazines for $100-$200, depending on the quality of ammo you want. Rifle ranges seem to be vanishing though, being replaced by municipal golf courses, country clubs, and shotgun ranges, so it helps to know a rancher who wants some help getting rid of his prairie dog towns (which contrary to what you will find online, is actually quite a problem for many ranchers who have seen their ranches turn into livestock obstacle courses as the natural prairie dog predators become less common due to drought and disease)…or you can simply go buy some rural land in Arizona for $129 an acre.
Note to gun enthusiasts: I’m not making any claim of accuracy or quality of the SKS – it is a FUN and highly durable rifle, but inferior in terms of craftsmanship and accuracy. I am merely pointing out how expensive it is for a people to let their brow be beaten. This expense is not just measured in dollars or pounds, but in lives.
If your fellow citizen/slave raises the flag of democratic tyranny above your head, I think it is immoral to refuse to break the law to protect yourself and your loved ones. Given the rapid rise of violent crime in London in recent years, I would not live there without owning a handgun, and I can’t understand anyone who would willingly follow the law if it meant putting the safety of their loved ones at risk.
Ideally, you could change laws so they show some respect for human life and the self-defense that goes along with that, but practically, would you rather be a living criminal or a dead law-abiding citizen? How are you going to change the law if you have been murdered by a street thug looking for a little spending cash?
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD, RE-ARM!
hah.