U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney wounded a fellow shooter of quail in an accident. Well, I guess it shows what a gulf now exists between the U.S. government and our own. I cannot imagine a single senior Labour politician who would spend time out shooting. (Imagine John Prescott doing it. Actually, don't). The story reminds me of another deputy leader, the late William Whitelaw (a decorated soldier in the Normandy WW2 campaign), who managed to fire some buckshot at someone during a grouse shooting meeting in the Scottish highlands.

Many politicians in the past have enjoyed the pastime of shooting game. Many MPs were landed gentry, who could not wait to get out of smelly London in the summer months and, once the game season started in August, would blast away at hapless birds, bagging them in prodigious quantities. And several paid the price. Robert Peel, Prime Minister in the 1840s, suffered a nasty buzzing in one of his ears after a gun went off too close. Salisbury and Churchill shot game, as did Macmillan and Alec Douglas Home. Across the big pond there was no greater hunter of game, of course, than Teddy Roosevelt.

All that tradition is fading out. I cannot imagine Tory leader David Cameron shooting game (imagine how that would jar with his trendy image) although his ancestors probably nailed whole flocks of pheasants in their time.

Anyway, the lesson of all this is that if you find yourself in the company of a politician holding a shotgun, stand well behind.

"Perhaps the meek shall inherit the Earth, but they'll do it in very small plots . . . about 6' by 3'."

Robert Heinlein, quoted at this excellent legal website with stacks of quotations about self defence.

One of our team brought this bit of aviation humour to my attention.

It is guaranteed to give you a bit of a smile.

MP Andrew Dismore has blocked attempts to clarify the law on self defence in Britain being proposed by MP Anne McIntosh, because he thinks it would be 'vigilante law'.

Well I have thought for some time now that non-state use of force in defence of life, limb and private property is exactly what is needed in this country and to make no apology for robustly defending what is yours. Take the law into your own hands because it is indeed yours to take, not Andrew Dismore's to deny. I realise that if you are old, infirm or a small woman living alone, the fact the state has disarmed you means you have no option whatsoever but to surrender your property and just pray the criminal(s) will not harm you, but those of us still physically able should be encouraged to use whatever weapons they can find at hand to assert some self ownership. Just do not make the mistake of calling the Police in Britain after the fact if you can possibly avoid it as they work for the likes of Andrew Dismore and are not there to serve you.

You may not have the legal right to fight back effectively, but you will always have the moral right to defend yourself and what is yours. Look at it this way, if you are the only one left alive after some son of a bitch breaks into your house, well, that means it is going to be hard for him to sue you or contradict your version of events, doesn't it. If they do make it out, then just clean up the mess and deny everything.

Vigilante law? As so many members of the political class in Britain leave us with little alternative, I am all for it. When the state fails in its most fundamental duty, it is time for society to remember whose law it really is. If you are able to, fight back, just keep in mind you will be fighting back against the state as well and act accordingly when the plod turns up a few hours or days later to 'protect' you.

It is not hard to understand why the government does not regard mugging as so serious a crime that it should always lead to a jail sentence, provided "minimal force" is used.

As the government have long made it clear that people should not defend their property with force against people who try to take it by force, they regard just handing your money and goods over as sensible and responsible behaviour. In short, they think the way to prevent violent crime is to stop people resisting and therefore remove the need for muggers to use actual violence rather than just the threat of it.

In other words, they want to make muggers more like tax collectors. Is that really so surprising?

There is controversy over the fact the Metropolitan Police are using 'dum dum' bullets (which is a term used by people who know nothing about firearms to describe any bullet designed to expand upon impact).

The reason a police force or anyone with a legitimate need to use a weapon in self-defence (i.e. far more people than just the police) would use a handgun firing expanding bullets is to (1) prevent the bullet exiting the target's body and thereby use all the kinetic energy to inflict a wound rather that... (2) leaving the bullet with enough energy that it goes clean through the intended target and wastes energy making a hole in a wall behind them or, much worse, making a hole in an innocent bystander.

It is a scandal that the Metropolitan Police killed an innocent Brazilian man and then lied about the sequence of events that led up to that happening. It is not a scandal that they used expanding bullets to do it. Would the ignorant twits in the media and various clueless Islamic 'spokesmen' trying to make this into a story have preferred that the cops not only killed an innocent man but also killed or injured someone else in the train by using non-expanding military style full metal jacket ammunition? It would be a scandal if they were not using expanding bullets.

The whole point of shooting someone is to cause them serious harm so that they cannot harm you or anyone else. In what way is it somehow morally preferable to use a weapon which does not cause as much harm per round-in-the-target, thereby requiring you to just shoot more bullets into them to kill or incapacitate them?

The only dum(b) dum(b)s here are the various Muslim idiots quoted in the Guardian article and their friends in the media who think this should be an issue.

Despite the urging of much of Brazil's ruling classes to support the measure, the world's first national referendum which put the proposition to ban the sale of firearms was smashed decisively by a 2:1 margin.

The people who are baffled why so many common people in a murder wracked country like Brazil would oppose such a measure need to realise that it is precisely because the country has such problems with violent crime that people need the means to protect themselves.

As I have said on other occasions - the right to keep and bear arms: it's not just for American anymore.

Maybe more Brazillians in London should be armed as well...

In these days of concern about violent Islamists running amok on our cities, it is always important to remember that other sources of violence can be found, such as the so-called animal rights campaigners:

A children's nursery has become the latest target of animal rights threats, forcing it to stop providing child care vouchers to parents working for the animal testing group Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Leapfrog Day Nurseries, part of the education business Nord Anglia, said it was reviewing whether extra security measures were needed at its Peterborough nursery, which is nearest to the Life Sciences headquarters in Cambridgesire. It said it already employed "stringent security measures" to protect the children in its care.

Threatening a kiddies' nursery. They must be so proud.

On a related matter, here is a fine essay taking the incoherent doctrine of animal rights apart. In my view, the doctrine is incoherent, although at the same time I think humans should seek to treat animals as kindly as possible, which is a very human-centric opinion to hold, of course.

One of the things blogs do is edit the news, that is, look at lots of it, and point readers to the best stuff. And when it comes to this story - about a jeweller who chased and was then shot at by a robber, and who was struck in the chest by one of the shots - what counts is this picture:

Maybe other organs have this too, but I first found it, after seeing it on the ITV news, at The Sun. Well done them.

But hang on. Is it not supposed to be illegal even to carry a gun, let alone to fire it at people? These criminals. No respect for law and order.

If the jeweller had been armed, or if he only might have been, the robber would have known it, and this event would probably not have happened. Which in this particular case might have been a shame, because this really is an excellent picture.

In general, I hasten to add, I am against armed robbery, which is why I so completely despise the laws here in Britain which ensure that only armed robbers are armed when they unleash their villainy.

It is fair to say that I do not always agree with what I read over at the Lew Rockwell blog, considering its position on foreign policy to be sometimes naive to the point of downright obtuse. (That should get the comments fired up nicely, ed). That said, this article drives home very effectively what might be one of the few silver linings of the terrible effects of Hurricane Katrina: it may undermine respect for the wonders of Big Government and underscore the importance of local initiative in times of great danger.

And this article by David Kopel certainly adds to disquiet about what certain state officials are up to.

How else can you interpret the authorities intention to disarm people in New Orleans? We are not talking looters here, we are talking about people with legal weapons.

This is not the first article with this title I have written but if some of the accounts coming out of New Orleans prove to be genuine and fair accounts, then I suspect a whole new generation of people who agree with my tagline have just been created on the Gulf Coast of the United States. This was written by a pair of paramedics who were trapped in New Orleans.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.

These are clearly admirable self-reliant people here, not a bunch of welfare addled 'do nothings' incapable of independent thinking. They came up with a solution to their problem and the state simply stole it from them.

And if this is true, I can think of no better justification to openly state that people should own firearms to defend themselves not just against criminals but from agents of the state when there is a crisis.

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

And the real stunner...

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

Ok, now would someone like to tell me why these people (a) should not have been armed (b) would not have been entirely justified using deadly force against the 'law enforcement' officials who, at gunpoint, did their damnedest to reduce their chances of survival?

We have heard accounts by authorities of crazed looters inexplicably shooting at contractors who were just trying to repair essential infrastructure. You know what? Maybe that is what happened and maybe not. I find myself thinking the official version of a great deal of what went on is far from the truth. Yet all we are ever going to see on CNN is pictures of heroic cops and National Guardsmen saving the day.

Unless this account proves to be a hoax or a gross misrepresentation of what happened, nothing less than a root and branch purge of the power structures in Louisiana will be enough. This is a true national scandal of the highest magnitude. I am appalled but not entirely surprised.

This article contains some pretty damning stuff.

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

[...]

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

Yup, let the finger pointing begin. However although I am rarely loath to heap scorn on the state for cocking things up, it does need to be kept in mind that this is the worst natural disaster in US history and any blame laying needs to keep a sense of proportion (ha, as if) as expecting the state to magically solve even the most unexpected problems with seamless efficiency is at best (and I do mean at best) rather like relying on a well meaning but hopelessly alcoholic uncle to be there for you when things go badly wrong. Well, he might come up trumps but it is probably not a good idea to expect him to be there when you need him.

I also expect membership in the NRA and other similar groups to surge as people re-learn the lessons of the Los Angeles riots: the state might help you pick up the pieces after the fact and a policeman might come around to draw a nice chalk line around the bodies of your murdered loved ones, but when the veneer of civilisation cracks, you had better have a gun and be psychologically prepared to use it because the reality is that when the predators turn up, you are on your own.

Hat tip to Tom Pechinski

Update: LGF has some more as the blamefest starts to gather steam.

UK authorities may be faced with a bit of a struggle in extraditing a man, now in Rome, for his alleged involvement in the failed July 21 terrorist attacks on the London transport system, according to this report.

So could some nice person remind me what the EU-wide arrest warrant is suppose to achieve, exactly? Oh, er, wait a minute...

To run from armed police who are shouting at you (rather than shooting at you) at any time is an extremely bad idea... to do so at a time like this in London is utter madness.

Anyone running from armed cops who have challenged them first in London today should expect to get shot dead given the clear and present danger we are in... but that does not makes this any less of a horror. If Jean Charles de Menezes just reacted idiotically to the situation he found himself in, that does not mean we should feel distain for him.

We really need to know exactly what happened and why, but shooting a man dead who is suspected of being a suicide bomber and who is running away and trying to board a train(!) when being called on to stop is not the incorrect response. It was a tragedy of execution (in ever sense of the word) but not an incorrect policy.

It could have been so much worse. Another sunny day in London and another series of attacks. Mercifully, as far as I know, no-one has been killed. My fellow Pimlico friend, Andrew Ian Dodge has a good take on the details. Tim Worstall has views here, including ideas on what the motivation of the attacks were in this case.

It appears that at least one person involved in the attacks has been arrested. Perhaps CCTV recordings of the attacks could yield more evidence. What this latest incident suggests is that CCTV, long bemoaned by us libertarians, can certainly record valuable evidence after a crime has been committed but that is not much consolation to the victims. The outrages are certainly going to give further ammunition to the police in arguing that every cubic metre of London needs to have a camera in it. I think that in public spaces that are paid for by the public and clearly key potential targets for terror groups, CCTV has its uses and it is pretty silly to get oxidised about it. But, and it is a big but, such things are clearly no deterrent. (Thanks to U.S. libertarian blogger Jim Henley for prodding me to write about this).

I was in the Aldwych area of London - near the London School of Economics, when the attacks happened. I first heard by a mobile call from my fiancee. Walking back to the office, it was remarkable how relaxed everyone was. In fact, the strained looks on some people's faces had more to do with the English batting implosion against Australia at the cricket.

Meanwhile, in reflecting on the cultural issues prompted by the current mayhem, go read this fine and no-holds-barred article in the Spectator.

Whilst watching the BBC news' report about the horrific terrorist attacks against Shi'ite civilians in Iraq, I was astonished to hear the following uttered:

Ominously, there are increasing calls for locals to take up arms and defend their communities.

Excuse me? These poor people have just had the centre of their community blown out and many people killed but the desire to defend themselves is denounced by the BBC as... ominous? It might tell you something about what is happening in Iraq but it also tells you quite a lot about the mindset at the BBC.

It seems to me that locals taking up arms to defend themselves against terrorism directly are exactly what the USA should be encouraging whole heartedly. The fact is that people will start doing so regardless of the wishes of the USA if the security situation continues to deteriorate, so not only would it be pointless to try and stop them, why not make a virtue of necessity and show that the occupying powers welcome Iraqis becoming more self-reliant and willing to confront these murdering bastards themselves?

Iraqi territorial para-militaries could be quite an asset fighting the insurgency precisely because they are not going to be centrally directed, at least to some extent. Counter-insurgency by its nature relies on more than just firepower, which the US has in abundance. It also relies on local knowledge and a willingness to be ruthless, something pissed-off locals could certainly provide. The idea that Al Qaeda can only be fought in Iraq 'top down' (i.e. directed from Washington using US and Iraqi government forces) is probably a mistake, so arming the people who are taking the brunt of the attacks seems a pretty sensible way to go.

In another of the cases dumped on an unsuspecting public today, the last day of the US Supreme Court's session, the High and Mighty Nine reiterated that a municipality cannot be expected to provide competent police protection for its residents. The only twist was that this time the plaintiff was trying to hold the local coppers liable for failing to enforce a restraining order issued by a court.

The bad guy in question violated a restraining order to kidnap his daughters from his ex-wife's front lawn. After being informed that the perp had announced he was taking the girls to an amusement park in Denver, the local constabulary neglected to call the Denver police or go to the amusement park. Their effort was limited to trying to contact the perp on his phone, and "keeping an eye out" for his truck.

Ultimately, he was killed in a shoot-out with police. After they had tracked him to his mountain hideaway? Not exactly. He was shot in front of the police station. One suspects that he was double-parked, and had blocked in the cruiser detailed with making the morning donut run.

Oh, the three little girls? They were found dead in his truck. Heaven forbid, though, that the municipality should be held to standards of ordinary care.

British expats living in Spain are taking to handling their security themselves... and why not? Refusing to just throw your hands up in despair when the state proves unable to protect you is just acknowledging that you, not the state, are ultimately responsible for your safety. Vigilantes? Maybe, but why should that necessarily be a dirty word? Sometimes the reality is that 'taking the law into your own hands' is exactly the correct thing to do, and in any case these people are hardly hanging brigands they catch from the nearest lampposts.

There have been some interesting discussions across the blogosphere about the role of arms in resisting tyranny, many sparked off by what is going on in Zimbabwe. But whilst I am very much in favour of civilian ownership of firearms that are suitable for all manner of uses, I think many 'on my side of the aisle' overstate the direct benefits of not allowing the state to have a monopoly on the means of violence. Certainly I do not buy the argument that arming the Tiananmen Square protesters would have prevented the massacre that occurred.

However what arming the population does is not prevent tyranny (at least not on its own), but rather it raises the marginal cost of tyranny. The in your face reality of most tyrannies around the world is that it is not enforced on a daily basis by armies with tanks and helicopters (against which a few AK-47's will do little) but rather by a couple swaggering officious policemen with little handguns pushing their way into people's houses. Now those folks are the ones a few privately held weapons can truly work wonders with when it comes to the bottom line reality of force, not because privately held weapons will actually be used to kill or intimidate directly but simply because those policemen know that whilst they have the authority of the state behind them, right there and then in that house, there are very real limits to just how far they can push things, which is exactly how it should be.

Sure, they can come back with 50 soldiers in armoured personnel carriers if needed, but if that is what they have to do every time they want to intimidate someone, well, that is a much bigger investment of time and effort. Do not underestimate the value of increasing the marginal cost of tyranny. For example widespread gun ownership in Zimbabwe probably would have a major impact at mitigating the shambolic Zimbabwean governments ability to carry out much of what it does even if it does not directly lead the Mugabe's well deserved downfall.

Guns in private hands work, but it is just one piece of a much larger question and I suspect claiming they are a panacea for the ills of bad governance is not doing the pro-liberty side any service at all.

This kind of thing used to enrage me. Then it got to the stage where it embarrassed me. Then it began to perplex me. But now, I am almost entirely resigned.

Go on, do your very worst. Bring it on:

A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing.

A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.

Next: Doctors call for ban on opposable thumbs.

There is a question concerning the relationship between guns and gangsterism that bedevils third world countries but the control of arms sounds suspiciously like that other 'success story': the war on drugs. Jack Straw's keen attempt to follow the NGOs on this matter was publicised at a press conference today where he attempted to internationalise this issue through an "arms control" treaty. It is not surprising that this immoral act is perpetrated by the Blair administration: a clique that is unable to understand the simple connection between the rule of law and a well armed citizenry.

Straw argued that existing treaties covering chemical, biological and nuclear weapons should be matched by a new treaty covering smaller weapons. And he acknowledged that such weapons "account for far more misery and destruction across the world". "The new treaty needs to include a wide range of signatories, including the world's major arms exporters," he said. "I certainly do not underestimate the difficulties of that. Many nations are concerned that a new arms trade treaty may restrict their defence industries; constrain their foreign policy; and lead to constant legal challenge of export licence decisions. Their approach may initially be one of scepticism, at best. "But in order for it to work properly, a new arms control treaty will need to include as many of the world's nations as possible - especially those with strong defence industries of their own.

T he NGO campaign for this solution stems from the revolutionary liberalism redolent of Enlightenment manure. Instead of undertaking the patient steps of building stable laws in these territories and defending property, these organisations prefer to build a bureaucratic edifice of controls, inspections and treaties, a job creation scheme for peace studies graduates.

The Control Arms Campaign is co-ordinated by Oxfam and Amnesty International. They view the proliferation of firearms as a key threat to peace and security. They are right in that technology has lowered the cost of owning firearms and has allowed the strong to plunder the weak; governments or gangs to maim, murder and steal. (although the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 did not require firearms, just edged weapons).

However, their solution is old-fashioned, insensitive to local conditions, and designed to reinforce the status quo in many states, rotten as they are. Their solution is global arms control:

Governments must introduce new laws and measures to incorporate the principles of the Arms Trade Treaty. They must also close the loopholes in their arms controls so that they can strictly monitor end use and effectively control arms brokers and licenced production overseas. They must stop the misuse of arms by security services and introduce systems of accountability and training for them, introduce measures for disarmament when a conflict has ended, develop good justice systems for prosecuting those who misuse arms, enforce all arms control legislation and develop and implement a national action plan to address and solve the country's arms problems.

Communities and local authorities must help collect and destroy surplus and illegal weapons, introduce community education programs to end cultures of violence, provide assistance to victims of armed violence, and provide alternative livelihoods for those who depend on violence for a living.

Only the police are considered suitable to carry guns in protection of communities if they follow the requisite standards, set down by the United Nations:

International standards do exist to control the use of guns and other methods of force by police and other law enforcement officials, but in many countries they are not being followed.These standards centre on the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials and the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials. At their heart is the principle of what constitutes legitimate force. Police must sometimes be permitted to use force or lethal force, in order to do their job of keeping communities safe and protecting themselves and the public from life-threatening attacks. But the force used must not be arbitrary; it must be proportionate, necessary and lawful. And, crucially, it must only be used in self defence or against the imminent threat of death or serious injury.

Self defence for the private individual in defence of life, liberty and property is not included within this 'solution'.

"You can kill burglars" was the message that came blaring forth from the tabloid press with that flourish of heady triumphalism that usually accompanies a victory-for-the-common-man story (and which, on closer scrutiny, nearly always means that the government has just fucked over the common man good and proper).

To the cursory eye, the impression given is that the government has backed down and responded to public pressure for a change in the law to give citizens more rights to fight back against intruders and attackers. In reality, the government has done no such thing. Instead, those various branches of the state responsible for law enforcement have collaborated on a public statement:

Anyone can use reasonable force to protect themselves or others, or to carry out an arrest or to prevent crime. You are not expected to make fine judgements over the level of force you use in the heat of the moment. So long as you only do what you honestly and instinctively believe is necessary in the heat of the moment, that would be the strongest evidence of you acting lawfully and in self-defence. This is still the case if you use something to hand as a weapon.

As a general rule, the more extreme the circumstances and the fear felt, the more force you can lawfully use in self-defence.

None of which sounds unreasonable per se, but all of which is merely a re-statement of the law as it currently stands. This is not a change of heart or a climbdown or a fresh start or anything else of that nature. This is just yesterday's bill of fare, re-heated and served up with a garnish of finely-chopped press release.

In essence this is political chaff; a big bunch of glittery tinsel ejected into the air in order to deflect the heat-seeking missile of public disquiet. It appears to have done the trick.

As I have said before, the law does need changing in order to more accurately reflect the pre-1967 Common Law positions but, more than that, there needs to be a reversal of the last half-century's worth of anti-self-help culture.

On the downside, we are still a long way from any of that change but, and on the upside, at least the ball is now in play.

Months before I arrived in Los Angeles this past December, my friend Robert Avrech told me, "When you come to LA, I will take you shooting." Robert, an Orthodox Jew and veteran of the Yom Kippur War, has written about what Jewish law says about private ownership of guns, and has taught his wife and daughters how to load, unload, and shoot various guns. Could I have had a better teacher for my first time shooting?

And yes, that is right: Despite being born and raised in the USA, I had never touched a gun until my recent visit to LA. I was raised not to respect the power of firearms, but to fear them. I was raised to believe that the responsibility for personal defense lies not with the individual, but with the state. I was raised to believe a lot of wrongheaded, backward things about guns and what the US constitution says about them.

Our shooting expedition took place at the LA Gun Club, in a not-so-nice area of Los Angeles. Robert, who is a screenwriter and producer as well as a publisher, told me that if one ever sees a shooting range scene in a film, it was most likely shot at the LA Gun Club. The place itself is impressively stocked with a wide range of rental guns, ammunition, targets, t-shirts, and all the other accessories that a gun owner could want.

Of course, the clientele was made up of your typical right-wing gun nuts.

As Robert explained to me, Asians in LA realise more than most the necessity of being proficient shooters, as they are one of the most besieged communities and amongst the very first targets whenever a riot breaks out.

In case you cannot tell, I really enjoyed my first time shooting. I found the Springfield a bit too powerful for my girly arms, but the 'cowboy gun' - a Ruger - was very much to my liking. It was easy to load, a breeze to unload, and very fun to use.

I have a lot more training to undergo before I am a confident shooter. Alas, it looks like I will not be taking that training in London - or anywhere else in Britain - anytime soon. And with the regulations that the legislature insists on piling upon American gunowners, I would advise US-based readers to exercise their freedom to bear arms while they still can.

There is an article in the Spectator which seems a bit complacent to me:

If a violent criminal breaks into my house I, too, may react violently, but if I do so I doubt whether I shall live in fear of ending up like Tony Martin. This is because the law already accepts the right to self-defence and does so in such a way as to take into account an individual’s assessment of the threat in the heat of the moment. Strip away the Tony Martin case, which unfairly dominates all discussion on this topic, and just look at other recent cases. In November 2002 the retired businessman Anthony Spray heard somebody trying to open the door of his Cumbrian home and went downstairs, armed with an air rifle, to investigate. Seeing a figure at the now open door, he shot 19-year-old Paul Evans in the eye from a distance of four feet. Evans, it transpired, was not a burglar: he had mistaken Spray’s house for a B&B where he was staying. As a result of his mistake, Evans lost an eye, yet Spray was not jailed: he was given a 12-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay £3,000 compensation.

Riiight. So the author of this piece, Ross Clark, thinks that the case of Tony Martin, the west Norfolk farmer jailed for killing an intruder at his farm and injuring another, is just a freak, a one-off case which need offer no special insights into the rights of self defence. The Spray case, as is clear, still resulted in the householder being convicted, albeit not having to serve a term of imprisonment.

Clark's piece is not without merit. He argues that the United States has achieved a large fall in crime due, he claims, to such factors as 'zero tolerance' policing, tough sentencing and the like. No doubt these have played a part but it is a distortion to suppose that America's much lower level of aggravated burglaries is not partly linked to widespread ownership of firearms and a different approach on the part of the courts to householders using force to defend themselves.

Clark is correct to state that hard cases make bad law. He is, however, dead wrong to suppose that apart from the Tony Martin case, there are no examples of homeowners having been prosecuted for self defence. And it is abundantly clear that burglars have got the message: raiding a person's home is a low-risk activity in Britain, as Perry de Havilland's former neighbour, the late City financier John Monckton, found out last year.

Fortunately, we have the historian Joyce Lee Malcolm to set us straight on the real lessons to be learned from recent trends in British and American policy on self defence and the law. I urge everyone interested in this issue to read her book if they haven't already done so.

UPDATE: In thinking through the Spray case mentioned above, I do accept that it was right for the householder to compensate a man mistaken for a burglar, but the suspended jail term strikes me as quite wrong although I have not studied all the particulars of the case, including whether the householder had been the victim of multiple burglaries in the past, like Tony Martin.

If you live in Britain and you do not think crime, casual violence and the background of anti-social behaviour is mounting problems based on the evidence of your own eyes, then stop reading now and keep taking the NHS prescribed Prozac. For all the rest of you, take a look at this report by Civitas.

Of course the government and police claim the truth lies elesewhere. No prize for guessing who I am inclined to believe.

Tory MP Patrick Mercer has tabled legislation to 'rebalance' the right to defend life, limb and property in favour of the victims of crime.

And how exactly will that make a lone 60 year old woman safer if someone breaks into her house? Please remember that it was a Tory government which decided she will have no right whatsoever to have effective means to defend herself by restricting firearms.

The Mercer Bill is welcome but all it does is make Britain a little bit safer for houses containing one or more adult males from their late teens to their late sixties who are actually capable of picking up a blunt instrument and taking on a