I hope that some of what I say will be an object lesson as to what happens when “Nanny” gets out of control. Way back when I was in my early teens in the 1960s it was common practice for me to go about with a knife on my belt. I was a Boy Scout so it was part of the uniform and when I was not in uniform, it was a tool that you just carried around anyway. Of course back then even at the age of 10 my friends and I would roam on our bikes, a few miles from home, along the river to fish or trying to build tree houses in the forest, that was what kids did. I guess any kid who tried that now would be rounded up have his knife confiscated and then be handed over to some social services shrink who would summon his parents and accuse them of child abuse. Today kids can have Play-stations but not knives. When I was 11 we could go to a local store and buy one penny firecrackers. In UK today they will ask you for ID if you want to buy a butter knife!!!!
I am not sure how many people over here are aware just how bad the self defence situation is on the other side of the pond. Under English law you are entitled to defend yourself and your family but the principle of minimum force is applied. In essence you should restrain the threat until the police arrive. There is no specific allowance made for the fact that the threat may be bigger, stronger and more skilled in acts of violence than the person threatened. In this regard the possession of non-lethal weapons by ordinary citizens is not permitted. Thus being found in possession of a Pepper Spray or a Stun Gun is a criminal offence (equivalent to a low grade felony). So as a woman out alone, you can carry a rape alarm but not much else. The UK official thinking is that if such devices could be bought legally, then muggers and rapists would use them to assault their victims. There is a refusal to consider that such devices might give a prospective victim a chance against someone with a knife.
Now on the subject of Firearms:
Gun crime was extremely rare in the UK up and till the 1960s. There were a few infamous exceptions in the 50s Ruth Ellis (the last woman in the UK to be executed) emptied a revolver into her former lover –
If this had happened in France this case would probably have been treated as a “Crime of Passion” but there is no such provision in English law. Then there was the case of Craig and Bentley, they were two petty criminals confronted by police while trying to burgle a store.
Craig was the only one with a gun and he shot one of the cops but because he was only 17 he was too young to hang. Bentley who was not armed was hanged as Craig s accomplice even though he had been cuffed by the cops before the shooting happened. The law assumed equal intent on his part and because he was 19 he was old enough to be executed. This was one of the cases that moved the UK towards suspending the death penalty in the 1960s.
While most people of a liberal disposition would strongly disagree, there was without question an increase in armed robberies in the UK from the mid 60s onwards. My father always maintained that it was the removal of the deterrent of hanging that caused this. I am in two minds on this issue it seems to me that capital punishment has never stopped violent crime in the US. During this explosion of armed robbery in the 60s and 70s the go-to weapon for most criminals was the sawn-off double barrel 12 gauge. There are two reasons for this:
1. Shotguns were for most of the 20th century much more common in private ownership than rifles or handguns. To purchase and own a shotgun (and any historical smooth-bore musket) you needed a shotgun certificate. The bar was set lower to obtain one of those than it was for any firearm with a rifled barrel. This was so to make it easy for any farmer to have a tool for dealing with vermin on his land. Thus there were more shotguns around and they were often easier to steal.
2. As an armed criminal you were normally only likely to encounter unarmed opposition, ordinary beat cops or private security guards (note private security guards in UK are not permitted to have firearms). In such situations a double barrel shotgun is an adequate threat.
Back in the early 1970s while I was a cadet at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst I applied for a Firearm Certificate. At that time I had become increasingly interested in shooting and one or two of my friends at the academy were already in possession their own private weapons. Now a Firearm Certificate would allow me to purchase a weapon of whatever particular type I had specified on my application along with types and quantities of ammunition I wished to be permitted to purchase and own at any one time. On the application it was necessary to state what the purpose of owning the weapon was, where it would be stored when not in use and where it would be used. I am sure that any application which mentioned home or personal defence would have been refused. On my application I was able to state that the weapon would be kept in base armouries and shot on military ranges this probably simplified matters. I subsequently discovered that the local county police would frequently demand and be granted access to the armouries on various bases I served, so that they could verify that mine and any other private weapons were being correctly stored.
Once you had your Certificate (I received mine about 6 weeks after I applied) you could then go to a gun store and buy your weapon and ammunition. The gun store would then stamp and sign your certificate for the weapon and again for the ammunition. Every subsequent purchase of ammunition would have to be stamped in the same way. Yes there was a lot of space on the back of the certificate for this. The document was valid for 5 years. If during this time you wished to change things to add another weapon or increase your ammunition allowance then a new application was necessary.
Now I am sure you had guessed that the above document merely allowed you to own a firearm and use it in specific types of location. There was no question of carrying it on your person or transporting it anywhere while loaded. There were some carry licences issued but unless you were a politician in a high risk place, like Northern Ireland obtaining one, would be virtually impossible.
I started off my private ownership with a .357 wheel gun with a 4” tube – some years later I added an HK4 multi-caliber pistol in 380, 32 and 22lr. However the only time I went concealed carry was during deployment as a junior officer in Northern Ireland. I spent much of my time there in civilian clothes travelling around in an unmarked civilian vehicle with a Browning Hi-power under my left arm. Such was the paranoia about negligent discharges that I was told I should carry the empty pistol in one pocket and my magazine of 10 rounds in the other. I thought I knew better so I carried mine in a proper holster cocked and locked with a full mag and another full mag in my pocket, guess what I did not have an ND.
During all this time firearms were not much of a political issue in the UK, yes there was the occasional armed robbery and we were starting to hear a bit about firearms getting into the Afro-Caribbean drug gangs but this was still small scale stuff. Then Hungerford happened and things suddenly changed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre
For those that are interested the above link gives a fair and detailed account of what took place. This was really the first proper mass shooting incident in the UK. One problem that made things worse was that because it was something new the local police were slow to react, they had no procedures for this sort of incident and to make matters worse the only vehicle they had with armed officers was already tasked on another job. Anyway one year after this incident the Conservative government passed the 1988 Firearms Act which outlawed the ownership of semi-automatic rifles.
In 1993, I was about to leave the Army taking the redundancy package that was being offered as part of the post Cold War downsizing of the UK armed forces. Realising that keeping my weapons as a civilian would become more complicated I decided to sell them. My timing could not have been better. Because in 1996 Dunblane took place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_school_massacre
This led to the Conservative government passing the Firearms Amendment Act of 1997 which made it illegal to own any handgun other than a .22. This was quickly followed in the same year after the General Election, Tony Blair's Labour government passed a further amendment banning .22s.
Since then the only handgun that a private citizen can legally own in the UK is black powder muzzle loader.
As other commentators have noted following this ban the UK saw it's biggest increase in gun crime in history. Now it was not the ban that actually caused this. Much of this was sparked by the post cold war opening up of Eastern Europe (a place awash with firearms think of the Balkan Wars) along with open borders and lack of customs controls across the European Union (another reason Brits voted for Brexit). What it does prove is that gun bans alone do not solve gun crime the causes of that lie elsewhere. For your amusement I thought it would be appropriate to include “The Village Sniper” at this point.
https://youtu.be/YDfqlKhh4mc
Sorry if you have seen this before but I think it deserves to be here.
Needless to say you will never hear any politician in UK be they Labour, Lib/Dem or Conservative challenge the issue of gun control. I think one of the factors in this are the police themselves. Neither the senior police officers nor the police federation want to see the universal issue of firearms to their officers. For management it would be something which would only add time, complexity and cost to the training of officers. As well as leaving police forces liable to law suits when they get things wrong. Likewise the officers themselves wish to avoid being charged with murder and therefore prefer to be equipped with chemical sprays and tasers. Way back in the 60s a senior police officer could authorise the issue of firearms to those officers that had done a basic firearms course. In the 1980s there were several incidents where armed officers shot and killed unarmed members of the public. This lead to a tightening of police firearm regulations. Today nearly all armed police in the UK are specialists (equivalent to SWAT). There is no longer provision for arming officers who do routine police work. The latest info I have is that about 7% of the police officers in London are trained and armed on a regular basis. That is higher than most cities because of all the high profile targets and diplomatic missions in the capital.
In 2005 I had an argument about gun control with a civilian co-worker after I had left the army. Our office building was about 150 yards away from this incident
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/4176626.stm
I tried to point out that a human mind bent on destruction will always find a means, gun or no gun.
He suggested that a gun made it too easy. I suggested that anyone with a basic knowledge of physics a good mechanical aptitude could go to a DIY store and by assembling the right collection of plumbing/camping/gardening parts, could probably in one or two days put together flame thrower capable of killing a crowd of people at a range of 40 feet.
