UK Independence Party (UKIP) Leader Nigel Farage has floated a proposal to relax British handgun laws. The current restrictions on most handguns were made by John Major's government following the 1996 shooting, when Thomas Hamilton killed 16 schoolchildren and a teacher before shooting himself. It was the third such mass-murder in Britain in ten years.
Tony Blair's Labour government then extended the restrictions in 1997 to cover all handguns, including the .22 pistols used for sport at the Olympics. But as Farage points out the ban only encourages crime, with handgun offences doubling over the next few years.
On a walkabout in the Manchester area in the run-up to the Sale by-election he said “If you look at gun crime it's really interesting. We bring the ban in, in the late 1990s. In the first five or six years after we ban handguns, gun crime virtually doubles across Britain, proving there is no link between sensibly, legally held handguns. … So what I am saying to you is, there is almost no link between sensible, decent people – under a registration system – holding handguns for sporting and shooting, and crime on the streets.”
The by-election will prove an interesting test of Farage’s opinion which is not yet UKIP policy. The Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election is as a result of the untimely death of the incumbent Labour MP Paul Goggins. The party is expected to hold serve with its replacement candidate Mike Kane, but of more interest is how well the relatively new UKIP will do and where they will take their votes from. The party is currently favoured to finish second.
An informal survey in the Manchester Evening News showed support for the re-legalization of handgun ownership by a narrow 53%-47% margin whilst a similar Daily Telegraph survey showed 57%-43% opposed. Even the Telegraph results will come as news to many on both sides of the poll, conditioned by the mainstream media of the evil of gun ownership that will bring about the kind of ‘insanity’ that happens in America. As one Facebook commenter put it “Will be like America where shooting seems to be a way of life.”
But that is actually far from the truth. America rates 103rd in the world (right about in the middle) in murder rates! Many countries with gun control have much more serious crime problems. Jamaica has a murder rate ten times America’s, Brazil five times, and European Ukraine is 25% higher.
The problem they have in the States is that everything gets incredible media coverage. On July 18th 1984 the murder of 21 people at a McDonalds was an international story. The shootings occurred in San Ysidro, a San Diego suburb literally on the Mexican border. But Google ‘mass murders in Mexico’ and you’ll see a shocking wave of homicide that rarely makes the news.
Indeed, just across the fence from San Ysidro is Tijuana which the Economist described as “a cauldron of violence.” Under President Felipe Calderon violence across the country soared with at least 60,000 dead, mostly in vicious turf battles between rival gangs. This in a country where gun ownership is possible, but subject to strict conditions!
What Farage is proposing in Britain is “a proper gun licensing system” that would essentially allow ownership for use at home in self defence, or on the range. He does not support as he puts it “the American System (where) you can go and buy automatic repeating rifles down at a local gun shop that looks more like a supermarket.”
Peter Squires though, professor of criminology at Brighton University and a member of Association of Police Officer’s advisory group on the criminal use of fire arms said that Farage’s statements were "irresponsible" and commented: “If public safety is a consideration then it’s a particularly stupid thing to say. It opens up the problem that we have almost dealt with successfully. It will generate a demand, it will generate illegal traffic around that demand – the problem with hand guns is that they are small and concealable and they are already the weapon of choice of gangs members and criminals.”
But Squires gives away his own argument! He says “they are already the weapon of choice of gangs members and criminals!” So with strict gun-control the criminals have guns and the victims don’t. He sees it as a “problem” if that changes. Which begs the question Mr. Squires – How is it that the “problem” has been “almost dealt with”?
Lawful responsible gun owners are almost never the problem; it is irresponsible people using them just as most problems in society are caused by irresponsibility. Criminals in Britain have guns, laws won’t change that – what can change is how people can be empowered to deal with it.
