« Interesting editorial | Main | Concealed Carry Legal Services »
British editorial
In the London Times. An excerpt:
"In Britain, however, the image of violent America remains unassailably entrenched. Never mind the findings of the International Crime Victims Survey (published by the Home Office in 2003), indicating that we now suffer three times the level of violent crime committed in the United States; never mind the doubling of handgun crime in Britain over the past decade, since we banned pistols outright and confiscated all the legal ones.
We are so self-congratulatory about our officially disarmed society, and so dismissive of colonial rednecks, that we have forgotten that within living memory British citizens could buy any gun – rifle, pistol, or machinegun – without any licence. When Dr Watson walked the streets of London with a revolver in his pocket, he was a perfectly ordinary Victorian or Edwardian. Charlotte Brontë recalled that her curate father fastened his watch and pocketed his pistol every morning when he got dressed; Beatrix Potter remarked on a Yorkshire country hotel where only one of the eight or nine guests was not carrying a revolver; in 1909, policemen in Tottenham borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by (and were joined by other armed citizens) when they set off in pursuit of two anarchists unwise enough to attempt an armed robbery. We now are shocked that so many ordinary people should have been carrying guns in the street; the Edwardians were shocked rather by the idea of an armed robbery.
If armed crime in London in the years before the First World War amounted to less than 2 per cent of that we suffer today, it was not simply because society then was more stable. ..."
Comments
This was an excellent article. The Brits have a long way to go, and I honestly doubt they can overcome their wacky system in order to get there, but I wish them luck.
Posted by: Letalis at September 9, 2007 01:10 PM
Progress is being made. Would this article have appeared ten years ago? I doubt it.
Will we see such articles in The Guardian anytime soon. Maybe.
Posted by: Flash Gordon at September 9, 2007 03:03 PM
British pieces like this remind me of American editorials which condemn the "War on Drugs," and compare failed War on Drugs to the failed Prohibition campaign. The editorials are well-written, logical, informative, convincing. . . and policy makers ignore them.
Posted by: Sertorius at September 9, 2007 04:14 PM
Wow, a rational thinking human on a newspaper editorial board, this maybe a first.
Posted by: Devil Dog Dad at September 9, 2007 07:36 PM
If you were a wolf and you had two pastures to choose from, one filled with your average garden variety sheep and another genetically engineered sheep with claws, fangs w/ venom sacs and a spiny tail that springs forth whenever trouble nears, which group would you choose to pluck your dinner from? And what if those two pastures intermingled and you couldn't tell the difference between the two? You'd probably at least consider taking up vegetarianism. You don't have to be armed to enjoy the benefits of lawful citizens maintaining the right to carry arms. What is so hard about this idea to grasp? And if you don't trust your neighbor to have a gun, how do you trust them to drive on the road next to you? I think people who are against guns just wish that they could wish away violence and murder, unfortunately it's been around since before gun powder and it'll be around even if it's ever managed to be eliminated from the face of the earth, which is a real longshot in any case.
Posted by: Josh at September 10, 2007 12:53 PM