Handguns have been illegal in the UK since 1997, when they were outlawed to stem crime. However, as anyone familiar with the story of Washington D.C. can tell you, laws like that just don't work. Since 1997, gun crime in the UK has not gone down. In fact, in the last ten months, it's gone up more than 300% in many urban areas.
Simon Heffer's recent column finally says what so many of us in America have known for hundreds of years: the government can't protect you. Mr. Heffer tells the government:
Given this scandalous situation, it is time for the Government to confer a new right on the people: the right to bear arms. Gun control in this country is in any case a joke. There is far more gun crime now than there was before the idiotic law passed by the Major government to ban handguns after the Dunblane massacre.
He could still learn one important lesson from his American brethern, though. The right to protect yourself isn't "confered" by the government any more than the right to breathe is. The English (or British, if you prefer) need to snap out of their statist meta-context and realize that the entity responsible for protection isn't the state, but the individual. While that will certainly make the state grumpy, it would make it a helluva lot safer for people when the sun goes down.
There's a spectrum of opposition to crime: punishment, deterrence, protection, prevention. And each layer of society (society, state, and individual) has a certain proficiency at those elements. The state can efficiently handle punishment, and can thus play a role in deterrence. It is not very effective at protection or prevention though. Society as a whole can be very effective at prevetion, more so than the state or individuals. But effective protection is only achieved through the actions of individuals. And when society and the state affirm that the individual has the lattitude needed for protection, individuals play a crucial role in deterrence.
