Pamphlet against Gun Control

[Sean Gabb]

Saturday, 4 January 1997, 11:24am

This is the text of a pamphlet by David Botsford about the coming gun ban
in the United Kingdom.

Though rather long, its quality demands that it be made as
widely available as possible.

Sean Gabb
Editor
Free Life.

Fear of violence - is society over-reacting?

David Botsford

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Some months ago, the Right Honourable Lord Rodgers of Quarry
Bank, chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority, invited me to
speak at a forthcoming ASA conference on "Violence in society",
which took place at the Grosvenor House, Park Lane, in London on
5th November 1996. Lord Rodgers asked me to address the question
of whether the level violence had actually increased, and to comment
on society's response to that violence, as well as the relevance of the
private ownership of firearms and other weapons to current concerns
over violence. The following is a considerably expanded version of
that talk.

My Lord Chairman:

Over the past year, the media, many figures in the political world and
ordinary people have expressed alarm over what appears to be an
unprecedented increase in violence in society. The fatal stabbing of the
headmaster, Philip Lawrence, by a 16-year-old boy using a combat
knife in November 1995, and the horrifying murder by shooting of 16
children and their teacher in Dunblane in March this year have led to
the Firearms (Amendment) Bill, currently before the House of
Commons, which proposes, among other measures, the outlawing of
all handguns of greater than .22 calibre (except for vets and some
private collectors), and a declaration by the Home Secretary, the Right
Honourable Michael Howard, MP, that he proposes to outlaw the sale
of combat knives as soon as a workable definition of them can be
finalised. The Advertising Standards Authority, in seeking to inform
itself as the facts regarding violence in society, has done me the
honour of inviting me to this conference to examine the fear of
violence, and society's reaction to that fear, from a libertarian point of
view. I have always considered that when a candidate for sainthood
within the Roman Catholic Church is proposed, the cardinal who takes
the role of Devil's Advocate has by far the most interesting job. In the
same way, while aware of the gravity of the issues, I take some
pleasure in taking an analogous position by advancing a view which is
certain to be at odds with the prevailing national mood. In view of the
widespread misinformation which is being disseminated on the subject
of violence and weapons, your Lordship's invitation offers me a
welcome opportunity to present some documented facts which are not
widely recognised.

FEAR OF VIOLENCE - A PERENNIAL CONCERN

In the aftermath of the riots of 1981, Professor Geoffrey Pearson,
currently professor of social work at Goldsmith's College, London,
investigated the belief expressed at that time that high levels of crime
and violence were a new phenomenon in British society, and that a
golden age in which the British people had lived free from the fear of
violence had existed at some unspecified date a few decades earlier.
Examining the historical record, Professor Pearson found that in the
1950s similar views had been expressed about the Teddy Boys, with
their gang fights, vandalism, rock-and-roll cinema riots, and attacks on
cafe owners. In 1961, T.R. Fyvel favourably compared "the law-
abiding England of pre-1940" with "the new type of violence" and
lamented that there was "something in the way of life, in the break-up
of traditional authority, in the values of the news in the headlines,
which encouraged widespread youthful cynicism in general and rather
violent delinquence in particular." (1)

Going back to "the law-abiding England of pre-1940", Pearson found
that concerns were loudly expressed about such phenomena as razor
gangs, race-course roughs, street robberies, motor bandits, football
violence, and such political conflicts as those between the British
Union of Fascists and their opponents, and between the police and the
unemployed. In 1931, for instance, 30 towns witnessed clashes
between the police and unemployed people demonstrating against dole
cuts. James Butterworth complained in 1932 that

"The passing of parental authority, defiance of pre-war conventions,
the absence of restraint, the wildness of extremes, the confusion of
unrelated liberties, the wholesale drift away from churches, are but a
few characteristics of after-war conditions."(2)

Yet the late Victorian and Edwardian period had witnessed complaints
about the original Hooligan gangs, with their distinctive dress, inter-
gang violence, wrecking of coffee-stalls and pubs, and attacks on old
ladies and policemen, as well as concerns about such phenomena as
the "football madness" and the "cyclist terror". Then, as now, what
we would today call "the media" was blamed for the supposedly new
spread of violence. In 1905, for instance, Charles Russell complained
that in the music halls, "horrible murders and terrible tragedies were
enacted before the footlights", leading to "so many instances of
violence on the part of young men, in the back streets of the city." (3)
Even worse was the influence of the cinema. In 1913, The Times
described how "Before these children's greedy eyes with heartless
indiscrimination horrors unimaginable are...presented night by
night...terrific massacres, horrible catastrophes, motor-car smashes,
public hangings, lynchings." Many young people, it was said,
"actually begin their downward course of crime by reason of the
burglary and pickpocket scenes they have witnessed." (4) Also in
1913, at a trial of a boy burglar, the learned judge described the
cinema as "a grave danger to the community" which was "responsible
for the downfall of many young people", and the prosecutor remarked
that "it was perhaps an example of retributive justice that one of
houses broken into belonged to a cinematograph proprietor". (5)
Again, this was considered to be a new departure. In 1899, The Times
complained that "The break-up or impairment of the old ideas of
discipline or order, and the life of the great cities create occasions for
some varieties of crime."(6) In 1896, William Tallack argued that
"Partly as a result of excessive leniency, there has been developed a
pestiferous class of young ruffians who have caused great suffering to
the respectable...to whom they have become a terror." This, he
claimed had occurred "during the last quarter of the Nineteenth
Century." (7)

But, as Pearson demonstrates, in the 1870s and 80s Punch complained
about attacks by "roughs" on the new London Underground, "brutal
assaults on elderly females" by "Burly Jack", "Bloodstained Bill",
"Smashjaw Ned", and other Victorian worthies, as well as fights
involving "the too free use of that popular institution the British boot"
(8) In 1883, amid concerns about the increased use of firearms by
burglars, the London police were armed for the first time. Government
papers justified this development on the grounds of "the constant
dangers" to which London was exposed, which "were never greater
than at the present time". (9)

The 1850s and 60s had seen fear of attacks by the "garrotting gangs",
one of whose members attacked the victim from behind and held him
by the neck while the garrotter's accomplices fleeced him of valuables.
According to Matthew Arnold, writing in 1869, "The outbreaks of
rowdyism tend to become less and less of trifles, to become more
frequent rather than less frequent". He complained about both the
"rough" of the East End slums and political violence over such issues
as the Irish question and the Reform Bill of 1867. Arnold complained
that the "playful giant" of the working class was asserting "his right to
march where he likes, meet where he likes, enter where he likes, hoot
as he likes, threaten as he likes, smash as he likes". He believed that
"For a long time...the strong feudal habits of subordination and
deference continued to tell upon the working class. The modern spirit
has now almost entirely dissolved those habits, and the anarchical
tendency of our worship of freedom in and for itself...is becoming
very manifest...All this, I say, tends to anarchy." (10) In 1862 The
Times complained that "Our streets are actually not as safe as they
were in the days of our grandfathers. We have slipped back to a state
of affairs which would be intolerable even in Naples." (11)

Before that, the 1830s and 1840s had experienced the violence of the
Rebecca Riots in rural Wales, and of the Chartist movement, which
culminated in unrest throughout the North and Midlands in 1842. In
1843, Lord Ashley, Earl of Salisbury, complained of "the fearful
multitude of untutored savages" and expressed the view that "the
morals of children are tenfold worse than formerly". (12) Once again,
the "media" of the day were blamed for this state of affairs: in 1849,
Thomas Beggs complained that the enactments of the outrages of
infamous highwaymen "inculcate the same lesson, exhibit to
admiration noted examples of successful crime" and "attract the
attention and ambition of these boys, and each one endeavours to
emulate the conduct of his favourite hero". (13) Also in 1849, the
Reverend Henry Worsley condemned "The numerous juvenile
offenders, whose precocity in wickedness is subject of grief and alarm
to every well-regulated mind...the overwhelming mass of vice and
crime, now deluging our land". (14) He complained that "Rather more
than fifty years ago, farmer and labourers might be said with some
truth to have formed...one united family". But "the associations of
rural life were interrupted" by the "money-making mania". He
continued, "Any candid judge will acknowledge the manifest
superiority of the past century; and in an investigation of the causes
which have conspired to produce such an unhappy increase of juvenile
crime, which is a blot upon the age, the altered relations of village life
cannot be overlooked". (15)

At the risk of becoming repetitive, let us follow Pearson's trail further
back into history. In a sermon of 1829, the Reverend Edward Irving, a
minister in the National Scotch Church, condemned "the amazing
increase of juvenile depredations and felonies" and invited his
congregation "to transport yourself a generation or two back" to "the
times which every Scotsman above thirty years of age
remembereth...when parents, being industrious and economical, would
pinch themselves to send their children all year round to the parish
school". (16) The 1810s witnessed the widespread violence of the
Luddite movement, in which rural textile workers in several counties
destroyed the new textile frames in the factories, requiring 12,000
troops to put down their rebellion, and culminated in the Peterloo
massacre of 1819, in which eleven people were killed and hundreds
injured when the cavalry of the Fifth Hussars and the yeomanry
violently dispersed a large crowd in Manchester. The first report of
the Society for Investigating the Causes of the Alarming Increase of
Juvenile Delinquency in the Metropolis, founded in 1815, berated the
deterioration of morals and the decline of parental responsibility.

And evidence from the "Merrie England" of the 18th century
demonstrates similar concerns. In 1776, Joseph Hanway remarked on
"the host of thieves which has of late years invaded us", as well as
"robbers...more numerous, more daring, more skilful in the pernicious
acts of plunder". He complained that it was "impossible to govern a
people without the exertion of parental authority" and "we have been,
for some time, in an undisciplined state". Once again, the influence of
the "media" was partly to blame: "And as to Newspapers, which let us
into scenes of villainy, they are hurtful." (17) In 1738, Daniel Defoe
complained of "a general corruption of manners throughout the
kingdom." (18) In his Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of
Robbers, published in 1751, Henry Fielding argued that "The vast
Torrent of luxury which of late Years hath poured itself into this
Nation, hath greatly contributed to produce among many others, the
Mischief I here complain of," and expressed nostalgia for the reign of
William the Conqueror (!), when "there was scarce a Robber to be
found in the Kingdom" (19).

PROBLEMS WITH CRIME STATISTICS

As to the question of whether, in fact, England immediately after the
Norman conquest was quite as robber-free as Fielding suggested, let us
do no more than quote Professor Jock Young, of Middlesex
University's Centre for Criminology, who says, "The homicide rate in
the Middle Ages was dreadful". (20) In short, Pearson has
convincingly demonstrated that complaining about the current amount
of violence in society, and comparing it unfavourably with the past, is
a venerable British tradition. Nevertheless, the measurement of the
actual level of violence at any given time is fraught with problems.
Criminal statistics are notoriously unreliable because of changes in
information technology, the efficiency of the police, the willingness of
people to report offences, changes to the law, and legal and
administrative procedures. It is often said that the crime figures tell us
more about the policies and priorities of the police than they do about
crime itself. The trebling of recorded rape cases between 1982 and
1992, for instance, is almost certainly due to the willingness of the
police to take complaints more seriously and to treat victims with more
consideration. When, for example, male homosexuality was
criminalised in 1885, and several categories of drugs were outlawed
earlier this century, whole categories of voluntary behaviour that had
previously been lawful were suddenly labelled as "crimes".

Crime statistics often reflect the "image" the police wish to convey.
Superintendent Malcolm Young recalls that when he was a CID cadet
in what is now the Northumbria Police in the 1950s, the police wanted
to give the impression that they had crime firmly under control, and
encouraged an under-recording of statistics. He recalls that he was left
to mind the front desk while the others "adjourned to the nearby pub".
His firm instructions were, "Remember, kid, nothing is stolen unless I
say...everything is 'lost', so send them all downstairs to lost and found
property."(21) Superintendent Young recalls that "Everything was
geared to suggest all was well with society, that disorder and calamity
were within acceptable levels, and the police were in command of the
small amount of 'real crime' that was abroad....Undetected crimes
could be classifiably reduced to offences when the occasion demanded
(e.g. arson to malicious damage), or be simply lost from the account
altogether." (22) By 1963, however, as police forces amalgamated and
more resources became available for them, Superintendent Young
recalls that "we began to record every 'crime' reported." One of his
colleagues, a detective sergeant, observed that "we're creating bloody
figures to prove we are busy and under pressure and give the
impression of escalating crime, so we can justify the bloody
amalgamations and all these computers and the technology needed to
contain the expansion of 'crime' that we have created in the first
place." (23) It was hardly surprising, therefore, that crime figures
rapidly escalated from the mid-1960s.

In the hope of gaining a clearer idea of the true state of crime, since
1982 the Home Office has used polling techniques to create the British
Crime Survey (BCS). The BCSes demonstrate that for those crime
categories that remained comparable across the decade, recorded crime
figures nearly doubled between 1981 and 1991, but the BCS suggests a
lower rise of about 50% (24). In surveying the BCS statistics, Keith
Bottomley and Clive Coleman found that "The rises in crimes of
violence and vandalism have been amplified by police statistics and
this is the main source of the higher overall increase in police figures
since 1981." (25) The BCS statistics themselves have been criticised
for underestimating the impact of crime on inner-city residents,
especially women and members of ethnic minorities. The 1982 BCS
demonstrated that the risk of experiencing robbery in England and
Wales was once every five centuries, an assault resulting in an injury
once every century, a burglary once every 50 years. (26) Although
these figures may seem encouragingly low, the figures have
considerably increased in more recent surveys, and the crimes they
describe are heavily concentrated in inner-city areas and on council
estates.

One might think that homicide statistics, at least, would be
unambiguous. But Sir Leon Radzinowicz and Joan King have
suggested that possibly as many as 90% of criminal homicides go
undiscovered. (27) Since 1967, each murder case has been tracked
through the courts and the figures pruned annually to cull out those the
courts found to be the result of accident, suicide, natural causes, self-
defence or when the defendant is convicted of a lesser offence, such as
manslaughter or causing grevious bodily harm with intent. Thus the
murder figures are "massaged down", by an average of 12% per year.

CRIME HAS INCREASED

Bearing in mind the above caveats about the sources, the best available
evidence indicates that crime figures have risen steadily since 1945,
although the rate of increase has now begun to slow down after a peak
in the early 1990s. In 1950, there were just over 1,000 crimes per
100,000 of the population; by 1975, the figure had quadrupled, and
now stands at more than 9,000 after topping 10,000 in 1991. In 1945
there were 492 homicides, rising to 745 in 1995. Robberies have risen
from 921 reported cases at the beginning of the century to 1033 in
1945 and 68,074 in 1995, a figure which doubled in a decade. (28)

Seventy percent of crime in Britain takes place in London. (29) In
1954, four armed robberies occurred in London; in 1994, an average
of four armed robberies in London occurred every single day. (30)
The murder rate in London is 2.3 per 100,000, considerably lower
than Berlin (3.9), Brussels (3.7), Lisbon (5.6), Amsterdam (8.4) or
Washington DC (70). (31) Nevertheless, the sharp comparison
between the low London figure and the rest reflects not only the
"massaging down" of homicide figures mentioned above, but also the
fact that in some Continental countries the homicide figure includes
attempted murder as well as murder, and in the United States all
prosecutions for murder are included in the figure, even where the
defendant is either acquitted or convicted of a lesser charge.

The national murder rate appears to have declined continuously from
the middle ages to 1900 before turning back up, with a notable rise
from the 1950s onwards. Some commentators initially attributed the
increase to more reporting, but, Professor Young says, "it went up so
much there is no doubt that it really did go up".(32)

In addition to the statistical evidence, it is worth noting that when one
discusses the issue with anyone old enough to remember the 1940s and
1950s, they virtually all recall that the level of crime, and particularly
violent crime, has dramatically increased since those days.
Experienced police officers, too, note that not only has the level of
crime increased, but that criminals are far more ready to use violence
against both victims and police officers, often without financial motive.
A significant piece of evidence is also given in a reader's letter to the
Independent:

"until about 1957, British motorcycles - then as now a popular item
among the less prosperous sectors of society - were fitted with no
locks or keys of any kind. There were no steering locks and it was
technically not possible to fit an ignition lock with the electrical
systems mostly used at the time.

"I had a Triumph 500cc bike around 1957-58. It had no locks and I
never had a chain and padlock (and never knew anyone who had). Yet
this bike remained parked every night outside my house [in London].
The bike was never stolen and I was never worried that it might be."
(33)

VOLITIONAL NATURE OF CRIME

A detailed examination of the causes of the increase in crime and
violence is outside the brief that your Lordship has been pleased to
give me. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that recent decades have seen
the development of an "underclass", characterised by dependency on
the welfare state and, in many cases, habits of criminality which are
passed down from one generation to another. According to the
prominent libertarian Chris R. Tame:

"The effect of indiscriminate welfare provision on a small but
significant group in the 'working class', is to elicit a quite rational
response from individuals who already share a 'high time preference'
(or unwillingness to defer gratification) and value system best
characterized as a 'culture of poverty'. A moral ethos of
irresponsibility, passivity, family breakdown, and crime is nurtured
and subsidized. When combined with a reduced risk of arrest and
punishment the effects are exactly what we observe in Britain and
America, and anywhere else such policies are adopted.

"Ironically, it is the 'honest poor' and the working classes who are the
first and worst victims of pauperization, which, in the words of
Charles Murray, represents 'an extraordinary range of transfers from
the most capable poor to the least capable, from the most law-abiding
to the least law-abiding, and from the most respectable to the least
respectable'". (34)

And the sociologist Dr Christie Davies goes so far as to argue that:

"The decline of Respectable Britain, the eclipse of the era of the law-
abiding British, can ultimately be traced to the ever-increasing
bureaucratic centralization of British society in the twentieth century
and the linked, but independent, rise of a corrosive ethic of socialist
egalitarianism. Both these changes undermined the moral fabric of
Respectable Britain and eroded its central belief in individual personal
responsibility." (35)

The assumption that the criminal is not responsible for his actions has
perverted the legal system, according to the American scholar Robert
James Bidinotto:

"The issue of free will versus determinism is the key to resolving any
argument about the causes and cures of crime....By not taking into
account the free will of the criminal, it's ignoring the very factor
which is decisive to his criminality: his responsibility for his actions.
Instead, it has shaped the institutions of law to excuse him from
justice." (36)

The same point was emphasised by Stanton Samenow, an American
psychologist who worked for several decades with prisoners and
became a reluctant convert to the view that the individual criminal is,
in fact, responsible for his actions:

"criminals choose to commit crimes. Crime resides within the person
and is 'caused' by the way he thinks, not by his environment.
Criminals think differently from responsible people. From regarding
criminals as victims we saw instead that they were victimizers who had
freely chosen their way of life...Criminals cause crime - not bad
neighbourhoods, inadequate parents, television, schools, drugs, or
unemployment. Crime resides within the minds of human beings and is
not caused by social conditions." (37)

BLAMING THE OBJECT - AND THE VICTIM

Such insights appear to have largely eluded both official thinking and
most of the media in the United Kingdom. Instead of the careful and
systematic investigation into the causes of violence which the
circumstances demand, attention instead focuses on the supposed evil
of inanimate objects: weapons themselves. The question of volition and
motive is entirely ignored, and any person carrying an object which
might conceivably be used for self-defence purposes is treated by the
law as if they were carrying it for the purpose of initiating aggression
against another person, as the following examples demonstrate:

* In 1981, when Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper" was carrying
out his murders, a 27-year-old woman who was found with a small
clasp knife in her handbag, with the purpose of defending herself
against possible attack by the Ripper, was convicted and fined for
carrying an offensive weapon. (38)

* In 1987, Eric Butler, aged 56, who was carrying a Royal National
Lifeboat Institute collection tin, was attacked on the London
Underground by two men who were, according to a witness,
"strangling him and smashing his head against the door; his face was
red and his eyes were popping out". No other passenger came to his
help. Mr Butler recalled that, "My air supply was being cut off, my
eyes became blurred and I feared for my life." Fortunately for Mr
Butler, he was carrying a swordstick, a three-foot blade concealed
within a walking stick, which he unsheathed. "I lunged at the man
wildly with my swordstick. I resorted to it as my last means of
defence." (39) He stabbed an attacker in the stomach, wounding him,
and escaped at the next station. The attackers were charged with
unlawful wounding, while Mr Butler was convicted of carrying an
offensive weapon, for which he received a suspended prison sentence.
Shortly afterwards, the government banned the sale of martial arts
weapons, the carrying of knives or sharp objects in public, and the
sale and ownership of swordsticks.

*In 1991, an American woman tourist was attacked by two men on the
London Underground and used a penknife to defend herself against
them. She was given a suspended prison sentence. The court ruled that
the possession of the penknife was not illegal, but the intent to use it
for self-defence created an illegal "possession of an offensive weapon"
(40)

* In 1996, a workman whose job required him to use knives for the
purpose of cutting the straps of newspaper bundles was found by the
police with three such knives in his car. He received a month's prison
sentence under the Offensive Weapons Act 1996. The magistrate,
David Kennet-Brown, said, "There is no evidence before me that you
were intending to use the knives for offensive purposes. Nevertheless,
three knives were found in your possession, and I consider the only
proper penalty is one depriving you of your liberty." (41)

*Also in 1996, a 67-year-old man was attacked in his home near Loch
Lomond by two thugs who threw stones at him and repeatedly
threatened him. After the police failed to respond to two telephone
calls, the pensioner shot at and slightly injured the two youths with an
air gun. He was given a sentence of two years' imprisonment. (42)

The well-known French expression Cet animal est tres dangereux;
quand on l'attaque, il se defende is, of course, meant to be ironical;
yet it is an exact and literal description of current legal practice in
Britain. It is worth pointing out that this practice, as far as I am
aware, is not only unique to the UK, but is also of fairly recent origin.
I have discussed this question with Americans and French people, who
have informed me that in the United States and France, at least, the
law generally protects the individual who uses a weapon in self-
defence in situations similar to the cases mentioned above. Indeed, in
France, such self-defence items such as Mace and CS gas cans, kung
fu weapons, electrical stun guns, pepper sprays and flick-knives - all
prohibited in the UK - are freely sold to the public without any
requirement for a licence. (I have personally seen British visitors at the
two weapons shops on the Rue de Lafayette in Calais purchasing these
items, which one presumes they discard before returning home.) In the
UK, by contrast, every criminal knows that the law-abiding citizen
will be penalised for taking any measures for his or her self-defence. It
is difficult to imagine any greater encouragement to violent crime, or
any greater possible violation of the fundamental rights of the
individual, than the current state of British law on this subject.

FIREARMS - ANSWERING THE INDEPENDENT

"'Listen, Bob. A gun is just a tool. No better and no worse than any
other tool, a shovel - or an axe or a saddle or a stove or anything.
Think of it always that way. A gun is as good - and as bad - as the
man who carries it. Remember that.'" (43)

These lines are taken from Jack Schaefer's Western novel Shane, in
which the title character is teaching the narrator, a young boy called
Bob, how to shoot a revolver. I make no apology for citing a popular
novel to make this point: "low-brow" fiction often contains more
profound philosophical truths than much of contemporary "serious"
literature. This philosophical truth has, unfortunately, been almost
completely lost sight of in the hysteria over the private ownership of
firearms which has occurred in the months since the Dunblane
massacre. The Firearms (Amendment) Bill which the government has
recently published will, if it becomes law, prohibit (with a few
exceptions for certain professions) the private ownership of all
handguns of greater than .22 calibre. Both the Labour opposition and
the Liberal Democratic Party wish to go further than this and to
outlaw even .22 calibre pistols. Unfortunately, much of the press has
been propagating the most outrageous falsehoods relating to the private
ownership of firearms. While no-one could reasonably expect veracity
or fairness from such publications as the Sun, the Daily Star, the Daily
Mirror and the Daily Mail, or such eminent parliamentarians as the
Right Honourable David Mellor, MP, it is a matter of concern that
even supposedly responsible and informed newspapers such as the
Independent and the Sunday Times have joined in the hysteria which
has reduced law-abiding private firearms owners to a status similar to
that which devil-worshippers and practitioners of black magic enjoyed
in the 16th and 17th centuries. (Perhaps I ought to make clear that I
am neither a firearms owner nor a member of any shooting
organisation, and my only first-hand experience with firearms was in
shooting .303 and .22 rifles many years ago as a Royal Air Force
cadet.)

First, let us put the problem of firearms violence into perspective. The
horror of Dunblane has obscured the fact that death by shooting is
extremely rare in this country. In England and Wales, far more people
die through choking on their food (398 a year) or falling on the stairs
at home (531 a year) than through shooting (156 suicides, 72
homicides and 17 accidents a year, a total of 245 deaths by shooting).
(44) Much of the press, and many politicians, have created the
impression of an epidemic of gun violence for which legal firearms
owners are somehow responsible. As an example of this propaganda,
and as a means of introducing the subject, let us quote extensively
from a recent leader on the subject in the Independent:

"Death in Dunblane created an emergency that only a complete ban on
the private ownership of handguns can begin to dissipate. The ban on
private holding of handguns should be complete and exceptionless...A
complete ban would be a drastic extension of state power into private
liberty - that is true. But there is no shortage of historical precedent
for democratic governments responding to threat by far-reaching
legislation, increasing surveillance and inspection deep in society's
innards....The first Defence of the Realm Act was passed by a Liberal
government convinced - in the context of the Great War - its extension
of government's sphere was justified by the emergency....Banning
private ownership of lethal weaponry should be aimed at restoring a
status quo in which a less twitchy and frightened society has less need
of that apparatus of state power symbolised by the armed police
officer. [?] Fewer guns would mean less government [sic]....Just as
there is no logic of history pushing the boundaries of the state ever
forward (something the hysterics of the new right like to frighten
themselves with), so there is no grand logic driving violent crime
upwards....[S]ince the 17th century government has had a pretty
effective monopoly on firepower: when Georgians or Victorians rioted
they threw stones because all the muskets were secure inside army
barracks. By the 20th century that tradition had bedded down into a
widespread popular revulsion at the ownership and handling of
destructive weapons. Guns are unBritish. That sentiment is, of course,
flawed: there are large number of illegally held weapons. And the
tradition is threatened, by boundaries open to trade with countries with
laxer rules. But being anti-gun remains part of this country's social
ecology. This is a moment to affirm that aspiration of civic peace.

"There are, yes, important points to consider when it comes to
proscription - arguments that even the tears of grieving parents cannot
dissolve. One of the strongest is John Stuart Mill's plea for liberty:
action should remain free up to the point where it harms others. On
that basis, the Government might seek to rest its case for allowing
guns to be stored at clubs where, in privacy, shooting and the handling
of guns ought to threaten no one but their owners. But whatever merit
it has in theory, it fails the test of practice. How secure will those
armouries be? How are the weapons to transported for competitive
shooting? A blanket ban is simpler to administer, and is therefore
certain to be more effective [sic].

"What is lost thereby? The pleasure of a handful of enthusiasts
only....The loss of British participation at the Olympics in pistol
shooting is hardly going to dent the national medals tally.

"And what is gained? To ban handguns is to show, for once, that this
country's Parliament is not entirely the creature of special interests and
paid persuaders....If ever an event proved the shallow self-regard of
that Eighties formulation "there is no such thing as society", it was the
human response to the death of those children and their teacher in
Dunblane....There are those who continue to resist a blanket ban on
handguns, sincerely worried by nanny having to take things away in
case we are tempted to misuse them. They fear this means
infantilisation. Let them stand a moment alongside those parents in
Snowdrop and observe their calm and adult demeanour. The parents'
arguments have won not only because they are right, but because in
their capacity to translate their grief into practical democratic reform,
they represent recuperative human spirit at its awesome and inspiring
best." (45)

As is usually the case, the degree of self-righteousness in newspaper
editorials is in inverse proportion to the amount of truth.

In order to set the record straight, let us, as succinctly as possible,
survey something of the history of firearms ownership and legislation
in Britain, and the current situation as regards them in this country.

>From Anglo-Saxon times, and continuing after the Norman conquest,
the right of the individual to own weapons existed separately from the
civic duty to bear arms for law enforcement purposes. In an era before
the development of professional police forces, all adult males in the
community were considered to be responsible for apprehending
criminals. The Assize of Arms (1181) and the Statute of Winchester
(1285) laid down the categories of weapon which men of each class
were obliged to hold in order to discharge this responsibility. It was
several centuries before firearms became effective weapons, but the
right of the individual to own them became firmly entrenched in the
British constitution. The Roman Catholic king, James II, had attempted
to disarm Protestants, and when William of Orange became king,
Parliament presented him with the Bill of Rights (1688), which
asserted "that the subjects which are protestants may have arms for
their defence, suitable to their condition and as allowed by law". (46)
The Bill of Rights was not intended to disarm Roman Catholics, but to
restore to Protestants the legal right which they had hitherto enjoyed.
King Billy, as he is affectionately known by those who value the
heritage of liberty, accepted the Bill of Rights, which became part of
the law of the land. In 1765, Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries
on the Laws of England, the definitive statement of the common law at
that time, asserted that "The fifth and last auxiliary right of the
subject, that I shall mention at present, is that of having arms for their
defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are
allowed by law....[T]o vindicate these rights, when actually violated
and attacked, the subjects of England are entitled...to the right of
having and using arms for self preservation and defence." (47)

The right to possess arms was, in short, firmly entrenched in English
law. The situation in Scotland was somewhat different. After the
defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden in 1746, one of the
punitive measures directed against the Scottish Highlanders was the
prohibition of the possession of weapons of war, with the bagpipes
included on the list of banned weapons. Unfortunately, I have been
unable to discover any study of firearms law in Scotland, and I
apologise to readers north of the border for discussing these issues
largely in terms of the situation in England and Wales, which is well
documented.

The right of the individual to possess arms was actively - and
successfully - defended by members of Parliament throughout the 19th
century. The Seizure of Arms Act 1820 empowered justices of the
peace to issue warrants for the seizure of arms in the three cities and
eleven counties which had experienced industrial unrest in the 1810s,
and expired after two years. In the Parliamentary debate, T.W. Anson,
MP, said of the Bill: "The principles on which it is founded and the
temper in which it is framed appear to me to be...at variance with the
free spirit of our venerated constitution and...contrary to the
undoubted right which the subjects of the country have ever possessed -
the right of retaining arms for the defence of themselves, their
families and properties." (48) George Bennett, MP, said that the
difference between a free man and a slave was the right to possess
arms, for the purpose of defending both his property and his liberty.
(49) In reply, George Canning, MP, a senior government minister,
accepted "the right of the subject to hold arms....The doctrine so laid
down...is no other than the doctrine of the British Constitution. The
Bill of Rights, correctly quoted and properly construed, brings me to
the construction of the Bill which, in fact, recognises the right of the
subject to have arms, but qualifies that right in such a manner as the
necessity of the case requires." (50)

The Gun Licences Act 1870, which required individuals carrying or
using a firearm outside a dwelling-house to obtain a ten-shilling licence
from the post office, was purely a revenue-raising measure. Even so,
P.A. Taylor, MP, condemned it as "an attempt to bring our laws and
customs into harmony with those of the most despotic Continental
Governments - it is an attempt to disarm the people!" (51) Several
Bills aimed at licensing or restricting the ownership of pistols were
defeated in the Commons. Charles Hopwood, MP, said of the Pistols
Bill of 1893, "It attacked the natural right of everyone who desired to
arm himself for his own protection, and not harm anyone else". The
Bill was defeated in the Commons. "Why should Englishmen not arm
themselves? It was natural and parliament ought not to interfere with
such a right." (52) In 1895 another Pistols Bill was introduced, aiming
at restricting ownership of these items. Mr Hopwood said of the 1895
Bill, "To say that because there were some persons who would make
violent use of pistols, therefore the right of purchase or possession by
every Englishman should be taken away, is monstrous." (53) The Bill
was defeated by 189 votes to 75, and the right of British subjects to
own firearms was thus effectively reaffirmed by Parliament.

In his Cambridge University study of firearms controls in England and
Wales, Colin Greenwood, formerly a superintendent and firearms
specialist with the West Yorkshire Constabulary, author of Police
Firearms Training and Police Tactics in Armed Operations, and now
editor of Guns Review, summarised the legal situation in 1900 as
follows:

"England entered the twentieth century with no controls over the
purchasing or keeping of any type of firearm, and the only measure
which related to the carrying of guns was the Gun Licence Act,
requiring the purchase of a ten shilling gun licence from a Post Office.
Anyone, be he convicted criminal, lunatic, drunkard or child, could
legally acquire any type of firearm and the presence of pistols and
revolvers in households all over the country was fairly
widespread....England at that time was a country where guns of every
type were familiar instruments and where anyone who felt the need or
desire to own a gun could obtain one. The cheaper guns were very
cheap and well within the reach of all but the very poor....The right of
the Englishman to keep arms for his own defence was still completely
accepted and all attempts at placing this under restraint had failed."
(54)

Indeed, the upper classes at that time were actively encouraging the
common people to own, and become proficient in the use of, firearms.
>From 1859 to 1918, the government kept a quarter of a million Rifle
Volunteers under arms. In 1900, the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury,
said that he would "laud the day when there was a rifle in every
cottage in England". (55) In the same year, the Lord Mayor of London
hosted a meeting attended by the Duke of Westminster, the Duke of
Norfolk, Lord Roberts (commander-in-chief of the Army) , the
Archbishop of York, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool and others for the
purpose of founding a "Society of Working Men's Rifle Clubs for
facilitating rifle shooting, more especially in the evening, with small
bore rifles and inexpensive ammunition, as an ordinary branch of
recreation by working men's and working boys' clubs and
institutions." (56) According to The Times, "the scheme would be a
cooperative one, that is the gentlemen of the country would contribute
to the funds, whilst the working men would be expected to join the
clubs and make themselves efficient in the matter of rifle shooting."
(57)

"GUN CULTURE" IN EDWARDIAN BRITAIN

The Pistols Act 1903 placed handguns under the control of statutory
legislation for the first time. Essentially, it prohibited the sale of
pistols to persons under the age of 18, or who were intoxicated or of
unsound mind. It required retailers to sell pistols only to a person
holding a gun licence under the 1870 Act, or to a householder seeking
to use the pistol in his own home, or to a person about to go abroad
for at least six months. Retailers were also required to keep records of
pistols sold, and show these records to a police or revenue officer on
demand. This had little effect on retail sales to adults, and sales or
gifts between private individuals, as well as sales of rifles, shotguns
and even machine-guns were still completely unregulated.

The extent of private firearms ownership in Edwardian Britain was
demonstrated during the "Tottenham outrage" of 1909, in which two
Russian terrorists attempted a wages robbery, shot dead a policeman
and a 10-year-old boy, and were pursued by the police, who borrowed
at least four pistols from passers-by, and armed citizens who joined in
the chase with their own firearms. (One robber shot himself, the other
hid in a cottage where he either shot himself or was killed by the
police as they fired "blind" into the cottage.) (58) Neither was the
ownership and carrying of firearms by any means a male preserve.
Dorothy Levitt, Britain's first woman racing driver, won the majority
of races she entered, for example beating 60 male drivers at Le Mans
in 1903. In 1909, in her book The Woman and the Car, she advised
lone women motorists to carry a revolver with them. "I myself carry
an automatic Colt," she wrote. (59) Manifestations of "road rage" with
this Edwardian lady would definitely not have been advised, I suggest.
Firearms manufacturers proudly advertised their products in
publications of all kinds. In 1907, for example, Webley & Scott, of
Birmingham, wrote next to an illustration of their new .32 calibre
automatic pistol:

"Greater Simplicity of Construction, Increased Strength
of Mechanism, Reduction in Weight and Bulk, the result being that
the Webley automatic pistols are the lightest, simplest and most
perfect pocket weapons." (60)

I leave it to the members of the ASA's committee to guess how many
complaints that advertisement would bring in if it appeared in the
Britain of 1996.

THE WATERSHED: THE FIREARMS ACT 1920

The unlawful use of firearms was extraordinarily low in this virtually
unrestricted era. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner reported that
during the three years 1911-13, there had been an average of 41 cases
per year in which firearms had been used in crime or found in the
possession of individuals whom the police had arrested. For the years
1915-17, when of course a large proportion of young men were in the
the armed forces, the average annual figure had fallen to 15.6 cases
(61). This should be compared with over 1600 armed robberies in
London alone in 1991, under the strictest firearms control in the
Western world. (62) In 1904, firearms figured in 15 murders; for the
years 1988-92 the average number of firearms homicides was 48. (63)
Superintendent Greenwood concluded that

"the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no
controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic,
could buy any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of
strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use
of this class of weapon in crime than ever before. We do not know
how much worse this would have been if there had been no controls,
but it is possible to get some indication by looking at the position in
relation to shotguns. Despite the fact that they were unrestricted until
1968, shotguns were used in only a relatively low proportion of
robberies in the periods immediately before and after the imposition of
controls." (64)

During the first world war, the Defence of the Realm Act regulations
imposed some restrictions on the sale of firearms, primarily in Ireland,
although they in no way affected the firearms already in circulation in
England and Wales. In 1918, at a time of fears about both Bolshevism
and the civil war in Ireland, the Sub-committee on Arms Traffic,
under Sir Ernley Blackwell, expressed concern about the problem of
vast quantities of surplus weapons appearing on the market as the war
ended. Nevertheless, the government had no intention at this time of
disarming responsible British subjects. Indeed, after the Armistice of
1918, the government disposed of its vast stockpiles of captured
German weapons by giving them away to individuals who had
contributed to the war savings scheme. These who had given a small
amount received a captured rifle each, those who had given larger
amounts received a machine-gun, and those who had given particularly
large donations were given a piece of German field artillery each!
Neither did the government disable these weapons before distributing
them. (65)

In 1919-20 the Cabinet believed that a Bolshevik uprising, backed by
Soviet Russia, was imminent in Britain. Sir Eric Geddes, Minister of
Transport, feared "a revolutionary outbreak in Glasgow, Liverpool or
London in the early spring [of 1920], when a definite attempt may be
made to seize the reins of Government...It is not inconceivable that a
dramatic and successful coup d'etat in some large centre of population
might win the support of the unthinking mass of labour." (66)
Nevertheless, these fears were concealed from both the public and
Parliament. In introducing the Firearms Bill in 1920, which was voted
into law, the Home Secretary, Edward Shortt, misled the House by
claiming that it was

"designed to maintain greater control so that, as far as possible,
criminals or weak minded persons and those who should not have
firearms may be prevented from having these dangerous and lethal
firearms. As far as possible, we have provided that legitimate sport
should not be in any way hampered, and so that any person who has
good reason for possessing firearms, or to whom there is no objection,
may be entitled to have them; but we hope, by means of this bill, to
prevent criminals and persons of that description from being able to
have revolvers and to use them." (67)

Opposing the bill in the Commons, Mr Kiley said that "While it
achieves no useful purpose, so far as I can see, it does interfere with
legitimate traders. So far as burglars are concerned it will have no
effect." (68) Lieutenant-Commander Kenworthy opposed the Bill on
constitutional grounds, arguing that there was

"a much greater principle involved than the mere prevention of
discharged prisoners having weapons. In the past one of the most
jealously guarded rights of the English was that of carrying arms. For
long our people fought with great tenacity for the right of carrying the
weapon of the day, the sword, and it was only in recent times that it
was given up. It has been a well known object of the Central
Government of this Country to deprive the people of their weapons."
(69)

Commander Kenworthy continued, "The very foundation of the liberty
of the subject in this country is that he can, if driven to do so, resist.
You can only govern with the consent of the people". (70)

(Whether or not one accepts the commander's views on this subject, it
is surely fair to say that the House of Commons doesn't produce
members like that anymore.)

Despite opposition on both constitutional and practical grounds, the
Firearms Act 1920 became law on 1st November of that year. For the
first time, the private ownership and sale of all firearms to adults was
systematically regulated throughout the nation. Nevertheless, the
government made no claim - and indeed no court has ever found - that
the right to own firearms had been removed or reduced by the Act.
The 1920 Act required every person who already possessed, or wanted
to purchase, a firearm, to obtain a firearms certificate, valid for three
years and renewable, from the local chief officer of police, who was to
grant the certificate if he was satisfied that the applicant had a "good
reason" for owning the weapon. The chief officer was to deny a
certificate to anyone whom he considered unfit to be entrusted with a
firearm, but the unsuccessful applicant had the right of appeal in the
courts against such a refusal. Firearms dealers were also required to be
registered with the chief officer of police. It was made illegal to
supply a firearm to persons under 14, drunk, of unsound mind or with
certain criminal convictions. The Act introduced the concept of
"prohibited weapons", applying originally to weapons "for the
discharge of any noxious liquid, gas or other thing" (71), which could
only be made, sold or owned with the authority of the Admiralty,
Army Council or Air Council. Shotguns were not affected by the Act
in any way, and could be legally sold, bought and owned without any
restriction until 1968. (In British usage, a shotgun is not classified as a
firearm.)

Even under the 1920 Act, and in the 1937 Home Office Memorandum
of Guidance on the Implementation of the Firearms Act, personal
protection was recognised as a "good reason" for the issuance of a
firearms certificate.(72) Only in 1946 did the Home Secretary, Chuter
Ede, declare that "I would not regard the plea that a revolver is
wanted for the protection of an applicant's person or property as
necessarily justifying the issue of a firearms certificate." (73) By the
1962 edition of the Home Office Memorandum of Guidance, self-
defence was no longer listed as a good reason for owning a firearm.

The implementation of the 1920 Act caused widespread resentment. A
large proportion of firearms owners did not approach the police for a
certificate, and kept their unlicensed weapons in breach of the law. As
early as December 1920, the Reverend Henry Evans, vicar of Tonge,
successfully appealed in court against the refusal of the local chief
constable to grant him a certificate for his Winchester rifle. In filling
in the application form, Mr Evans had written that his reason for
requiring a certificate was so as to comply with the law. The chief
constable refused to accept this, and Mr Evans refused to fill in
another form, noting that there was no requirement in law for him to
have filled out the first one. The court found in Mr Evans's favour. A
Home Office internal note complained that "The police chose a case in
which they were very likely to lose, and covered by H.O. instructions
to issue certificates freely to reputable persons already in possession."
(74) The Home Secretary brought the constabularies' attention to "the
following observations, which may assist Chief Constables in
enforcing the Act without unnecessary interference with persons who
were properly in possession of firearms at the time of the passing of
the Act, and are not likely to abuse permission to retain them." (75)

WILL THE REAL ROY JENKINS PLEASE STAND UP?

Since the 1920 Act, firearms controls have become ever stricter, and
since the 1960s Britain has had by far the strictest gun control in the
Western world. The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1936, for instance,
classified machine guns and sub-machine guns as "prohibited
weapons", and required a firearms certificate for the more powerful
shotguns. Firearms laws have typically been ill-informed and badly
thought out, and often introduced more as a response to a short-term
political situation than through any careful analysis of the facts. I will
avoid a detailed history of firearms controls since the 1920 Act, and
refer the interested reader to the works by Greenwood, Kopel and
Munday and Stevenson in the bibliography. Let us just look at one
example: the way in which shotguns were subjected to a certificate
system.

In 1965, capital punishment for murder was abolished, against the
wishes of the majority of voters, much of the press and many MPs. At
that time, the general consensus was that the misuse of guns was quite
simply not a significant problem in Britain. In 1966, the Metropolitan
Police Commissioner stated "with some confidence" that the objective
of eliminating "the improper and careless custody and use of
firearms...and making it difficult for criminals to obtain them...are
effectively achieved." (76) On 23rd June 1966 the Home Secretary,
Roy Jenkins, told Parliament that after consulting with the chief
constables and the Home Office, and carefully considering the matter,
he had concluded that bringing shotguns, which could at that time be
freely bought without a licence, under a certificate system was not
worth the trouble: "I must pay some regard to the burden of inspection
which would be put on the police. The police do not consider that it
would be right to make an extension at the present time." (77)

On 12th August 1966, a criminal gang at Shepherd's Bush, in London,
murdered three policemen with illegally-owned handguns, leading to a
public clamour for the restoration of capital punishment for murder.
Mr Jenkins was a determined abolitionist, and rather than bow to this
pressure by restoring the rope, on 12th September he announced that
he was "Endeavouring to draw up plans to end the unrestricted
purchase of shotguns. They can be purchased far too easily, by mail
order or other means, and there is evidence that the criminal use of
shotguns is increasing rapidly, still more rapidly than that of other
weapons." He continued, "He realised that his plans to end the
unrestricted purchase of shotguns would be bound to involve a little
inconvenience for some legitimate users and suppliers. With crime
offering its present challenge, this would be a small sacrifice which it
might not be unreasonable to demand." (78)

Mr Jenkins therefore included as Part V of the Criminal Justice Act
1967, which was a major overhaul of the criminal legal system, the
requirement for a shotgun certificate before a shotgun could be owned
or purchased. In the Lords discussion of the bill, Lord Mansfield
described the first parts of the bill as the "Criminal Justice
(Encouragement of Evildoers) Bill" and Part V as the "Criminal
Injustice (Harassment of Citizens) Bill". Lord Mansfield said that "this
Part of the Bill, however well intentioned, is not going to do one iota
of good as far as prevention of crime is concerned...[it] is so bad that
it cannot be amended and I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will
throw it out in toto." (79)

Nevertheless, the bill became law. In 1992, Chief Inspector Brian
Waldron, former chief firearms instructor for the Metropolitan Police
and co-author of London's Armed Police, commented, "I don't think
anybody has suggested that the controls that were imposed on shotguns
were actually designed to curtail criminal use." (80) How the Home
Secretary could on 23rd June 1966 have rejected the imposition of
shotgun controls as a waste of police resources and an irrelevance in
the control of crime, while on 12th September 1966 the same Home
Secretary could propose the certification of every shotgun in the land
as a response to "crime offering its present challenge" is indeed a
mystery on which, with the greatest respect to your Lordship, perhaps
those with the good fortune to be privy to the thinking of the present
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead can shed some light. Another mystery is how
the control of legally-owned shotguns could be have been expected to
have any effect whatever on the criminal use of illegally-held
handguns.

The Shepherd's Bush massacre also seems to have been a watershed in
the attitude of chief officers of police towards private ownership of
guns. Before the late 1960s, while the police had always enforced
firearms legislation to the letter of the law, in general they had done so
with the common sense, restraint, good humour and trust of law-
abiding individuals that have traditionally characterised the esprit de
corp of British police forces, and are so singularly lacking in the law
enforcement practices of most other countries. The police had not
generally considered the private ownership of firearms by law-abiding
certificate holders to be objectionable in itself. From the late 1960s,
that attitude changed, and chief officers of police started to use their
discretionary powers to actively discourage firearms ownership. A
chief constable's report for 1969 stated that "certificates are only
issued or renewed in those cases where the applicants have a very real
need to possess firearms....[T]he continuing upsurge in the use of
firearms for criminal purposes makes it essential to apply a very
stringent policy". (81) Another chief constable's report for the same
year stated that, "Every application for the grant or renewal of a
firearm certificate is scrutinised most carefully as I am anxious that the
number of firearms in possession of members of the public should be
kept to a minimum." (82)

The assumption among chief officers of police was clearly that the
more rigid the control over legal firearms, the less they would figure
in armed crime. In his classic study published in 1972, Superintendent
Greenwood subjected this assumption to an exceptionally thorough and
authoritative investigation. He concluded

"that legislation has failed to bring under control substantial numbers
of firearms, and it certainly cannot be claimed that strict controls have
reduced the use of firearms in crime. On the basis of these facts it
might be argued that firearms controls have had little effect and do not
justify the amount of police time involved. Indeed, it is possible to
build up a sound case for abolishing or substantially reducing
controls....It might be claimed that a tradition of restricted ownership
of firearms has been built up, and that controls have helped to
establish a state of public opinion in which firearms are regarded as
potentially dangerous items which should be restricted as far as
possible to responsible people....The system of registering all firearms
to which Section 1 applies as well as licensing the individual takes up
a large part of the police time involved and causes a great deal of
trouble and inconvenience. The voluminous records so produced
appear to serve no useful purpose. In none of the cases examined in
this study was the existence of these records of any assistance in
detecting a crime and no one questioned during the course of this
study could offer any evidence to establish the value of the system of
registering weapons.....In the light of these facts, it should surely be
for the proponents of the system of registration to establish its value. If
they fail to do so, the system should be abandoned....It is evident that
the firearms at present in the hands of legitimate users who hold
certificates present virtually no problem to the community. The strict
policies which have been applied since 1967...have not affected the
numbers of illegal weapons in circulation....The policies may, indeed,
have been counter-productive. Having regard to the large numbers of
illegal weapons in circulation, otherwise respectable persons denied a
firearm certificate might well be tempted to obtain a weapon illegally
and thus support the black market....To continue with the process of
attempting to deal with the criminal use of firearms by placing more
restrictions on legitimate users is not likely to achieve
anything....Whilst this mistaken belief persists, the real problem will
not receive the attention and action which it clearly and urgently
requires." (83)

These conclusions appear to have been completely ignored by chief
officers of police. Indeed, throughout the 1970s, their hostility to the
lawful private ownership of firearms increased. By 1982, the Police
Review could state quite frankly that:

"There is an easily identifiable police attitude towards the possession
of guns by members of the public. Every possible difficulty should be
put in their way. No documentation can be too rigid, no security
requirement too arbitrary, which prevents guns coming into the hands
of criminals." (84)

Some chief officers of police impose such conditions as the purchase
of expensive electronic security systems and safes before they will
grant or renew a firearms or shotgun certificate. The practice that
police officers may inspect a private home without a warrant has been
established de facto by the "safe keeping" provisions of the gun laws.
In many jurisdictions the police insist on the power to enter a gun
owner's home without a search warrant in order to check on the
owner's security provisions as a condition for granting or renewing a
certificate. If the gun owner refuses to admit the police on these visits,
his certificate will be revoked. Police officers often stop individuals
who are shooting on private land and demand written proof that they
have the owner's permission to shoot there, threatening to confiscate
the shooter's guns if he cannot produce such proof. The police often
refuse applications for new collections of firearms outright. Licensing
fees have been increased far above the costs of administering the
system, and used as a mechanism to discourage gun ownership. (85)
One chief constable's report for 1969 actually boasted that:

"Comparison with 1968 shows a marked decrease in the number of
firearm certificates held, granted and renewed in 1969 and a decrease
in the number of certificates of registration of firearms dealers. It is
considered that the increase in fees operative from 1st January 1969,
an increase in fact of 400%, and the tighter control on the grant and
renewal of firearms certificates have been the major factors in this
trend." (86)

Inevitably these dramatic increases in fees tend to make shooting
increasingly unavailable to the less prosperous members of society.

As a result, the number of firearms certificates in England and Wales
fell from 216,281 in 1968 to 159,804 in 1983, a reduction of 26%.
Since 1989, the number of certificate holders has fallen by a further
20%. (87) In 1988 the Essex police prosecuted a sailing club for not
having a licence for the 50-pound blackpowder cannon used to start
their races. (88) In 1989 Robert Manning was lawfully shooting
pigeons with a licensed shotgun in a field outside Coventry where he
had the owner's prior permission to shoot. A police helicopter
appeared above, he put his gun down, and the police told him to walk
to a clearing, remove his jacket and shirt and turn around. He did this,
and found himself facing some 20 policemen with dogs and two with
Armalite rifles. One officer told him to march towards them and lie
down, whereupon they handcuffed him, removed his boots, and took
him in the helicopter to a police cell, despite his explanation of the
facts. He was then held for several hours until the police succeeded in
contacting by telephone the farmer who owned the field, who
confirmed that he had given Mr Manning permission to shoot there.
The police then allowed Mr Manning to leave the station but refused
to return his shotgun, even though they did not dispute that it was
licensed and had been used strictly in accordance with the law. Only
when Mr Manning refused to leave the station and returned to his cell
in protest did the police reluctantly return his gun. (89) The West
Midlands Police, who carried out this action, are notorious as the
force in the country which has moved furthest from what one might
describe as the Dixon of Dock Green approach to the enforcement of
the gun laws. While this is a particularly bad example of police
malpractice, many other cases are almost as bad. One can imagine the
outcry from such groups as the National Council for Civil Liberties
(Liberty) - and understandably so - if such methods were used against,
say, a law-abiding and unarmed black person in Brixton. When these
measures, which undermine the principle of the presumption of
innocence, are directed against shooters, however, Liberty is silent.

ORWELLIAN REWRITING OF HISTORY

I have described the history of firearms ownership and control in some
detail in order to expose the falsehood of the Independent's claim that
"since the 17th century government has had a pretty effective
monopoly on firepower....By the 20th century that tradition had
bedded down into a widespread popular revulsion at the ownership and
handling of destructive weapons." In Homage to Catalonia, George
Orwell recalled that during the Spanish civil war, for the first time, he
had experienced lies which did not even have that relationship to the
truth which a lie ordinarily entails. Clearly one no longer needs to
travel to Spain to read lies of truly Orwellian dimensions. Indeed, we
can be quite sure that Winston Smith, whose job in Nineteen Eighty-
four was to rewrite history for The Times and consign inconvenient
historical facts to the "memory hole", would now be sending his CV
to the Independent. Judging by its proposal for "a drastic extension of
state power into private liberty" and "far reaching legislation,
increasing surveillance and inspection deep in society's innards", the
Independent loves Big Brother far more than the Old Thunderer ever
did in Orwell's novel.

Either the Independent's writers are aware of the truth, and are
deliberately deceiving the public, or they are simply inventing the
"facts" as they go along, presumably in the belief that their readers are
as ignorant as they are. Their "statement" - if one can call it that - that
banning guns "should be aimed at restoring a status quo in which a
less twitchy and frightened society has less need of that apparatus of
state power symbolised by the armed police officer" seems to have no
meaning at all. How can "[f]ewer guns...mean less government" when
they have just proposed "a drastic extension of state power into private
liberty"? What is the relevance of their statement that "there is no
grand logic driving violence crime upwards" when legally-owned guns
are, for all practical purposes, not used at all in violent crime? Then
they concede that the argument of that great libertarian Mill that
"action should remain free up to the point where it harms others" -
which is precisely the main argument against a handgun ban - has
merit in theory. The questions of the security of gun clubs and the
transport of handguns are asked but not answered. And then we are
told that "A blanket ban is simpler to administer and is therefore
certain (!) to be more effective". If so, perhaps the Independent can
enlighten us as to how (as we shall see) armed hoodlums from the
slums of Palermo, Moscow, Kingston and Bogota, as well as native
criminals, are roaming our streets, quite illegally, with the combined
contents of Jane's Small Arms of the World. - And perhaps they can
explain how the IRA is able to virtually rule large parts of Northern
Ireland and carry out acts of terrorist violence throughout of the
United Kingdom through the power of the gun. The small minority of
handguns which it would be possible to confiscate are precisely the
ones owned by individuals whom the police have thoroughly
investigated and accepted as lawful firearms owners, about whose guns
the police have detailed records, and whose storage facilities have been
approved, and are subject to inspection by, the police. When
competitive shooting events take place, the police have approved the
safety and security arrangements, and know exactly who is shooting,
and with what handguns. Suppressing a legal market in an product or
service for which there is a demand simply drives that market
underground. Resentment of the proposed ban is widespread among
the shooting community, and it is likely that many of them will
continue to shoot at illegal events with unlicensed handguns. Is it
seriously contended that this is a preferable situation to keeping
handgun shooting events safe, legal and police approved? Is it
proposed that if these otherwise law-abiding individuals should be
criminalised, and imprisoned if caught doing something which had
previously been perfectly legal? Where is the desirability - let alone
the justice - of creating a situation where every handgun in the nation
which does not belong to the police or the armed forces is in the hands
of gangsters, robbers and terrorists, or illegal shooters entirely outside
of the supervision of the law?

Their claim that "Guns are unBritish" is also interesting. If, say, a
Euro-sceptic was to say that he or she was opposed to the proposed
European Union single currency on the grounds that it is "unBritish",
one can imagine the hoots of derisive laughter coming from the
Independent's editorial offices. When, however, the Independent's
writers demand the imposition of a tyranny against gun owners greater
than that which existed in the Soviet Union - where sporting shooters
were permitted to own heavy-calibre handguns provided they were
stored in shooting ranges when not in use - they are quick to unfurl the
Union Jack. Unfortunately for the Independent, those of us who have
studied the facts know that they are sailing under false colours. Once
again Dr Johnson is vindicated in his maxim that patriotism is the last
refuge of a scoundrel.

FIREARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE?

The fact that I have described an historical era in which firearms were
available without restriction for self-defence purposes, and that their
criminal misuse was negligible by today's standards, should not be
construed as implying that I would necessarily favour the immediate
repeal of all firearms controls in the Britain of 1996. There is no
historical example of a country which has overnight moved from the
very strict firearms controls currently in force in the UK to a situation
where weapons of all kinds were freely on sale to all comers without a
licence. Whatever might have been the situation circa 1900, as
described above by Superintendent Greenwood, British society has
changed a great deal since then, and many of the firearms being
manufactured today are many times more lethal than anything available
at the turn of the century. Even if one accepts the philosophical
principle of the right of the individual to possess weapons for his or
her self-defence, this right can only conceivably be re-established in a
context of responsible and safe ownership in which the right of law-
abiding members of the public to live safe from the irresponsible use
of guns is also, within reason, upheld.

For example, many psychiatric patients with extensive histories of
violence and even murder are being discharged from hospitals into
"community care" only to kill again. Over 100 murders a year are
thought to be carried out by such individuals, even without firearms. I
accept as much as anybody that the defence of life, liberty and
property would not be strengthened by enabling such individuals to
obtain unlimited numbers of firearms without any legal requirement for
a licence. There is also a number of young offenders who carry out
violence which seems to be entirely gratuitous, and I accept that the
prospect of such individuals acquiring firearms might be less than an
entirely appealing propect. Neither would I necessarily argue that a
situation in Britain in which virtually every adult owned or carried a
gun would be the most desirable social goal. A discussion as to
possible ways in which the right to self-defence might conceivably be
re-established, bearing in mind these considerations, is, however, a
topic entirely beyond the scope of this paper. The only purpose I am
concerned with as far as this paper is concerned is to present the
essential facts, arguments and expert opinions relating to the present
gun debate which are essential for anyone who wants to make sense of
it.

The principle that the individual has the right to possess firearms for
self-defence still finds its defenders among public figures. In 1979,
Clement Freud, MP, told the Commons that

"It is important on the grounds of security to bear in mind that the
more people can learn about the use of firearms, the safer, and not the
less safe, this country will be....The more people can be encouraged
legally to use firearms, the safer and not the less safe will this country
be." (90)

In 1993, the journalist Sir Peregrine Worsthorne made a similar
argument in the Sunday Telegraph. (91) In 1996, Walter Sweeney,
MP, courageously called for householders to be allowed to shoot
burglars. Mr Sweeney said:

"I don't want to have an American-style gun culture in which people
routinely keep weapons. But if someone has a weapon on their
property for a legal purpose and they are accosted in their homes by a
burglar who appears to be armed, that person should be allowed to
defend themselves. The law is discriminating against people who have
taken steps to defend themselves and their property and I would like to
see the rights to do so strengthened." (92)

On some occasions, certificated gun owners do use their weapons for
self-defence. In 1996, for instance, a Yorkshire farmer shot and
wounded a burglar who had allegedly threatened him with a knife. The
burglar, whose criminal record included, among other offences, 85
house burglaries, said, "I have learnt my lesson. I would be a fool to
start my criminal activity again." (93) The farmer was prosecuted but
acquitted. Charles Haigh, chairman of the Yorkshire National
Farmers' Union commented that "common sense had obviously
prevailed" in the farmer's acquittal, and that "law and order was
letting down the citizens of this country who behave in a civilized
manner, and allowing the uncivilized to prosper". (94)

The sporting shooters' organisations, however, reject the self-defence
argument. In 1988, for instance, Tony Jackson, of the British
Association for Shooting and Conservation, said of concerns that
people were buying guns for self-defence: "This, if it is a fact, is an
alarming trend and reflects sadly on our society." (95) These
organisations have always gone out of their way to concede to stricter
firearms controls and to defer to the wishes of the Home Office, the
government and the police. When the Home Office imposed severe
restriction on gun clubs, both the Clay Pigeon Association and the
National Rifle Association assented, the chief executive of the latter
organisation simply noting that "the Government saw a need" (96)
After the Hungerford massacre of 1987, the British Shooting Sports
Council agreed, however reluctantly, that Kalashnikovs and all other
semi-automatic rifles deemed inappropriate for target shooting could be
banned, along with "short" shotguns and electric stun guns, but asked
that semi-automatic rifles which were recognised as quality target
guns, as well as pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns, could
remain lawful. In the event, under the Firearms (Amendment) Act
1988, all these categories of gun were banned outright. With the
current Firearms (Amendment) Bill, which proposes to outlaw all
handguns larger than .22 calibre, the sporting shooters are paying the
price for this approach. As the American lawyer David B. Kopel, in
his cross-national study of firearms law, explains:

"When the government cuts back on civil liberties, it couches its
actions in the reasonable language of "balancing." The Police Act,
authorizing incommunicado detention, was promoted as a "balance"
between police powers and individual rights. Likewise, Home
Secretary Douglas Hurd justified the 1988 gun controls as "a better
balance between the interests of the genuine sportsman and the safety
of the public as a whole". The gun lobby's concession that guns are
only for sport, and not for defense, helps the government tip the
balance against the gun owner. If guns make no positive contribution
to personal or public safety, the public's concerns about safety must
override the gun owners' interest in sports." (97)

ROYALTY AND TOP BRASS BACK GUN CULTURE SHOCK

The value of civilian marksmanship, and the skills learned in gun
clubs, is recognised by both the Army and some sections of the police.
In recognition of this fact, Her Majesty the Queen is the Patron of the
National Rifle Association, and His Royal Highness the Prince of
Wales is its President. Lieutenant General Sir Peter Duffell, inspector
general doctrine and training, wrote in 1994 that "the Army regards a
high standard of marksmanship as being an essential skill for the
majority of soldiers, and we regard target shooting by civilian rifle and
pistol clubs, along with the activities of National Rifle Association and
the other major bodies, to be fundamentally important in achieving that
high standard." (98) General Sir Roger Wheeler, the Army's
commander-in-chief, said in 1996 that "the value of the civilian clubs
is - first of all - that they provide an arena for competition,
particularly for long range sniper-type shooting, over and above what
the military can offer. Secondly - and more importantly - there is the
experience of the senior members of those clubs, who provide
coaching expertise beyond what is available in military training." (99)
John Warner, former chief instructor of the special firearms operations
and training unit of the Metropolitan Police, wrote in 1996 that
"during my period with the Police I encouraged officers to consider
taking up shooting as a sport, knowing that they would
benefit....[C]ivilian clubs can and do offer additional opportunities to
improve skills and confidence to those police who become
members....Once a policeman feels more confident and at ease with
his firearm, he is able to give more attention to strategy and tactics,
etc., and this must contribute to safety and security.

"The consequences of private individuals being denied the right to
shoot and possess firearms would in my opinion, lead to a drying up
of knowledge and skills that in the past have served our country well."
(100)

Learning to shoot can also be of definite benefit to young people.
Adolescents as young as 12 are taught shooting by the leading sporting
organisations. Graham Downing argues that "unquestionably, the strict
discipline involved in learning to shoot and the sense of responsibility
it fosters can do young people an immense amount of good." (101) In
his foreword to Mr Downing's new book Shooting for Beginners,
aimed at the under-18s, His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh
expressed approval of the teaching of young people to shoot:

"Academic and technical qualifications are certainly vital for economic
success in an age of increasing technological sophistication, but that
ignores the social and cultural values of intelligent participation in
leisure activities." (102)

(I would like to mention, in passing, that the support given by the
Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh to private gun
ownership is an example of how members of the Royal Family, by
lending their prestige to lawful activities which are subject to
vilification by the media and cheap politicians, can be an invaluable
bulwark in defending traditional freedoms against temporary political
hysteria. Unlike some British libertarians, who have Republican
inclinations, I believe that the institution of the monarchy is an
important factor in the maintenance, and indeed extension, of freedom
in the British context.)

ARE LEGALLY-OWNED GUNS USED IN CRIME?

Immediately after the Dunblane massacre, which was carried out with
four legally-owned heavy-calibre handguns, there was widespread
pressure for the outlawing of all handguns and, from some
campaigners, the eventual outlawing of rifles and shotguns as well.
The assumption was that such a measure would reduce the use of
firearms and shotguns in crime. Yet every academic study of the
subject has concluded that legally-owned guns, which are subject to
firearm or shotgun certificates renewable every three years, stored in
police-approved conditions in either homes or registered gun clubs,
subject to regular police checks, owned by individuals with neither
criminal records nor histories of mental illness, who have satisfied the
police as their good reason for and fitness to possess a firearm, and
who in a large proportion of cases are themselves either serving or
former police officers, or former members of the armed forces, are
practically never used in crime. The criminal misuse of legally held
handguns in England and Wales amounts to a grand total of two cases
per year. Given that there are 200,000 legally-held pistols, the chance
of misuse in any year is one in 100,000. Their occurrence in homicide
amounts to barely 3/10ths of one per cent. In Scotland in 1993, the
latest year for which figures are available, there was not a single
instance of the misuse of a lawfully owned handgun whatsoever. (103)

In 1979, Professor Richard Harding, visiting fellow at Oxford
University, and Australia's leading academic advocate of strict
firearms controls, concluded his study of firearms law by stating that
"the passage and attempted enforcement of laws prohibiting or further
curtailing the private ownership either of firearms generally or of any
particular kind of firearm would be unlikely to affect the use of guns
in crime, and could moreover be counter-productive." (104) In 1992,
Detective Inspector Adrian Maybanks, in his MA dissertation in police
studies at Exeter University, actually found "that present police
policies and enforcement of the firearms legislation is serving to
increase the number of unlicensed firearms in circulation. This in turn
may help to feed the illegal supply of firearms to criminals." He
continued, "almost certainly, legislation is causing a contribution to, as
opposed to reducing, the unlicensed pool of weapons." (105) Detective
Inspector Maybanks's interviews with senior police officers helped him
to form this conclusion. Commander John O'Connor of the
Metropolitan Police, formerly head of the Flying Squad, told him that
"I don't believe the legislation is going to prevent criminals from
obtaining a variety of weapons, including the sort of weapons that
have been outlawed by recent legislation." Commander O'Connor
continued, "the general case is that the people who belong to gun clubs
do not use their weapons for illegal purposes; the legislation has the
effect of punishing those people. It is not going to have any impact on
those people who use weapons for criminal purposes". (106)
According to Chief Constable Jim Sharples, "If they want to get a
firearm, they will." (107) Superintendent Colin Greenwood maintained
that "the primary effect of legislation has forced thousands of weapons
onto the black market and has merely bolstered the illegal pool of
weapons, with the resultant effect that the legislation is entirely
counter-productive." (108)

It is of course absurd to imagine that a professional armed robber or
gangster would choose to go through the procedures of the firearms
legislation and obtain a certificate from the chief officer of police in
order to obtain a weapon with which, for example, to carry out an
armed robbery, or to intimidate victims of a protection racket. Such an
individual would, of course, prefer to obtain an illegal firearm on the
black market.

FOUR MILLION UNCERTIFIED FIREARMS

If legally-owned and certificated firearms do not, for all practical
purposes, figure at all in crime, it is worth asking how many
uncertified firearms there are in Britain, who has them, and where
they come from. Every few years since 1933, police forces have
announced firearms amnesties, in which members of the public may
hand in uncertified guns and ammunition at police stations with no
questions asked. Those weapons which are of historical interest are
donated to local museums, while the rest are melted down. These
amnesties bring in vast numbers of unlicensed guns: in the 1946
amnesty, for instance, 76,000 guns were surrendered; in the 1988
amnesty, 1.5 million rounds of ammunition came in (109). In the 1965
amnesty a man in Royston, Hertfordshire, handed over an anti-tank
gun, four rifles, 12,000 rounds of ammunition, several live grenades
and three booby traps. (110) In the 1988 amnesty a man in Windsor
surrendered 88 boxes of ammunition, three machine-guns (one with
tripod), four rifles, three revolvers, a flare pistol and an anti-aircraft
gun. (111) In addition, the police receive large numbers of guns other
than during amnesties, and encourage registered gun dealers to take in
unlicensed guns from those reluctant to take them to the police. At
least 2000 guns are handed to gun dealers every year in this way.
(112) Given that only law-abiding people who want to get rid of their
illegally-held guns would surrender them, it is a reasonable assumption
that the pool of uncertified firearms is far from negligible.

In the 1980s, Dr A.B. Bailey of Oxford, a former Ministry of Defence
scientist, used the statistics on surrendered weapons to calculate the
approximate number of unlicensed firearms at large in Britain. He
arrived at a figure of some four million. (113) Dr Bailey's study was
reviewed by Michael Yardley, a former Army officer who is now a
firearms consultant to police forces, a research psychologist, and
author of The Police Use of Firearms in the UK. In an article in the
Police Review in 1988 entitled "Four Million Menaces", Mr Yardley
confirmed the validity of Dr Bailey's calculations. (114) Almost
certainly, the majority of these millions of guns are held by people
who are otherwise entirely law-abiding. Some of these guns were in
private possession before the 1920 Act, and were simply never
registered. Others were captured German weapons given to
contributors to the war savings scheme in 1918-19. Still others were
brought back as souvenirs by members of the armed forces at the end
of the second world war and other conflicts, although the military
authorities prohibited this activity.

INCREASE IN CRIMINAL USE OF FIREARMS

Other illegal guns are purchased by professional criminals on the black
market. For the years 1988-92, firearms were used in an average of 48
homicides a year, and over 4000 robberies a year. (115) Since then,
there has been a dramatic influx of firearms smuggled into the UK,
largely from the vast stockpiles of former Warsaw Pact military
weapons. These include the formidable Russian Kalashnikov AK 47
assault rifle, which is so powerful that the shock of its bullet can often
kill no matter where it hits the body. (The Kalashnikov was banned in
Britain under the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 after Michael Ryan
massacred 16 people in Hungerford in 1987 with a legally-owned
Chinese-manufactured copy of it.) In 1994, a Kalashnikov was used
for the first time in an attempted bank robbery, in Kendal, in the Lake
District. In 1994, the journalist Alasdair Palmer described how "a
[black market] gun dealer showed me an AK 47, then offered to sell it
to me at a knock-down price. He also offered to get me a bazooka."
(116)

In 1995 another journalist, Tony Thompson, published a study of the
professional gangsters who are coming into the UK from places as far
apart as Russia, Colombia, Sicily, Japan, Jamaica, Turkey and Hong
Kong, attracted primarily by the profits to be made from selling illegal
drugs, as well as home-grown gangsters, such as the traditional
Cockney "families", the Asian mafia of East London, and the Hell's
Angels. Many of these groups are far more ready to use firearms than
traditional British criminals. The exceptionally violent Jamaican
gangsters known as the Yardies are especially notorious for their
display of firearms and willingness to use them. Their favourite
weapon is the Glock 17L 9mm semi-automatic pistol, which was
designed by an Austrian engineer who had never created a pistol
before, and is constructed mainly from high-tensile plastic, making it
lighter, quieter and more durable than most handguns. From 1986 to
1995 there were 57 Yardie-linked murders, as well as countless
woundings, serious assaults and rapes. Yardie gun battles are
increasingly common in parts of London, Birmingham and
Manchester. In the summer of 1991 almost daily shooting incidents
occurred in Brixton, including a gun battle near to a children's
playground. When the police increased their patrols in Brixton in
response to public demand, the problem simply moved to Clapham.
There, in 1993, PC Patrick Dunne was murdered in cold blood by
three laughing Yardie gunmen who had just killed a drug dealer by
chasing him around his living room, firing 17 shots at him. Shortly
afterwards, a Clapham resident wrote to the Independent and described
how the Yardies had taken over the Landor Road, openly touting
pump-action shotguns. A local mini-cab driver told the Guardian that
he regularly ferried the leading Yardies around with pistols and
shotguns across their laps. (117) Mr Thompson comments:

"This willingness to display and use guns has virtually forced other
criminals, black and white, to do the same, or risk being ripped off or
shot dead by their Yardie counterparts. Between 1993 and 1994 there
was an unprecedented sevenfold increase in the number of assaults
involving guns in the London area.

"This in turn has led to an increase in the number of armed response
vehicles in many major cities; the issuing of bullet-proof jackets for
officers on standard beat patrol; and the Commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police predicting that, by the end of the decade, it is
likely that the entire UK police force will be fully armed." (118)

(Perhaps I should point out, in order to head off any suspicions of
"racism", that Mr Thompson, whom I have met, is of Afro-Caribbean
extraction and emphasises that members of the Afro-Caribbean
community, who are the Yardies' primary victims, are in the forefront
of demands for effective action against them. He points out that
gangsters within different ethnic communities prey primarily on
members of their own group: the Triads, for instance, mainly victimise
Chinese-owned businesses.)

In investigating the black market in guns, he found that "Once
reserved for top gangsters, highly sophisticated weapons are now
available to virtually anyone who wants one." (119) Buying an old
revolver costs 150 to 300, up to about 700 for a fairly new semi-
automatic handgun, and up to 1500 and above for a machine-gun or
assault rifle. Otherwise, criminals hire a gun for a particular "job",
leaving a returnable deposit plus a fee. If the gun is fired, the deposit
is forfeited and the renter is obliged to dispose of the weapon, for
example by throwing it into a river. (The reason is that if the gun is
rented out to another criminal, who is caught, he may be prosecuted
for a murder carried out with the same gun by an earlier renter, as
forensics departments can easily match bullets and shells with the guns
from which they were fired.)

Black-market guns are smuggled into the country by being dismantled
and posted in parts to separate safe houses, or putting different parts in
different suitcases. They are hidden in freight, foodstuffs and
deliveries of foreign newspapers. Other guns are purchased lawfully in
Continental countries where gun controls are far less stringent than in
the UK. In Belgium, for example, a British subject can purchase a
pump-action shotgun (which is banned in Britain) simply on production
of a passport. These guns are then smuggled into the country. Other
guns come from what is officially classified as "leakage" from military
sources, that is, weapons lost, damaged or stolen during military
exercises. Neither the Home Office nor the Ministry of Defence
release figures on the number of firearms entering the black market in
this way. (120) It is known, however, that several hundred Browning
automatic rifles captured from the Argentineans during the Falklands
War were smuggled home by soldiers and sold in pubs. (121)

Thompson interviewed an underworld arms dealer whom he calls
Andrew, who told him:

'"Whatever area of the crime game you're in these days, everyone
wants a gun. Right from burglars and muggers to pimps and fences.
Even drug dealers - not the big players but the kids with market stalls
selling ten-quid bags of grass - they're all tooled up too....It's only the
amateurs who rent. They only do little jobs - post offices, betting
shops. If you're planning something big, you're better off with your
own gear. All the big families and firms have their own armourers.
You don't want too many people knowing your business, that's how
you end up inside....Since the Falklands and now with this Bosnia
thing, I don't know how but all of a sudden the market is getting
flooded with loads of foreign, good, high-quality guns. But not
blagging guns, fucking war guns. There's all these night-sights and
laser guidance things, bazookas and Kalashnikovs - everyone's got one
now so you'd be a dickhead not to get one yourself.'" (122)

Even ten years ago, a professional criminal regarded a firearm as a
tool of the trade, to be carried only while on a "job", not fired unless
it was essential to do so, and hidden away afterwards. This has now
radically changed. According to Thompson:

"Today, the gun is virtually a fashion accessory and bravery comes
pre-packaged in the form of neat white lines of powder on a mirror. In
the old days, a pro wouldn't even have a small drink before going on
a job. 'Now people get charlied up, think they're it and start
shooting,' says Andrew.

"'All that stuff [drugs] they use nowadays makes them confident,
brave, raring to go. Someone's only got to plant the seed and they're
off. People used to be known as hard-men. They'd win a reputation by
having lots of tough fights and coming out on top. Nowadays, if
you're that good, you just get shot. There are no more hard-men any
more, just nutters.'" (123)

The increased readiness of today's criminals to use firearms was
demonstrated in 1993, when Stephen Farrer, an armed robber, shot
and wounded Detective Sergeant Michael Stubbs of the Metropolitan
Police Flying Squad with a Czech Skorpion sub-machine gun. This
was the first time a sub-machine gun had ever been fired at a police
officer in Britain.

THE PROVISIONAL IRA

Large arsenals of illegally-owned firearms and explosives are, of
course, also in the possession of the Provisional IRA. In a history of
this organisation published in 1988, journalists Patrick Bishop and
Eamonn Mallie found that:

"In joining the IRA, recruits are entering an organisation that regards
itself as an elite and exclusive band....The IRA's members sincerely
believe themselves to be soldiers....This outlook precludes guilt. It is
as unrewarding to expect remorse from a 'volunteer' over the killing
of a policeman or a politician as it is to expect regret from a soldier
who shoots a sniper." Dr H.A. Lyons, a Belfast psychiatrist who
examined many IRA men convicted of murder, found them to be
resilient, relaxed and "a reasonably stable group of people." Dr Lyons
continued, "They have clear ideals and goals, they have leadership,
they get strong support from other members of the group and that
helps to keep them well. It helps to keep any guilt from coming to the
surface." (124)

The IRA's goal is to use terror and violence in order to incorporate
Northern Ireland into the Irish Republic, despite the fact that the
people of Northern Ireland, in free elections in which all adults have
the right to vote, have consistently returned members of Parliament
firmly committed to the principle that Northern Ireland has been for
centuries, is, and shall remain, an integral part of the United
Kingdom. Any individual in Northern Ireland who wants to live in the
Irish Republic is free to cross the border at any time and settle there.
(While these facts are well known in Britain, I have heard some
Americans express the belief that either the British Army is occupying
the whole of Ireland and being resisted by the Irish people, or that the
IRA is the official army of the Irish Republic, or that the majority - or
all - of the people in Northern Ireland want to join the Republic, or
that Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland are denied the vote and
subject to official discrimination. I recite the facts for their benefit.)

Since 1969, the IRA has carried out thousands of terrorist murders and
maimings of soldiers and civilians, including police officers, through
bombings and shootings throughout the United Kingdom. They have
massacred families eating in restaurants, young people in pubs,
shoppers in department stores and civilians attending a Remembrance
Day religious service, as well as assassinating or maiming public
figures who have dared to speak out against them. They raise money
from armed robbery, extortion, fraud, kidnapping and a vast protection
racket so sophisticated that they employ accountants to inspect the
books of businesses and determine how much they can afford to pay.
So widespread is this protection that it is said that banks cost
protection money into financial appraisals, and that local Inland
Revenue inspectors accept accounts showing hundreds of pounds a
week going to the terrorists. In several Roman Catholic areas of
Northern Ireland where the Queen's writ does not run, the IRA have
established themselves as a combined armed "police" force, "justice"
system and execution squad. Those who break the IRA's "laws" are
punished, according to the severity of their "offence", by being either
"kneecapped" or shot dead. Bishop and Mallie explain:

"Victims were taken to one of Belfast's many stretches of wasteland,
forced to lie down, then shot through the back of the legs with a small
calibre pistol. The punishment squad then called an ambulance. The
Provos disliked the term 'kneecapping'. They claimed that it was
inexact, as the shootings were graded in severity. Some were mere
'stigma' shootings through the fleshy parts of the thigh. Firing through
the joints was reserved for serious crimes. In exceptional cases
offenders were shot through the knees and elbows. If the offender was
lucky he was out of hospital in a week. A combination of bad light, a
nervous gunman and a struggling victim made for some horrific
injuries....Executions of touts [informers] were sometimes
accompanied by accusations of torture. The family of Anthony
Braniff...claimed that he had been tortured before being shot in
September 1981 for giving information about arms dumps. Republican
News later indignantly denied the charge, announcing that he had made
a statement saying he had no complaints about his treatment by his
captors before they killed him. The scorch-marks found on his body
were attributed to powder burns from the shooting." (125)

(Good thing we've got freedom of the press, isn't it, so that these
awful things people say against the IRA can be answered?)

Thompson describes other IRA "punishments", which I repeat not
through any pleasure in the account, but to demonstrate the power and
violence of this organisation:

"There is 'breeze-blocking', in which bones are shattered by flagstones
dropped on joints; the '50-50', where the victim is forced to touch his
toes while a bullet is fired into his spine; the 'six pack', where a single
shot is fired into each knee, ankle and elbow; and the 'bar beating',
where the victim is forced to roll over several times so that his legs
can be broken from every side with blows from crowbars.

"Punishments are meticulously scheduled to prolong the agony - the
victim is told several weeks in advance exactly where and when the
attack will take place." (126)

The IRA's firearms, including their characteristic Armalite rifles, are
smuggled in by sea and air, assisted by IRA sympathisers in ships'
crews, airlines and dock and airport staff. They are purchased from
terrorist-supporting governments, terrorist organisations or professional
criminals around the world. Some of them are donated or paid for by
Noraid, the pro-IRA fund-raising organisation in the United States, or
from other American sources. In 1976, for instance, a Boston gang
stole seven M60 heavy machine-guns from the US National Guard
armoury at Danvers, Massachusetts, and sold them to the IRA for
667 each. The IRA used these weapons in incidents in which ten
people died and 19 were injured. As part of the "Bloody Sunday"
commemorations in Londonderry in 1978, the IRA put these machine-
guns on public display. (127) It is important to recognise that the
IRA's firearms are considered to be the property of the organisation,
and not the private property of the individual member.

The IRA generally make their own explosives, either from stolen
gelignite, from fertiliser freely obtainable from any garden store, or
through such devices as the "Durex bomb". Bishop and Mallie
explain:

"Sulphuric acid, sealed in a phial of candlewax, was placed inside a
contraceptive sheath which in turn was placed in a large, thick
envelope with a quantity of sodium chlorate, an explosive chemical
used as weedkiller. The bomber walked to the target, placed the
package and squeezed the phial to release the acid which ate through
the sheath and ignited the chemicals. It is said that when [IRA
member] Sean MacStiofain was asked while visiting the North to
transport some contraceptives back to the South for use in training
sessions he refused on the grounds that they were immoral objects."
(128)

After the IRA announced a temporary cease-fire in 1994, the British
government began all-party talks which included representatives of
Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA. The end result of these talks
could only have been the ceding of control over a part of the United
Kingdom, at least to some extent, to the rule of the Irish Republic or
Sinn Fein itself, thus overruling the verdict of the people of Northern
Ireland as expressed via the ballot box. Without the possibility of such
a result, there would be no point in beginning the talks. As a "gesture
of good-will", several IRA members who had been convicted of
terrorist offences were released early from prison. The British
government asked that the IRA's weapons be handed over, but Sinn
Fein refused. Nevertheless, the British government was willing to
continue talks despite the fact that the IRA retained its stockpiles of
firearms and explosives, until the resumption of the IRA terror
campaign in 1996.

AFTER DUNBLANE

The same government which was prepared to open talks with Sinn
Fein without demanding, as a pre-condition, that the IRA hand over its
weapons took a very different attitude towards law-abiding British
handgun owners after the Dunblane massacre of March 1996.

The Dunblane massacre was an example of the category of homicide
known as "spree killing" or "amok killing". In the words of John
Douglas, recently retired chief of criminal profiling for the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, "You could deprive Hamilton of his guns. But
someone like him is mission-oriented and where there is a will, there
is a way, even with strict gun laws". (129) Multiple murderers of this
type very rarely use firearms. Such notorious British mass murderers
as Dr Crippen, "Jack the Ripper", Myra Hindley, Peter Sutcliffe (the
"Yorkshire Ripper"), Denis Nilsen (the "Stockbridge Strangler") and
Frederick and Rosemary West carried out many horrifying killings
without the use of guns. If Hamilton or Ryan had not been gun
owners, they would have found other means to carry out their
murders. The attention of those of us who are concerned to prevent
these sorts of horrifying crime should be devoted to addressing
questions of family upbringing, of the education of young people, of
psychology and related areas which can help us to bring about the
development of happy individuals who are free from the deep
malevolence that characterises these people, and also free from the
desire for a life of crime.

In the words of Jan A. Stevenson, a former senior investigator with
Pinkerton's National Detective Agency in the United States and now
one of Britain's leading firearms experts, "the only guns you can reach
are those which are not causing the problem. If you could reach the
problem guns, they would soon be replaced. And meanwhile, you have
done nothing at all about the hardened criminal who was committing
the crimes in the first place, nor about the social conditions that
produced him and are producing more like him" (130).

In his ground-breaking 1972 study, Superintendent Greenwood found
that "the problem does not lie simply in the increasing use of firearms
by criminals....Criminals have proved to us that firearms controls will
not deny their small class of people access to firearms whenever they
want them." (131) In 1983, he concluded that:

"To isolate robberies involving a firearms as a peculiar problem is
clearly wrong. That is simply one aspect of the use of weapons in
robbery which, in turn, is simply one aspect of the violent crime of
robbery. If we are to reduce firearms robberies, or armed robberies,
we must reduce the level of robberies overall. A strategy designed to
reduce firearms robberies by seeking to reduce the number of firearms
in the community is doomed to fail. It is looking for the easy, but
false, answer. The logistics of the problem will show just how futile
such an exercise must be." (132)

Most of the media and many politicians, however, responded as if all
legal handgun - and even long gun - owners were in some sense
responsible for the crime at Dunblane, completely ignoring the concept
of individual responsibility. The demand arose for the banning of all
handguns, which would inevitably lead to the closure of gun
manufacturers, dealers and clubs. I have no desire to make light of
what happened at Dunblane, and I apologise to those readers who
might consider the following point to be in poor taste. But the
irrelevance of this demand is demonstrated by considering what would
have happened if Hamilton had been a cricket player who had waylaid
those children and their teacher one by one over a period of months
and battered them to death with a cricket bat. The crime would have
equally horrifying, in moral terms, as what actually happened.
Everybody would have been rightly revolted and profoundly shocked
that any person could carry out such an unspeakable series of deeds.
But if the demand came for the outlawing of all cricket bats, and the
consequent closure of cricket clubs, cricket equipment manufacturers
and retailers, and the consequent unemployment and loss of such an
important national sport, everybody would realise that such measures
would entirely miss the point. If law-abiding cricket players were
subjected to insulting vilification by much of the media and many
politicians, everyone would realise just how unjust and utterly
irrelevant such attacks would be.

SELECT COMMITTEE HEARINGS ON HANDGUNS

On 8th May 1996, the House of Commons Select Committee on Home
Affairs heard oral evidence on the private ownership of handguns. Jim
Sharples, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, took
care to distinguish between lawfully held firearms and the much larger
number that were unlawfully held. He noted the increasing number of
police seizures of illegal guns, originating in eastern Europe and areas
of war and instability, and the increasing "gun culture" among
criminals, particularly in the large cities. He said that there was an
urgent need to reduce the number of illegal guns. Mr Sharples said
that one thing the police had learned from the Hungerford massacre
was that rather than focusing on guns, "We need to concentrate much
more on the individual. We feel very strongly that this is the most
important change we can make." (133)

The committee's chairman, Sir Ivan Lawrence, QC, MP, said that
since 1989, armed crime had increased by 500% while the number of
firearm certificate holders had diminished by 20%. According to Sir
Ivan, only 4% of criminal firearms could be shown ever to have been
legally owned in the UK, while in the case of the other 96% the police
did not know where they came from and there was nothing they could
do about them. As most crime was committed by criminals he
wondered whether tightening the rules on lawful owners would do
anything to reduce armed crime.

The Right Honourable David Maclean, MP, minister at the Home
Office, said that he had no statistics as to the proportion of crime guns
held on certificate, but that as a matter of common sense, robbers
would be unlikely to commit a crime armed with their own certificated
weapons. He said that further controls on legal firearms "will only
have a limited impact on criminal use". Mr Maclean continued, "We
could reduce the numbers of target shooters but it would not affect
criminals." He said that the number of legal firearms in private hands
had fallen ever since 1920, and that his purpose was to reduce illegal
weapons and not to torment the law abiding. He said of the police,
"They very rarely see a problem with legal ones." Banning anything,
Mr Maclean continued, gets one onto dangerous subjective ground.
The focus had to be on inadequate individuals and identifying them.

Dame Jill Knight, MP, noted that a 1993 report by Her Majesty's
Inspectorate of Constabulary had found only one force that checked
offenders against the firearm and shotgun certificate database. Mr
Maclean assured her that he was satisfied that the police do now check
adequately into background. (134)

Unfortunately, the views expressed by Mr Sharples and Mr Maclean at
this meeting were not reflected in the written submissions to Lord
Cullen's inquiry from the police staff associations of England and
Wales and from the Home Office. The Home Office sought to
associate the level of legal ownership of firearms with the level of
armed crime, primarily through fallacious cross-national comparisons,
and implied the need for stricter controls on the private ownership of
firearms. For decades it has already openly been the Home Office's
policy to reduce the nmber of firearms in legal ownership. (The Home
Office's written submissions, as well as a thorough and authoritative
refutation of them, is contained in the book edited by Munday and
Stevenson in the bibliography.)

Both the Home Affairs Committee and Lord Cullen's inquiry rejected
a ban on any class of handgun, and instead made recommendations for
improving the licensing procedures. Lord Cullen's report proposed that
certificated handgun owners should be allowed to keep their guns at
home, provided they were fitted with a disabling mechanism.
However, Home Office scientists claimed that the proposed disabling
mechanism could be removed with metalworking tools.

The Home Secretary, Mr Howard, completely ignored these
recommendations, and published the present Firearms (Amendment)
Bill, which is intended to outlaw all handguns of greater than .22
capacity. It will be illegal to keep a handgun at home, and the
remaining .22 pistols must be stored at gun clubs, which will be
subject to stricter security requirements. If, as is probable, the bill
becomes law, it will lead to the confiscation of some 160,000
handguns, 80% of the total, the closure of many gun manufacturers,
dealers and clubs, and the consequent loss of some 2000 jobs,
including those of experienced gunsmiths who are unlikely to obtain
another job. Gun clubs and shops are to be denied compensation by
Home Office ministers, who hope to limit the payout to 50 million,
against a total estimated value of about 1 billion. One Whitehall
official has said, "Shooters will not find us in a generous mood." (135)
Gun owners will be paid an average of 250 per gun, but receive no
compensation for accessories, spare parts or storage cabinets. Gun
clubs will receive no compensation, and gun shops will be
compensated for loss of stock only. In short, the Firearms
(Amendment) Bill represents a massive confiscation of legally-held
private property from individuals who have committed no criminal
offence, and is unprecedented outside of war and nationalisation.
Nobody has demonstrated - or even attempted to demonstrate - that it
will reduce armed crime. Law-abiding shooters, some of whom have
been decorated for their service in the armed forces of this country,
and all of whom have gone out of their way to co-operate with the
police and other officials, are being punished precisely because they
have always obeyed, and will continue to obey, the law of the land.
Meanwhile professional gangsters, killers and robbers from the four
corners of the earth tote their sub-machine guns and assault rifles in
the streets of our cities completely outside the reach of the law. And
the government which is introducing this bill is prepared to sit at the
negotiating table with murderers from the IRA, with a view to
acceding to at least some of their political demands, without even
requiring as a pre-condition that the terrorists surrender the weapons
they have used to slaughter thousands of people.

The only reason anyone has suggested for the present bill was that
opinion polls show that a majority of the population wants a handgun
ban, as a result of the hysteria which has been whipped up by the
deliberate lies of much of the media and many politicians. After
Dunblane public opinion certainly turned drastically against the legal
private ownership of guns. Several times since Dunblane I have
defended the freedom to own handguns and found myself on the
receiving end of a torrent of abuse from people who are otherwise
entirely calm and rational. I have recently appeared on two BBC
television talk shows on the subject of guns. At one of them, hosted by
Jeremy Paxman, who was scrupulously fair to both sides, a large
group from the audience viciously abused and insulted Carol Page, the
champion shooter who represented Britain at the 1996 Atlanta
Olympics, and who had defended the right to own handguns for
sporting purposes. In the other, the presenter, Robert Kilroy-Silk,
ridiculed, humiliated and continually interrupted defenders of the right
to own handguns while giving supporters of a handgun ban generous
opportunities to express their views and vent their hostility on the
members of the "gun lobby". Mr Kilroy-Silk, who knew what my
opinions were, ignored my requests to contribute to the discussion,
while giving some members of the other side three or four
opportunities to speak. Altogether, that edition of Kilroy extended the
Five Minutes Hate in Orwell's Nineteen Eight-four to three quarters of
an hour.

There is nothing surprising about this, given the way the media has
covered the issue. The strength of people's emotions on the subject are
in inverse proportion to their knowledge of it. In the 18th century,
Daniel Defoe said that you could get 100,000 men to fight against
popery without knowing whether it was a man or a horse. Things have
changed little since then. One simply cannot argue with many
supporters of a handgun ban, some of whom actually take pride in
their ignorance about guns and the law relating to them. Some even
regard knowledge about these subjects as being disreputable and
deserving of suspicion, going the full length of the slogan in Orwell's
masterpiece that "Ignorance Is Strength".

The attitude of the present government in bowing to the frenzy of the
mob should be compared with that of the Labour government which
abolished capital punishment for murder in 1965. At that time, it was
known that the large majority of the population wanted to retain the
death penalty for this offence. However, the government believed,
rightly or wrongly, that the death penalty was fundamentally wrong,
and took the view that ministers and MPs had the responsibility to
exercise leadership and do what they considered to be right, even if it
contradicted the current wishes of the majority of voters. The abolition
of capital punishment for murder in 1965 certainly created a massive
uproar from much of the public and many MPs, but the government of
the day refused to bow to this pressure. Whatever one's opinion about
the Labour government of 1964-70 - and I must confess that mine is
not one of unbounded enthusiasm - one must accept that they did have
some conception of principle which stood above simply getting the
largest number of votes in the immediate political situation. The
present government is actually bringing about a change in the law
which it knows to be futile, irrelevant to the real problems and
destructive of individual freedom and the concept of individual
responsibility for crime, for no other reason than its concern to grab as
many votes as possible at the forthcoming general election. The
Conservative Party has won four successive general elections on
pledges to increase individual liberty and responsibility, and to reduce
the interference of the state in the everyday life of the people. The
present Firearms (Amendment) Bill is a demonstration of the squalid
fraud those pledges have turned out to be.

CONCLUSION

In closing, let us repeat that the belief that society has suddenly
entered a new and more violent phase has been a perennial theme in
Britain for at least the past 250 years. A study of the evidence
demonstrates that violence has indeed substantially increased in recent
decades, although the risk of a given person becoming a victim of such
violence is still rather small. While the level of violence is certainly a
matter for legitimate concern, what is needed in order to solve the
problem in the long term is, apart from a study of what makes some
young people turn violent, a study of what makes the large majority of
young people choose a more positive path in life than that of crime
and violence. Long-term institutional reform of family upbringing, of
education, and other institutions of society, to give individuals greater
responsibility, a greater appreciation of themselves and their abilities
to achieve valuable goals in life without crime or violence offers the
prospect, over a period of decades, of the development of a new
generation in which these changes will have positive benefit.

Rather than face the problematic task of bringing about such a
transformation, "society" - and whether there is such a thing or not is
a question beyond the scope of this paper - has responded in the worst
possible way. Rather than accept the fact that crimes and violence are
the actions of volitional and autonomous individuals, and choosing an
appropriate response, "society" has focused on the outlawing of
inanimate objects such as guns and knives, which are neither good nor
evil in themselves. No distinction is made in law between the criminal
using these or other tools to commit violence and the law-abiding
individual who uses them to defend himself or herself against the
initiation of violence by the criminal. The present Firearms
(Amendment) Bill is an outrage against reason, against the truth,
against individual liberty and against personal responsibility. Tens of
thousands of the most law-abiding individuals in the country who
participate in the safe, responsible and lawful use of handguns for
sporting purposes are being punished as of they were somehow
responsible for the atrocity at Dunblane. Meanwhile, those
professional criminals who use illegal guns to commit crimes are
entirely untouched by the law.

It is not only the sporting shooters who will pay a high price for this
act of tyranny, mob rule, intimidation and stupidity. In the medium
and long term, we will all pay a heavy price. The prognosis is not
good for a "society" which is guided in its law-making by the sort of
malevolent, hysterical and mendacious propaganda onslaught which
much of the media, including some so-called "quality" newspapers,
has thrown at us since March. I have endeavoured in the present paper
to demonstrate the documented facts about firearms ownership which
contradict the lies propagated equally by the Independent and the
Sunday Times as by the Sun and the Daily Mirror. Even if the reader
has a personal distaste for guns and other weapons, it is to be hoped
that he or she recognises the extreme danger manifested in the
government's approach. Britain is a nation whose Parliament was once
admired throughout the world - whether entirely justifiably or not - as
the embodiment of responsible, informed decision-making by
individuals, regardless of political party, who were conscious both of
the heritage of liberty and the rule of law and of their personal
obligation to sustain that liberty and rule of law for future generations,
whatever the immediate political pressures might be. Now Parliament
is beginning to make its laws by surrendering to the frenzied,
irrational hatred of the mob, whose passions have been whipped up by
the crudest propaganda techniques known to mankind. The long-term
consequences of adopting such an approach to legislation may be far
more terrifying than anybody has so far suggested.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

The following, while by no means a complete bibliography on the
subjects discussed above, are the works I have found most useful in
understanding them. Where I am aware of errors, I have mentioned
them, not through any desire for intellectual "one-upmanship", but
because of the necessity for the strictest accuracy on these subjects.
The present situation, I believe, is one where pedantry is entirely
justified. Needless to say, the inclusion of any work in this list does
not necessarily imply that its author shares the opinions expressed in
this paper.

Colin Greenwood, Firearms Control, Routledge and Kegan Paul,
London, 1972

The author was a superintendent with the West Yorkshire
Constabulary, and is now editor of Guns Review. For many years he
trained police officers in the use of firearms and led them in armed
operations. In 1970-71 he became a Cropwood Fellow at the
Cambridge University Institute of Criminology, studying the history
and practice of the law on firearms in England and Wales. This book,
the result of his researches, was the first full-length study of the
subject. It demonstrated conclusively that the level of armed crime was
far lower before there were any restrictions on the private ownership
of firearms than afterwards. The ever-increasing restrictiveness of
British firearms law had always been ill-informed and carried out for
immediate political gain rather than through any study of the relevant
facts. A thorough study of the practice of enforcing the firearms laws
demonstrated that the system was entirely irrelevant in dealing with
armed crime. The book is a landmark in our understanding of the
subject, and is very highly recommended to those who prefer truth to
propaganda.

Don B. Kates (editor), Restricting Handguns, North River Press, np,
1979

A collection of essays by eight experts on the subject of the legal
control of handguns and other firearms. Most of the authors are
American "liberals" in law and academe who dissent here from the
advocacy of strict gun control which is an orthodoxy among American
"liberals". The book includes a contribution by our own
Superintendent Greenwood.

Geoffrey Pearson, Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears,
Macmillan Education, London, 1983

The author, who is currently professor of social work at Goldsmith's
College, London, traces the history of the fear of crime and violence
back through each historical era to the 18th century, with a detailed
examination of the sources. He emphasises the difficulty in
determining the reality of the level of violence, as distinct from the
degree of public concerns about it, at any given historical moment.
Recommended.

Don B. Kates (editor), Firearms and Violence, Pacific Institute for
Public Policy Research, San Francisco, 1984.

This is an encyclopaedic collection of studies by 17 academics and
lawyers, covering every area of the gun ownership issue from a
perspective sympathetic to private firearms ownership. Some of these
scholars, including Professor James D. Wright, former president of the
American Sociological Association, began their studies advocating
stricter firearms control, and became convinced of the opposite case as
a result of their researches. This is an exceptionally broad and
authoritative overview of the subject, and is highly recommended.

Patrick Bishop and Eamonn Mallie, The Provisional IRA, first
published 1987, Corgi Books/Transworld Publishers, London, 1988

This very thorough history demonstrates how the Provisional IRA
developed from the earlier phases of Irish republicanism and became a
highly effective and close-knit terrorist organisation. Of special
relevance to the current discussion is that it shows just how a heavily-
armed organisation has carried out terrorist operations throughout the
UK, and exercised de facto control over certain parts of Northern
Ireland, over a quarter of a century, despite the best efforts of the
British authorities. It should be obvious from reading this book that
any attempt by the state to control the illegal ownership of firearms
will inevitably be limited in its impact.

Sean Gabb, Gun Control in Britain, Political Notes No. 33,
Libertarian Alliance, London, 1988

A short and useful critique of British firearms law from a libertarian
perspective.

Tony Jackson, Legitimate Pursuit, Ashford Press Publishing/British
Association for Shooting and Conservation, Southampton, 1988

The author is the former editor of Shooting Times. This is a critique of
the proposals in the Firearms (Amendment) Bill 1988, which followed
the Hungerford massacre, from a sporting shooter's point of view. The
author repudiates the ownership of guns for self-defence. The
campaign against the bill, of which this book was a part, was
unsuccessful: self-loading and pump action centrefire rifles and self-
loading and pump action shotguns with a magazine capacity of more
than two shots were banned under the 1988 Act.

David Botsford, The Case Against Gun Control, Political Notes No.
47, Libertarian Alliance, London, 1990.

My own pamphlet was probably the first publication of any length in
Britain which explicitly defended, at least in principle, the historic
right of the individual in British law to own weapons for self-defence
purposes. I stress, however, that the practical means by which that
right might be restored is a complex issue which cannot be achieved
overnight, and should be approached with the highest degree of
caution and consideration of all the relevant factors.

The pamphlet contains a couple of minor errors: the US government
body controlling firearms is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms (page 11); it is the Duke of Atholl who is the only individual
in Britain with a legal private army (page 13).

Chris R. Tame, "Freedom, Responsibility and Justice", in Kevin
Stenson and David Cowell (editors), The Politics of Crime Control,
Sage Publications, London, 1991.

This essay is a comprehensive survey of the scholarly literature on
crime and violence which has been produced from a "new right"
perspective in both the UK and the US, stressing the role of individual
responsibility and autonomy. It contains an extensive and very useful
bibliography. The other essays in this volume, which are written from
different perspectives on crime, are also of value. Highly
recommended.

David B. Kopel, The Samurai, the Mountie and the Cowboy,
Prometheus Books/Cato Institute, Buffalo, New York, 1992

This is a thorough and wide-ranging comparative study of firearms law
in Japan, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica,
Switzerland and the United States, written by an American lawyer.
The author emphasises that differences in the history, society and
political culture are essential factors in shaping each country's attitude
towards private firearms ownership. Highly recommended.

I spotted a couple of very minor errors in the chapter on Britain - "the
1967 Shephard's Bush murders" should read "the 1966 Shepherd's
Bush murders" - which do not detract from the value of the work.

Tony Thompson, Gangland Britain, Hodder & Stoughton, London,
1995

The author is a journalist who investigated the numerous gangs -
foreign as well as home-grown - now operating in Britain, attracted in
large part by the profits to be made from selling illegal drugs, and in
most cases armed with illegally-owned guns. It is a fascinating yet
disturbing account of the increase in organised crime in the UK, and
the challenges faced by law enforcement in dealing with it.

The one factual error I spotted is the repetition of the myth that the
Glock 17L 9mm semi-automatic pistol, which is largely made of
plastic, cannot be detected by airport metal detectors. Robert Adam, a
rifle, pistol and shotgun shooter, handgun importer, builder of British
custom handguns and contributing editor to Guns and Weapons User -
who is doubtless very popular with the Snowdrop campaign - explains
the fallacy: "In fact, the Glock still has a steel slide and barrel which
contains more metal than some conventional lightweight pocket pistols,
and both the Glock and its metal-cased, metal-primed, and metal-
bulleted 9mm ammunition are readily detectable by existing security
devices." (136)

Richard Munday and Jan A. Stevenson (editors), Guns & Violence,
Piedmont Publishing, Brightlingsea, Essex, 1996

This book reproduces some of the evidence to Lord Cullen's inquiry
into the Dunblane massacre. It includes selections from the
submissions by the Labour Party and the Home Office, which sought
to claim a link between the lawful availability of firearms and a high
rate of armed crime. This claim is thoroughly refuted by leading
firearms experts, including the editors, Superintendent Greenwood and
Professor Richard Horrocks. It is a work of exceptional value, and a
thoroughly documented demolition of current myths on the subject. If
the reader has time to read only one book in the current debate on
firearms, it should be this one. The lack of an index, however, is a
significant drawback.

It is worth noting that the Sunday Times, instead of attempting to
answer the facts and arguments in this book, tried to cast doubt on Mr
Stevenson's integrity: "Doubts have arisen about the tactics of certain
members of the gun lobby as well as the arguments they have put
forward. Last week the first book about the Cullen inquiry was
published by Piedmont Publishing. It is co-edited by Jan Stevenson,
who is described in the book as "one of the world's leading small arms
authorities" and challenges the view that a high level of gun ownership
leads to more crime. An accompanying press release failed to mention
that Stevenson is the owner of Piedmont Publishing and that he is
chairman of the hardline Shooting Rights Association [sic - actually the
Shooters' Rights Association]. He is also a former non-executive
director of Delta Training, one of whose trainees was shot dead during
a simulated terrorist incident in 1988. In 1991 he was fined 500 for
allowing firearms to be used by an unauthorised person." (137)

Are we expected to conclude that it is somehow disreputable for Mr
Stevenson to publish his opinions using the publishing company he
owns? If so, where does that leave Rupert Murdoch, owner of News
International, whose newspapers (including the Sunday Times) favour a
handgun ban? Is there something wrong with being chairman of a
group arguing for individual rights? Does the fact that Mr Stevenson
was once a non-executive director of a company in which a trainee
was killed mean that he was somehow responsible for the death? And
what does the fact he was once fined for "allowing firearms to be used
by an unauthorised person" mean? The Right Honourable Douglas
Hurd, MP, was once fined for having a shotgun without a licence, but
I not recall the Sunday Times complaining about his fitness to further
restrict the ownership of shotguns under the Firearms (Amendment)
Act 1988 when he was Home Secretary. That is all the Sunday Times
has to say about the book. Sunday Times reporters can be relied upon
to piously avert their eyes from anything which might require them to
re-examine their proprietor's prejudices. Perish the thought that they
should be expected to address such things as facts! What have they
ever had to do with Murdoch-style journalism?

References

(1) Quoted in Geoffrey Pearson, Hooligan, Macmillan Education,
Basingstoke, Hampshire, 1983, pages 16-17.

(2) Quoted in ibid, page 48.

(3) Quoted in ibid, page 63.

(4) Quoted in ibid, page 64.

(5) Quoted in ibid, page 64.

(6) Quoted in ibid, page 121.

(7) Quoted in ibid, page 122.

(8) Quoted in ibid, page 122.

(9) Quoted in ibid, page 124.

(10) Quoted in ibid, page 125.

(11) Quoted in ibid, page 130.

(12) Quoted in ibid, page 159.

(13) Quoted in ibid, page 158.

(14) Quoted in ibid, page 165.

(15) Quoted in ibid, page 168.

(16) Quoted in ibid, pages 184-185.

(17) Quoted in ibid, page 186.

(18) Quoted in ibid, page 186.

(19) Quoted in ibid, pages 186-187.

(20) Quoted in Independent, 23rd October 1996, page 3.

(21) Quoted in Richard Munday and Jan A. Stevenson (editors), Guns
& Violence, Piedmont Publishing, Brightlingsea, Essex, 1996, page
79.

(22) Quoted in ibid, page 80.

(23) Quoted in ibid, page 82.

(24) Quoted in ibid, page 83.

(25) Quoted in ibid, page 83.

(26) Jock Young, "Left Realism and the Priorities of Crime Control",
in Kevin Stenson and David Cowell (editors), The Politics of Crime
Control, Sage Publications, London, 1991, page 148.

(27) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 83.

(28) Independent, 23rd October 1996, page 3.

(29) Tony Thompson, Gangland Britain, Hodder & Stoughton,
London, 1995, page 4.

(30) Ibid, page 17.

(31) Sunday Telegraph, 3rd November 1996, page 37.

(32) Independent, 23rd October 1996, page 3.

(33) Independent, 29th October 1996, page 13.

(34) Chris R. Tame, "Freedom, Responsibility and Justice", in
Stenson and Cowell (editors), op cit, page 134.

(35) Quoted in ibid, page 133

(36) Quoted in ibid, page 131.

(37) Quoted in ibid, page 141.

(38) David Botsford, The Case Against Gun Control, Political Notes
No. 47, Libertarian Alliance, London, 1990, page 12.

(39) Quoted in David B. Kopel, The Samurai, the Mountie and the
Cowboy, Prometheus Books/Cato Institute, Buffalo, New York, 1992,
page 86.

(40) Ibid, page 124, n210.

(41) Sunday Telegraph, 10th November 1996, page 33.

(42) Ibid, page 33..

(43) Jack Schaefer, Shane, first published 1949, Andre Deutsch,
London, 1973, page 61.

(44) Munday and Stevenson (editors) op cit, pages 296-297.

(45) Independent, 17th October 1996, page 19.

(46) Quoted in Colin Greenwood, Firearms Control, Routledge &
Kegan Paul, London, 1972, page 11.

(47) Quoted in ibid, pages 12-13.

(48) Quoted in ibid, page 15.

(49) Ibid, page 15.

(50) Quoted in ibid, pages 15-16.

(51) Quoted in ibid, page 17.

(52) Quoted in ibid, page 24.

(52) Quoted in ibid, page 25.

(53) Ibid, page 26.

(54) Greenwood, op cit, pages 27-28.

(55) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 148.

(56) Quoted in ibid, page 148.

(57) Quoted in ibid, pages 148-149.

(58) Ibid, page 235, and Duncan Campbell, The Underworld, BBC
Books, London, 1994, pages 19-20.

(59) Quoted in Times, "Car 96" section, 9th September 1996, page 7.

(60) Facsimile reproduction in Ian V. Hogg and John Batchelor, The
Complete Handgun, first published 1979, Peerage Books, London,
1984, page 99. Emphasis in original.

(61) Munday and Stevenson (editors), op cit, page 58.

(62) Ibid, page 133.

(63) Ibid, page 133, n100.

(64) Greenwood, op cit, pages 243-244.

(65) Times, 15th September 1988, page 9.

(66) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 150.

(67) Quoted in ibid, page 151.

(68) Quoted in Greenwod, op cit, pages 53-54.

(69) Quoted in ibid, page 54.

(70) Quoted in ibid, page 54.

(71) Quoted in ibid, page 51.

(72) Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 244.

(73) Quoted in Greenwood, op cit, page 72.

(74) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, pages 159-160.

(75) Quoted in ibid, page 159.

(76) Quoted in Kopel, op cit, pages 75-76.

(77) Quoted in Greenwood, op cit, page 82.

(78) Quoted in ibid, page 84.

(79) Quoted in ibid, page 86.

(80) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 118.

(81) Quoted in Greenwood, op cit, page 225.

(82) Quoted in ibid, page 226.

(83) Ibid, pages 246-248 and 253-254.

(84) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 168.

(85)Kopel, op cit, page 104.

(86) Quoted in Greenwood, op cit, page 226.

(87) Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 168.

(88) Kopel, op cit, page 135, n363.

(89) Sunday Telegraph, 30th July 1989, page 20.

(90) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 314.

(91) Ibid, page 244.

(92) Daily Telegraph, 31st October 1996, page 15.

(93) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 243, n70.

(94) Quoted in ibid, page 243, n70.

(95) Tony Jackson, Legitimate Pursuit, Ashford Press
Publishing/British Association for Shooting and Conservation,
Southampton, 1988, page 74.

(96) Quoted in Kopel, op cit, page 104.

(97) Ibid, page 102.

(98) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 246.

(99) Quoted in ibid, page 247.

(100) Quoted in ibid, pages 247-248.

(101) Daily Telegraph, 26th October 1996, "Weekend" section, page
3.

(102) Quoted in ibid, page 3.

(103) Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 358.

(104) Quoted in ibid, page 116.

(105) Quoted in ibid, page 117.

(106) Quoted in ibid, page 118.

(107) Quoted in ibid, page 118.

(108) Quoted in ibid, page 118.

(109) Greenwood, op cit, page 235, and Times, 3rd November 1988,
page 5.

(110) M. Bateman, This England, Penguin Books, London, 1969, page
112.

(111) Times, 15th September 1988, page 3.

(112) Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 130.

(113) Ibid, page 131.

(114) Ibid, page 131, and Times, 7th January 1988, page 5.

(115) Ibid, page 132.

(116) Sunday Telegraph, October 13th, 1996, page 39, referring to a
Spectator article in 1994.

(117) Thompson, op cit, pages 56-58.

(118) Ibid, page 58.

(119) Ibid, page 17.

(120) Ibid, page 18.

(121) Kopel, op cit, page 131, n294.

(122) Quoted in Thompson, op cit, page 20.

(123) Ibid, page 20.

(124) Patrick Bishop and Eamonn Mallie, The Provisional IRA, first
published 1987, Corgi Books/Transworld Publishers, London, 1988,
page 15.

(125) Ibid, page 402.

(126) Thompson, op cit, page 310.

(127) Bishop and Mallie, op cit, page 297.

(128) Ibid, page 170.

(129) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 284.

(130) Ibid, page 301.

(131) Greenwood, op cit, page 173.

(132) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 301.

(133) Quoted in Munday and Stevenson, op cit, page 137.

(134) Quoted in ibid, pages 138-139. A detailed account of the
hearings is on pages 135 to 141.

(135) Sunday Times, 27th October 1996, page 2.

(136) Robert Adam, Modern Handguns, Apple Press/Quintet
Publishing, London, 1989, page 20.

(137) Sunday Times, 13th October 1996, page 12.

--
Sean Gabb
_______________________________________
| |
| Over himself, over his own mind and |
| body, the individual is sovereign. |
| (J.S. Mill, On Liberty, 1859) |
|_____________________________________|