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The Development of the British Faith in Strict Gun Control

Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 10:27 am
by TxD
A rather lengthy article well worth the read as it may well point out where the US is heading if we do not remain vigilant.

An excellent example below if you recall our own "Homeland Security" and their treatise on returning soldiers from Iraq:

The “Blackwell” Report of 16th November 1918

"The Home Office was worried by the 1917 Russian Revolution: perhaps British “working
class” soldiers would do the same thing and overthrow the British establishment when they
came home at the end of WW1.
In the eyes of the Home Office these men, who had been fighting and dying for their country, could not be trusted.
The Home Office was much more concerned by the fact that, in fighting for their country, such men had become familiar with firearms, than the greater truth that they had also been prepared to die for their country –and had done so in vast numbers.

In the view of the Home Office guns should only be permitted in the hands of those
“approved” by the State. "

The end result:

"As members of the public, burglars have the right to be protected from violent householders."
British Crown lawyers’ advice to government in 2003, the London Times, 2 November ’04.

http://ipsc.invisionzone.com/index.php? ... st&id=6428" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: The Development of the British Faith in Strict Gun Control

Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 10:46 am
by LaUser
TxD wrote:"As members of the public, burglars have the right to be protected from violent householders."
That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. One of the main deterrents of theft, is a good whooping if caught.

Re: The Development of the British Faith in Strict Gun Control

Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 12:50 pm
by A-R
TxD wrote: http://ipsc.invisionzone.com/index.php? ... st&id=6428" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
TxD, I clicked on above link and got an error message - something about "permission" to use the web page? I'm very interested in reading this article - is it possible for you to cut-n-paste the text? Or is is way too long?

Re: The Development of the British Faith in Strict Gun Control

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 8:54 am
by TxD
austinrealtor wrote:
TxD wrote: http://ipsc.invisionzone.com/index.php? ... st&id=6428" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
TxD, I clicked on above link and got an error message - something about "permission" to use the web page? I'm very interested in reading this article - is it possible for you to cut-n-paste the text? Or is is way too long?
Here ya go.
Page 1 of 6
The Development of the British Faith in Strict Gun Control
by
Derek Bernard, 11th May 2009
Faith, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “firm belief ... without logical proof”.
Faith is, therefore, the appropriate term for the strong and widespread British belief in strict
gun control.
Ever since the late 19th century (see Note 1) the English Home Office has assiduously
encouraged the view that guns, in and of themselves, are evil, dangerous, anti-social devices
that will turn ordinary, non-violent people into murderers. In consequence the Home Office
has progressively developed gun control policies and bureaucratic procedures that have no
beneficial effect on criminals, but do discourage civilians from possessing firearms for any
purpose, but especially not for self-defence.
Sometimes extraordinarily biased data is put forward to support this stance, but
knowledgeable review always discloses that the data has been carefully selected to support
the Home Office position (e.g. the HO submission to the 1996 Cullen Inquiry into the
Dunblane killings, or the 2004 HO Consultation Paper).
It is a deeply-worrying fact that the HO and police policy positions are never based on
research into cause and effect, or anything remotely related to cost/benefit analysis. On the
contrary, they are virtually always based on opinions expressed as “facts”, which are
perceived as so self-evidently true that they require no supporting evidence.
Both of the 2 major documents generated to create and sustain this policy were produced in
secret, without research, comment or input from independent experts, either during their
preparation or when completed. Indeed, they were both kept secret for decades.
The “Blackwell” Report of 16th November 1918
The Home Office was worried by the 1917 Russian Revolution: perhaps British “working
class” soldiers would do the same thing and overthrow the British establishment when they
came home at the end of WW1. In the eyes of the Home Office these men, who had been
fighting and dying for their country, could not be trusted. The Home Office was much more
concerned by the fact that, in fighting for their country, such men had become familiar with
firearms, than the greater truth that they had also been prepared to die for their country –
and had done so in vast numbers.
In the view of the Home Office guns should only be permitted in the hands of those
“approved” by the State.
Page 2 of 6
So a Home Office official, Sir Ernley Blackwell, chaired a secret Committee and his Report of
16th November 1918, “The Control of Firearms”, was used as the basis for the seminal 1920
Firearms Act. The Blackwell Report itself was never published and only entered the public
domain several decades later.
The 1920 Act contained the concept of gun-owner certification, with discretionary approval
by the police; and individual firearms registration.
Both these procedures were (and remain) immensely labour-intensive, both for the police
and honest gun-owners. But the total absence of any identifiable social benefits, such as
reduced crime trends, solving crimes, or catching criminals, either then or later, arising from
this substantial and ongoing investment, has never caught the attention of any of the
various government agencies charged with cost/benefit analysis, nor has it diverted the
Home Office from its apparent, long-term objective of completely disarming the (honest)
civilian population.
Whenever enough publicity is generated to the effect that violent crime is increasing and/or
that the existing gun controls are “not working”, the Home Office uses the clamour to
extend the controls, rather than analyse their clear lack of benefit. When the new controls
also fail to improve crime trends – which is invariably the case – further new controls are
devised. Thus major new controls have been introduced in 1967/8, 1988 and 1997, with a
host of lesser impediments in between. Each major firearms law revision of the last 40 years
has been promptly followed by significantly worse violent crime trends. At the same time
they have all been hugely successful in terms of the Home Office’s long-term objectives, by
greatly, sometimes dramatically, reducing the numbers of law-abiding citizens owning guns
(see Note 2).
Although the government has established large, sophisticated and extremely expensive
bodies, such as the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission, whose specific remit is
to subject government activities to cost/benefit analysis, the overall case for gun control has
never been looked at in depth, presumably because they are so self-evidently essential, that
such analysis is claimed to be unnecessary, indeed inappropriate. On those occasions when
some analysis has been carried out, the terms of reference are always restricted to the
efficiency with which the bits of paper and information are handled and resolutely exclude
the question of whether the bits of paper and information should be generated at all. But
the Home Office is then able to claim that the subject has been “exhaustively” examined.
The second major known document is:
The “McKay” Report of 11th September 1972
This lengthy Report, “The Working Party on the Control of Firearms”, followed the pattern of
the Blackwell Report. A Committee of policemen was chaired by a policeman, John McKay.
The Report was based largely on telephone enquiries to other policemen, was compiled in
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secret, with no research into cost/effectiveness and without any independent review or
input. It repeatedly uses assertions, without any supporting evidence, as the basis of policy,
e.g. see page 27, clause 44:
The attitude behind this assertion continues to be the foundation stone of UK government
and police policy to the present day.
The Home Office produced a 1973 Green Paper based on the McKay Report, but this
aroused so many objections that it was temporarily shelved – until the emotions aroused by
the Hungerford killings of 1987 allowed the Home Office to wheel out the proposals
contained in the 1973 Green Paper as the “answer” to the problem.
The McKay Report itself remained secret and unpublished until 1996, when a Parliamentary
Select Committee mentioned the rumours that such a Report existed – and a copy was
surreptitiously slipped into Parliament’s Library.
Current Home Office “Consultation” Policy
Nowadays, in the interests of “open” government, the Home Office has modified its
approach and it usually goes through what it refers to as a “Consultation” process, in which
further controls are proposed and the public are invited to submit their comments. For
example, this happened in 2000 and 2004 and is currently underway (April 2009) in relation
to non-guns, i.e. de-activated, imitation and toy guns.
Many of those submissions to the Home Office that have been copied to the author, are
detailed and serious, suggesting considerable research and/or knowledge. What happens to
those submissions at the Home Office is unknown to the author, since he has never received
even an acknowledgement with respect to his own submissions, much less a thoughtful
response which actually deals with the issues and questions. One has difficulty in avoiding
the conclusion that the Home Office “Consultation” process is, in fact, a total charade (see
Note 3).
Effect of the “Guns are Bad” Policy
Not surprisingly, when a policy is maintained, indeed continuously strengthened, for over a
century, it becomes an institutionalised belief system, completely eliminating any need for
evidence of benefit. In such an unhealthy atmosphere it was disgraceful, but not surprising,
to see an editorial in the “Police Review” of October 1982 state:
“... we consider that the number of section 1 (i.e. ordinary
rifles and pistols) firearms held in private hands should be
kept to the absolute minimum.”
"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.”
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This strongly-held belief system, or Faith, sometimes has tragic effects.
The Home Office and police regard and promote themselves as the experts on such
worrying and emotive subjects as violence and armed crime. Perhaps not surprisingly, this
perception of expertise is shared by much of the media and a significant proportion of the
public. So the Home Office faith, that guns are evil and dangerous, rather than neutral,
inanimate objects, has become widely held. This often confuses and distorts the
fundamental reality that it is human willingness to injure and kill that is the all-important
characteristic that needs to be assessed, rather than the presence of any particular device.
In consequence, a number of people, some drunk, some disturbed and some playing games,
are shot by the police because they have a gun, sometimes a toy or airgun, despite the
absence of evidence of dangerous use of the gun.
Excessive “gun sensitivity” led to the tragic killing of Harry Stanley in London in September
1999.
Mr Stanley was walking home with a broken chair leg in a plastic bag when he stopped at a
pub. A well-intentioned person in the pub assumed that the chair leg was a shotgun –
which automatically implied criminality, danger and violence, as constantly hammered
home by the Home Office and police. Thus sensitised, that person was able to mistake Mr
Stanley’s Scottish accent as Irish – and called the police to tell them that there was an
Irishman in the pub with a sawn-off shotgun.
A police armed response unit came immediately. Just like the caller in the pub, they were
“sensitised”: sure that there was a shotgun in the shopping bag and so brainwashed by the
police “guns are evil and dangerous” belief system that they were fearful that it would leap
into deadly action from inside the shopping bag.
Mr Stanley had no reason to expect anyone to be shouting at him from behind, so probably
did not respond instantly to the policemen’s shouted commands. The policemen have
claimed that Mr Stanley pointed the bag at them as though it contained a shotgun, putting
them in fear for their lives; to believe this, one also has to believe that Mr Stanley had
somehow become infected by the gun sensitivity madness and also thought that he had a
shotgun in the bag, even though he actually knew it was only a broken chair leg. In any
event, from his wounds it is clear that, as soon as he started to turn towards them in
response to their shouting, he was shot dead.
The various enquiries have ended with the policemen exonerated, as in all UK police
shootings, on the grounds that they were in fear for their lives. The real culprit – the grossly
exaggerated Home Office and police belief system that “all guns are evil and dangerous”
was never even questioned, much less put in the dock.
Further Costs
In addition to the many hundreds of millions of pounds spent in creating, supporting and
encouraging this belief system over the past century (e.g. at least £150m was spent on the
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1997 pistol ban, which was followed by a doubling of pistol crime), more related destructive
waste is arising in the government support for sport.
In 1986 the Commonwealth Games were held in Edinburgh. Amongst the many
investments in new, high-quality sporting facilities were the shooting ranges, which cost
several million pounds. Although there has long been a government policy of “legacy
benefits”, i.e. that facility investment for major sporting events should provide long-term
benefits for the community when the event is over, the entire range complex was destroyed
as soon as the Games were over.
Now the same mind-numbing, wasteful policy is to be pursued for the 2012 London
Olympics. Rather than invest in long-term range improvements at Bisley, the splendid old
British shooting centre less than 30 miles from central London; or build a permanent range
facility closer to East London; a very expensive, but temporary, range complex is to be built
at Woolwich, at a cost of over £40m and then destroyed as soon as the Olympics are over.
The absence of legacy benefits and the extra millions of wasted taxpayers’ money appear to
be of little significance when weighed against supporting “The Faith”.
Glasgow have won their bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games. It will be interesting
to see what happens to the ranges being specially built for those Games.
Crime
In parallel with this long and expensive construction of The Faith, the Home Office and
police have presided over extraordinary growth in crime, especially violent crime. There is
now more armed crime in London on an average day than there was in the UK in the whole
of 1900 (when there was no gun control whatsoever).
Part of this growth in criminal activity will likely be due to the considerable success of the
government’s efforts to demonise self-defence. If the actual or intended victim of an attack
has made any attempt to forcefully resist his attacker, the English Criminal Justice system
now has great difficulty in distinguishing between them, indeed it is quite likely to treat the
victim more severely than the criminal (see Note 4).
But these are minor and insignificant sacrifices, well worth making in the great cause of The
Faith.
Derek Bernard
DB@TSLjersey.com
Notes
1. In 1870 the UK Gun Licences Act was introduced. It required a licence, readily available for ten
shillings, with no personal details needed, for carrying a gun off one’s own property. In 1879 a similar,
but more complex Porte d’Armes Law was introduced in the author’s home jurisdiction of the Island of
Jersey and wasted everyone’s time and money there for 121 years until it was repealed and replaced
with an even more wasteful procedure in 2000.
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In 1881 the Home Office proposed the Regulation of Carrying of Arms Bill, the purpose of which was to
“ ... to require any person possessing arms for the suspected purpose of committing an offence to
obtain a licence ...”. Perhaps because the unusually honest language made the irrationality clear, the
Bill was lost.
In 1882/4 Secretary of State Harcourt strongly criticised the Metropolitan Police Chief for issuing the
legal advice that the police had been given about the many circumstances under which it would be
constitutionally proper to use a revolver. He insisted that the advice be re-issued with most of the
circumstances deleted.
In 1903, after some failed attempts, the Home Office introduced the Pistols Act, which placed various
modest pistol purchasing hurdles in the path of anyone who was not a householder, i.e. it was aimed
at poorer citizens.
2. By creating the widespread belief that guns are evil and dangerous, likely to cause catastrophic
accidents and with the capacity to turn ordinary people into criminals and ordinary criminals into
murderers, the Home Office and police have been able to justify compulsory security requirements and
then use these to force lawful gun-owners out of the sport. The 1988 Act introduced compulsory
security for shotguns. For the next 4 years it was used to push 1,000 lawful shotgun owners out of the
sport every week, i.e. a total of 200,000. In Home Office and police terms it was, therefore, a huge
success. The fact that, at the same time, armed robbery with shotguns increased by 27% was, no
doubt, seen as irrelevant.
These security requirements now have the strength of “tablets of stone”, so clearly necessary, indeed
essential, that they are widely used throughout the British Isles, including Jersey, to harshly prosecute
lawful gun-owners who have committed no anti-social act whatsoever. Naturally they have no impact
on criminals who have not applied for a Certificate.
3. In Jersey, the government has published detailed and eminently sensible consultation rules which all
government departments are supposed to follow. Indeed there is a government department whose
purpose in life is to train other departments to follow consultation “best practise” and monitor that
this is done.
But what actually happens – when the subject is gun control?
The equivalent Jersey government department to the English Home Office is currently called Home
Affairs. Over the last 25 years or so, the author has sent to Home Affairs (or its predecessor, known as
the Defence Committee), a large number of detailed queries and submissions. Very, very few have ever
generated even an acknowledgement and not one has generated a thoughtful, analytical response to
the questions raised or proposals made.
4. "As members of the public, burglars have the right to be protected from violent householders."
British Crown lawyers’ advice to government in 2003, the London Times, 2 November ’04.
Derek Bernard is a businessman based in the Island of Jersey. Although interested and active in target shooting from 1948 to 1979,
he assumed that the constant refrain that “strict gun control” was a civilised necessity, must be substantially true. Surely the
government, police and media would not repeat it so often if it were not true?
In 1979, however, he decided to try and understand the complex firearm laws (which he had never even read up to that point) and,
further, attempt to determine which of the many control mechanisms in the law, actually produced the social benefits.
After 3 years of reading, writing and research he was forced – with a considerable sense of shock – to the conclusion that there were
no measurable benefits to any of the control mechanisms, either individually or collectively.
A further 27 years of amateur work in the field has greatly reinforced those conclusions.

Re: The Development of the British Faith in Strict Gun Control

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 9:34 am
by tfrazier
Being a member of a UK based motorcycle forum, I recently had the opportunity to ask a member who says he is retired UK LEO what the current status for British peace officers regarding carrying guns.

He said regular patrol officers still do not carry firearms. He also said that he had one "issued" to him as a special ops officer, but it was kept in a vault to be checked out when needed. He wrote that the one time he was dispatched to a situation where he felt it might be needed it took him over an hour to check it out of the armory vault, and therefore arrived at the call much later. He didn't say whether the situation had diffused or escalated during that time as a result of the long wait for the weapon and subsequent very slow law enforcement response.

What astounded me most, was that after relating this to me, he said, "I think I was more frightened of my fellow officers being allowed to carry guns than I was interested in having the ability myself."

It's a totally different mindset over there when it comes to guns.

Some of the Brits I meet are astounded that I can legally carry a concealed firearm, and others are under the impression that in Texas everyone over 18 YOA still wears ten gallon hats and has at least two six guns strapped on at all times.

Still others think that it's common for shootouts to occur daily in every metropolitan street here.