My Personal Thoughts
Gun control is a very controversial subject and this particularly true in the United Kingdom. Few people here realise that we had virtually no restrictions on buying and carrying guns 90 years ago. We also had very little violent crime.
Now we have some of the tightest gun control laws in the world. The end result ? More crime and more victims.
It now appears painfully true that the police cannot guarantee the safety of individual citizens, and indeed, cannot protect them from violent criminals.
The fact is that when it comes to defence against criminal behaviour, individuals are responsible for the safety of themselves and their loved ones. The police are not your bodyguards, and they never have been. We all know that violent crimes frequently happen and they often happen suddenly and without notice. It takes seconds to fatally stab or shoot someone, but when seconds count, the police are minutes away.
If someone tries to rob or kill you, you're unlikely to even get a chance to call for help. Even if you do, you're on your own for however long it takes for officers to respond, that's assuming that they have officers available. Remember, our police officers are overworked and understaffed and there simply isn’t enough of them to protect all of us, all of the time.
This isn't an attack on the police, it's just the truth. Most murders are solved by police in the UK, due to forensic and DNA evidence, not to mention other advances in modern technology. We should be proud that we have a very high clear up rate for murder here, one that is much higher than it is in many other parts of the world.
The police will almost certainly catch the person that kills you, but one thing that the cops will never be able to do is be present at the scene to prevent you from being killed in the first place. Indeed, how could they ever be ?
So, the logical solution appears to be to allow decent people to own and carry firearms and non-lethal weapons for the sole purposes of personal protection.
A very interesting situation has developed in the United States over the past twenty years which seems to disprove the argument that more guns leads to more crime. This website explains this in more detail.
Another argument put forward is that no-one needs to keep a gun at home. But what about people looking to protect themselves from criminals ?
How does an elderly or disabled person defend themselves from someone who is much stronger, faster and a much more experienced fighter? How does a lone man protect himself from 3 or 4 attackers? How does a sexual assault victim protect herself from someone who is physically stronger and can therefore easily overpower her?
Banning gun ownership and leaving decent people defenceless while the criminals remain armed isn't going to make people safer. But many supporters of gun laws don't think with their minds, they feel with their emotions and sadly logic and common sense often have no place in their conclusions.
Gun control advocates can talk all they want about getting guns off the streets, but if they've failed to get gun crime to even one percent below 1997 levels despite 14 years of effort, then what chance do they have of reducing it in the future?
The fact remains that until the UK gun laws are repealed, more and more lives will be devastated by violent street thugs that have no regard for the law, the police or human life.