Guns & Self-Defense & Our English Brothers

You know, a few years back my Significant Other, who happens to be an attorney, asked me an interesting question:

"I get what you're saying about gun control, but assuming gun control clearly has no effect on violent crime, and given that the people advocating gun control are smart enough to know that, what do they want? What does the gun control movement actually hope to accomplish?"

That question threw me at the time, because, honestly, even though I'd been fighting them for years, I didn't thave the slightest idea of what people in the gun control movement actually wanted.

That's easy, you say. They want gun control. They want all guns, especially handguns, to go away.

But why?

Gun control has been repeatedly tried, and it works every bit as well as, say, socialism, which is to say, not at all. Turns out the old cliche is absolutely right...when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Josh Sugarman from the VPC and Sarah Brady aren't fools; they know they're selling snake oil. And so we're back to that pesky why?

That's why I'm so fascinated with the English experience. First, they get rid of the guns. Then, they're "stunned" when violent crime soars. In fact, both Britain and Australia now top the U.S. in violent crime that has soared since both countries started banning guns.

The next step was, of course, banning self-defense.

Easy to see how that happens...all life is precious, so the scumbag who rapes your wife and daughter is every bit as sacred as what's left of your family. Tsk, tsk, my man. Stiff upper lip and all that. That's okay when it's hapless farmers (which is a nice English word for "peasants") ending up in the slam for whacking a burglar. It's fine right up until the point that rich English gentry starts getting sliced and diced.

Suddenly, the Brits are thinking that maybe all life isn't equally sacred! Check out this column from the Guardian:

"In New Hampshire, there are few burglaries because there's a high rate of gun ownership. Getting your head blown off for a $70 TV set isn't worth it. Conversely, thanks to the British police, burning the flesh of a London dressmaker to get her watch is definitely worth it. In Chelsea the morning after Mr Monckton's murder, Her Majesty's Keystone Konstabulary with all their state-of-the-art toys had sealed off the street in an almost comical illustration of their lavishly funded uselessness."

It's time for our English brethren (and sistern...is that a word?) to rise up and throw off the Tory chains that bind them! Hey, we know a thing or two about revolution over here in the colonies.

SOOOOOOOO...what the Sarah Bradys and the Josh Sugarmans of the world really want is not the end of guns, but the end of all violence, including violence against those loveable, cuddly criminals...just like the one who shot Ms. Brady's husband and President Ronald Reagan. Gosh, that's a nice thought!