Legacy of Gun Control

On April 19th, 1775, aproximately seven hundred British soldiers marched on Concord Massachutes with orders to seize and destroy the military stores held there by the colonial militia. The had the misfortune to tangle with a militia company at Lexington Green, where the “Shot heard ‘round the World” triggered the American Revolution. Shortly thereafter, a meeting engagement with three more companies of militia near Concord convinced the British to withdraw to Boston, leaving the Redcoats with a grudging respect for the marksmanship of the “armed rabble” they had anticipated easily dispersing, and leaving Americans a lasting legacy of gun control efforts.

The Governor General of Massachusetts and Army Commander Gen. Sir Thomas Gage began preporations to defend his base of Boston, and was rightfully concerned about the possibility of having large numbers of armed rebels in his rear areas. He decided to disarm Boston’s 16,000 civilian residents in America’s first “gun control act”, including the many loyalist citizens not involved with revolution nor guilty of any transgression, in complete disregard of their rights as Englishmen. With typical British prefidity, Gage promised the return of those confiscated weapons when the emergency was concluded, a promise that was never kept. The Selectmen of Boston, believing this was best for their citizens, arranged the surrender of guns to the civil authority at Faneuil Hall, where they were soon seized by troops of the Royal Army. In five days the inhabitants had surrendered “1778 firearms, 634 pistols, 273 bayonets and 38 blunderbusses”. I can only assume that the loyalists of Boston happily turned in their weapons, abiding by the “lawful” order of the British governor. There are no records of course, about what the Rebels had to say about those orders, or of how many rebel guns were turned in rather than hidden away for future use.

Nearly a hundred years earlier, in 1689, the then new King of England, William of Orange, enacted a series of guarenteed rights for his subjects, one of which was the right to bear arms. (Irishmen, Scotsmen, and English Catholics of course were famously excluded.) This right extended to all English subjects in the American Colonies, where General Gage’s ill advised Boston gun ban became the reason for the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, denying government any authority to ban the citizen’s ownership of weapons.

British disarmament was a "creeping" program, much as we see hapening in the US today. In 1870 Britain, licensing was decreed for anyone who wanted to carry a gun outside their home. Further restrictions came with the 1903 Pistols Act, denying handgun ownership to anyone who was "drunken or insane". After soldiers returned from the trenches in 1918, the government became concerned about the number of souvenir weapons they had brought home with them. Further fueled by fears of socialist and anarchist movements along with the 1917 Russian revolution, the resulting 1920 Firearms Act introduced a registration system that allowed local police to deny a license to anyone they deemed "unfitted to be trusted with a firearm". Restrictions were tightened with the 1937 Firearms Act, which banned most fully automatic weapons. The 1967 Criminal Justice Act required licensing of shotguns, while the 1968 Firearms Act consolidated existing gun laws. The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 banned semi-automatic and pump-action rifles, and short shotguns with magazines. Registration was also enacted for shotguns, which were required to be kept in secure storage. The government drew up legislation banning handguns larger that .22 caliber, and later introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, which outlawed .22s as well. More recently, in response to a series of high-profile shootings, the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 was introduced, which made it illegal to manufacture, import or sell realistic imitation guns. With the most restrictive gun laws in Europe, England still has a higher per capita crime rate that does the United States.

Disarming the British public in the wake of a mass murder of children by a psychopath who had slipped through the cracks of the criminal justice system has done nothing to make Britain safer, but, this British system of disarmament is the model that the head of the National Education Association has called for in America. In some ways, Draconian gun laws are worse when they are enacted in countries that had once been bastions of firearms freedom. The carry of concealed weapons was common among South Africans at the time of apartheid, where the practice extended to Black and Coloured citizens as well as White. Then came the communist-connected African National Congress. From the beginning, the ANC made it clear that they had a prohibitionist agenda insofar as gun owners' rights. This at a time when violent crime in South Africa, including car-jackings and home invasions, is skyrocketing. Gun writer Jeff Cooper's wife Janelle once said, "Saying that we should ban guns because crime is rising is like saying we should ban boats because the floodwaters are rising."

In the end, we need to remember why it's so important to fight for the human right of self-defense, and for the civil rights of law-abiding gun owners in America. If nothing else, we have no place to flee to if we lose our rights here. We have the power to build weapons to defend ourselves with, but sadly, there are plenty of those who would take that basic right away from us. No one, including the Brady Campaign, seriously believes that Barack Obama was elected president because of his support for gun control. But the Brady Bunch pretends that they supplied Obama's victory in November, and have since handed him a long list of gun bans and assorted restrictions that they expect him to deliver in gratitude, and they're very serious. The "non-aligned" anti-gun folks are jumping on the band wagon as well.

In the fight over firearms civil rights, the best word-smiths seem to be among the opposition. Have you noticed how the popular term today is "gun violence"? If a soldier shoots an enemy of our nation in war, it’s "gun violence." When the police shoot an armed criminal in the line of duty, it's "gun violence." When a mother shoots an intruder to protect her child, it's "gun violence." But remember that there are times when violence is required to protect the innocent from lawlessness, which is why the cops have guns in the first place, and why so many law abiding private citizens have them as well. The next time someone starts jabbering about “gun violence”, explain to them that the problem isn't "gun violence”, but rather "It's gun crime, stupid!"