Guns and Crime in England
September 17th, 2007 by Syd
England and, in fact, most of Europe have strict gun control laws and some European elites sneer when they think of the primitive pistol-packing Americans across the pond.
However, England now has three times the amount of violent crime that America has and a doubling of handgun crime during the past decade, even though – critics would say because – most handguns have been banned.
Writing for the London Times, writer Richard Mundy notes that, when English citizens routinely carried weapons, the average citizen was much safer then, than now.
“Charlotte Brontë recalled that her curate father fastened his watch and pocketed his pistol every morning when he got dressed; Beatrix Potter remarked on a Yorkshire country hotel where only one of the eight or nine guests was not carrying a revolver; in 1909, policemen in Tottenham borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by (and were joined by other armed citizens) when they set off in pursuit of two anarchists unwise enough to attempt an armed robbery,” he writes.
Mr. Mundy notes, “We now are shocked that so many ordinary people should have been carrying guns in the street; the Edwardians were shocked by the idea of an armed robbery.”
Now, there are fewer people carrying guns on the streets but more assaults, more rapes and armed robberies. Doesn’t seem to have been a good trade, does it? Source: DNR Online